See You

I'm tired. So fucking tired. This plastic and rubber monstrosity where my left arm used to be weighs on me like an anchor. It makes me slow and clumsy, and not just my body.

My mind is slow and clumsy too.

I never wanted to live like this; that much must be obvious to you. I never imagined that something like this would happen to me, Alexi Krycek. Life was too good; I was too lucky. Oh I'd had to fight, and fight dirty, for the things I'd wanted. Who doesn't? But every time I'd rolled the dice, they always came up lucky number seven for good old Alex. Until Tunguska.

In Tunguska I took a chance and followed Mulder into one of the most dangerous places in the world. A place I had no business being. And for what, you're probably wondering? To earn back a bit of the trust Mulder had once invested in me and I had squandered? To keep the man, if not actually friendly, then at least not actively hostile to my causes. Whatever the reasons they weren't worth it. In Tunguska I took a chance and rolled snake eyes.

I never wanted to live like this, and now Fox Mulder owes me and he owes me big.

As I mentioned to you before, my thinking is not as sharp as it used to be, but I've still got a plan. Its not my best plan ever, not as intricate as some of the deals I've put together in the past. Not as convoluted as the plan that eventually led me to that Siberian gulag, but then that should probably be counted as an advantage, given the outcome of that little endeavor.

I've decided that tonight is the night. My plan has been put into action. The cards have been dealt ... Scully is on a wild-goose chase to Quantico to meet with an acquaintance there who isn't aware of the fact that she sent Scully an email today. (I love technology.) And Mulder, well, Mulder is coming to me. I'd wager my life on it, and I get a good laugh out of *that* thought. You probably don't get it yet; that's ok. Everything will become clear before long. Of course it will be too fucking late for you to do anything about it...

Skinner slammed his laptop shut on the email from his former agent, Alex Krycek. He jabbed the intercom button on his phone and grabbed his jacket all nearly simultaneously.

"Find Agent Mulder for me now!" he hollered into the speaker. "I don't care if you have to put an APB out on him, just find him and call me on my cell phone when you know where he is."

Less than five minutes after getting Krycek's message, Skinner was out of the Hoover building and in his car, racing to Mulder's house.

Mulder cautiously approached the Capitol building keeping an eye out for anything that didn't look quite right. The email he'd received earlier today asking for a meeting, had struck him as suspicous, but ultimately too much to resist. If a key senator on the intelligence committee had something urgent to say to him, who was he to say no?

He slowly approached the side door when a slight rustling alerted him to the fact that all was not as it was supposed to be. Mulder barely had time to turn when black leather and a gun barrel came flying at him from out of the night. He landed in a heap on the well-tended lawn with the weight of another man pressing him down.

Krycek quickly struck him on the temple with the butt of his pistol -- not enough to knock him out -- just enough to stun. Just enough to make him easier to handle. Then Krycek dragged him a few feet into the parking lot and crouched between two cars. Mulder lay on his back at Krycek's feet. The cars would block the view of the cameras and anyone in the building. It would keep them out of sight of the guards and the Secret Service for at least a few minutes, and that was all the time Krycek needed.

"I want to show you something, Mulder," Krycek growled as he worked to slip the left side of his jacket off while keeping his gun trained on the bridge of Mulder's nose. It wasn't an easy task, and he was distracted for a moment during which Mulder made a move for his own gun, until he felt the barrel of Krycek's weapon biting into the flesh of his cheek.

"Don't you move, Mulder," Krycek snapped. "Don't you fucking move!" The jacket came off and Mulder gasped, his eyes quickly taking in and then sliding away from Krycek's mutilation in embarassment and relief that it had not happened to him.

"I want you to see what you've done to me before I kill you, Mulder," Krycek continued. Mulder gasped again as understanding dawned on him.

"You can't hold me responsible for that," Mulder stuttered waving vaguely at Krycek's arm. Krycek's eyes narrowed with barely suppressed rage and pain as he shrugged back into his jacket. Mulder could barely look at it, and that was exactly the reason Krycek was here. If people couldn't even see it without pain and humilation, how was he supposed to live with it?

"You have no idea, the things I hold you responsible for, Mulder," Krycek replied. "No get on your knees and face away from me."

Mulder rose shakily to his knees and slowly turned, all the while his eyes searching wildly for some method of escape, adrenalin coursing through his veins.

He felt rather than heard Krycek rise to his feet and aim the gun at his head. Now that the remainder of his life could be counted in seconds, Mulder felt that he was somehow hyper sensitive to everyone and everything that was happening. The fresh clean smell of newly cut grass. The chirp of crickets not too far away. The distant sound of passing cars. The slide and click of Krycek's gun as he manually loaded a single round into the chamber.

"Krycek, I'll see you in..." Mulder began with as much bravado as he could muster.

"Hell?" Krycek finished with a chuckle. "It's a date."

Skinner only had to hit the door of Mulder's apartment twice before it flew open, the lock and door jamb splintering. He did a quick reconnosaince. No Mulder, but the computer was there.

"Shit!" Skinner exclaimed as he tried every possible password he could think of and nothing worked. This had been a stupid idea and he soon realized it, but he needed so badly to take some kind of action. Skinner flung the contents of Mulder's cluttered desk to the floor and stood there staring at the familiar room, unsure exactly what to do next.

The ringing of his cell phone nearly startled him into drawing his revolver.

"Skinner!" he barked into the phone.

"Sir," his nervous assistant answered. "You've received an email, that I think might be related to Agent Mulder's disappearance tonight, sir."

"Tell me what it says," Skinner commanded.

"Capitol buiding, 11:21 tonight," she replied. "And its signed Alex Krycek."

Skinner hung up the phone and was out the door in milliseconds.

<Where the fuck is Skinner,> Krycek thought to himself as he stared at the back of Mulder's trembling frame. If Skinner didn't get here soon Krycek was going to have to improvise, and while that normally woundn't have been a problem, he wasn't really at his best these days.

"Krycek!" Skinner's booming voice came from somewhere behind him. Krycek allowed himself a small smile coupled with a quick wave of panic and then things were really happening fast, too fast to feel any fear or regret.

Mulder recognized Skinner's voice with a wash of relief he didn't think possible, and he was rolling to his feet and reaching for his gun in one relatively smooth motion.

Aim.

Squeeze the trigger before fully comprehending that Krycek has turned away to confront Skinner.

See the impact as the bullet tears though Krycek's leather jacket and into his back.

Feel the warm wet spray as blood from the wound spatters his face and bare arms.

<Oh Jesus, that hurts,> Alex thought as he slowly sank to his knees turning slightly so he could see the look on Mulder's face. Shock. Fear. More shock. And perhaps -- Krycek wasn't positive, but could it be -- regret? Pain raced through him from the tear through his back and abdomen, but he wouldn't die from it; he felt certain of that. He smiled a wicked smile, his eye's locked with Mulder's, and raised his gun towards the other man's head once more. <I shouldn't have sent Scully to Quantico,> he thought with a grimace as another wave of pain took him. <She has better aim.>

And then a second shot, and Mulder jerked unconsciously expecting the impact until he realized that it was Skinner who had fired, and he caught the empty lifeless look in Krycek's eyes, just before the man fell to the ground at his feet.

Mulder sat in the back of an abulance having the bump on his head prodded by some sadistic EMT. Eventually he decided he'd had enough, and stood up and strode away despite the dire warnings of concussions and skull fractures shouted after him.

Skinner was standing nearby directing the FBI agents that had quickly arrived on the scene to handle the investigation. As Mulder approached, Skinner studied the man, then looked away, indecision written on his features.

"Mulder, there's something I think you should see," Skinner began. "Agent Grant recovered it from Krycek's ... jacket." Mulder had the distinct impression that Skinner had been about to say 'body' but changed his mind at the last moment. He wondered why Skinner felt it necessary to be so careful. One of his greatest enemies was dead; Mulder was relieved. His father had been avenged, and although there would be an investigation, there was no doubt in his mind that everything about this shooting would be found to be in order.

Skinner handed over a note, and Mulder read.

I've always been a gambler. Playing the odds, taking a chance here and there. And you probably don't realize this but the payoff has been big. I could buy and sell you ten times over and that's saying something given how well I know your father did for the family.

But things haven't been quite the same since Tunguska. Just look at me? My luck has obviously run out, and in order to win or at least break a good gambler has to know when its time to cash in his chips.

I don't really blame you by the way. Whatever I said tonight was just to piss you off. I did this to myself. I was sloppy and I underestimated your hatred for me. I fell into the trap of feeling almost as if we were partners again. Fatal mistake on my part. Well not right away. But I'm fatally wounded; its just taken me way too long to die.

So I'm betting on you *Fox*, with a little backup from Skinner. I'm betting on you to do something for me that the indominatable survivor in me just won't let me do for myself. Between your impulsiveness and Skinner's moral imperative to protect his agents, I think you two can get the job done. Tell Scully I'm sorry I didn't invite her to the party, but something tells me that her particular brand of intensly rational and measured thinking is not what's needed here tonight.

And if you're reading this note right now, well, then I guess as they say in Vegas, my number has come up. So thanks.

Oh, I left you a present, Capital Ice, locker number 622.

Alex

Mulder crumpled the note, threw it onto the pavement, and walked briskly away. Any satisfaction over the evening's events had been drained away at the realization that he had simply played into Krycek's hands yet again. The man was -- no, had been -- a master manipulator and once again Fox Mulder had proved to be his favorite and most gullible mark.

"Coward, you fucking coward," Mulder whispered as he flung open his car door and sat down. He slammed the door shut again as violently as possible. He started his car and began driving.

Not in the direction of his apartment.

He didn't want to go, but even dead, Alex Krycek, could still lead Mulder around by the nose.

Mulder nearly sliced his hand open but with only a few violent wrenches he was able to pry the locker open with a screwdriver taken from the trunk of his car.

Inside was a file, thick with documents, pictures, names, dates and places. The resolutions to dozens of X-Files. The faces and names of the shadowy figures that pulled the strings on a multitude of conspiracies and amoral projects. And ...

"Oh, my God," Mulder gasped as he stared at a picture of of a woman in her early thirties, brown hair, hazel eyes. "Sam."

Mulder felt an uncontrollable pressure bubble up from his chest. He tried to hold it in; there were already enough people watching him warily after catching him break into the locker. No doubt the police would be here any moment and if they found him crying hysterically they would only haul him off to jail that much faster.

Mulder had just killed -- well, contributed to killing -- Alex Krycek and in return the man had given him back his sister.

Krycek. The partner who had earned his trust and then betrayed him. The criminal who had used Mulder for his own unfathomable purposes. The man who had manipulated and schemed to have Mulder be the one to put him out of his misery. That man had just given Mulder everything he'd been seeking for such a long time.

A single tear drop rolled down Mulder's cheek and landed with a small sound on the photograph.

"Krycek, I'll see you..." Mulder began, but let his voice trail off. This time it wasn't a curse, but a promise and a prayer.