Shadows And Light

The sun struck hard across the stark room onto the unrelenting shoulders of the dark-haired man as he moved over the prone body of the woman. She made no sound as his body moved in hers, her face expressionless. She reached for him so far above her, but he ignored the gesture, his body stiff, hard, intent on his work, on working his way deeper into her. Still the woman made no sound except for the yearning on her face. But his face was cold as it hung above hers and unrelenting and her arms dropped away and her eyes closed.

The harsh wood floor pressed into her back, bare skin scraping across slick wood that glowed golden in the blinding sunlight. They lay in a circle of sunlight pouring from the arching window, leaving the rest of the room in shadows.

He lunged forward over her, shoved his face to hers, glared down at her. The woman opened her eyes to lock with his, there was sadness there, such sadness. Emotion moved over the man for the first time as his expression seemed to angrily deny the aching emptiness in the woman below him, but still no words passed between them, no sound whispered across the eerie silence except the brush of skin over skin.

The man's anger deepened and the calm sadness on the face below him contorted into something else, some strong emotion unknowable, as he slammed against her harshly, wildly driving soul to soul, willing the response he wanted.

This time when she reached for him his hands clutched her arms cruelly, mindless of his cruelty, not allowing her touch as the anger transformed to desperation and lips pulled back from teeth in a soundless snarl.

Every stroke of his body against hers shook her against the remorseless floor. Her face twisted up further, mouth contorted in an open scream that was silent as liquid leaked from her eyes in a steady stream, soaking her hair to darkness even in the brilliant light.

Birds sang liquid notes in melting sunshine and the man jerked her cruelly back, more fully into the light, his hands hard and punishing as he pushed her on, himself on, past wildness into savagery, past pain and anger into denial.

Her mouth opened and closed then opened and finally locked shut, teeth clicking in the stark silence and sending a shudder through the man. The woman clenched her eyes closed against the anger in the man above her, refusing to see, to watch, but feeling the painful intensity of his body against hers as he slammed harder against her, bruising, painful, her arms going numb against his brutal grip, but still no sound escaped her.

Shuddering, he slammed against her one last time, teeth clenched against a shout, his body desperately dominating hers, trying to pull her into him. But her face was calm again, serene, except for the gray rain that fell from her eyes, sun glittering and changing gray to a silver stream that flowed into her hair and sparkled with the beauty of diamonds.

His face smoothed, eyes calm with the knowledge of failure, defeat, as he stared into the closed eyes below him, watching the slow silver rain in the shattering sunshine.

Failed. He had failed.

And she would die.

Her heart lay dead, gunned down by thoughtless animals. Thoughtless of the pain they caused, uncaring. That's what made them animals.

The man on top of her became still, as still as the sunlight beating on the backs of her eyelids, his emotion beating at her, demanding, denying, but the emotion was like the sunshine beating on her, soaking into her skin, only a distant warmth, easily ignored.

His hands released from around her arms, sudden pain surprising a gasp from her, his body jerking from hers. Her eyes remained closed, not bothering to watch the man stride naked back into the shadows. Her body relaxed against warm wood, the heat of the sun pressing her down with a relentless weight and strength the man's body couldn't match.

She rested, numb, mindless. Until the sun was blocked from reaching her. She opened her eyes.

He stood over her, fully-clothed, staring down at her, grimness in every line as his eyes slashed down her body. She absently watched sunlight strike off black locks and turn them brown, deepening the color to sable richness, shining in the sun.

But his face was in shadow as he stared down at her. The shadow in his eyes hid his thoughts from her while the shadow over his face shifted as he turned his head to follow the long length of her naked body sprawled below him.

Swift curiosity drove through her as she watched his hard face. Why would he do this to her? Why would he do this for her? But with no heart she couldn't care and she shut him out and turned her face away, waiting for the sunshine to return and caress her empty body.

But it never returned. The shadow swooped closer. She felt the heat of his nearness but didn't move, couldn't care. The shadow could have this empty shell. She didn't want it.

She lay unmoving, unmoved by the assault of his body, uncaring.

Purpling bruises formed as he watched, his shadow striking across them, making them an ugly blackness on pale, pale skin. He should leave. She was already dead, her body empty, her soul gone. He could only pour pieces of himself into what remained until he was all used up and still she would be empty. He should turn and walk back into the shadows and leave her to the sunlight. She belonged in the sunlight. Pale skin gleamed blinding, hair flamed red, eyelashes catching rays of light, scooping sun and capturing it.

But he blocked her from the sun and he watched the chill move over her body, ripples of gooseflesh, a shiver so small before she relaxed again, nipples finally tauting into nubs when his body against hers had left her unmoved.

"I sent them." His voice was cold, emotionless.

She opened her eyes, blinking confusion.

"I was tired of the whiny little bastard. The world's a more peaceful place now he's gone."

Shock shuddered through her and revelation. The emptiness in her eyes was replaced with sudden shocking hatred.

She sat up, body vibrating with intensity, the depths of her hatred shocking every nerve to life. She lunged at him but he caught her, hauling her up his body as she twisted in his hands.

He smiled a ruthless smile of teeth and laughing eyes.

She snarled. He threw his head back and laughed. The laughter vibrated from his body to hers and she snarled again at the sensation, hands clenching wildly to claw him

"I'll--" torn from her, no breath, "I'll kill you." Blood-soaked voice, solemn vow.

"Not today," he grinned. He released her long enough to curl a fist and slam it into her face.

He caught her as she fell back, thinking he should leave her here in the light, thinking he should go. But arms pulled her to him and lifted and carried her with him into the shadows.

She woke achy and numb. Her body ached, her mind numb. Blank, no memory. Opened her eyes to dim shadows, blinked.

Motel room, instantly identified. Soft bed under her, fully dressed, she lay stretched out on top of the covers. Must be on a case. Mulder---

Mulder! It came back, memory, along with such pain she had to bite a scream to silence. Jackknifed up, body shaking, searching the shadows.

He melded perfectly. She didn't see him until he moved. He uncoiled to his feet and memory uncoiled through her. Guts twisted and coiled inside her. She exhaled a guttural sound that was hatred distilled then tensed to lunge, to kill.

He held out a hand and she saw the readiness in his body, the wiry tension humming through him. "Don't make me kill you, Scully." The voice was cold and harsh as brick. "Not yet, anyway."

She grappled with the scream in her throat, holding it back, fought with the howl in her lungs till it diminished. Took a silent breath, glared hatred.

His teeth glinted at her from the shadows and she tensed against insane rage. She would kill him. She didn't care if she died, but she would see him dead first.

He watched her tense body hum against the bed, energized with hatred and wanted that vitality wrapped around him with a sudden aching greed that almost drove him to his knees. He let out a grating breath.

"He was a waste. He wasted his time, your time, my time. He never accomplished anything except to ceaselessly muddy the waters. You're better off with him dead."

Her body arched and her lips peeled back in a feral grimace as she glared at him, her black funeral dress cloaking her in shadows of her own.

"A rain of bullets was quicker than he deserved. He should have suffered, paid for all the needless pain he caused just by breathing."

Finally her control broke and she screeched and lunged up. He caught her, humorless smile stretching his lips at the feel of her wildness against him.

In her rage she forgot how small she was, how large he was. He shoved her back, hard body on squirming body, and held her with bruising strength against the bed.

His eyes inches from hers, she still couldn't read anything in the dark shadowed recesses of the eye sockets above her. The weight of his body punished her, the grip on her arms cruel, making old bruises ache, forming new ones. His erection stabbed at her crudely through her black dress of mourning and she shuddered at the heat and intent in that hard flesh.

"If you cared so much, why didn't you save him?" Razor claw sliding into her soul, ripping wide, gushing blood. "Why weren't you there?"

Strangled cry of anguish and she shuddered one long convulsion beneath him, denying his words, denying blame. But guilt battered at her, regardless of knowing she couldn't have stopped it, couldn't have saved him, would have only died herself. Tortured wail pushed past her throat. Rage and hatred pushed aside as guilt resurfaced and swallowed her. Another wail but hard lips on hers swallowed it. Shock and surprise, fighting for breath. His body moved on hers and she was reminded of his arousal, his sickness, pressing against her.

Wet, hard lips relented then pressed harder, forcing her lips open, stifling her cry of protest with his mouth. She wanted to fight, she would fight, but guilt weakened her, whispered to her of punishment deserved, penance required, and her will collapsed and salt leaked from her eyes.

She went slack beneath him and he broke away, craving her heat, her rage, finding only blankness staring at him once again.

"I told them to take him somewhere and use their blades," whisper of dark evil, "but they were squeamish. I said I would do it. Cut his flesh from his bone, listen to his screams, but I had no time. So they finished it quickly because I couldn't watch anyway."

Rage twisted her slack body taut and she screamed, body contorting in a clenched fist of hate.

He flipped her beneath him, facedown and wild, and ripped at the dark dress. The material gave easily, parting to reveal long pale flesh, gleaming even in the shadows of this dark, dark room, this dark, dark time. Intent on the wildly struggling body beneath him, his jeans were suddenly gone and he pressed hard heat against her ass.

She screamed again, a wordless cry of denial and rage. Her panties, the last of her clothes, ripped away and heat was forced against her struggling body, stroking over but not in her. Another scream ripped through her. Yanked up on her knees, she lost her breath with the suddenness, arms of steel bands looped around her and over her, fingers slid were she needed, needed, flicked out then back and she screamed against her own body's betrayal, screamed again as fingers probed deep, sliding against wetness she strained to deny to herself, to him, the enemy of the man she loved. The man who was dead.

She shuddered at the thought but memory was swept away as he claimed her with a driving strength that was the essence of life. She cried out, screams faded to whimpers as life overwhelmed her and swept away the yearning death inside her, forced a response from a body that wasn't ready to die, didn't want to die, wanted to live, live, live and glory in the renewed life he rammed into the broken places of her soul with a fervor that broke the last of her restraint, made her move wildly to receive this gift from a man who dispensed only death.

He felt life struggling in her, fighting, and with a savage shout he pushed her onward towards the light she had lost, feeling his own wild hunger feed on the unfurling hunger within her.

"Yesss." The word hissed from him into the darkness with a savagery that made her spine chill, but she pressed her hands hard into the mattress and slammed back against his strokes with a savage power she gloried in.

"Yes." His hands rippled over her frenzied body, the fluttering heat and pressure only on the edge of her awareness until he found her, cupped in his hand, and pleasure wracked through her, forcing shudders too soon, wanting more, never wanting it to end. But he pushed her on and she convulsed until she was floating, floating, higher and higher into the light then the light burst and she was falling.

She woke to nakedness and an empty room. Memory battered her. She clutched at the covers, pulling the sheet up to hide her nakedness from herself, eyes drawn to slices of light that seeped past the curtains, painting slim lines of brilliance into shadow.

The rage and hatred had diminished. She could think.

He had ordered Mulder killed. She thought about that, poking at the thought, a hot coal waiting to flare up with burning pain. But now there was also the memory of the first sight of him and the pain and -- could it be?-- grief twisting through him.

<"What are you doing here?"

"What are *you* doing here, Krycek?" Gun a solid weight on her hip that she never reached for.

Pain in eyes trained to hide it. "Same thing you are, Scully. Looking for answers.">

If he ordered Mulder dead, why would he need answers? That thought whirled around her head with dizzy intensity until she thought she would scream. She cried out in surprise when the bathroom door was thrust open.

She wasn't alone.

Krycek walked into the room, sleek and lethal, his fresh-washed scent wafting to her on a rush of displaced air. He stopped, wary at the sight of her sitting up.

"You," accusation, fight for breath. "You killed Mulder, ordered him dead." But doubts were rushing her and she watched him for a betraying flicker.

Nothing moved in his dead eyes as he stared back at her.

"Yeah, so?"

More doubts, maybe she was wrong, maybe it was only wishful thinking, maybe he had to die after all, warm blood spurting out around her as she watched the light in his green eyes fade.

Please, God, don't make me kill him. The plea was instinctive, only half-formed, but heartfelt. She had found something with him. Something ugly and stark and beautiful all at the same time. She didn't want to destroy it, watch it bleed away under her hands. But she would. For Mulder. She owed him that much.

Her eyes narrowed in painful thought as she assessed him. He stood staring at her, body tense and ready for a fight, watching her with eyes that were hooded against detection. She was powerless to see past that wall and into the thoughts churning behind.

Thrust the covers away, lunged to her feet in front of him. His hands fisted, ready, but she stopped, standing inches from him, staring up, up into his eyes. She saw surprise before it was quickly wiped away to stone once again.

"You raped me."

That wasn't how she felt, wasn't what she remembered, but she thrust the words at him like a weapon.

Green eyes flinched with pain, quickly muffled and shoved away. But not completely. She watched his throat work, swallowing pain.

"Yeah, so?"

"Why didn't you kill me, too?" challenge, watching surprise and uncertainty move in his eyes. He strangled it back to nothing.

"Maybe I want to fuck you again sometime." He shrugged unconcern, but she sensed uncertainty in him still at her strange, piercing behavior.

She knew she was naked as she stood before him but discounted it as she tried to puzzle this out, the most important puzzle in her life, to kill a man or not to kill a man. A very special man or a very depraved man.

The grief was there, a distant ache, an ache that would always be there, but because of this man it was manageable, something to be dealt with.

Something to be lived with.

An ache that would double, treble, if she was forced to snuff out his life.

"How much did you pay them?"

Plain confusion. "What?"

"The street punks that shot Mulder down. How much did you pay them?"

He could only stare. He expected battering hatred or senseless rage not piercing questions.

"Enough," he clipped. "Enough to get the job done." He watched her eyes, suddenly afraid, of her, for her. She stood before him in arrogant nakedness, demanding answers to questions that he couldn't seem to refuse to answer, unaware of the dignity and regal bearing in her stance as she stared at him with eyes as sharp as scalpels.

Her hand flickered out and slapped him before he could move.

That was all. One hard slap. He stared at her, outraged, hand automatically clutching at his cheek.

"You're lying. Why are you lying?" Cold chips of blue stared at him and he faltered. He couldn't tell her. She was too fragile. She still might snap away to nothing. The thread of life in her was too thin and weak. It needed time to strengthen.

But her other hand came up and anger flared out. He caught her hand in midair with a bruising grip.

"Don't hit me again." Growling warning, eyes flaming green.

"I'll kill you," low, drilling hiss. "Why did you kill him?"

Sudden demanding question that he didn't have an answer for. His own grief plunged into him like a knife and he could only stare, pinned on the thin blade, impossible to hide his grief, pain.

"You loved him." Not a question. A statement.

His grip on her wrist tightened as pain stabbed at him. He closed his eyes. "Yes." Drawn out gust of pain.

He was lost and alone, at the mercy of towering grief, until her soft hand brushed over the red imprint she had made on his cheek. Fingertips lightly stroked, calming, soothing over the pain she inflicted on the surface and the deeper, unseen pain.

She tugged her wrist free of his suddenly slack grip and wrapped her arm around his waist, other hand creeping around the back of his head to pull his face down to her, into her hair. Long, shuddering sigh of pain and arms came up around her to clutch her to him, face sinking into her hair. Clothes rubbed against her roughly, but she only clutched him tighter as he shuddered again, a powerful shudder. Then wetness was raining down on the top of her head and he took a gasping breath that was an ugly wordless cry.

They held each other tight, sharing shuddering grief, slowly sinking to the floor, wrapping around each other in a defensive huddle.

The sunlight that slashed across the floor began to creep across the room and up the wall and still they didn't move from their tight huddle. Shudders had stilled but neither could rise and leave the feel of the other's body.

Sunlight crept even further but infused no heat. A chill walked over Scully's naked body. She shivered and burrowed deeper against Krycek's chest. His arms cupped around her, trying to warm her, but another chill wracked her and he gave up.

Painful, as if tearing a part of himself away, he pulled back, lifting. She murmured a low protest but he carried her to the bed and slid her beneath the covers. She reached for him, but he was already sliding in next to her, wrapping around her, feeling her sink into him past his skin.

They slept.

He woke to quiet sobbing, disoriented. He reached, not knowing what he missed until he found her body curled on the far side of the bed.

His hand eased over her, but she didn't notice, lost in sobbing misery.

Dark room, slivers of sunlight long since gone. Krycek fumbled in the dark, wrapping an arm around her, pulling her back to his side. She resisted, craving isolation in her misery, needing to wrap up in a ball and shut out the world. But he wouldn't be denied and pulled her snug against him, his body warming her chilled one, clothes a welcome roughness against her as he wrapped himself around her back, pulling her in.

"I'm sorry, Scully." Sorry for the pain. Sorry for the loss. Sorry for the aching void that nothing can fill.

She shuddered then relaxed, allowing the grief to flow away for a time, allowing herself to sink into his warmth and forget.

He held her for a long time, counting heartbeats, hers and then his. Slow steady beating. Proof that life went on, continued past all reason and will to the otherwise. She sighed and relaxed her body from the huddled curl and stretched beside him, arching into warmth.

She moved against him and the low hum of awareness strummed louder through him, causing arms to tighten and his body to shift against hers.

She pulled against his hold and his arms protested against his will, tightening, before he could force them to slackness, allow her to leave.

But she didn't leave. She twisted around to face him, soft arms wrapped around him, legs clutching around him as her hungry mouth found his.

He could still taste damp saltiness on her lips and brushed his mouth over her face to lightly sip it away, leaving no trace of her grief except the huge hole where her heart had been. But she rejected grief and death and reached for life, arms tightened around him, her mouth suddenly hard and demanding on his. He was gladly swept away in the heat and softness of the body beside him, leaving his own memories behind to reaffirm life in the oldest way there was, body on body, mouth on mouth, skin on skin.

She lay sleeping in his arms and he knew he had to leave. While it was still dark, while the shadows were still thick, when he could still slink off into the night without the light of day picking him apart with probing fingers and revealing him for what he was.

He lived in the shadows not in the light. He was of the shadows. He would treasure this visit into the light, the opportunity to touch her radiance, possess her for this little time, but he didn't belong here.

Shadows and light. There could never be one without the other but they could never touch. Only in the flashing instant as one becomes the other and he couldn't do that to her. She belonged in the light, he lived for the shadows.

He pulled away and she slept so deeply she didn't even murmur. He pulled his clothes on, silent as a shadow, and ghosted across the room to the door. He paused, hesitation a weakness in him he couldn't afford, then he was out the door and blending with the flickering, changing shadows that welcomed him in and closed around him like old friends.

Scully lay in darkness, unmoving as the door clicked shut behind him.

She stared blankly at nothing, her body rapidly chilling, missing his warmth. But she didn't stir, only continued to stare blankly at nothing. The room grayed lighter and she barely noticed, but as the room brightened she gradually distinguished what she was staring at, the crack between the curtain and the window, between darkness and growing light.

The first true ray of sunlight pierced the shadow and made her stir. Stiffly, she sat up. Sudden need pushed at her and she stumbled to her feet, wrapping the sheet around her, fumbled to the door.

She was on the second floor. She stared down into the dingy parking lot of a cheap motel. Trash scattered across the deserted lot in a vagrant breeze, coming up against tall weeds that had burst their way through smothering cement.

Clutching the sheet, clutching the door, she lifted her gaze to neon buzzing dimly against the coming light, paint scabbing away from dirty walls, iron bars over windows. But she lifted her gaze more and caught her breath. The sun was coming up. She watched spellbound as purple night retreated to blue then to red and orange and pink. Then sunlight burst down on her, beating against her skin, and she closed her eyes and threw back her head to savor the sensation of warm fingers playing over her face. She took a shuddering breath and let it out

The beauty touched her grief and lightened it. As she drank in the weak morning sunshine, she realized the grief she carried would never be gone. But as the morning brightened around her, she no longer felt so alone and the thin thread of life inside her was strengthened and renewed.

The grief would never be gone, but its burden would ease in time. In the gently awakening sunlight she could see hope and life and a future ahead.

She smiled and tilted her head back, inviting the sun in.