To Us

Hegal Place, Alexandria, VA, May 20, 2003

Mulder sprawled exhausted on his sofa, watching Scully clean up the remains of William's second birthday party. She was giving him the evil eye for not helping her, so he knew he'd better say something.

"Thanks for cleaning up, Scully, but I'll get the rest later, after you go home." They lived apart, having decided that their strength was their friendship, and shared joint custody of William. "Jeesh, who knew that a birthday party could take so much out of you? I really wasn't expecting so many toddlers to christen my new apartment. I didn't even know you knew that many people with kids."

"Contrary to what you obviously think, Mulder, I do have friends besides you. And we couldn't exactly have a party for William without having other little ones here to share in his excitement."

"Yeah, but I've only been moved in here for a few weeks and thought I'd eventually get around to having a housewarming party. I didn't think my first guests would be a bunch of two-year olds."

"You know, I think you can forgo the housewarming idea. You only just moved into Apartment 44 in the same building! The only difference is that this one has two bedrooms. Trust me, no one would even notice," she laughed.

Mulder apparently did not share her humorous take on the situation. "And here I thought inviting all my friends over here would be a good idea," he responded crossly.

She emptied her load of used paper plates into the trash bag she was holding, then sat on the coffee table in front of him. "Mulder, is something wrong?"

He sighed. "No. Listen, today was great, Scully, thanks again for all of your help."

"Mulder, I am not going anywhere until you talk to me. Something's obviously been bothering you these last couple of months."

"I don't know what you're talking about." He saw by her look that she didn't buy that response for an instant. "You mean you could tell? Why haven't you said anything?"

"I've been waiting for you to bring it up. Please, Mulder, what is it?"

Mulder shook his head. "It's really nothing, Scully. It's just, well, it's just that I've been feeling a little depressed lately."

"Oh, Mulder," Scully said, concerned.

"I'm actually a bit embarrassed to admit it, since I've got so much going for me. I can't figure it out. Will's the best kid that any father could ever ask for, and I've got him and I've got you. I've got my job. I've got so much more than a lot of people have, but, I don't know, I just feel like there's some sort of void in my life." He gave Scully a questioning look. "Do you think that's selfish of me to feel that way?"

"Mulder, of course it's not selfish. Don't you think that I sometimes feel that way, too?"

"You do?"

"Yes, which is why I've decided to finally do something about it. I was actually going to bring this up with you sooner or later, Mulder." At his curious look, she grinned shyly. "Well, the fact is, I've joined a dating service."

Mulder looked surprised, but then smiled. "Good for you, Scully. You deserve to find someone special."

"Well what about you, Mulder? Maybe you should join up, too. Don't you see? That's why you're feeling this way. You need someone special in your life just as much as I do."

"I don't think that's necessarily the reason I've been down, lately," Mulder defended. He turned his head and stared at the floor. "Besides, for some reason I have this feeling that there is no one out there for me."

"Well you certainly won't know if you don't try. Come on, Mulder, I really wish that you would give it some serious thought. But in the meantime, we should both just concentrate on the positive things we have in our lives." She took his hand and smiled. "Mulder, we are so lucky, aren't we? Sometimes I can't believe it. I mean, when I think back on all of the terrible things we thought we had to overcome before William was born, and now we don't have to worry about any of it anymore. It's a miracle, Mulder. It truly is."

Mulder looked at her and smiled. "Seems like it, Scully, a real miracle. You're right, I just have to focus on all the good things in my life for now. Listen, thanks for all your help, but you should go home now and get some rest."

"Okay, I'll go, but only if you promise me you'll think about starting to date." She gave him an uncompromising look, as if she wasn't going to get up without getting an answer.

"You got it. I promise that I'll *think* about it. Have a good weekend, Scully. I'll drop Will off with you around the usual time Sunday."

Scully gave him a loving look of concern before rising and heading towards the door. She stepped out of the apartment and looked back at him. "Call me if you or William need anything, or if you just need to talk." She smiled and closed the door behind her.

Mulder continued to rest on the sofa after her departure, thinking about the guest of honor sleeping soundly in the small bed in one of the bedrooms. Scully was right; before William was born, it seemed all there had been was fear of so many unknowns. How had William come to be? Was there any hope for saving the planet from colonization? If not, what kind of future could their son and the rest of the world's children hope to have?

But somehow things had fallen into place, one by one. William turned out to be just a normal kid, healthy and happy. And then miraculously the aliens began leaving the planet over the course of the next several months, because of global warming, of all things. The hybrids they'd been working on for the past fifty years could not tolerate the direct rays of the sun, and with the swift decrease in the ozone layer that had occurred over the past few years they were helpless to prevent their work from being destroyed. The aliens had no recourse but to vacate the planet, taking all remaining hybrids and super-soldiers with them.

And so it was that shortly after William's first birthday, there was simply no more alien threat to worry about. Mulder was overcome with relief and joy, for his son's future, for the entire world. He had gone back to the X-Files, happy that that the mysteries he'd be investigating would all be of terrestrial origins. The following year was simply the happiest that Mulder had ever been. He was really relaxed for the first time in his life, and he found it incredible that his happiness could be comprised of so many little things: William's first steps, his first words, and all of the things that the innocent child found joy in.

The year between William's first and second birthday flew by, measured in days and weeks of normalcy. Even most of the cases Mulder investigated ended up being explained by normal rather than paranormal circumstances. But as the months went by, the novelty of being happy and normal began to wear off, and this was when Mulder had begun to realize that he was missing something in his life. There was some emptiness inside him that he could not explain, and he felt guilty that William was only partially able to fill it. Mulder had surmised that he missed the fight, the excitement of the hunt to bring down the seemingly all-powerful leaders of the former Consortium, to fight their efforts to hide the truth. But now the truth was finally out there, at least to the inner circles if not to the public at large. So there was simply no one or nothing left to fight.

The mixture of birthday cake and soda churned in Mulder's stomach, bringing him out of his repose. As he continued to rest on the sofa he couldn't suppress the feelings of guilt that always accompanied this growing emptiness. He shouldn't be feeling empty today, on William's birthday of all days. But he could no longer deny it; he needed more than his son and more than the X-Files in his life. But what, then? Suddenly Mulder didn't want to think about any of that any more. He snapped himself up into an upright position and shook his head as if to clear it.

"Aaagh! Snap out of it and be happy, damn it!" he admonished himself. He reached over and snatched up the camera from the coffee table, and contented himself by scrolling through the digital images of the afternoon's big event. A brief knock at the door interrupted him. Mulder was more than a little surprised when he opened the door to see Spender standing there.

"Please tell me you're here with severe chest pains," greeted Mulder. When no response was forthcoming, he waved a hand towards the wrapped gift in Spender's hand. "Whatever that is, William doesn't want it."

"Nonsense, Fox. I'm quite sure my grandson will love it." Spender placed the present on the table near the entry and began to move into the living room.

"I don't recall inviting you in, old man. Second-hand smoke isn't good for William."

"Of course it's not, which is why I've been considerate enough not to be smoking at the moment."

Mulder stared at Spender's face; something wasn't quite right. It didn't look as withered as he had remembered it.

"How is it that you can just waltz right in here looking moderately healthy? Last I heard you were wheelchair-bound with a tracheotomy. You were supposed to be dying of lung cancer."

"Ah yes, the miracle of alien science. There are no more aliens on Earth, of course. But prior to its departure from our planet, one of the shape-shifters returned a favor for me and healed my lungs and eradicated the cancer from my entire system. At my age, I figure I can smoke for the rest of my life without ever having to worry about lung cancer being the cause of my demise. No, I plan to go out peacefully in my sleep and die of old age."

"Bully for you. Now say what you came here to say and get out."

"I'm simply here to tell you that I've decided to take advantage of my new lease on life. My previous monies disappeared with the fall of the Consortium, so I've taken it upon myself to build a new fortune. I've got a project going that is going to make me filthy rich, Fox. I figure I've got a good 20 or 30 years left in me, and I intend to spend the time I have left having the time of my life."

Mulder stared at him blankly. "And?"

"I just thought I'd inform you that I'm going to be very busy in my new life, so unfortunately I won't have the opportunity to see little William often, if at all."

"Make it not at all."

Spender turned and began to walk towards the front door.

"I'm not buying it, Spender. I know you're not really going to walk out that door; you haven't said what you really came here to say. Just get it over with. What game are you playing now?"

Spender slowly turned back around and flashed his ugly grin. "How astute of you, Fox. Yes, I am playing a game. What's the use of all the money I stand to make without making things a bit more interesting, hmm? So here it is. The game is for me to give you information that will make your blood boil, but that you will be absolutely helpless to do anything about." He paused, as if for dramatic effect. "You see, Fox, I stand to make a fortune in the sale of super-soldiers to various factions."

Mulder startled. "That's impossible. There are no more of them left. The aliens took them all with them when they left."

"They may have taken all of the super-soldiers, but they left behind the technology to create them. I've retained a facility that was once run jointly with the alien representatives. The super-soldiers I'm producing aren't quite the same as the ones you were familiar with. These are completely manufactured from scratch; they are not formerly human. But in all other senses they function exactly like the former super-soldiers. They're in the processing stages now, but once they're ready, I already have buyers lined up. They were always created to be loyal to a master; in this case it will be the military they'll be loyal to instead of an alien race."

Mulder steamed, balling his hands into fists at his side. "You know that whichever country's military has those soldiers will be the most powerful in the world. What are you planning to do, old man? Sell to the highest bidder?"

Spender grinned although his eyes held no amusement.

"Why be so greedy as to limit the supply when there will be worldwide demand?" Spender asked. "I don't see why all of the world's major powers shouldn't benefit from their services. And make me filthy rich in the process, of course. The soldiers will be shipped in an inert state to whichever military purchases them, and be programmed by that military to serve them loyally."

"You bastard! Unleashing indestructible soldiers to any country with a big enough pocketbook. The world will be in chaos!"

Spender chuckled. "Everything is set in motion. That's why I'm here. There is no way for you or any of your government allies to find my resources. I've covered my tracks most adequately, I assure you. Oh, you may have a slim chance of tracking down the facility when production comes to an end in several months and the sales actually proceed. But by then, of course, it will be too late, since it will only be a matter of days to have the merchandize shipped to all of their various global destinations. I'll have made my fortune by then. So that's my game, Fox. I've come here to dangle the prize in front of you and make you dance for it. You'll never win, but I know you'll try. You'll try with every fiber of your being. After all, that's what makes you Fox Mulder."

"If this is true, I *will* fight you, and I *will* find a way to stop you."

"It's true. You'll just have to take my word on that."

"When has your word been anything that I can trust? How do I know you're not here just to watch me jump through your hoops, when there really is no facility out there? I need proof."

"I've already established that the reason I am here is *precisely* to watch you jump through my hoops, my dear boy. The facility exists."

"Go, get out. If you can't give me any proof then I'm not playing this game."

"There is no proof, Fox. No one knows exactly what my plans are, not even my employees. They've been given a cover story, even that sworn to secrecy of course."

Mulder glared at him and pointed to the door. "No proof, no game. Get out."

Spender deliberated for a few moments. "Well, I thought it might come down to this. All right, then. There is actually one person that may possibly be able to figure out my plans. I had no intention of sharing my intentions with anyone, and I didn't. But over the years this man has had access to certain files and sources, whether legitimately or by stealing from my offices. This was years ago, and the information was rather vague. You can go see him if you'd like, but whether or not he can ever make sense of the information he came upon will always remain a mystery."

Mulder chuffed out a laugh. "Not one minute ago you stated that you left no trail that could be followed, and then you turn around and point me in the direction of some guy that might know a fair amount of your plans? If you don't start making sense, I'm not going to buy into any of this."

"You can go to this man, Fox, but he won't tell you anything."

"Why won't he? You're threatening his life if he talks? Do you really think that will stop me from getting what he knows out of him, just because he's being blackmailed?"

"No, Fox. Not blackmail. Brain damage."

"What?"

"The man is severely brain damaged. Whatever he may know he can't tell you. It's as simple as that."

Mulder contemplated this information and the likelihood of whether or not such a man really existed or if he was just a fabrication. Something wasn't adding up. He narrowed his eyes at Spender.

"It's not your style to leave loose ends, Spender, not even brain- damaged ones. I'm surprised that you haven't had this man eliminated."

"Actually," said Spender, "I was planning to have him shot a couple of years ago, execution-style. But as it turned out, your Mr. Skinner took care of that for me."

Mulder felt as if his stomach had plummeted to the floor. He could only stare wide-eyed at Spender.

"My clean-up crew took over from Skinner in the parking garage. Your former A.D. wasn't surprised to see my men show up; he knows that I kept track of everything that went on in and under the Hoover Building. My men were under orders not to finish the victim off since I preferred to have him suffer as much as possible before he died. He ended up in one of our private clinics. I kept waiting for him to wake up so I could torture him a bit, but he was in a coma for months."

Spender paused and stared at nothing, as if he were reflecting on the long months he had to wait for the victim to wake up. Eventually he began again.

"After a few months in our clinic, I lost interest in keeping him and had him shipped off to a private nursing home. When he woke up there a couple of months later my interest was renewed. I went there with the intention to inflict various tortures, but to my delight I found him to already be in a very special Hell of his own. The mental torture he was suffering far surpassed any physical torture that I could have devised. I decided to leave him be, to live out the rest of his life in this nursing home in his miserable state of being. I'm telling you he won't be any use to you, but if you feel the need to verify this for yourself then you'll find him at the Elmhurst Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center."

Mulder clenched his fists tight again. "You came here planning to drop that little tidbit of information on me all along, didn't you?"

Spender grinned. "I've observed how much he gets under your skin. I'm beginning to enjoy this already. Go see him, Fox. Go see Alex Krycek, and let the game begin."

The sun had set and yet Mulder still sat motionless on his sofa, long after his hated father had left the apartment. He recalled a time five years previously when he had also sat motionless in the dark on the same sofa, lost in contemplation of an inextricable relationship in his life that was neither accidental nor in his control. And how, on that night, the person in question had managed to fully restore the beliefs that he had once held strong but that had been somehow diminished.

Mulder reflected on that man. For seven years Alex Krycek had come in and out of his life until that night two years ago tonight, when he was forced to witness his murder at the end of Skinner's gun. He remembered feeling completely shocked and numbed at seeing the dead body; it somehow didn't seem right that this would be the end for Krycek. He was supposed to always be there to irritate Mulder with his mysterious double-talk, he was supposed to always be there for Mulder to lash out at, he was supposed to always be there for Mulder to try to find answers from, and all of a sudden he just...wasn't.

He was also numbed by the fact that Skinner had murdered Krycek in what could not be disputed to be cold blood. This could not be the action of the Skinner that Mulder had come to respect. All of it was too much for Mulder to process at the time since his own son was about to be born at any moment and he believed the child to be in terrible danger. His responsibility to his child had to take priority, and so it did, effectively squashing any emotion related to the body on the ground before him. Mulder had fled the parking garage in search of his son, with Krycek firmly banished from his consciousness. The joys that had occurred in Mulder's life throughout the following months had made it easy not to think about his murdered nemesis at all. After all, one dead man from his past could not compete with the supreme happiness that he derived from the world's newfound freedom from colonization, not to mention the surprisingly profound delights he found in fatherhood.

He had just assumed that Krycek was a thing of the past until the bombshell that was dropped onto his lap earlier today. Mulder ruminated on what he should do. For the first time he would be the one in control of whether or not Krycek would reappear in his life, and not the other way around. But did he really want to subject himself once again to the conflicting emotions that the man always seemed to stir up in him?

For despite the accusations that he had consistently thrown at Krycek about being a coward and a liar, he had often wondered if those allegations were completely true or not. Perhaps there had been more than a bit of truth in the scant but obtuse information that Krycek had told him over the years about the colonizers and the rebels and the old men, information that had always left Mulder guessing. And in addition to the question of where Krycek's true alliance had been, he had also been disturbed by the intensity of his visceral response to the man, which had never occurred whenever Mulder had met up with any of the other betrayers in his life.

He could certainly choose not to see Krycek, especially since Spender assured him that the visit would be useless. Brain damaged. How, exactly? If he tried to get answers from Krycek, would he only be playing into Spender's game, and nothing more? Mulder continued to sit in the dark mulling over the various reasons why he should or should not seek out Krycek, all the while knowing deep down exactly what he was going to do.

Elmhurst Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center, Elmhurst, VA

"You're here to see Alex? My goodness, he's only ever had one visitor, and that was when he first came out of his coma well over a year ago."

Mulder leaned forward to read the name on the woman's identification badge: Dr. Ruth Lesse.

"Yes, well, Dr. Lesse..."

"Please, just call me Ruth. We like to think of this place more like a home than an institution, so we tend to stay away from formalities."

"Ruth. You see, I've only just found out that Mr. Krycek was here a few days ago."

"Oh? If he's your friend, then how is it that you're only now just finding out about him?"

"Actually, I'm not here as his friend. I'm here in my capacity as a Special Agent with the FBI."

"Oh, I see," Ruth said, casting her eyes down. There was no mistaking the disappointment in her voice.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Mulder asked.

"No. It's just that when I was told someone was here to see Alex, I was so hoping that it would be a friend of his. He's such a nice young man. I feel sorry for him that no one ever comes here to see him. And he never leaves to go see anyone, either."

"He can leave? I thought he was a patient here."

Ruth shook her head. "In the strictest sense, no, he's not really a patient here anymore. As the Center's primary speech-language pathologist, I still occasionally try to help Alex with his expressive language skills, but it's clear that he reached the limits of his capabilities a long time ago and there's really nothing more that anyone can do for him. So, since he apparently had no place to go and since his communication skills are essentially nonexistent, we made him an offer to remain here as a rehabilitation aide. He helps out in return for room and board."

"Alex Krycek, rehabilitation aide," Mulder muttered to himself, as if hearing the words would make it a more feasible concept.

"Excuse me?" Ruth asked.

"Uh, so what exactly does he do around here?" Mulder asked as he glanced up and down the corridor they were in.

"Well, he spends most of the time in the gym helping the physical therapists and occupational therapists with their patients. Alex got to know the staff there pretty well, since he needed months of therapy after waking from the coma."

"Legs a bit weak after sleeping for months, huh?" Mulder asked disinterestedly as he continued to survey the place. The long silence that followed brought his focus back to Ruth, and he could see that she was irritated with his apparent disregard for her former patient.

When Mulder saw that it was clear to Ruth that she had his attention back, she proceeded. "Yes. He was in a coma for five months, so of course he needed to regain muscle tone and strength. It took several weeks before he could walk without someone helping him. He couldn't use a cane or walker or any type of assistant equipment to help him walk since the two bullet wounds to his only arm caused significant nerve and muscle damage. It took months of physical and occupational therapy to get his right limb back to full function, and thank god it did. If Alex wasn't able to use his arm, well, I don't even want to think about what that would have done to him."

Mulder had the decency to look a bit less smug in front of her. When he had first been told that Krycek had survived a bullet to the brain, the news had been so startling that he hadn't even considered the damage to his arm.

"The therapists also helped him maximize the function of his prosthesis. He really wasn't using it very well; in fact, it appeared to them that Alex had never received formal rehabilitation with it at all."

Mulder nodded, speculating that perhaps Krycek was never in one place long enough to have undergone extensive therapy.

"He's doing relatively well with both arms now," Ruth continued. "That's why he's able to spend most of his time as an aide to both the physical and occupational therapists. But he also takes patients on walks throughout the grounds, he brings patients their meals, things like that. Oh, and he's also a big help with our most unresponsive patients. We have quite a few people here that can't move or speak and we can't pinpoint their cognitive abilities with precise accuracy. But their EEGs show that they respond favorably to certain television shows or movies, especially when a family member or friend is there to watch it with them. Alex sits with them when their family isn't there, sometimes for hours. It's quite possible that the company he provides them, showing them that someone cares enough to sit with them, may really be helping these patients. Other than that, well, if there is nothing pressing for Alex to do, he'll help clean up around here. He doesn't need to do that, of course, since we have a housekeeping staff, but it seems he prefers to keep himself busy."

Mulder turned his head away from her view and rolled his eyes. "You make him sound like he's indispensable around here."

"We all make the effort to let him know what a good job he is doing, to keep his spirits up. His duties here, inconsequential as they may seem to you, are all that he has in his life."

"Right. Well, would you happen to know just where he is performing his essential work at the moment?"

Ruth folded her arms across her chest, clearly not appreciative of his attitude. "He's fixing a broken chair in the lounge at the end of this corridor. Before I bring you to see him I think it would be best if I give you a summary of his expressive and receptive abil..."

"Which way? This way?" Mulder interrupted as he began to walk briskly towards the set of closed double doors at the end of the hall.

"Please, wait," Ruth said, struggling to keep up with Mulder's long- legged strides. "No one's even told him that he has a visitor yet. I should go in first to let him know."

"I don't think that's necessary," Mulder said as he reached the doors.

He entered the lounge, Ruth following behind. Krycek, who had been facing away, turned to see who had entered. He was clearly startled, eyes going wide and mouth slightly opening. Mulder walked to within a few feet of him.

"Krycek," Mulder simply said, as if they had merely been acquaintances who bumped into each other on the street.

Krycek continued to stare at Mulder for several long and silent moments.

"Alex, are you all right?" Ruth finally asked, stepping forward to place her hand on his arm.

Ruth's presence shifted Alex's attention, and he turned to her. "Fuck."

Mulder raised his eyebrows at that. "Such manners, Krycek. I guess we know from that remark that you're surprised to see me."

"No, actually, I believe Alex was talking to me," Ruth said. Keeping her hand on his arm, Ruth turned from Alex to face Mulder. "When he gets tense or frustrated, he tends to only be able to produce mono- syllabic words from the area of the brain that produces words of highly emotional content, like swear words. I had asked him if he was all right, and he was replying to me that he was okay."

"He says 'fuck' and that means he's okay? How do you get that?" Mulder asked with all the delicacy of a bull in a china shop.

Krycek abruptly released himself from Ruth's gentle grip. "FUCK fuck." He walked away from them towards the opposite end of the large room.

Mulder made as if to go after him, but Ruth stepped into his pathway. "You wouldn't let me explain his dysfunction before, so please listen now."

"But I don't want him to get away," Mulder said. "I need to talk to him."

"Get away? Where is it exactly that you think he would go? For heaven's sake, he'll be back in a minute. He just needs to do something, like get a drink of water or use the bathroom."

Mulder looked at Ruth as if she was one of his X-file cases instead of merely a dedicated speech-language pathologist. "How could you possibly know that?" he asked.

Ruth looked at him like she about to explain something obvious to a young child. "When you work with an aphasic for a long period of time, you learn to decipher their intentions by listening carefully to subtle variations in the tempo, volume, and inflection of what they say, even if they're only repeating the same word over and over again. What Alex expressed just now was a desire to tend to an urgent need. Usually he means 'I need a drink,' or 'I need the bathroom,' or something of that nature. He's obviously startled to see you, so you should just give him time to compose himself."

Although Mulder was listening to what she was saying, he never took his eyes off of Krycek. Sure enough, he saw Krycek reach a water cooler at the far side of the lounge and fill up a paper cup. He watched him chug down the water in one gulp, then fill up the cup again and come back towards them. When Krycek reached them, he took a sip of water, gave Ruth an imploring look for support, and then faced Mulder.

"Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck fuck fuck," he said to Mulder.

"Alex used to get frustrated during his speech therapy and often aborted the sessions by walking out. I'd give him time, and he'd usually return a short while later. What he said just now is what I used to hear him say when he came back to proceed with the session." She looked at Alex. "I assume this is your way of saying that you're ready to hear what your visitor came to talk to you about?" She turned to Mulder. "Don't wait for him to answer my question by nodding his head 'yes' or shaking it 'no'. He can understand those gestures on other people, but he can't produce them himself. It's the same as your speaking to him. He can understand you, but he cannot express to you that he understands you. So go ahead. Tell him whatever it is you need to tell him."

"I don't need to tell him anything, I came here to get information from him. Obviously that's going to be more difficult than I had thought, but it's vital that I do."

Mulder put his hands on his hips and looked down, thinking on how best to proceed. He looked up at Ruth. "I'm treating this interview like an official federal investigation, and in that capacity I'm going to have to ask you not to repeat anything you hear, not to anyone. Understood?"

She nodded her consent and he continued. "Okay, look, Krycek. A certain smoking friend of ours paid me a visit a few days ago. He flaunted some information in my face that may or may not be true and said that you're the only person alive that can prove the veracity of his claim. According to him, you may know of these plans because of all the access you used to have with certain files. I came here trying to find out information about a manufacturing facility that he claims produces..." Mulder paused to consider if he should monitor his choice of words, but then decided there was no real reason he needed to remain discreet. Ruth wouldn't understand what he was referring to anyway. "That produces super-soldiers."

A look of impending dread crossed Krycek's face.

"The smoker claims the facility is up and running and ready to ship out its merchandize in a matter of months. He indicated that his first shipments will allow him to make his own personal fortune by selling them to the military."

Krycek made a fist with the hand that was holding the paper cup, crushing it and spewing its contents over the floor. Mulder couldn't decide if Krycek suddenly looked angry or ill, but either way he got the answer he was hoping he wouldn't get.

"Damn it! It's true, then, isn't it? He wasn't just yanking my chain about having that kind of capability."

Krycek began to pace back and forth, eyes to the floor as if extremely agitated. Mulder watched him complete several circuits before grabbing his left arm. Krycek neither saw Mulder's action nor felt his touch, but the firm grip on the prosthetic effectively pulled him to a stop. He whipped his head up towards Mulder.

Mulder released Krycek's arm but moved to stand directly in front of his face. "Listen, Krycek, he's playing a game with both of us. Nothing's ever enough for that bastard; it's not enough for him to make his fortune, it's not enough for him to feel like an all- powerful entity because of the new way to wage war he'll be responsible for. No, he's got to play his little games. He suggested that it's possible you got enough data from the files you've seen over the years to eventually track him down, but that there was no way for you to tell me. He wants us both to go crazy knowing that we both want to stop him but we can't. Well, he got that wrong, Krycek. One way or another I'm going to get that information out of you and we're going to put an end to this abomination before it begins."

Mulder watched as the glint of anger and distress in Krycek's eyes faded into dull resignation. He pulled his gaze from Mulder's face and turned his head away.

"We can do this, Krycek. We have to."

Krycek moved away from Mulder and sat down on a nearby sofa, staring across the room blankly. Ruth, who looked a bit uneasy at what she had been hearing, came over and sat down next to Alex. Mulder followed and sat in a chair opposite them.

Mulder leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his thighs. "From what I could tell, the smoker wasn't exactly sure what you were able to get out of any files you may have seen. He was just assuming that if you remembered any of the information, then you might be able to put various pieces together in your head to come up with something. I need to access that information somehow, so that we can sift through it together and see if any of it is useful. Uhm, let's start with the basics. Do you remember any info that might be useful about this?"

Krycek continued to stare across the room, eyes unfocused.

Mulder sat upright in his seat, slapping his hands down on his thighs in frustration. "Okay, here's how it's gonna go. One 'fuck' for 'yes' and two 'fucks' for 'no'. So, do you remember anything that might be useful?"

Krycek's eyes came into focus and he looked at Mulder as if the agent had suddenly grown two heads.

"We've been over this already," Ruth interjected. "He isn't capable of using language to express himself in that manner."

"Well, there's got to be *some* way!" Mulder exclaimed.

"Fuuuck. Fuuuck," Krycek gritted out in an annoyed fashion.

Mulder looked to Ruth for interpretation.

"He doesn't think this is going to work," she supplied. "He wants to stop."

Krycek curled his right arm around himself and his sneakered foot began a rapid tattoo on the linoleum.

"I don't care if you want to stop! This is important, damn it!" Mulder yelled.

"Don't you dare raise your voice like that. If you can't be civil I'm going to ask you to leave," Ruth admonished.

Mulder grimaced, and closed his eyes in thought. He opened them and reached into his suit coat to retrieve his pen and small pocket notebook. He looked across to see two pairs of angry eyes glaring at him.

"You don't have to look at me like that. I know he probably can't write, or else we wouldn't be having this difficulty," Mulder said to Ruth, as if Krycek was not even present.

"That's correct. The bullet caused diffuse damage to all expressive language centers. One result is that he suffers from total agraphia, so you might as well put that notebook away. It's not going to do you any good."

Disregarding that advice, Mulder opened the notebook and scribbled something down. "Ah, but you see, I'm not asking him to write anything. Here, look at this, Krycek!"

Mulder reached across the space between their chairs and enthusiastically shoved the notebook into Krycek's lap, forcing him to uncurl his right arm and grab it.

"See, I wrote 'YES' at the top of the page and 'NO' at the bottom. You don't have to say anything, you just have to point to the correct word when I ask you a question." Mulder grinned, proud of his problem- solving skills.

Krycek looked down at the page, then up at Mulder. His face contorted in anger, nostrils flaring. He sprang up from his seat and forcibly threw the notebook at Mulder, where it deflected off his head before falling to the floor. "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!!" he screamed, then bolted out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

When Mulder looked from the door back to Ruth, he saw that she had her arms crossed and one eyebrow arched in a manner that distinctly reminded him of Scully.

"I think that meant he wants you to leave him alone." Her tone was polite, but her sarcasm was not lost on him.

"Damn it!" Mulder snapped. He reached down and grabbed his notebook, stuffing it back in his pocket. "I didn't know he couldn't read anymore!"

"Alex can read just fine," Ruth stated. At Mulder's look of confusion, she elaborated. "You haven't been listening very well, have you? Alex's receptive language skills have remained largely intact. He can understand both the spoken word and the written word, but he cannot express them. Alex could read the words 'YES' and 'NO' that you wrote and he fully understood the meaning of both words. The meaning was received by his brain just fine, but his brain could not send that same information back out, in any form. You could have shown him an entire page filled with nothing but the word 'YES' written on it twenty times and he would know that he just read the same word twenty times throughout the page, and he would know what the word meant, and he would know that all twenty words meant the same thing. But if you asked him to point to the word 'YES' on a page full of twenty words that all said 'YES', he wouldn't be able to do it. He has completely lost the capability of expressing what he understands." Ruth sighed heavily. "Is the totality of this starting to sink in now?"

The implications of Ruth's explanation were not to Mulder's liking at all. "Yes, I think I see how it is now. Look, I'm sorry if I came off as a bit rude, but you can't imagine how frustrating this is for me. I've got important work to do, Krycek is the key, and I can't access what he knows. It's just all so damned irritating!" He got up and faced the door, contemplating whether or not to go after Krycek.

"I can't believe you just said that!" Ruth exclaimed.

Mulder turned back and looked at her, seemingly baffled as to the cause of her outburst.

"Can you just step out of yourself for a moment and put yourself in Alex's place? It's obvious from his reactions that he wants to help stop this smoking man just as much as you do. He wants to help you, he really does! Can you imagine what it would be like to be Alex right now? He has important information but he is incapable of telling anyone what he knows! He desperately wants to, but he can't. How would you feel if that information were trapped like that inside of you? How would *you* cope with feeling utterly helpless, like he must be feeling right now? I understand that you're feeling frustrated right now, but what Alex is feeling is just as bad, if not much worse!"

Mulder seemed to really hear her this time. It took him a few moments to become accustomed to the thought of Krycek having any tangible emotions other than a merciless dedication to his previous pursuits. He turned once more to where Krycek had exited.

"Don't go after him, Agent. He's had enough."

"Okay, I'll leave him be for now, but I will most definitely be back."

"Please, it's no use. There's nothing that can be gained from this except for you to make him feel so much worse than he already does."

Mulder had no response to that, so he merely offered "Thank you for your help today," and departed.

Elmhurst Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center, 2 days later

As Mulder entered the corridor, he was stopped by a voice calling out his name from down the hall. He turned to see Ruth walking up to him.

"I see that you are most persistent, Agent. May I ask what you have there in your briefcase? Nothing that will upset Alex, I presume."

"Of course not," Mulder lied. "It's just some confidential papers that I didn't feel comfortable about leaving in my car. I was told that Krycek was with some patients in the solarium. Would you like to join me?"

A quick check of her watch and she shook her head. "Can't, I've got a therapy session coming up. You shouldn't interrupt him, you should let him finish what he's doing." She took another cursory look at her watch. "You know, the lounge adjoins the solarium. I've got time to walk you there, Agent Mulder. I'd really like to fill in some details about Alex before you talk to him again." She gestured towards the lounge. "Shall we?"

After entering the lounge, Mulder followed Ruth towards the furthest wall, which was comprised mostly of a large window looking out into the solarium. There were large, leafy plants in the solarium that were very close to this window, which obscured Mulder's view somewhat, but he could see a small cluster of people tending to some plants on a table. Krycek was sitting in profile and seemed to be repotting a plant. He could hear continual animated conversation among the group, although the words were muffled by the window. Someone said something and everyone burst into laughter, including Krycek.

"He can laugh?"

"Sure, as long as it's an automatic spontaneous emotional response to a stimulus," Ruth said. "But if you instructed him to laugh on command, he wouldn't be able to do it."

Mulder continued to watch the group when, to his amazement, Krycek began speaking in regular sentences.

"What's going on?! How can he talk all of a sudden?"

"Yes, it does sound like he's talking normally, doesn't it? But that's only because it's too muffled to hear what he is really saying. If you could hear him properly, you'd realize that he was just speaking nonsense."

"But it sounds so normal."

"He's having a Wernicke's day," she agreed. "On the surface a person with Wernicke's aphasia may appear to be talking normally with appropriate punctuation, rhythm, and inflection. The sentence 'feels right' to him but it doesn't make sense to others." She leaned in towards the window and listened in for a moment. "I'm fairly sure that's what he's speaking now, although very often he uses nonexistent words, too; he tends to slip in and out of a pattern of meaningless jargon words."

"The other day he didn't talk like that. He just kept repeating 'fuck'."

"Your unexpected visit upset him. That can result in a different speech pattern altogether. You see, Alex's injuries resulted in more than one type of aphasia, and he displays aspects of each. He doesn't fall classically into any one category, but rather he segues in and out of one type of aphasia to the next. When you surprised Alex the other day, I guess you can say that you literally rendered him almost speechless. Under extreme stress, sometimes his Broca's aphasia dominates, causing his Wernicke's aphasic characteristics to disappear until he calms down again. The other day he was in full Broca mode, where the area of the brain's right hemisphere that is responsible for producing pressured speech was the only thing functioning. Typically in that mode we observe a patient that is only able to produce one syllable, and the word is usually one of an emotionally charged nature. Hence, what you witnessed the other day."

"So I can expect him to revert to this Broca's type when he sees me again?"

"No, not necessarily. We've also observed him under extreme stress when he remains in the fluent jargon-speak mode. We've never seen so many different classic aphasic mannerisms all in the same patient before, and I haven't come across anything like it in the literature." Ruth shook her head. "He's an enigma. The truth is that we never know what to expect with Alex at any given time."

"That's definitely keeping in character," Mulder mumbled under his breath.

"Excuse me?" Ruth asked sharply, obviously hearing the remark. "Agent Mulder, it's apparent that you have issues with Alex. The staff psychologist and I had a long discussion with Alex about your visit. We let him know that you would most likely be back, and very soon, and we wanted him to be better prepared to handle the stress. So the psychologist reminded him of the various tools he had provided Alex with before for dealing with difficult situations, and encouraged him to use them." At Mulder's inquiring look, she supplied "Meditation, biofeedback, physical exercise, positive thinking strategies...you know, the usual. Which is all to say that he may be able to handle your visit better and not fall into his pattern of Broca's speech." She paused, then looked him sternly in the eye. "I really have to get to my session, now. Promise me you'll be on your best behavior."

"Of course."

After Ruth left, Mulder took a seat facing the window and waited for the group to disperse. Sitting in the corner as he was, Mulder went unnoticed as they exited the solarium and entered the lounge. Krycek accompanied an elderly woman, who looked quite pleased with the freshly potted plant she was carrying. Her gait was comprised of tiny stiff steps, and Krycek was walking very slowly alongside her.

Krycek patted the leaves on her plant tenderly. "Those shoeless light ideas wander happily," he told her. The woman smiled and nodded. Krycek then poked a finger in the soil. "Today effortlessly scarbony clean not." She nodded again as they walked on.

When they reached the open door that led to the main corridor, Mulder stood and coughed to make his presence known. When Krycek noticed him, he didn't look surprised at all; in fact, he had a resigned look of expectation. Mulder walked up to them.

"Excuse me, Ma'am. May I speak with your friend here for moment, in private?"

"Yes, yes," she responded, and then looked up at Krycek. "I can make it to my room by myself, Alex, I'll be fine. Thank you so much for my precious plant."

Krycek smiled, then bent down to kiss her cheek. "Ceramic gone olive."

"Oh, such a sweet boy," she said. "I don't understand a word that you say, but you are such a sweet boy." The old lady shuffled slowly through the door, leaving the two men alone in the lounge.

"Why don't we sit here at this table?" Mulder sat down at the table, where his briefcase lay waiting.

Krycek looked at the dirt that covered his hand and wiped it on his shirt, the front of which was already smeared abundantly with soil. With a heavy sigh he took a seat across from Mulder.

"I'm not here to upset you, but I think you know me well enough to know that I don't give up easily."

Krycek looked down from Mulder's gaze to stare at the tabletop. "Mostly blue sugars sing madly," he muttered, apparently to himself.

"The stakes are too high for me not to come back and try again, Krycek." Mulder abandoned all promises of remaining calm. "It can affect life as we know it! Spender said he's already started production, so I don't have much time to get on this." He noted Krycek's helpless expression before continuing. "What I didn't tell you before was that Spender has plans to release vast numbers of the soldiers globally; their release can have potentially devastating effects for all the world's governments."

Krycek looked up at him, visibly upset at his declaration. Mulder observed that he didn't appear angry in the slightest; on the contrary he just stared at him like he was shaken to the core. Apparently the news about the grand scale of Spender's scheme upset Krycek more than Mulder had thought it would.

"Breathless seals undone critters, already! Yesterday notions sleep furiously!"

"Hey, calm down, calm down," Mulder soothed. "Obviously you're desperate to tell me something. Let's try this."

Mulder opened his briefcase and pulled out some photographs and two maps. He turned the pictures towards Krycek.

"Okay, here's a photograph of Spender and here's one of Billy Miles. I've got a map of the States and one of the world. If you know of any states or any countries that Spender may have his soldier factory then maybe you can tell me by using these photos."

Krycek glanced at the items on the table only briefly, then his eyes began to dart frantically about the room. Mulder took a deep breath; something was definitely making Krycek panicky, and he was beginning to suspect that it was more than just his inability to communicate.

"Krycek, here, please look at this picture of Spender. Krycek, please," Mulder said gently, effectively getting the man's focus back on the photograph. "Krycek, are you able to place this picture on either of these maps to show me where Spender might have his facility? Are you able to do that, Krycek?" Mulder spoke slowly and mildly, as if he were interviewing a terrified crime victim.

Unfortunately his manner did not produce the desired affect on Krycek, who was appearing more and more distraught with each passing moment. Krycek picked up the photo, looked at the maps, then looked back at the photo.

"Aaaaafh!" Krycek screamed, sweeping his arm across the table to knock all the items onto the floor. He jumped out of his seat and walked swiftly out of the room.

After retrieving his things from the floor, Mulder looked out the door and watched Krycek walking briskly down the far end of the long corridor. When he disappeared around the corner, Mulder followed him, lagging behind so that Krycek wouldn't notice as he navigated a few more hallways. Finally Mulder saw him enter a room. He paused at the door, not really knowing what more he could say to the man. As he was contemplating this, he noticed that the door had not completely closed. He peeked through the open slit in order to see if Krycek had calmed down at all. He saw him pacing back and forth on the opposite side of a bed, the presence of which confirmed that this was his private quarters. While pacing, Krycek suddenly noticed his soil-blackened hand and then looked at his soil-laden shirt. He pulled the dirty shirt over his head and threw it angrily on the floor. Mulder saw him enter the small adjoining bathroom and turn on the faucet. He watched as Krycek washed the dirt from both his real and plastic hand, then turned the faucet off and absently dried his hands while looking at his reflection in the mirror. Krycek stared into the mirror for at least a full minute. Then, to his dismay, Mulder saw Krycek's face crumble as a few sobs escaped him.

The sobbing continued as Krycek came back into the room with his head cast to the floor, and he sat on the bed with his back towards the door and Mulder. He hid his face in his hand and got control over the sobs, but his shaking shoulders revealed that he continued to cry silently. Mulder felt a pit form in his stomach as he realized that he really commiserated with the helpless man on the bed. He recalled the many times had he himself been in this position, trying to shout out what he knew to the world, only to be rendered impotent because no one in power would believe him. He felt a compelling urge to comfort the man, and almost before he was aware of his actions Mulder had entered and walked around the bed to stand in front of him. He looked down at his weeping former nemesis.

"Krycek, I...I'm sorry."

Krycek startled only momentarily, and continued to cry silently into his hand despite Mulder's presence.

"Mondaysly unsupportable dillermeeeeeee..."

The wailing moan conveyed such incredible despair that it caused the knot in Mulder's stomach to tighten even more.

"Starelessly never meaaaaaaa..."

"I don't know what to do, or say. I'm just...I'm very sorry." Mulder placed his hand on Krycek's bare shoulder.

"Trables as can't none! Kidders many powerlees know badgelessss..."
//This is unbearable! I want you to hear meeeee....//

Mulder did a double take and shook his head to clear it. "What? What did you say?"

"Badgeless notslee any siiiiit..."
//I can't stand this anymore...//

"Oh my god!!" Mulder knelt in front of Krycek, grabbing both shoulders. "Krycek, I think I heard you! I mean, I really think I heard you, what you were saying, I mean, I understood what you said just now!"

Krycek was having none of it, and pushed Mulder away from him before lowering his face once again into his hand. His silent weeping went unabated.

Mulder was still trying to sort things out. "Krycek, did you just say 'This is unbearable. I want you to hear me. I can't stand this anymore'?"

At that, Krycek stilled instantly. He raised his wet face, blinking out tears that continued to fall.

"I understood you, I know I did. Say something else."

Krycek's eyes widened. "Crayons no mores done."

"Well, you said 'crayons no mores done', which doesn't make any sense."

The brief flicker of hope Mulder had seen in Krycek's eyes vanished, and Mulder felt terrible. He couldn't figure out what in the hell had just happened. And then it hit him.

"Wait, Krycek, let's try it again. I was touching you before when I understood you. Say something again." He reached out and placed his hands on Krycek's shoulders.

Krycek sniffled, but remained silent.

"Come on, don't be afraid. Just tell me what a royal pain in the ass I've always been to you."

No response.

"Or that you've always secretly envied my tie collection."

Krycek sniffled again, then took a deep breath through his mouth. He exhaled slowly.

"The colorsbee maybe circus, only fibster is neverly know badgeless, will orangesly drink sizer badgeless clusters many."
//If this is somehow a trick, and you really cannot understand me, then you'll be crushing what little is left of me into a million pieces.//

The words came out with such profound melancholy that Mulder almost became misty-eyed. He held tight to Krycek's trembling shoulders. "I swear to god I don't know how this is happening, but, no..." he shook his head..."this is not a trick, I really can understand you, and it's not my intention to crush you into a million pieces."

Krycek froze, his eyes as wide as saucers. He began to tremble violently.

"Comser now dis out there? Comser now is dreally lippening?"
//Can this be true? Can this be really happening?//

"Yes, yes, it's true, Krycek! It *is* really happening! Go ahead, give me an order. Tell me to do something, and I'll show you."

Krycek's breaths were short and heavy as he absorbed what was happening.

"Badgeless know-none dribbled any readersly up backwards his cabinetster no gone readersly anymore. Come fibster went his legless?"
//I accidentally dropped a book behind my bookcase and haven't bothered to get it yet. Will you get it for me?//

Mulder got up and went to the small bookcase. He lifted it away from the wall and bent to pick up the book that was lying behind it. He returned and tossed the book on the bed, then once again placed his hands on Krycek's shoulders.

Krycek's trembling turned to wracking shudders as loud wrenching sobs overtook him.

"Noly clear, Noly clear! Here be has lippening?!"
//Oh god, oh god! How is this happening?!//

He was crying so violently that it was hard for him to breath, let alone speak.

Mulder knelt down in front of him, all the while keeping his hands on his shoulders. He tightened his grip in an effort to comfort the distraught man. "Hey, this is a good thing. It's okay, Krycek, it's okay."

Krycek was unable to control the huge hitching breaths of his sobs. He looked momentarily at Mulder through thick layers of tears, then slid forward off the bed and down onto Mulder's lap, wrapping his arm around Mulder's back. Mulder had no choice but to embrace Krycek while he continued to cry out his release of shock and joy. He was equally caught up in the moment, his hand absently rubbing small comforting circles on Krycek's bare back as his mind raced over countless X-Files to find any correlation. Soon the loud crying abated, although the forceful hitching breaths remained. Krycek pulled back slowly to look at Mulder and attempted to speak between sobbing breaths.

"Ba...badgeless pri...priller. The many is...ever...ever line...tis peoplesters...duly topknow legless...badgeless leverlee reminder not...peoplesters so long tree...so ling over."
//I'm...I'm sor...sorry. It's just been...so...so long...that anyone...could understand me... I never thought...anyone ever would...ever again.//

"This is amazing, Krycek. I don't think I've come across any similar phenomena in my cases over the years, but I can have Scully check the medical databases, and if that comes up empty, well, then maybe it has something to do with me. You know I was briefly telepathic, so maybe somehow that's coming back into play here."

"He creeless isn't neverlee done. Little ever sis hearty fibster topknow legless."
//I don't care about that right now. I'm just so happy you can understand me.//

"You're right. How this is happening isn't as important as the fact that now you can help me stop Spender."

With that reminder, Krycek's entire face crumbled in misery.

"Hey, what is this? I thought you wanted to help me stop Spender making his fortune by selling super-soldiers."

"Fibster neversby knowsnotwhat, his gone every wring! Knownow before his blackness, never little ironsters theys bigsters irons everywhereanywhere...never blackness, Fibman, those takeovers. That jobster those irons will giver spacedyspaces will havealotof allovers. Those biggers makings is irons meansters that watches gone faster. This spacedyspaces is havings everythingeverywheres, be when soonest motters! Says gone always, Fibster! Is never makers when broken clockedies. Omog, omog."
//You don't understand, you've got it all wrong! What you told me just now in the lounge about Spender, that he's not just making a few soldiers but immense numbers to be dispersed around the world...it isn't about Spender, Mulder, it's about colonization! The role of super-soldiers is to assist the aliens when they start to colonize. The mass production of the super-soldiers signals that the timetable has been moved up. It means the aliens are going to start colonization, maybe within a matter of months! It's too late, Mulder. There's nothing we can do in the short time that's left. Oh god, oh god.//

Mulder looked at Krycek in confusion, then smiled as realization hit him.

"This is why you went into such panic a few minutes ago in the lounge, when I gave you the details about Spender's plans. You thought it meant the aliens were coming." Mulder shook Krycek's shoulder. "Listen to me, Krycek. There are no aliens anymore. They're gone."

Krycek face remained contorted in anguish, clearly not believing.

"Spender told me he came here to see you right after you came out of your coma. Didn't he tell you anything about this?"

//Singles words blackened knowingsly his nothingster with his hoppity- hopped mines timing him living soursing on his mines only evilling.//
"The only thing he said was that he was assessed of my condition and that he hoped I spent the rest of my life rotting in my own private hell."

"Are you sure you remember if that's all he told you?"

"Onlys isn't making speaksters did sometimes never his dimling, Fibster. His knowlings nice. All done him his."
//Just because I can't talk right doesn't mean I'm stupid, Mulder. My memory's fine. That's all he told me.//

"Damn that bastard! Letting you stew in here for over a year-and-a- half thinking that we're still under threat! Jesus, there really is no end to his cruelty."

He was overcome with anger and was about to continue his tirade when he noticed that Krycek was looking at him with a hopeful expression.

"Givings his allis whatsis, sterfibling."
//Tell me what you know, Mulder.//

Mulder smiled. "Well, you may never believe this, but it all came down to the ozone layer."

Krycek narrowed his eyes, apparently trying to decipher if Mulder knew what he was talking about.

"You must have known about the problems the aliens were having with the ozone layer way before I did, Krycek. You knew they've been trying to get a handle on it for decades. You probably already knew that the aliens worked with human representatives to try to get governments worldwide to take the problem seriously. Well, no matter how much the aliens tried, the one thing they couldn't control was human greed, so the ozone problem went unabated. They couldn't prevent the sudden and drastic decrease in the ozone layer that occurred over the past few years, and with all of their superior alien technology they were helpless to stop it. What it means for us humans is that the number of skin cancers has significantly increased, and that we'd better take it an environmental warning for our future. But for the aliens, it meant that their time had run out. They didn't have the luxury of time anymore, so they decided to abandon the planet, for good."

Krycek frowned.

"Neverslee, isn't not easy. Arly fornowsky isn't eatingsnot right times news?"
//No, it couldn't be that simple. Are you sure you're not just being fed misinformation?//

"Krycek, it *is* that simple. That's the beauty of it all. The human conspirators spent the last fifty years coming up with all manner of convoluted plans and double-crosses to protect themselves, and it was all unnecessary. The fifty-year co-operation between the conspirators and the aliens finally resulted in the development of the optimal hybrids, but all it took was an hour of the sun's exposure to kill them. Just like that, all their work was good for nothing! So they did the most expedient thing and went off to bother some other planet."

Mulder shook his head and smiled. "The ozone had always been a potential problem for them, you must have known that, Krycek. And it's not misinformation. You can verify the facts yourself. Without the need for secrecy anymore, or racing for dominance over who could come up with a working vaccine first, the remaining Consortium members and their equivalents around the world became united, if only briefly. Most of the national and international government officials with Consortium ties are still in office, and a number of them have verified these facts with certain members of the Pentagon and FBI and other agencies."

Mulder watched as Krycek let the information seep into him and allow himself to believe.

"Is forly stance, will?"
//It's really true, then?//

At Mulder's nod, Krycek once again let the tears fall, although this time he had a wide smile on his face. He lifted himself off of Mulder and stood up, with Mulder copying his actions. Krycek grabbed Mulder's hand.

"There so lundersby, low evernot wanting there so lundersby!"
//It's over, I can't believe it's over!//

He stepped away from Mulder and laughed hysterically, then started to pace rapidly back and forth, waving his arm about with nervous energy.

"Theresolundersby, theresolundersby, theresolundersby!"

Without warning he broke out from his pacing and ran from the room, continuing to run at full speed down the hallways and corridor until he reached an exterior exit door. Mulder caught up with him just as Krycek reached a door that opened onto the grounds. Krycek opened the door and Mulder put a hand on his arm.

"Left his only, Fibmanster."
//Leave me be, Mulder.//

The firm look Krycek gave him made his intentions clear; he needed some time alone to process the enormity of this information. He let Krycek go and watched him sprint across the large expanse of grass, not stopping until he reached the far end with its flowerbeds and trees. He saw Krycek drop to his knees and lift his face to the heavens. Mulder remembered back to when he himself was first informed that the alien threat was no more, and how surreal it felt to have such an immense weight lifted off of his shoulders. He realized that Krycek might need a lot of time to himself right now, so after watching him a little while longer, he left him to deal with his personal solace and went to wait for him in his room.

Sitting on the bed, Mulder surveyed the room to get an idea of the type of existence that Krycek had been living the past one-and-a-half years since he had come out of the coma. The room was plain and sparsely furnished. The radio and small television looked rather old, as did the ancient turntable and the small collection of record albums. There was no sign of any newer technology. A closer inspection of the books in the bookcase revealed that they were obviously well-used. Mulder surmised that most of these items must have been hand-me-downs, left behind by previous patients or perhaps just old stock from the storage room or patient lounge. This made sense to Mulder, since Krycek received room and board instead of a salary. He wondered momentarily why he didn't have an old computer in here, since the internet could open up the whole world for a disabled recluse, which was essentially what Krycek had become. But then he realized that Krycek wouldn't be able to use a computer; he could recognize all the letters and symbols on the keyboard but he wouldn't be able to punch the right keys.

Mulder tried to imagine himself in Krycek's place. He wondered how Krycek reconciled the fact that his previous life of leading an international existence involving dangerous work with high-stakes consequences of global importance was now all reduced to whatever nonverbal tasks he could accomplish within the walls of this small rural rehabilitation center. Despite his predisposition to always vilify the man as a callous monster, Mulder couldn't help but think that such a dramatic change in lifestyle would humble Krycek. At least he hoped it would, because he was planning to work with him to catch Spender, and he cringed at the possibility that underneath all that nonsensical jargon was the same arrogant bastard that he knew before.

Almost an hour passed before Krycek returned with a bounce in his step and a look of renewed vigor. He brushed past Mulder to retrieve a clean shirt from his dresser and pulled it over his head and down over his bare torso, all the while displaying a small grin.

"I'd ask if you were okay, but by the looks of you I'd say you were."

Krycek sprang over to Mulder and grasped his hand.

//I feel good. Better than I have in a long time.//

"Hey, I think I'm getting the hang of listening to you more easily. I can understand you more clearly now without having to filter out all that jargon at the same time. Okay, listen, Krycek, let's get down to business. You will help me find Spender, won't you? The aliens may have left the planet, but if we don't stop him the world could still suffer dire consequences."

//I'll do everything I can to stop that cigarette-smoking son of a bitch.//

"Good answer, because I planned to get the information out of you one way or another, whether it was willingly or not."

//Yeah, yeah, no need to play the tough guy, Mulder. I said I'd help. I just don't know if I've got the information that you seem to think I have. It may take me some time to remember what was in all of the files I've seen over the years.//

"You can start by telling me everything you know about Spender's activities, everything he had his fingers in, even the seemingly inconsequential holdings."

//That's decades of information, Mulder. It'll take days for me to sort things out and tell you everything.//

"I realize that. That's why I'm taking you home with me."

//What?//

"We're racing the clock on this, Krycek, so we've got to work in the most expedient way possible. It's a five-hour drive here; I can't be driving back and forth every time I need to ask you a question. And if you should remember something, you'd have no way to let anyone know to contact me. We're not going to get anywhere on this unless I have you right at my fingertips, literally and figuratively."

Krycek look like he welcomed the idea eagerly.

//Okay. It'll be good to get out and about.//

"I know you've got responsibilities here with your job, but I'd like for you to come with me right away, today. I'll talk to the administrator and tell him it's official FBI business, if you want. While I do that you can pack up your things."

//Wait for me, I want to go with you when you talk to him.//

Krycek sprang away and opened a few drawers, tossing clothes onto the bed before grabbing some shirts from his closet. He went into the bathroom and came back carrying his toiletries. He piled the clothes together and then went to touch Mulder's hand.

//This is it, everything I own in the world. I'll just need to grab a plastic bag or something to carry these in. They brought me here in an ambulance so I didn't exactly arrive with a suitcase.//

Mulder looked at the small amount of clothing on the bed. Krycek's worldly possessions came down to several long- and short-sleeved shirts that all had 'Elmhurst Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center' imprinted on them, a few pairs of pants, underwear, socks, a toothbrush, and a disposable razor. Apparently the shoes on his feet were his only pair. A thought immediately came to Mulder's mind that it was only right that Krycek should have so little; it was certainly justifiable retribution for his past deeds that after a lifetime he only owned such meager belongings. But as soon as he thought it he felt guilty at having such a selfish thought over someone who was now living with a terrible disability.

"Okay, let's go to the Admin Office. We'll get these on the way out."

After the meeting with the administrator, Krycek took Mulder to see all of the employees he had worked with since his arrival there, both as a patient and as a coworker. Mulder said Krycek's goodbyes for him, although never revealing that he could understand him. Ruth and the others didn't know why their enigmatic Alex wanted to leave, but they had never before seen him so joyful so they were happy for him.

They stopped in the lounge where a large group of patients was watching television. Alex identified a dozen of them with severe expressive aphasia and had Mulder test his abilities with them surreptitiously. Mulder couldn't understand any of them. That meant that it was something specific about Alex that Mulder was able to tap into. They came up with a working theory that something within Mulder, either remnants of the Tunguskan oil or else his partially alien DNA, was able to converse with the remnants of the sentient oil alien that must still exist in Krycek's system. Krycek expressed that he didn't like the idea that there might still be vestiges of that oil inside of him, but he wasn't going to argue his just-found good fortune.

During the long drive back to Alexandria, Mulder kept his right hand on the passenger seat to provide easy access for two-way communication. If Krycek had something to say he just needed to reach across his lap and touch Mulder's hand, but he remained quiet. To fill the silence, Mulder was about to turn on the radio but then decided to try to make conversation.

"You know, you look pretty good for someone who was shot in the head," Mulder observed.

Krycek, who had been gazing out the window, turned his head sharply towards him and looked pissed.

"Hey, I didn't mean to offend you, I meant it. I don't think anyone would be able to tell there was anything wrong with you by looking at you except for that tiny scar on your forehead. And your overall appearance looks healthy, better than some of the times I'd seen you looking pretty skinny. I guess the three square meals a day you were getting at the rehab center must've agreed with you."

Krycek's eyes squinted and he gave Mulder a curious look. He reached across his lap and touched Mulder's hand.

//I hadn't realized that you were so concerned about the state of my health over the years, Mulder,// Krycek intoned sarcastically.

"Not hardly, I just can't help it if I've got an excellent recall for details. Any trained professional observer would have noticed that you looked downright gaunt when you gave me the tip about the Oregon ship."

//Yeah, well Spender put me in a Tunisian prison that made the Tunguska gulag seem like the Hilton. I was there almost a year before he pulled me out.//

"Oh...I didn't know. So, what'd you do to deserve that, hmm? Get greedy and sell more of his info?"

//Fuck you, Mulder.//

"Well you must have done something to piss him off. Hey, I need to know this stuff, Krycek, that was part of the deal. You tell me anything and everything you know about Spender, and that includes your dealings with him, all of them. Every dirty, bloody, murderous task."

//You are such a prick, Mulder! You've found me guilty and have convicted me already without any of the facts. For your information I have no idea why Spender shipped me off there. All I know is that I thought I'd be there forever until he retrieved me just so I could deliver that message to you about the ship.//

"He got you out because of me? Heh, guess this is the third time I've gotten you out of prison one way or the other, if you consider Elmhurst as a figurative prison, and of course, we can't forget how I got you out of the gulag..."

Krycek shoved Mulder's hand away violently.

"Stockety wance!!"

"What'd you say, Krycek? You just swore at me again, didn't you? Well, listen up and listen up good. It's obvious I need you for this job, but I'm not gonna put up with any of your crap! You act civil with me and I'll keep you along for the entire duration of this operation; otherwise, once I get the information I need out of you to find Spender, I'll go find him myself and dump your sorry ass back at Elmhurst."

Krycek grabbed his hand. //So this is how it's gonna be? You get to cut into me whenever you want and I'm not supposed to react?//

Mulder nodded curtly. "Pretty much, yeah. I'm the one running this show."

Awaiting a response that didn't appear to be forthcoming, Mulder took his eyes away from the road and looked over at his passenger. Krycek was staring at him coolly. He let go of Mulder's hand and turned away to look out his passenger-side window. He propped his chin in his just- freed hand, making it clear that he didn't want to talk anymore.

Mulder turned his attention back to driving, angered that Krycek could already piss him off when just a couple of hours ago they had both reveled together in a wondrous paranormal event. Upon further reflection, he acknowledged that what Krycek had said was true; Krycek hadn't instigated anything and was merely responding to the pointed barbs that were thrown at him. Mulder tried to figure out how it was that Krycek could always get under his skin so easily, even for seemingly no reason. He couldn't figure it out, but it didn't make the idea of living with the man very palatable and certainly didn't bode well for their upcoming partnership. He decided that he would try to suppress any offensive remarks from escaping, since stopping Spender was so much more important than any grievances he might have with the man. To that end, he decided that it would be best if he cleared the air.

"Okay, look. We can both be pricks sometimes, so let's try not to get at each other too much and just concentrate on Spender."

Krycek ignored him and continued to look out his side window.

Mulder sighed. "It's a long drive, so I'll use the time to bring you up to speed on what you've missed the last couple of years...things that you wouldn't be able to find in any newspaper."

He told Krycek about the alien departures in a much more thorough manner than he had done in his room, spending a substantial amount of time filling in the details. He informed him that the government had made a monumental effort to whitewash any evidence that aliens had ever been here, removing anyone from office or any agency position that might leak the news. These positions were then filled with people who had no knowledge of the aliens. In this way they hoped to perpetuate the falsehood that aliens had never existed in the first place. At least that's what their agenda seemed to be to Mulder, who had found it impossible to find anyone in the FBI to believe what he had been through. He told Krycek it was as if he were living in a time warp, and doubted that he'd be able to get anyone to listen to him about this new threat.

Many miles later, Mulder finally finished telling Krycek what he thought he needed to be apprised of in a professional capacity, so he began to bring him up to date on his personal information. He told him how he was back at the X-Files, but that Scully was no longer his partner since she had decided to teach part-time now that she was a mother.

Krycek, who Mulder noted had been impassive during the duration of his dialogue, suddenly turned his head sharply and slowly reached for Mulder's hand.

//The child survived?// he asked cautiously.

"Yes, turns out he wasn't any threat to the aliens at all, so they left him alone. William's been the best part of my life."

Mulder could feel the tension in the car build, but he remained silent, waiting for Krycek to offer up anything. It wasn't long before he did.

//Mulder, you have to know I didn't really mean for Skinner to terminate Scully's pregnancy. He found me in your hospital room and I needed to come up with a reason as to what I was doing there. I told him that business about killing the baby just to jerk him around. Okay, there, I admit it, I'd had him under my control for awhile by then, and one of the few pleasures I had in my life was watching him squirm. Sorry if that pisses you off, but there it is. The point is, I meant no harm to your kid, and the real reason I was there was to...//

"Was to what?"

//I'll tell you, but you won't believe me.//

"Give me some credit, will you? I know you were there to inject me with that serum that saved my life. You think I bought into that nonsense that simply turning off the hospital equipment and giving me anti-virals was able to reverse the process? I figured that one out a long time ago. Still don't know why you did it; I just figured that you or your bosses still needed me around like they always did in the past, for whatever reasons they had."

Krycek remained silent for a minute.

//I did save your life in that hospital, Mulder, so you must know...// He paused, then proceeded tentatively. //...so you must know that...that night...in the garage. I need you to know I wasn't going to go through with it. I saw you there and I just needed to scare you off, to buy me some time.//

Mulder could somehow feel the emotions along with the words coming through with Krycek's touch, and he knew that he had been spoken to truthfully. He had always suspected that he had never actually been in danger from Krycek in that situation, but now he suddenly realized that he had always known it to be true.

"I know. You may have been good at bluffing your way through some situations, but that wasn't one of them. I could see right through you."

Krycek didn't offer any more explanation, and the silence in the car stretched on as the miles went by. Finally Mulder picked up where he had left off.

"Like I was saying, William is the best part of my life..."

For the duration of the trip home, the proud father inundated Krycek with story after story about his son.

Mulder awoke the next morning, refreshed and eager to begin picking Krycek's brain. He started the coffee and after a quick shower he emerged from the bathroom and noticed that his bedroom door was still closed. He had given over his room to Krycek, since he preferred sleeping on the sofa anyway, but now it was apparent that he'd have to move some of his clothes to the closet in Will's room for easier access. He wanted to change out of his bathrobe so he went into his room to collect his clothes. Although he tried to be quiet he must have caused enough noise to rouse the sleeping man, for Krycek suddenly sat upright in bed and gasped, staring at Mulder with a look of fear and confusion.

"You all right?"

Mulder touched Krycek's bare shoulder and felt that he was trembling.

"You all right, Krycek?"

Krycek tried to blink himself awake, but he still looked scared, as if awakening from a nightmare.

//Can...can you understand me?// he asked shakily.

"Of course I can, why?"

Krycek inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, calming the tremors in the process.

//I didn't remember where I was at first.//

"Relax, you're not dreaming. You really are here in my apartment, and I really can understand you."

Mulder observed that he quickly surveyed his surroundings as if for extra verification that he wasn't still back in his room at the rehab center, and felt the shoulder under his fingers relax.

//Is that coffee I smell?//

And with that Krycek scurried out of bed and out of the room. He watched Krycek disappear and wondered if every morning he would be waking up with the same momentary but frightening doubts. Mulder knew that if their situations were reversed, he certainly would be himself.

After they had finished breakfast, Mulder got right down to business. "Okay, so tell me what you saw in the Consortium files that can lead us to Spender."

//Mulder, I...I don't know. I was only allowed direct access to some of the files. There were a lot more that I wasn't supposed to be involved with, and I just took whatever brief opportunities I had to steal glances at them before anyone caught me. There were hundreds of files...I'm not sure which ones involved Spender directly. I'm not sure which information he's talking about.//

"Obviously they'd be the files pertaining to the super-soldiers."

//The files were all-encompassing. If there were reports on the soldiers, that information would have been included with everything else they were experimenting with. At least that's what I recall.//

Mulder furrowed his brows. "You mean there was no private file of Spender's that dealt exclusively with super-soldiers?"

//If there was, I don't remember seeing it.//

"Damn it! Where the hell are we supposed to start looking, then?! Well?!"

//...I don't know...give me some time to think about this.//

"Time isn't on our side, Krycek!"

//I know that! Jesus, I'm trying Mulder! I want this too. I'm sorry that the information Spender thinks I might have in my head isn't just packaged up and ready for the taking. I'm trying to figure it out!//

Mulder could see that he had made Krycek quite agitated. "Okay, okay, sorry. Why don't you start by telling me what you do remember?"

Krycek calmed a bit, but remained silent while he apparently collected his thoughts. After a minute he looked at Mulder.

//The Consortium funded hundreds of facilities, most of them legitimate businesses that are probably still functioning. They would use them as a front and do their experiments secretly in a sectioned off area of the site with high security access. The function of each place wasn't necessarily devoted to one thing, or sometimes the purpose of a certain site would change and be devoted to a new project. I do have thorough information on a great many of those places, Mulder. I've been to quite a few of them. None of them ever had anything to do with the soldiers but maybe we can find some information there that can give us some leads, or if we're lucky, maybe some of those facilities are involved with some aspect of the soldiers themselves now, too.//

"What kind of information are you expecting to find at these places that will give us leads?"

//I probably won't know until I see it. Maybe...I don't know, maybe some of the former labs devoted to biochemistry and cloning are now dealing with the iron and titanium compounds that the original soldiers were made of.//

Mulder sat back in his chair and shook his head. "Well, it's sure not the definite start that I thought we were going to have, but at least it gives us a starting point. You said there were hundreds of them?"

//Yes. I'm sorry, but it's all I can come up with right now.//

"No, no, it's okay, I appreciate it, and I know you're doing your best. Well, which ones do we check out first?"

During the next few weeks they researched the function of many facilities and discussed the reasons why some of them might be good to visit first while others might be put lower on the list. This resulted in the creation of an itinerary that would require a number of driving trips and flights across the country to their selected sites.

Over the course of these travels the men fell into a surprisingly easy partnership. Mulder found that he was pleased to be reacquainted with the sharp mind and problem-solving strategies that Krycek displayed, which were some of the reasons he had enjoyed working with him during their days together in the FBI. Another reason was his quick wit and dry humor, which could match Mulder's any day. The importance of their mission kept their hostilities at bay, and although they worked diligently there was room for their intelligent, focused discussions to be interspersed with gentle banter. All in all they formed a comfortable and relaxed relationship, which was perhaps influenced by the constant proximity of their bodies that was required for them to function as an interactive unit. It became second nature to them to regularly be touching a bare spot of skin on the other man, since Mulder's ability to understand Krycek's speech was hindered if the touch was through clothing. Therefore one or the other of them often found himself with his fingers simply resting on the back of the other's hand, during and awaiting conversation.

The sites that they had visited early on held no useful information, but they persevered. The two of them were energized about the prospects of investigating the next several facilities on their list, sharing a growing excitement that the conquest of their common enemy had to be just around the corner. Each morning they found themselves waking up with the optimistic galvanizing belief that this would be the day that they would make a significant finding in their search.

On one such morning, Mulder wrapped himself in his bathrobe after taking his shower and headed out of the bathroom to get dressed. He noticed Krycek on the living room floor, lying flat on his back with his knees raised and clad only in his underwear and T-shirt. He walked over to Krycek and touched his bare toes to Krycek's bare foot.

"Is something wrong, or do you just find that my ceiling makes for fascinating study?"

//Just taking a break in my reps. I came out to take my shower but you'd beaten me to it, so I thought I'd better get my back exercises in.//

With that, Krycek lifted his pelvis and lower back up from the floor and held the position for several seconds before lowering himself back down.

//Gotta keep my back strong because of the arm,// he explained, then lifted his pelvis again to repeat the exercise.

"Oh. I didn't realize it was that heavy to wear."

//It's not that,// he said as he came down to rest his back flat on the floor. //With so much less body weight on one side, my spine could tend to start to curve. Don't want to end up with scoliosis.//

"I never thought of that." Mulder watched as Krycek continued his repetitions. "Is that why you wear the prosthetic most of the time, even when we're home?"

//Yeah, partly. My left arm evens out the weight and helps keep my back straight. Keeps me balanced.//

"You said 'partly'. Why else do you wear it?"

//Because it's my left arm,// he responded in an explanatory tone that made the question sound stupid.

Krycek got up from the floor and replaced his foot back to where it touched Mulder's. //I'm used to working out every day at the rehab center with the weight machines that the physical therapists recommended for me. I don't suppose you belong to a local gym that we could go to, do you?//

"No, I just use the Hoover gym and pool," replied Mulder with a sudden strange feeling of guilt.

Krycek shrugged. //Well, mind if I go along with you on some of your runs? Keeping my leg muscles stretched and in shape is good for the back, too.//

"Sure, I'd like the company." Mulder had responded automatically, but he was surprised by how true this reply had been. With the exception of William, Mulder was used to a relatively solitary existence outside of work and he never thought that he could tolerate someone else living in his apartment with him. But even after this relatively brief period of time, he was finding that he enjoyed the company of another adult sharing his home.

//Thanks. Done in the bathroom?// Mulder nodded. //Good. Oh, and I think you should know. There *is* something up there, Mulder.//

"I've been saying that for years!" Mulder grinned.

//I meant the spots on your ceiling, smart ass.//

"I know. Grape juice from Will's birthday party. Don't ask."

//Don't ask what? How it got there, or why you haven't bothered to clean it up yet?//

"Both. Go take your shower," Mulder chuckled as he headed off to get dressed.

The two men spent the rest of the day reviewing and revamping their upcoming travel plans. They were home in between excursions and were attempting to narrow down the reasons why the places that they had already visited had held no clues for them, in an effort to make better decisions for their next trip. After hours of often frustrating work, both men needed a dinner break and they headed out to a local restaurant.

The waiter placed their menus across from each other on the small table, indicating that the men were supposed to sit opposite of each other. However, Mulder took the seat directly next to Krycek so that he would be within easy reach for conversation. The waiter smiled, apparently at their choice of seating arrangements, and he gave a conspiratorial look to the men.

"I'm Daniel, and I'll be your waiter for the evening. Let me start off by telling you the specials," he said to Krycek as he looked him up and down.

Mulder noticed the waiter's interest in Krycek just as his cell phone rang. His caller ID told him that it was Scully.

"Hey Scully, what's up?...No, I didn't forget to call to tell Will goodnight. I was going to call after dinner."

Mulder rolled his eyes for Krycek's benefit. "Yes, I realize that you two already had your dinner awhile ago. I was referring to my own dinner." He looked up at the waiter, who was still lingering by Krycek's side. "Uh, this may take awhile. Can you give us a few minutes before telling us about the specials or whatever?" The waiter departed, and Mulder talked back into the phone. "Yes, I know I haven't seen Will very much lately."

Mulder spoke to Scully for quite awhile, trying to ease her concerns about the fact that he wasn't able to spend much time with their son anymore. As the conversation became drawn out for an inordinate amount of time, Mulder cast his eyes down towards the tabletop so that he could avoid Krycek's growing look of impatience. After a few more minutes passed, the waiter returned to their table. Mulder looked at Krycek apologetically and then turned to the waiter.

"Sorry, can you give me a little while more? My ex is just about to put my kid on the phone." When he spoke again it was with the higher- pitched, more gleeful tone that he reserved only for his son. "Heya, Will! How's my best buddy, huh?"

Mulder knew that William liked to talk forever, and yet as the conversation lengthened he didn't seem to mind that Krycek was left with no recourse except to enviously eye the foods being served to the other tables. The waiter approached again several minutes later but veered away without a word before he ever reached their table, apparently realizing that Mulder would not want his conversation with his son to be disturbed. Mulder watched as the waiter spoke to the busboy, who disappeared in the back but reappeared shortly with a pitcher of water and a breadbasket. The busboy delivered these items to their table, and the apparently ravenous Krycek wasted no time in biting into a dinner roll.

"Wow, it sounds like you had a lot of fun with Grandma Maggie! I wish I could have been there with you. Thanks for telling me all about it, Will. Now listen, buddy, it's time for me to talk with Mommy again, okay? It's almost bedtime, so I think you should get ready for bed. Goodnight, Will, I love you."

Scully got back on the phone and Mulder finished up the call and hung up. Krycek made a show of putting his hand under the table and waited for Mulder's to join it.

//Jeez, you've been talking on the phone forever, Mulder. It's a wonder your battery didn't die on you.//

"You think *this* was long? I once tied up an air phone for three hours. I don't speak Japanese, but I think some business traveler told me to stick sushi where the sun don't shine."

//I'll stick your phone up there, too, if we don't order soon. I'm starving.//

"Hmm, speaking of sushi, I could go for some right now. Too bad they don't serve any here."

//I hope you don't eat sushi with raw fish in it.//

"Of course, that's the best kind!"

//Are you nuts? Do you know how much bacteria is in uncooked food?//

"Yesss, mother. Next thing you'll be telling me is not to order anything cooked less than well-done." Mulder perused the menu. "Ooh, lucky me. They've got steak tartare."

//Mulll-der. Are you going to make me cite the statistics of the number of people who've died as a result of eating raw steak? Do you have a death wish or something?//

"Look at it this way, Krycek. If I ever get on your nerves too much you can commit the perfect crime. No one would ever suspect you of killing me if the murder weapon was a top sirloin."

Krycek rolled his eyes. //Don't tempt me.// He then sighed and furrowed his brows. //Seriously, Mulder, you've got a kid to think about now, so you shouldn't be taking any stupid risks like inviting E. coli or salmonella into your system.//

"Anyone ever tell you you're a bad date in a restaurant?"

//Well, contrary to what you may think, you're not immortal, you know.// He looked at Mulder very intensely. //Have you ever once thought seriously about dying?//

The humor immediately left Mulder's face and he stared at Krycek with solemn eyes. "Yes, once. Didn't...didn't I ever tell you about that incident?"

Krycek's eyes widened and he leaned in closer. //No, you didn't. Tell me about it.//

A haunted look overcame Mulder. "It's difficult to talk about. You see, it happened when...when..." he said with, struggling to get the words out.

//When what, Mulder?//

"When Scully dragged me to the Ice Capades. I had to sit there for almost two hours, Krycek. Two hours!"

Krycek stared at Mulder in stunned silence for a few seconds before breaking hand contact and pulling back away from him. His spontaneous reaction was that he grabbed a dinner roll and threw it at Mulder, where it bounced off his shoulder and fell to the floor and began to roll. Both men visually followed the path of the traveling dinner roll until it came to a stop by hitting another patron's shoe. The patron continued eating, apparently never having noticed that he had just been assaulted by the cruising bread. Mulder and Krycek looked from the roll back to each other, and they simultaneously erupted into a fit of laughter.

The waiter reappeared and the men pulled themselves together.

"Well, gentlemen, before you order, I'd like to tell you the specials. We're featuring an international menu with a wonderful German Rouladen. We also have tender filet mignon tips bathed in French burgundy sauce with truffles." The waiter rattled off the rest of the specials, never once taking his eyes off of Krycek.

"Thanks, just give us a minute," Mulder said. When the dismissed waiter was sufficiently far away, Mulder raised his brows. "Well, looks like we know what Daniel would like for dinner, if he had his way."

Krycek put his hand back under the table. //What are you talking about?//

"Oh, come on, the guy couldn't stop staring at you. I'd say he was quite smitten by you, Krycek," Mulder snickered.

//You're crazy. He was just trying to be friendly so he could score a big tip.//

"Oh yeah, he wants to score a big tip, all right," Mulder chuckled. "And I know whose."

Krycek rolled his eyes.

"Hey, when he comes back, should I ask him exactly where he would like you to put your big tip?" Mulder asked, waggling his brows.

//Cut it out and just decide what you want to eat.//

"Lighten up," he chuckled as he scanned the menu and the list of specials. "Hmm. You ever heard of Rouladen?"

//Sounds like something you'd take for an upset stomach.//

"Yep. Guess I'll stick with the filet mignon tips. Does medium-well meet with your approval?" he asked teasingly.

Krycek then decided on what he wanted, and when the waiter returned, Mulder ordered for both of them. Later, during the course of their meal, Mulder held up the conversation single-sidedly since it was too difficult to touch Krycek discreetly under the table and eat at the same time. Inevitably he turned the topic of discussion to their upcoming trip and the plans that they had revised earlier that day.

"So, you think we made the right decisions in changing the order of the list of facilities that we're going to tackle?"

Krycek put his fork down, suddenly obviously upset, and touched Mulder's hand. //Hell if I know. This is so damned frustrating! We spent all day revising our plans, and it was all based on mere speculation on my part.// He shook his head. //I'm reaching back in my memories with everything I have, trying to remember any little thing that might help us make sense of all of this, but all I can come up with is possibilities. I wish I had more to go on, Mulder.//

"At least you *have* the information necessary in order to even come up with speculations and possibilities. That's more than what I can give to this operation. So don't put yourself down. Spender left us with practically nothing to go on, so it's like finding a needle in a global- sized haystack."

//Is it? Sometimes I wonder if he's really all that hard to find.//

"What?"

//I can't help it, Mulder. I keep getting this feeling that the answer is right in front of us, but we can't see it.// Krycek turned his head and narrowed his eyes in apparent contemplation. He looked back at Mulder. //If we become blinded by the stealth of our adversary we may fail to see the simplicity of its capture,// he quoted.

"Churchill? General Patton?"

//The Crocodile Hunter.// He shrugged in response to the look Mulder shot at him. //I watched a lot of TV at the rehab center.//

Daniel came up to their table. "Well, I see that you're not quite done with the main course. I'll come back in a few minutes to tell you about our dessert menu. The dessert chef here can do absolute magic." He turned to Krycek. "I bet you're a man that can appreciate an artist's magic touch," he said suggestively, before departing.

"Oh my god. You still gonna tell me he's not flirting with you?"

Krycek just looked at Mulder indifferently.

"So, tell me, Krycek. *Are* you a man that can appreciate an artist's magic touch?" asked Mulder in an expert imitation of Daniel's voice. He reached over towards Krycek's head and pulled a quarter out from behind his ear. Mulder held the quarter up in front of Krycek proudly.

Krycek scrunched his face. //That's pretty pathetic, Mulder.//

"I'll have you know that I impressed all of the girls in my sixth grade class with that trick."

Krycek turned his head from Mulder and began to scan the crowded restaurant.

"What are you doing?"

//Looking for a sixth-grade girl.//

"Very funny. What about you? Don't you know any magic tricks?"

Krycek turned back around and eyed Mulder's dinner plate. //Sure. I bet I could make the rest of those filet tips disappear.//

Mulder chuckled and shoved his plate closer to Krycek. "Here, go for it."

A few minutes later Daniel returned, and once again lavished all of his attention onto Krycek. "Dessert? We have a lovely tiramisu that is to die for," he said.

Krycek shut his eyelids halfway, as if the idea of the dessert was overly appealing.

Mulder knew how much his partner enjoyed desserts, and he watched in amusement as Krycek's face reacted to the descriptions of the different confections.

"And a raspberry tart with an absolutely delicious cream sauce," Daniel said, eating up Krycek with his eyes. Krycek lowered his head slightly and peered up at Daniel through his lashes. Daniel smiled. "That one's a personal favorite of mine. I love the cream," Daniel said slowly, licking his lips. "Don't you love cream?" he asked Krycek.

Krycek turned towards Mulder and licked his lips. Mulder knew that Krycek's action was simply an automatic response to the description of the dessert, but he found it to be strangely alluring. That thought made him almost burst out laughing, but he held it inside. Playing along, he slowly licked his lips back at Krycek, who appeared unaccountably unsettled by Mulder's actions and looked away and back up to the waiter.

"And the piece de resistance, we have a sinful chaud et tres froid chocolat. Doesn't that sound perfectly decadent?" Daniel asked, obviously entranced by the attention that Krycek was returning to him. "It's like a wicked dream."

Krycek looked back up at Daniel and grinned, as if it did sound decadent to him, but then he turned towards Mulder with a puzzled expression.

"What?" Mulder asked him.

Krycek didn't say anything. He just kept giving Mulder the same puzzled expression. Several long moments went by.

"What? I don't know what you're trying to tell me, or ask me," Mulder said.

Krycek's expression became frustrated and he whispered to Mulder.

//Ask him what that last one is.//

"What? It's too noisy in here, I can't hear you. Talk louder," Mulder implored.

//Ask him what that last one is,// Krycek repeated, slightly louder.

"He wants to know what that last one is," Mulder said to the waiter.

"Ooh, a foreigner, how exotic," Daniel remarked excitedly. "I've never heard a language like that before. What country is he from?"

"He's not foreign. He has a speaking disorder from a brain injury he sustained," Mulder explained.

Krycek glared at Mulder, who was taken aback by the sudden anger in his partner's eyes.

"Oh, oh my," blurted Daniel, sounding somewhat dumbfounded. Mulder looked back up to the waiter and noticed that all traces of lust had left Daniel's face. For the first time that evening Daniel avoided looking at Krycek and spoke directly to Mulder. "Uh, that last one is just a warm brownie with ice cream on top. The only thing fancy about it is the name," he said distractedly. The waiter had become noticeably uncomfortable, but Mulder ignored his state of being and turned back to Krycek.

"Krycek? Which dessert did you want?"

//Just get the check so we can get out of here,// Krycek said softly but angrily.

"I thought you wanted dessert." Krycek looked like he was going to explode, so Mulder turned back to Daniel. "We'll just take the check, please."

Daniel and Mulder handled the bill, and then the waiter scurried away without a word. Mulder turned back to Krycek.

"So what got up your butt all of a sudden?"

Krycek's cheeks flushed with anger. //How could you do that to me?// he fumed, pinning Mulder with his glare.

"Do what?" Mulder asked, confused.

//You *told* him about my injury.//

"Yeah, so? It was the truth."

//Jesus, Mulder, are you being purposefully dense here? Couldn't you tell that I didn't want him to know about my speech? That I didn't want him to hear me talk?//

"How would I know that?"

//Oh gee, I don't know. How about the fact that I was obviously trying *not* to speak in front of him, and when I did I made sure I whispered. Or at least I tried to, until you made me talk loud enough for him to hear me!//

"I don't get it. You never cared if any other waiters ever heard you speak before."

//Christ, Mulder, his whole demeanor changed when you told him I was brain damaged. It was like he couldn't get away from me fast enough.//

"Sorry," Mulder said only somewhat contritely. "But if Daniel has a problem with people who are different, then that's his weakness, not yours."

//You don't get it,// Krycek muttered, casting his head down.

"Well, what does it matter, anyway? He may have been flirting with you, but it's not like you were really flirting back at him. He's a guy."

Krycek shot his head up and stared at Mulder, looking both hurt and angry.

//And how the hell would you know whether I'm into guys or not?//

Mulder sat back, momentarily surprised, before raising his brows and grinning. "Well, well, do tell," he said bemused. "Are you?"

Krycek's face contorted in anger. //That's not the fucking point!!// he screamed as he flew up from his chair. He broke hand contact and gave Mulder one last glare before he turned and strode briskly towards the door.

Mulder noticed that a good portion of the other diners were staring, wondering about the loud outburst in gibberish that had come from his table. He got up and left the building, where he caught up with Krycek in the parking lot. Mulder passed him and unlocked his car, and they both got in without a word. Mulder didn't turn on the engine, and the two of them sat in silence looking straight ahead of them out of the windshield. He let the silence prevail for a couple of minutes while he reviewed what had happened in his mind, stealing occasional glances at Krycek's face to try to profile what he was feeling. Slowly, everything clicked together in Mulder's mind, and he felt terrible.

"Okay, I get it now. You weren't really flirting with that guy, but he thought you were, and he kept his end of the conversation up because of that. So, in your own way you were actually talking with him, which you've never been able to do with anyone else but me. Now granted, you were only using body language, so the communication with the waiter was very limited. But the fact that you were able to communicate at all with someone, in any way, was precious to you."

Krycek turned his head towards the passenger window.

"I ruined that opportunity for you. I'm sorry."

He heard Krycek take a deep breath, hold it for a second, and then release it slowly. Krycek turned towards Mulder and touched his hand.

//You don't have anything to be sorry for, you didn't know what was going on. I just over-reacted, that's all.//

Mulder stared at Krycek's fingers as they rested atop his own fingers. He cupped Krycek's hand within his, then lifted their coupled hands towards his face to get a better look at them. He intensely studied their joined hands in a clinical manner, taking the time to recognize that their union was a real X-file.

Mulder spoke while still staring at their hands. "You know, this thing we have together, whatever mystery it is that allows me to understand you through touch, I've been taking it for granted. I mean, sure, I know I have to touch you to understand you, but then I can simply turn around and talk to anyone else, anywhere, any time, including just picking up the phone. So to me, you're just one more person I can talk with." He lowered their hands back down and looked at Krycek. "But to you, I'm it." Mulder shook his head. "I don't know how I'd cope if I was in your place. I'm sorry if I haven't been seeing it from your side enough of the time."

Krycek lowered his head and didn't respond, although Mulder could feel him gently tighten his fingers around his.

"I'm sorry that you had to be stuck with such a stupid, insensitive lout like me," Mulder said in a lighter tone, trying to change the mood.

//Insensitive I can take,// said Krycek as he raised his head. //Just don't do anything stupid like stand in front of a bullet,// he smirked.

Mulder noticed the incongruity between Krycek's chiding tone with his obvious acute need for Mulder to stay safe.

"Too late for that, I'm afraid," he chuckled. "But I'll try not to from now on." Parts of their earlier conversation in the restaurant came back to him. "And I promise not to eat raw fish or meat, either." Judging by the embarrassed look that suddenly covered Krycek's face, Mulder surmised that the man's earlier complaints about his food choices were made primarily out of a fearful need to keep his only source of communication alive and well. Mulder felt badly for him, but released his hand.

"It's late, we better get some sleep before we take off again tomorrow. How about some tunes on the way home?"

Mulder turned on the engine and clicked on a radio station, filling the car with music as they drove away.

A few weeks later, during a long drive to one facility, Mulder pulled into a fast-food restaurant's drive-through lane. Krycek reached over his lap to touch Mulder's hand.

//A drive-through? You don't want to stop and eat inside?// Krycek inquired.

"Well I figured we just had a rest-stop a few minutes ago before we pulled off the highway, and since we're just over an hour away from the site I thought it best if we just eat on the run. You do want to get there as soon as possible, don't you?"

//You better believe it,// Krycek agreed. //Okay, takeout it is, then. I really think we're going to find something once we get there, Mulder, I feel it. I can't wait to find the trail that will lead to that bastard. We've waited long enough.//

"I can't wait either," Mulder said as he surveyed the brightly-lit menu sign. "What do you want for dinner?"

//Mmm, I want one barbecued Spender skewered on a spit, extra crispy. How much do they charge for that?//

Mulder chuckled. "It depends on if you want the Special. That's the better deal, Krycek. It comes with an apple in his mouth."

Krycek chuckled in return. //Well then, the Special, of course!//

"Want fries with that?" Mulder chortled.

//Sure, why not?//

"May I take your order?" came the distorted voice over the intercom.

"Yeah," said Mulder. "Do you have any barbecued Spender-on-a-spit?"

A burst of laughter escaped from Krycek as Mulder awaited an answer.

The distorted voice spoke again. "I'm sorry, we don't have anything barbecued here."

Both men were overcome with a fit of laughter, which lingered for quite awhile before they could compose themselves enough to get a real order placed.

They were only on the road again for a few minutes before Mulder had finished devouring his meal and then began to review out loud the details concerning the facility that they were heading to. "Did I leave anything out?" he asked. Eyes still on the road ahead, he took his right hand off the steering wheel and extended it in the general direction of Krycek, expecting him to take hold of it in order to answer him. When no touch was forthcoming, he stole a glance from the road over to Krycek.

Mulder had to bite back a smile at what he saw. Krycek still held the last of his burger, with sauce dripping all over his hand and down his wrist, as well as splattered generously around his mouth. It amused Mulder how much Krycek reminded him of Will when his son ate messy foods, but he knew that the other man wouldn't appreciate the comparison. With a soda cup held firmly within the prosthetic's grip, Krycek had apparently chosen to wait until he was completely done eating before cleaning himself up. Mulder kept a straight face so that Krycek wouldn't think he was making fun of his limited dexterity. He wasn't; he just thought that it was a rather cute look on him, just as it was on Will.

Mulder was still waiting for an answer to his question, so he cupped the palm of his right hand to rest against the bare skin on the back of Krycek's neck. Krycek turned towards him with a demure look, and Mulder wondered if in the darkness he was just imagining the blush he thought he saw bloom on Krycek's face.

"I'd like to keep talking to you as we drive, and since your hand is busy, well, then a touch on the back of the neck will have to do." Mulder settled his forearm on Krycek's left shoulder and thought that the feel of of Krycek's warm neck under his palm felt oddly pleasant and natural. "It's quite comfortable, actually. I guess this'll be a good way to talk whenever you're eating in the car." He felt a momentary tremble in Krycek, which puzzled him, but then he thought he knew the cause. "I'll try not to make it tickle. So, about the facility, did I leave anything out?"

//No, you were pretty thorough. We're all set. I just need to relax for the rest of the drive, Mulder, so could you turn on some tunes?//

Mulder removed his hand from its warm resting spot on Krycek's neck and turned to a rock station that he knew Krycek seemed to favor. The high- energy songs would keep Krycek pumped up, which during their last several weeks of traveling Mulder had come to know was what he had meant by his 'need to relax'. Sure enough, only a few seconds had gone by before Mulder noticed that his passenger was beginning to slightly sway his body to the music while he finished his meal.

Once he had finished the messy burger, Krycek did his best to wipe his hand on the small napkin one-handed, since the prosthetic still held his drink. He unlatched the glove compartment and retrieved a wet-wipe foil pack, which he tore open with his mouth before proceeding to thoroughly clean his hand and face. The music changed and Krycek started moving more forcefully to the hard guitar riffs of a KCM song.

Mulder heard him start humming along to the song and knew that it was the precursor to Krycek's all-out singing, which he was prone to do on these trips. It seemed to Mulder that Krycek had a real need to sing, both to keep himself energized and as a release of tension. However, Krycek was embarrassed by his jargon-speech and would only sing while touching Mulder's hand so that Mulder could hear the actual words to the song as he sang them. Predicting what was about to come, Mulder laid his hand down near Krycek's leg so that it would be within easy reach of his touch.

"Nevernot fixings..." sang Krycek before he cut himself off sharply and reached over to grab Mulder's waiting hand. //Oops, sorry,// he apologized before proceeding with the song. //You crushed me into a fine powder...I'm falling through your fingers. You sift me like I'm a fistful of flour...You won't allow a little lump of hope to linger.//

"What are you apologizing for?" Mulder asked, interrupting Krycek's singing. "I don't care if I understand the words you sing or not," he offered helpfully.

//Well I care. I don't want to sound like a moron.//

"I don't think you sound like that!"

But Krycek just firmed his grip on Mulder's hand and rocked to the beat of the song as he continued to sing along with the radio. //I've been through your mill...But I am NOT that easy to kill! I'm not broken...I'm not broken! I'm not bro-ken...I'm just refined!//

Mulder yielded to Krycek's preference and continued the drive listening to the spirited singing in words that he could comprehend. He enjoyed that Krycek sang, although he truthfully didn't care whether or not he understood the words. The important thing to Mulder was that he himself also felt energized by the infectious vitality that infused Krycek while he was singing.

A few hours later the two men entered their motel room with considerably less enthusiasm than they had when entering their destination facility earlier that evening. Mulder plunked himself down on one of the twin beds and sat staring at the carpeted floor. Brows furrowed, he shook his head over and over at their latest venture.

"I don't understand this," he complained. "According to all of the information you had, this was one of the facilities that Spender had frequented the most. All signs pointed to the fact that we should have found *something* there that would tie it to him." He banged his fist on his thigh. "Damn it! I was sure our luck was going to change tonight." Mulder gritted his teeth as he continued to stare at the carpet. The mattress dipped and then he felt fingers touching his hand.

//I didn't think it would end up being only a fertility clinic, and nothing more.//

Mulder heard a sigh followed by a lengthy silence. He looked up from the floor to the man sitting next to him. Krycek's eyes were filled with disappointment and something akin to fear. Mulder wondered at that fear. Was Krycek afraid of the consequences for the world if they failed in their mission, or was it something else? Mulder allowed a latent thought to creep to the forefront of his mind. Maybe Krycek had never remembered any valid information in the first place, and he was just using Mulder to keep himself out of the rehab center.

//But don't worry, Mulder. There are still a lot of facilities we haven't been to yet that I know Spender had dealings with.//

Mulder grimaced. "You've been saying that after every failure we've had the last few weeks."

Krycek's entire composure suddenly shifted to one of anger. //Oh come on, Mulder! I told you that there were hundreds of facilities with Consortium ties, and a great deal of those with Spender specifically. We've hardly even scratched the surface! You're the last person in the world I'd ever thought would sound like he'd be losing hope!//

Krycek got up and began to pace in the small room for a short minute before returning to sit next to Mulder and touch their fingers together once again. He wore a small grin and a look of sympathetic understanding that Mulder had only ever seen mastered by Scully before.

//Everything's going to be okay, Mulder. You know that our itinerary shows that the odds are still strongly in our favor.//

Mulder studied his face as he considered the last several weeks that they had spent together. He had acknowledged to himself weeks ago that working with Krycek as his partner was an overall positive experience. What Mulder saw in his face and what he felt in his touch made him realize that he did trust Krycek, and he banished all thoughts that he was being led astray by any hidden agenda. He nodded at Krycek. "You're right." He leaned over to unzip the computer bag at his feet and retrieved his laptop. He placed it on his lap and powered it up. "Today's over with, so it's on to the next site!" he exclaimed with renewed enthusiasm.

//Hold on, before you pull anything up, there's something that I've been thinking about,// Krycek said. //There's another way we can try to find leads to Spender's whereabouts. I don't know how much raw materials he needs to build these super-soldiers, but we might want to start investigating iron and titanium manufacturing sites and see where their shipments are sent to. Maybe we'll find him that way.//

"Yeah, that might work," Mulder agreed. "Good idea, Krycek. You and I should keep doing what we're doing, though, and have another team handle that part of the investigation. I'll call Doggett and Reyes and get them on it right away."

Mulder set the laptop aside and pulled out his cell phone. The other members of the X-File team were already well versed in the details of the Spender hunt and had been helping in whatever peripheral fashion that was required. Mulder reached Reyes and asked her to have Doggett listen on the extension, and then proceeded to relate Krycek's idea to them both. After a brief conversation, Mulder hung up and nodded once more to Krycek.

"They thought it was a great idea. They're going to make it their top priority."

Krycek beamed. He looked so excited at the news that more people would now be pursuing Spender that Mulder wondered how he could have ever doubted Krycek's motivations in the first place. Mulder set the laptop between them, and together they began to review the details of the next facility on their list.

Mulder and Krycek continued to inspect facility after facility, where they sometimes came across potentially useful materials but for the most part they found nothing of benefit. Doggett and Reyes had tracked innumerable shipments of iron ore and titanium but so far all of the destinations had proven to be legitimate. Regardless of each disappointment, Mulder and Krycek persevered in their efforts. As the weeks passed, the zeal for their mission sustained their symbiotic relationship and allowed them to proceed with hope to the next facility each time their endeavors proved fruitless.

However, as more time passed without having made any headway, Mulder's moods had become increasingly foul. He had begun to have doubts that they'd find Spender in time, and the possibility that the soldiers could be released worldwide at any time ate at him more and more each day. In addition to that gloomy prospect, he was also upset by the fact that he had barely seen Will in the last few months. Never before had he ever spent so much time away from his son.

He and Krycek had just returned from an unsuccessful three-week junket that had taken them to more than a dozen Canadian facilities. As exhausted as he was, Mulder wasn't about to break his promise to Will that he'd come over to dinner tonight. He removed the small stuffed polar bear from his pocket and knocked on the door to Scully's apartment.

Scully opened the door with a scowl. "Well, I'm surprised that you actually showed up. I was beginning to think that you forgot you even had a son."

"That's not fair." Before Mulder could respond any further, he heard the tiny trampling of small footsteps running in his direction.

"Daddy!" Will exclaimed, throwing himself at Mulder and wrapping his arms around one of his father's legs.

Mulder bent down and scooped up Will. "Hey there, buddy! I missed you so much!" He gave his son a big kiss on the cheek and showed him the stuffed toy. "I brought you something."

Will gave the bear a mere glance before hugging Mulder's neck. "Wiyum miss you, Daddy. Wanna stay wiff you again." He pulled back from his hold around his father's neck at looked at Mulder with sad eyes.

"Will, Mommy and I explained this to you already, remember? Daddy's going to be very busy for awhile and I'm not going to be home much. You can start to stay with me again once I'm done being busy, I promise."

"When dat, Daddy?"

"I'm not sure. Hey, what are all those toys I see in the living room? Are those new?" Will nodded excitedly. "I can't wait to see what you have there. Show Daddy, okay?"

Mulder set Will down and the youngster sprinted over to his new toys. He and Will played until dinnertime, after which he gave Will his bath and they played for a little while more. When Scully announced that it was his bedtime, Will suddenly started crying hysterically.

"No, no, no! Don't wanna go to bed! No!"

Mulder was surprised, as this was definitely uncharacteristic behavior from their son. "How long has he been going through this stage?" he asked.

Scully appeared alarmed. "He hasn't. This is the first time he's ever acted this way." She crouched down in front of her son and placed her hands on his small shoulders. "Honey, what is it? Why don't you want to go to bed?"

Will ran from Scully over to Mulder and once again wrapped his arms around one of his legs. "Don't wanna leave Daddy!"

Now it was Mulder's turn to crouch down, to almost eye-level with his son. "But it's bedtime, buddy."

"No! Don't want Daddy go away again for long long time!" Will cried.

Mulder took Will in a hug and squeezed him tight. "I'll try to visit more often, buddy, I really will." He came out of the hug and looked at Will. "Let me read you a story now, okay, and then I promise I'll come by first thing tomorrow and spend the whole morning with you. We can go to your favorite park, and then I can take you to lunch at that place you like, right next to the ice cream store. We can finish up with double chocolate chip. How's that sound?"

Will stopped crying and nodded. "Like ba'niwwa now," he sniffled.

"Oh, so now you like vanilla?" Mulder smiled. "Well you can get vanilla or chocolate chip or both of them, whatever you want. Come on, buddy," said Mulder as he stood up, "let's go pick out a book."

Scully came over and bent down to wipe the child's tears away. "Goodnight, William. Mommy loves you." She kissed his cheek.

Mulder took Will's hand and led him to his bedroom. When the story was done he remained sitting by the bed until Will had fallen asleep. It distressed Mulder that his absence had caused such a reaction from his son. For many minutes Mulder watched Will sleep peacefully, before he eventually returned to the living room to join Scully on her sofa.

Scully looked at Mulder accusingly. "Well, *that* certainly wasn't pretty."

"No, it wasn't, and don't for a minute try to put this all on me," Mulder shot back.

"Why not? Your son misses you, Mulder. I see the effect it has on him every single day. And tonight he clung to you all night long! I can guarantee you right now that he's going to go into hysterics again when it's time for you to leave him tomorrow."

"Well, there's not a lot I can do about it under the circumstances, is there?" he asked pointedly.

"Mulder, I know your work is important, but your son needs you, too."

"I know he needs me, damn it! I need him too! Don't put this all on my work. I'm out of town a lot, but when I *am* home you could at least let him stay with me."

"No."

"Scully, he's stayed with me for three days every week since he was born, like clockwork! The only times he hasn't have been when I was stuck out on a field assignment. Now all of a sudden you've pulled the rug out from under him by not letting him stay with me anymore. You're not being fair to him, completely changing his routine like that!"

"How many times are we going to have this discussion? There is no way in hell I'm going to allow my son to stay in the same apartment as that monster."

"He's not a monster!!"

"Shhh! Keep your voice down."

"Scully, would you just listen to reason, please? You're right, I'm not home often anymore, but I've certainly got enough time between trips when Will can stay with me. Krycek and I are too busy planning things out when we're home for me to keep taking the time to drive all the way out here. And when I do come out it's just for a couple of hours here and there."

Mulder sighed and continued to plead his case. "At least if Will were at my place, I could play with him awhile and then get back to my work when Will plays by himself or watches TV. He's always been a kid that doesn't have a problem entertaining himself when I'm busy. Even if I'm not actually playing with him, he'd see me right next to him at my desk. I'd be with him all the time even though I may not be playing with him. That'd make up for a lot, don't you think? He wouldn't feel like I've abandoned him."

Scully considered his words. "I don't like this arrangement any more than you or William do. If I agree to get him back on his regular schedule at your place, where will Krycek be?"

"Helping me, of course."

"Then no." At Mulder's glare, she continued. "If you want your son to stay with you, then you'll have to get rid of Krycek while he's there. Put him up in a hotel or something."

Mulder didn't like getting angry at Scully, but she was making it impossible for him not to do so. "You know all about Krycek's condition, Scully. You know I can't do that."

"He can take care of himself for a few days without you, Mulder. He spent almost two years with his impairment before you found him."

Mulder steamed. "He was in a controlled environment filled with expert professionals who were familiar with his condition. I can't leave him in some hotel or anywhere for days on end where he couldn't communicate. He can't even order his own food. And what if he needed something, or got hurt? I can't risk anything happening to him. This whole project would fall apart without his input."

"He'd be just fine, Mulder. I can't believe you'd put his perceived needs over the real needs of your own son."

Mulder shook his head. "You're forgetting that we're on a timetable here. We don't know when Spender's going to start shipping out the soldiers, so every minute counts. So even if Krycek *was* able to stay in a hotel by himself for a few days, that'd be too much valuable time away from the project that we'd be wasting."

"Well then, I'm sorry, Mulder. If you insist on keeping Krycek in your apartment, then I can't allow William to go there."

"Scully, would you please just put your son's needs first?"

"I always do! How can you even imply that I don't? I wouldn't be doing my job as a mother if I allowed him to be influenced by that evil man."

"He's not..." Mulder didn't bother finishing his sentence, seeing that he wasn't getting anywhere. He dragged his hand over his face. "Jesus, Scully, you've refused to even see Krycek since he's been here. If you saw how he was now, you'd realize what a different person he is." Mulder could see that she did not believe him. "He can't be all bad if your mother likes him," he said, knowing how much that fact irritated her.

Margaret Scully took her role as grandmother very seriously, and on several previous occasions had made it quite clear to them that she did not think it was good for William to no longer be allowed in his father's apartment. She had insisted on meeting Krycek in order to understand her daughter's misgivings. Mulder had simply told her that he had learned to understand Krycek's impaired speech, without giving away the bizarre fact they he could only interpret by touch. He and Krycek pulled off the visit without Margaret noticing anything strange. Much to Scully's chagrin, her mother had told her that she had been quite charmed by Mr. Krycek and felt that her daughter was over- reacting.

Scully glared at Mulder. "Mom never met him before now. She has nothing to compare him with except for what I told her, which apparently wasn't enough."

"You still haven't told her that Krycek was in your apartment with Cardinale?"

Scully gave a quick negative shake of her head. "I can't. She's already so upset about Will. I care about my mother, and despite the situation I don't want to see her suffer any more than she already is. I just couldn't burden her with the fact that her grandson's father is living with someone who was there when Missy was shot, even though I know he didn't pull the trigger."

Mulder nodded. "Your mother's a good woman. She's just looking out for Will's best interests, which is what I'm trying to do." He sighed. "Okay, look at it this way. Krycek can hardly be a bad influence on Will if he can't be understood."

"He'd still be a bad influence."

"Oh my god, Scully, you're being totally unreasonable!"

"Mulder, you know how friendly William is. He'd want to make friends with Krycek right away. And even if he didn't, the fact that Krycek's living with you will automatically make William assume that he's your friend. How can I..." Scully looked at him beseechingly, and Mulder could see her eyes fill with tears. "I don't want to lie to William. How can I look my son in the eye and not tell him about Krycek when he asks me? You know he's going to ask me, Mulder, he asks all about everyone. Whether it's now or when he's older, how can I tell my son that I allowed him to become friendly with the man who..." A small gasp of pain escaped her and she placed her hand over her mouth.

Seeing Scully sad and in pain never failed to cut straight to Mulder's heart, and he felt terrible that his choice of a roommate was responsible for her feeling this way. "I know what he's done, Dana. I haven't forgotten."

"You haven't?" He saw past sufferings in her teary eyes. "He's done so many things, Mulder, and it seems like you've forgotten them all."

"No, I haven't. But that was then, and he's the only one who can help us now. Our work is too important to let the past interfere."

Scully blinked away her tears and visibly recomposed herself. "Your work. Let's talk about that, shall we?" she asked sharply. "Mulder, you've been working with Krycek for months now and you haven't gotten anywhere. Haven't you ever stopped to consider why that might be?"

Mulder nodded. "It's because this is a huge undertaking and I'm still not credible enough in the Bureau to get any major backing. That's what makes all of this extra infuriating!" He got up from the sofa and placed his hands on his hips, staring across the room for a few moments before shaking his head and looking back down at Scully. "Whatever unknown outside sources there are that pull the strings at the Bureau wanted everything associated with the aliens covered up completely. They wanted to eliminate any possible chance that proof of their former existence on this planet would leak out to the public. It was obvious that the Bureau was told in no uncertain terms that I was to be considered a loose cannon." He shook his head again. "Now that the Bureau has been totally restructured, with a new Director and all new A.D.s in place, they've succeeded in whitewashing everything. There's no one left to take what I have to say about aliens or super-soldiers seriously. As if there ever was." Mulder sighed and sat back down on the sofa, and turned towards Scully. "Anyway, with just three of us on the case officially plus Krycek unofficially, it's a wonder we've gotten as much ground covered as we have so far."

Scully's face remained impassive. "That's one way to look at it. But if you ask me, I'd say that if Krycek really did have anything crucial to add to this investigation, then he'd have been able to do that by now. I don't think he knows squat, Mulder. I think he's just using you to get free room and board and someone to talk to."

"I used to think that was a possibility, but not anymore."

"Why not? He's a master at manipulation, Mulder. He strings people along for his own selfish benefit."

"He's on the level this time, Scully. I feel it."

"You feel it? You *feel* it? Mulder, can you honestly tell me that you are one-hundred percent certain without a doubt that you can trust him?"

"Well, no, but you know me. I can't say that I could ever trust anyone one-hundred percent, Scully, not even you." He shrugged an apology.

"Thanks a lot. Can you at least admit that you trust me significantly more than you do him?"

Mulder furrowed his brows and cast his head towards the floor. He did not respond to her question.

"Mulder? Mulder! Oh god, I can't believe this! He's a criminal, a man who hurt people that we care about! You trust him as much as you trust me?" Scully seemed genuinely wounded.

The intensity of her hurt reaction affected Mulder, and he suddenly felt old doubts begin to resurface. "I...I don't know. Look, you may be right. Maybe there is a chance that Krycek's the same selfish bastard that he always appeared to be, and maybe he is just using me. But there's also the chance that he's strictly on the level, and the work is too important not to go with that chance." Mulder took Scully's hand. "All I know for sure is that he can't be a bad influence on Will if you just leave those details out if and when our son ever asks you about him."

"And I told you that I refuse to be put into a position where we'll both end up having to lie to our son. A lie of omission is still a lie." She removed her hand from his hold. "That's all I have to say on this, Mulder."

Mulder closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then looked at her. "Then don't blame me for Will's unhappiness." He rose from the sofa and began walking towards the door.

"I'm not the one harboring an amoral monster," she said to his back. "I don't care what you think of Krycek now, Mulder. That's what he was, you can't deny it."

Mulder could not, in fact, deny it, so he continued on his way out the door.

Mulder repeatedly pushed his son on the swing, but although his body was present with Will in the park, his mind was elsewhere. He remained fixated on the conversation that he had the previous night with Scully, running the things she had said over and over again in his mind. Maybe he had put too much trust in Krycek, after all. Her assertion that their lack of progress in finding Spender signified that Krycek was just stringing him along began to gnaw at him once again. Could Krycek really be so terrified of going back to the rehab center that he would just pretend to have information that he really didn't have? Mulder thought that he had been able to recognize Krycek's true motives, but what did he really know about the real character of the man?

The fact was that Mulder had never spoken to Krycek about his previous sins. The idea of opening old wounds had seemed detrimental to the success of their function as a team, and in many ways it was completely irrelevant to accomplishing the task at hand. So Mulder had just ignored the eight-hundred pound gorilla in the room that was Krycek's past. What Mulder now realized was that after living and working so closely with Krycek these past few months, the gorilla had shrunken to the point of being invisible. That is, until Scully allowed it to rear its ugly head to Mulder again last night.

Mulder felt completely conflicted. He was devoted to Scully and Will's happiness and it was tearing him apart to see them both so upset by his actions. But he also felt a responsibility towards Krycek's well-being. He needed Krycek on this project, so as long as the man was serving as his partner it was Mulder's duty to ensure that his basic needs were attended to. Whatever sins Krycek may or may not have committed in his previous life should not matter right now, for he was a vital tool in this operation. Mulder thought it ironic that Scully accused Krycek of using him, for it was equally clear that he was using Krycek. And once the project was over and he didn't need Krycek's help anymore...

There it was again. The question of what was going to happen to Krycek after Mulder didn't need him anymore. That thought had sprung forth more and more often lately, and whenever it did Mulder had sent it back to the recesses of his mind immediately. But at this particular moment the thought lingered.

Mulder bore no real responsibility to the man other than to see this project through to the end. It wasn't Mulder's fault that Krycek could only rely on him in order to communicate. And Scully was right, there were certainly a lot of things that Krycek had to be accountable for from his past. So Mulder should feel no qualms whatsoever about bringing Krycek back to the rehab center in Elmhurst when this was all over, especially since his presence was interfering with his relationship with his son.

"Daddy."

But could he really do that to Krycek? Mulder was finding it increasingly difficult to reconcile whatever kind of man Krycek used to be with the man that he was now. Sending him back to Elmhurst was akin to giving him a prison sentence of lifetime solitary confinement.

"Daddy."

Mulder didn't know if he could do that to any man, not even Krycek. At that thought, Mulder considered something that he rarely allowed himself to acknowledge. This was the fact that Krycek wasn't just any man, he was the person that since the very beginning had always caused such an extreme visceral response in him. He had always attributed his intense reaction to Krycek to be a result of the man's betrayals to him. The question that Mulder had kept sequestered behind a closed door was why it hurt him so much that it was Krycek who had betrayed him. That *who* had betrayed him had possibly hurt more than the actual betrayals themselves. This unsettling truth was something that Mulder had allowed to peek through the door of his mind only rarely and for only brief moments, never long enough to examine thoroughly.

"Daddy!"

Mulder snapped that door shut as he suddenly realized that he had been ignoring Will, who was looking back at him from his swing.

"Push more, daddy. Push!"

"Okay, hang on, here we go." Mulder resumed his swing-pushing duty, completely disconcerted. "Damn you, Krycek," he whispered to himself. "You're interfering with my time with Will even when I'm with him." With great effort, he cleared his mind of everything except his son.

Mulder made sure that Will had fun for the duration of the morning and during the promised ice cream dessert after lunch. When it came time to say goodbye to him at his mother's apartment, Will clung hard to his father and began to cry fitfully just as Scully had predicted that he would. The departure was painful for all of them, with a broken-hearted Mulder making promises for more play dates that he only hoped he could keep.

Mulder remained distraught during the entire drive back to his apartment. He knew that the time consumed by his fervor to find Spender was the primary reason that he had little opportunity to drive over to see Will these last few months. Regardless of that realization, the discomfiting emotions he had been experiencing all day about the entire situation had led him to begin to resent Krycek as being a contributing factor to the unhappiness of his son, Scully, and himself.

The fourth month of Mulder's association with Krycek arrived without any significant progress having been made. Mulder's increasingly irritable disposition had begun to sour his relationship with his partner, who was now also becoming discouraged. Both men could not help but display signs of losing hope. They no longer came up with inspiring brainstorming sessions, as they had been apt to do after each setback. They no longer made any attempts to raise each other's spirits anymore, each of them preferring to remain isolated in his own growing despair. Krycek no longer sang on the way to any of their inspections, with the immense silence in the car serving as a barometer of their dismal moods.

Their tempers had also begun to quicken as their hopes continued to fade. The need for them to be constantly near to each other, which had initially facilitated their easy relationship, had now started to grate on their nerves. Now they never let their fingers rest casually on the other's hand if they were not speaking at that exact moment. Mulder seldom reached out for Krycek's hand anymore, and Krycek touched him only when he absolutely had to.

They were in particularly bad temperaments after a flight home from their latest venture. Some last-minute research had indicated that they might have finally found a facility with high prospects of yielding useful information. The men had desperately needed a success and had pinned all of their diminishing hopes on this site, but it turned out to be a complete bust just like all of the others. Thus they were both completely miserable and short-tempered by the time their plane landed.

Mulder just wanted to get out of the airport and get home, so he became further agitated when Krycek dragged him into a Starbucks as soon as they deplaned. Krycek walked directly up to the counter and briefly studied the contents of the glass pastry case before looking up to Mulder, who had moved several feet away to read the headlines on a newspaper stand.

The young employee waited impatiently behind the counter.

"Can I help you?"

There was no response as Krycek waited for Mulder to return.

"What'll it be, sir?" asked the young man.

No answer.

"Sir, there are people waiting behind you. If you don't know what you want, then please step aside."

Krycek quickly stepped over and grabbed Mulder's hand, pulling him back with him to the counter while he began speaking his gibberish.

"He wants this one," Mulder said, pointing to one of the pastries.

"Well why didn't he just say so?" asked the man exasperatedly as he retrieved the dessert.

"He can't talk right," Mulder said insensitively.

"Oh. Well he could've just pointed to it, like you just did."

"Obviously he's not able to do that either, or else he would have," Mulder admonished harshly.

"Gosh, I'm sorry," the server apologized. "I didn't know he was retarded," he added sheepishly.

Mulder felt the hand covering his own hand tense and he gave Krycek a warning glance.

"Want anything else?" Mulder asked into fuming eyes. After a few moments, more gibberish was heard. "He also wants a regular coffee, black."

Mulder shook off Krycek's hand so that he could pay the server. After receiving his change, Mulder put the bills back into his wallet and started to put the loose change into the tip jar on the counter. Krycek grabbed the hand with the coins in it.

//You are *so* not going to tip this jerk.//

"Gimme a break, the kid didn't mean anything by it," Mulder said, then dropped the coins into the jar.

Krycek glared at him and stormed off to the airport corridor, plunking himself down at a table just outside the Starbucks. A moment later Mulder arrived with the coffee and pastry and set them on the table.

"So now I'm your waiter, too? You didn't need to throw a hissy fit in there and leave without your stuff. Hurry up and eat so we can get out of here," he said crossly as he sat down.

Krycek glowered at him and opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it shut and turned his head away, clenching his jaw. After several long moments he seemed to relax, and turned to face Mulder as he reached for his hand.

//I want to call Doggett to see if they came up with anything on the latest shipment they've been tracking. I have a good feeling about this one.//

"You always say that."

//Just call him for me, Mulder.//

Mulder sighed but extracted his phone and dialed, waiting for a minute before hanging up.

"No answer. Have to try again later," he said as he pocketed the phone. "Be right back. I have to use the john."

When Mulder returned a few minutes later, he saw a security guard grab Krycek by the arm and pull him up out of his chair.

"The mockedy lance on his triperday and danced wither the meal!" Krycek shouted to the guard, trying to free his arm.

"What's going on here?" Mulder interrupted, reaching for his identification. "I'm a federal officer. This man's with me." He showed the guard his badge and identification.

The guard released Krycek.

"I'm sorry, Agent Mulder. I was making the rounds doing a routine security check when your friend here made me suspicious. He was sneering at me like I was the enemy or something."

"No, he looks at everyone like that when he's in a bad mood," Mulder explained, casting an irate look over at Krycek. "So then what happened?"

"I came over here to investigate, asked him where he was going, what his business was, real polite. No matter what I asked him he wouldn't answer me, just sat there ignoring me. I warned him over and over that if he didn't answer me I was going to have to take him to the security station. He ignored me, so I asked him to accompany me there. He wouldn't, so that's when I grabbed him." The guard glanced at Krycek and then back to Mulder. "Well if he's with you, then I guess he's not a threat. The silent act he was putting up just made me leery, that's all."

"Yeah, well he was just sulking 'cause he got his little feelings hurt inside the Starbucks."

Krycek looked incensed and turned away from Mulder to stare down the corridor.

"So what was with the funny talk, then?" the guard asked Mulder, as if Krycek wasn't there.

"He has a speaking disorder. Listen, thank you for being so proficient at your job, but like I said there's nothing for you to worry about here. Have a good night."

The guard seemed to know that he was clearly being dismissed by the federal agent, so he continued on his way.

"Jesus Christ," Mulder fumed. "I can't even take a leak without you getting into trouble."

Krycek turned back around and snatched his hand.

//It wasn't my fault, I didn't do anything,// he snapped.

"Oh of course, how silly of me to forget. Nothing's ever your fault," he scoffed.

//What's that supposed to mean?//

"Never mind. Forget it."

//What, Mulder? Tell me!//

"It's never your fault that these facilities never pan out. We've been driving and flying all over the goddamn place for almost four months and we haven't gotten anywhere, and I'm sick of it!"

//How the hell is that my fault? We *both* do the research to decide which places to investigate.//

"Yeah, but I'm only working off the info that *you* give me."

//Well I never once said I had all the answers. You're the one who said that, not me!//

"Fine, whatever!"

Mulder strode away, leaving Krycek to follow him.

Their hostile dispositions were still firmly in place when they arrived home a short time later from the airport. They entered the apartment tired and irritated, Krycek slamming his duffel bag down and Mulder slamming the door behind him. Krycek trudged over to the sofa, where he sat down forcefully, while Mulder went off to the kitchen. A few minutes later Mulder emerged from the kitchen talking on his cell and carrying a beer. He sat down at the dining room table and slammed the beer down hard on the tabletop.

"Scully, would you please stop yelling at me and just put Will on the phone?"

Mulder directed a hateful glare towards Krycek, who gave him a baffled look in return. A moment later Mulder's face softened as he turned away from Krycek and began speaking into the phone.

"Will, please don't cry...I know...Yes, sweetheart, I know I said I'd see you today, but something came up and I had to take an airplane far away very early this morning, and another airplane back home tonight. I just got home from the airport now...No, it's too late for me to come over tonight, Will, it's past your bedtime...Will...please stop crying Will. I promise I'll see you tomorrow...Well, I have to go to the office just for a little while, but I'll come over right after that, okay?...Yes, I said I promised. Now be a good boy for Mommy and go to bed, okay buddy?...I love you too. Tell Mommy to give you a big kiss from me, okay? Good night, Will." Mulder sighed. "Hey, Scully, he sounds like he calmed down a bit. How is he?...Good...Yes, I'll be there tomorrow. I'll call you later. Bye."

Mulder clicked off the phone. "Damn it!" He turned towards Krycek once again and sneered at him. "If you weren't living here I wouldn't have had to give up all my time with Will and he wouldn't have to be going through all this. Do you know how much that kid is suffering?!"

Krycek looked momentarily astonished, and then angry. "Nots as weeze sillier? Softest criller, manster!"

"And don't tell me it's all Scully's fault for not letting him stay here anymore. If she's not willing to forget what you used to be then that's her prerogative as his mother," Mulder said angrily. He drained his beer and rose from the chair, continuing to glower at Krycek. "We've been so busy trailing after your false leads that I don't have enough time to keep driving over to see my son. If he was able to stay here like he used to then I'd at least get to see him for more than an hour here and there."

Mulder disappeared into the kitchen once again. When he returned he carried a new bottle of beer in one hand and was snapping his phone shut with the other. The scowl that he had been wearing was still evident, which he directed at Krycek as he sat back down on the dining room chair.

"I just called Doggett. They ended up getting squat, just another dead end."

Krycek stamped his foot on the floor. "Swinglersbee!"

"Things can't get much worse than this. We're running out of time! Having them track the metal was your last good idea, Krycek. But just like all your other ideas it's gotten us completely nowhere," complained Mulder irately.

Krycek stared at him glacially.

"I don't know why Spender ever thought you might be a threat to him," Mulder said shaking his head. "It's obvious that everything you know just adds up to nothing."

Continuing his icy stare, Krycek extended his arm, holding his hand out for Mulder.

"What, are you kidding? Why should I get up and go across the room to you? You got something to say, you can come over here and say it."

Krycek bolted off the sofa and was in front of Mulder in just a few large strides. He pointed his index finger and poked it forcefully onto Mulder's forehead.

//Fuck!//

He removed his finger and then jammed it down again on the forehead.

//You!//

Krycek headed towards the front door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Mulder leapt out of his chair and caught up to Krycek, grabbing his wrist in a brutal grip and forcing him to turn around.

//I've got to get away from you, Mulder. You're always in my face!//

"Well, duh! Of course I am!"

//Just because I need you to speak for me doesn't mean I have to like it!//

"What, so now you resent *me* because of your own fucking disability?!"

//YES!!// Krycek spat vehemently, eyes blazing with anger.

"Ha! Well, that's gratitude for you. Not only do I have to give up time with my son because of you, but I have to interpret for you at restaurants, at airports, on the phone...everywhere! If you're going to resent me for it, then you can just order your own damn food, buy your own damn tickets, and make your own damn phone calls!!"

Krycek pulled out of Mulder's tight grip and backed away. "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!!"

"Oh great, now you're going all Broca on me!"

A wounded look briefly flashed in Krycek's eyes but quickly disappeared behind the returning anger. He threw the door open, strode briskly to the stairwell and disappeared down the stairs.

Later that night Mulder tossed and turned on the sofa, unable to fall asleep after their argument. It was after midnight and Krycek still hadn't returned. He supposed that Krycek was still walking around cooling his jets, or maybe was just sitting in the park because he was too angry with Mulder and wanted to wait for him to be asleep before coming back in. Mulder was angry with Krycek for being so angry with him. He knew how easily Krycek could become frustrated about this failing mission as well as his disability, but he thought Krycek should understand that Mulder had every right to be angry too. After all, Mulder tried to rationalize, this was his project too. He tried to reason it out and fell asleep in the process.

The next morning Mulder awoke with a new attitude, regretting that he had taken out his frustrations on Krycek like he had. He decided an apology was in order, but it would have to wait until he got home that night since the bedroom door was still closed and he wanted to allow Krycek the rest he deserved. He knew Krycek must have gotten less sleep than he had, so he tried to be quiet as he got ready in the bathroom and dressed in the clothes he kept in Will's room. He left a note on the table that simply stated 'Gone to work and Scully's. Be back late'.

Mulder went to the office to meet with Doggett and Reyes. This would be the first time he'd be consulting with them without Krycek being present to offer his input. However, Mulder figured that he and Krycek still needed some time and space apart from each other.

The meeting with Doggett and Reyes was largely unproductive, so he left work in a funk. When he got to Scully's, Will was just the pick- me-up he needed after his many weeks of traveling. He played with Will for hours before eating dinner, then played some more before finally putting him to bed. Mulder remained afterwards to talk with Scully about Will, and about their progress or lack thereof in finding Spender. Despite their current disagreement about Will's living arrangements, Mulder still valued Scully's input on the case. They discussed options and further possible avenues of investigation, but came up nil.

Mulder returned home much later than he had anticipated, noting that Krycek had already gone to bed. He supposed it couldn't hurt to wait until the morning to apologize to him, especially since he wasn't really looking forward to it.

Morning came and Mulder went for an early run, then went to Scully's to pick up Will. The night before, Mulder had promised his son that he'd take him to play in the park for awhile. He and Krycek were planning to visit a cluster of facilities on the West Coast, and he wanted to get in as much Will-time as possible before leaving again.

It was approaching noon when Mulder returned to the apartment with some takeout lunch, having figured that Krycek might accept his apology more easily if it was accompanied with food. He was surprised to see the bedroom door still closed, since he had never known Krycek to sleep away the entire morning before. Mulder considered the possibility that perhaps Krycek was falling into a deep depression, which would certainly account for this extended sleep. Or perhaps he was awake and brooding, wishing to remain secluded in his room. Either way, his lunch would be waiting for him in the refrigerator whenever he decided to make an appearance.

After putting Krycek's portion of the food away, Mulder returned with his own lunch and sat at the dining room table to eat. He idly observed that the note he had left for Krycek was still there, and wondered if his roommate had even bothered to read it. Maybe not, if he was still too irate, or too depressed.

Mulder gave more consideration to this notion that Krycek might be deeply depressed, and he found himself saddened by that prospect. He knew that Krycek was always in a perpetual state of melancholy because of his disability, but it bothered Mulder that their lack of progress with their work was probably making it worse. This realization made him regret how he had allowed their relationship to become so testy these last few weeks, and made him feel more guilty than he already did about their argument the other night.

Glancing around the room as he ate, Mulder's eyes settled on Krycek's duffel bag where it was still resting on the floor near the front closet. Mulder thought that the bag just confirmed his theory that Krycek was very depressed, since he hadn't even bothered to bring the duffel into his room. It wasn't like him to leave it there, especially since most of the clothes he owned were inside of it. An entire day- and-a-half had passed and Krycek hadn't even bothered with his laundry. It occurred to him that this was the longest he had gone without seeing Krycek since the day he had brought him home from the rehab center. This last thought caused an uneasy feeling to fall over Mulder, which grew stronger the longer he looked at the duffel. Suddenly it hit him like a ton of bricks. He put down his fork, slowly rose from the table and fearfully went to Krycek's bedroom and opened the door. The room was empty.

Frantic, he ran through the apartment checking for any indications that Krycek had been there since their argument, any little signs of life to prove that he was making the wrong assumption. He found none. Nothing in any of the rooms appeared to have been touched; the note Mulder had left appeared to be in the exact same spot on the table, there were no dirty dishes in the kitchen, no food or crumbs on the coffee table, no razor in the bathroom. He unzipped Krycek's duffel bag and found that his shaving kit was still inside. Mulder's heartbeat accelerated; he had been so preoccupied that he hadn't even questioned the fact that over a day had passed since he'd last seen him. After all, Mulder had left the apartment early on both mornings and had returned very late the previous evening, so it was natural to assume that Krycek had been in bed at those times. It had simply never occurred to him that Krycek had not come home at all.

In an effort to quell his increasing anxiety, Mulder considered that perhaps Krycek might still be so angry that he was staying away in order to make a statement and make his point known that he wouldn't put up with Mulder's bullshit. Perhaps he had even hot-wired someone's car and taken off. But as soon as he considered it he knew it probably wasn't true, since Krycek had neither the money nor the language to procure food or shelter without him. A sick feeling took hold in his stomach as he admitted to himself that something was very wrong.

He dashed out the door and began a quick search of his building and the surrounding grounds. After finding nothing, he got behind the wheel and drove up and down the local streets, looking for Krycek everywhere in his neighborhood. From his car he called Doggett and Reyes and instructed them to call the local hospitals, police departments, and shelters. It wasn't long before he heard back from them. None of the facilities had any record of someone fitting Krycek's description as being there. Mulder drove to the nearest police station, and found that there had been no reports of stolen vehicles in any of the neighborhoods near Hegal Place, which confirmed the likelihood that Krycek had not driven off somewhere. He had the police put out an APB for a missing person on him, having them procure Krycek's DMV photo from the recent driver's license Mulder had gotten for him. Doggett and Reyes met up with him and they separately checked parks, alleyways and everywhere else within two day's walking distance from his apartment. By midnight there was nothing else Mulder could do but to go home, hoping that Krycek had returned. He had not.

Early the next morning, Mulder talked to his next-door neighbor and assessed her of the situation. He gave her a key to his apartment and asked her to check on a regular basis to see if his roommate had come home, with instructions to call him immediately if he did. Mulder had no doubts that she would follow through, since in the many years that he had known her she had always been a neighbor he could trust his apartment to, taking in his mail and feeding his fish when he was out of town. However, it was only when she assured him that she would be home all that day that he felt comfortable heading off to resume the search from the Hoover.

At the office, he and his colleagues in the Bureau continued to use whatever federal resources were available to them. As the morning drew to a close, they expanded the search to a wider radius to include the entirety of all of the states surrounding the D.C. area. Afternoon turned into night with no results, and Mulder found himself dreading the prospect of returning to an empty apartment. But he had done all he could do that day, so he had no choice but to head home. When he entered his apartment it was with a heavy heart, for he had forebode that the terrible silence would be ominous. He was right.

Mulder slept only briefly and fitfully. The next morning he found himself leaning against the doorjamb of Krycek's open bedroom door, staring at his roommate's empty bed.

"Krycek...where the hell are you?" he heard himself whisper.

Endless horrendous scenarios ran unbidden through Mulder's head, causing him to rush off to the shower to try to wash them away. He threw on some clothes and fled the apartment hastily.

When Mulder got in his car, he felt an urge to recheck his neighborhood and the surrounding areas again. He drove around for a couple of hours, but finding nothing he finally headed over to the Bureau.

"Mulder," Reyes said as he entered the office. "I'm glad you came in a little late. You really needed to catch up on your sleep." She frowned as she studied his face. "Although excuse me for saying this, but you don't look the better for it."

"I couldn't sleep. I was revisiting the areas we checked out in my neighborhood that first day. I wanted to make sure that just because we didn't spot Krycek then, that it didn't mean he wasn't somewhere out there now."

"Yeah, but Molder," Doggett said, "the cops already got that covered. You know they're checkin' out those places over and over, all the time. They're even goin' door to door with his picture."

"I know, I know." Mulder shook his head and sighed. "I just needed to be *doing* something. I guess I felt more useful searching for him myself instead of sitting around here all day waiting for the damn phone to ring."

"Speakin' for myself I don't plan on setten around waiting for a phone call," Doggett said. "There're other things we could be doin' right now to find him."

"John," Reyes said curtly, cutting off Doggett while giving him a warning look. She came up to Mulder and placed her hand on his upper arm. She looked at him with concern. "Mulder," she said gently. "Agent Doggett thinks that we need to start dragging the nearby ponds and rivers."

"What?!" exclaimed Mulder, turning from Reyes to Doggett. "Why would you want to waste time and resources doing that?"

"It's been four days since he went missin'," Doggett replied. "It's time we stop ignoring that option just 'cause you don't wanna face the possibility that Krycek might be gone for good."

"He's not dead," Mulder said calmly, shaking his head. "He's just lost."

Mulder observed as Doggett and Reyes looked at each other but they didn't say anything.

"Come on, guys, I can't believe I have to explain this to you," Mulder said, exasperated. "You've worked with him enough to know what he can and cannot do. Krycek is simply lost somewhere and he can't tell anyone how to get him back home."

"You're not makin' much sense there. He has a photo ID in his wallet with your address on it, Molder," Doggett pointed out.

"Krycek wouldn't be able to use it himself to communicate his address. Someone would have to take it from his pocket without Krycek prompting it, and that person would have to look at it and figure out that it's where he was supposed to be."

"Well that ain't gonna happen, I can tell you that much. We woulda had a call by now, for sure," Doggett said. "Look, I think you gotta face the possibility that your buddy might have met up with foul play."

"Anything could have happened to that wallet," Mulder protested. "That doesn't mean that anything's happened to Krycek." Mulder looked at Doggett sternly. "Besides, he can take care of himself. He's strong."

"Stronger than a bullet or a knife?" Doggett asked.

Mulder looked taken aback.

"John, please!" Reyes admonished.

"I'm sorry, but for cripes sake, Monica, the guy's an easy target if there ever was one! Someone out for no good sees a guy with a fake arm and thinks it's easy pickens. Then things go wrong 'cause he ain't expectin' Krycek to put up a good fight, so the perp ends up shootin' or stabbin' him."

Doggett turned to Mulder. "As of this mornin' there's still no one matching Krycek's description in the morgues. If he was off'ed in an alley or on land I think he woulda been found by now, which is why I was thinkin' he might have been dumped in the water. I'm really sorry, man, but you know as well as I do that if we don't drag the rivers and inlets now, then it might be months before his body shows up, maybe even in the bay by then."

Mulder shook his head. "No, the reason he's not in any of the morgues is because he's still alive, not because he's in the water somewhere."

Doggett turned his face towards the ceiling and shook his head, clearly at odds with Mulder's assessment of the situation.

Mulder looked from Doggett to Reyes and back again. "Listen up, people, we *are* going to find him," he said, determined. "This is what we do, we're experts at finding people. We know our business. And to that end we've spent the last two days setting up all possible avenues of investigation and search mechanisms among the different departments and agencies. Every possible organization within our radius. They've all got their people on the street doing the work and making the phone calls. We've got everything in place, so now it's mostly a matter of waiting for the results to come in."

"And if the results don't come in?" asked Doggett.

"Then tomorrow we expand the search nationwide," replied Mulder.

"Oh, this I don't believe!" Doggett exclaimed. "You wanna go national before you even check the local waters? That's crazy. There're almost as much waterways around here as there's land."

"He's not in the water," maintained Mulder steadfastly.

Doggett looked at Mulder for a few moments as if assessing him, and when he resumed speaking it was with a more gentle tone. "Look, you know I had no use for the guy before, but since he's come back from the dead it's obvious that he's somehow become your friend. And now that your buddy's missin' it's messing you up bad. You barely ate or slept the last few days and you're clearly runnin' on empty. You're not thinkin' clearly, man. You're so wrapped up in this on a personal level that you're not making rational decisions anymore."

"Don't presume to know what I'm going through, Agent Doggett."

"That's the thing, Molder. I know exactly what you're going through," Doggett said sadly. He fixed a sympathetic gaze on Mulder. "Your insides are twisted up so tight you can't eat or sleep or even think straight. You hold out hope until the very end, refusing to think the worst could happen. But sometimes it does. Sometimes it does, and you gotta face that possibility, that's all I'm sayin'."

Mulder's face fell as the reality of those words sunk in. He had always known about the abduction and murder of Doggett's son, but until now he had never felt such great empathy with the man before. He walked over to his desk and sat down in his chair, gazing at his desktop for a few minutes while he reassembled his thoughts. Finally he looked back up at Doggett.

"Let's give it the rest of the day, okay? If we don't hear anything then tomorrow we'll start the dragging process."

Doggett looked at him with painful comprehension. Mulder could see in his expression that Doggett understood that he had to hold onto his hopes for a positive outcome for as long as possible.

"Sure, Molder, sure." Doggett began to walk towards the door and nodded Reyes over towards him. "Listen, I'm gonna go get us some real coffees." When Reyes reached him at the door, he whispered to her. "I'm gonna check to see if any floaters have shown up. Talk to him about that other thing, okay?"

Mulder watched Doggett leave and saw the troubled look on Reyes' face. "What other thing?" he asked.

Reyes looked surprised. "I didn't know 'Spooky' referred to your hearing, too," she said with a grin, apparently trying to bring any possible levity to the situation. She rolled her own chair over to Mulder and sat down next to him. All amusement left her face as she looked at him. "I was talking to Agent Doggett before about the feelings I pick up whenever the four of us get together. Things I don't feel when it's just the three of us."

"You've been able to tap into Krycek's aura?" Mulder asked with genuine interest.

She gave a slight shrug. "The truth is that I don't know if it has anything to do with my prescient abilities or not. But I always feel waves of despondency coming from him. Sometimes it's barely noticeable, but other times it's almost tangible."

Mulder nodded. "He's always been depressed on some level about his disability. I could tell that about him since the first day I saw him at the rehab center."

"I've felt something else in him, too. Did you know that he starts feeling anxious whenever you have to leave the room, even if you're only gone for just a few minutes?"

"No," Mulder said, disturbed. "Although it makes sense, doesn't it? How would you like to be stuck in a room with people when you couldn't communicate with them? Come to think of it," Mulder reflected, "when we're alone together he can be quite relaxed, but I've noticed that he tends to tense up when we're with people. He doesn't like to be put in the position of having to rely on me to be able to talk to them."

"Mulder," Reyes continued, "the thing that Agent Doggett wanted me to talk to you about concerns the last time the four of us were together. It was more than just despondency I felt coming from him, it was more like an overpowering despair."

"I know," Mulder agreed sadly. "We've started to lose hope that we'll catch up with Spender in time, and it's really getting to him. To both of us." He observed how troubled Reyes looked. "What is it?" he asked.

"Well, when you look at the whole picture and put everything together you've got someone who is depressed by his disability and that depression has become more severe recently. Then you follow that with him running away after an argument he has with the one person in the world he can communicate through, and he completely disappears." Reyes looked him squarely in the eye. "Agent Doggett and I think that when you add all that up, then it's quite possible that we're looking at suicide."

"No," Mulder said shaking his head. "I know he's been really down lately but he wouldn't do that. You don't know him like I do."

"That's true," Reyes acknowledged. "No one can know him like you do. But sometimes a person is so close to the situation that they blind themselves to all the signs. And from what you said Krycek left without a weapon, so probably the easiest way for him to end it all would be drowning. That's one of the reasons why Agent Doggett is so insistent on dragging the waters."

Mulder looked sickened. "The Krycek I knew all those years before would never even consider suicide, but he's not that same man anymore. Maybe you're right, maybe he could do something like that." Mulder looked down. "And if he did, I drove him to it."

"No, Mulder, I didn't mean for it to sound like that!"

He looked back up at her. "What you said was true. I had a fight with him about the very fact that I'm the only one he can talk with! How could I have done that?"

"That's what you fought about? I thought you said..."

"When you strip everything else away, yes, that's basically what it came down to. God, what kind of a monster am I?"

"Don't do this to yourself, Mulder. You were under intense pressure about Spender and you were upset about Will. It's only natural under those conditions that the two of you would end up snapping at each other."

"I had just gotten so tired of him being *constantly* at my side and touching me to speak when he never had anything good or encouraging to say anymore." He sighed. "It wasn't like that in the beginning. Those first couple of months after I brought Krycek home were completely different. He managed to stifle most signs of his despondency back then because he was relishing in the fact that he could communicate at all, even if it was only through me. But more than that was his excitement at being back in the game."

Mulder smiled at Reyes. "You know, during those first early weeks we had such high hopes. Krycek was literally exuberant, and that enthusiasm was easy to catch. We actually used to have fun together, before everything soured between us."

Mulder gazed at nothing for a few moments as he mused about more cheerful times. The grin he held withered away. "After our argument the other day, I found myself wanting that happier Krycek back again." He sat back in his chair and gave a long sigh. "At first I told myself it was because it was so much easier to be around Krycek when he wasn't so miserable and being such a pain in the ass."

Reyes put her hand on Mulder's knee. "But that wasn't the only reason, was it?"

Mulder shook his head. "The other day I'd come to the wrong conclusion that Krycek had fallen into such a deep depression that he was sleeping his days away. When I looked at his closed bedroom door and thought of what he must be going through, I found that I sincerely did not want him to be miserable. I guess I surprised myself that I could genuinely care about him so much." He looked down. "And right after that I realized he was missing."

Reyes nodded. "I can see the toll it's taken on you, Mulder. Every time I bring you lunch or dinner you haven't been able to take more than a couple of bites."

"How can I eat with this constant pit in my gut? And this tightness in my chest is so strong I can hardly sleep. The longer he's gone the more my insides feel like they're being twisted tighter and tighter, just like Doggett described." He closed his eyes. "Sometimes I can hardly breathe."

"I'm so sorry," Reyes said as she caressed his knee.

He looked at her. "The way I feel now, I can't even imagine what Doggett went through when Luke was missing. I mean, that was his son he was looking for, and Krycek is just..."

Mulder looked lost, as if he was searching for the right word. He grinned sadly and turned equally sad eyes to Reyes. "My friend. Krycek's my friend. I've never said that about him before," Mulder said. "I'm not even sure I had ever let myself believe it before, until just now."

"You hadn't?"

"Why do you sound so surprised? You know a lot of the details about our long history together. Most people would be hard pressed to get over those things. In fact, now that I think about it, I find it damned ironic that I could find a friend in a former enemy." He sighed. "Thing is I'm in no mood to appreciate the irony."

"You're right, I was surprised you hadn't considered him to be your friend already," Reyes said. "I didn't tell you everything before. See, when you first started bringing Krycek around a few months ago, it wasn't only *his* feelings that I was picking up on. I could also feel yours, and I felt the affection that you had for him."

Mulder attempted a smile but failed. "Well, then you knew before I did."

Reyes smile made up for his and she gave a soft chuckle. "Maybe I should have mentioned something back then to give you a clue."

"Hmm, maybe you should have," he said, actually managing a tiny sad chuckle of his own. Suddenly he frowned. "You know, these last few weeks were so tense between us that it really irritated the hell out of me whenever he had to touch me. I just wanted him to shut up and leave me alone. But now that he's gone I miss him so much. I just want my friend back."

"We'll find him, Mulder."

"I know we will. One way or the other."

Reyes cringed. "Mulder, what Agent Doggett and I thought might have happened to him are just possibilities that we *had* to consider in order to be thorough. It doesn't mean that we won't find him alive and well."

He shook his head. "Doggett was right, I've been trying to deny the possibility that something terrible might have happened to him. But as much as I've tried, I've been bombarded with horrible thoughts over and over again." Mulder squeezed his eyes shut. "They won't go away," he lamented.

"Mulder, don't give up hope."

His eyes sprang open. "I haven't given up. I wouldn't do that to him." He sat upright in his chair. "I can't really bring myself to believe that he killed himself, and I've got to continue to believe that he could fend off any attackers."

Mulder turned his attention towards his computer and brought up the database that they had created for Krycek's case. "I have to keep believing in him. I owe him that much."

Reyes took that as her cue to head back to her own computer, where she too pulled up the database. Together they checked and double- checked that they had not left any stone unturned.

A little while later Doggett returned and the trio worked the computers and the phones continuously throughout the rest of the morning and the afternoon. Reyes made a dinner run, but once again Mulder only managed to get a few bites down before his stomach protested. Late that evening as Doggett and Reyes were leaving for the night, they tried unsuccessfully to coax Mulder into going home to get a good night's rest. He insisted on staying.

Mulder sat in the quiet office after they had left. He'd already had his home phone forwarding his calls to his cell, and his neighbor would alert him if she saw Krycek, so there really was no reason to go home. He sat at his desk well into the night, willing his phone to ring with good news. Hours passed and he just stared at the wall, unable to keep a multitude of grim scenarios from racing through his mind. He finally lay his head down on his desk across his folded arms. He could only hope that sleep would take him away from his misery.

"Mulder. Mulder."

"Huh?" Mulder opened his eyes and lifted his head from his desk. "Oh, Reyes. Is it morning already?"

"Mulder," she said, concerned. "You look terrible."

"Mornin' all!" Doggett said as he came swiftly through the door with a cardboard tray holding three coffees. He came to a standstill. "Jeez, Molder, what'd you do, stay here all night? You look terrible."

"Is there an echo in here?" Mulder asked snidely as he rubbed his eyes. "Gimme one of those," he demanded rudely as he nodded towards the tray.

Doggett obliged and put one of the cups on Mulder's desk. "You're *welcome*."

Mulder took a sip of the hot brew and then scowled at Doggett. "Well excuse me if my manners are off," he said gruffly. "I feel as terrible as I apparently look." Mulder looked longingly at his coffee, desperately needing more caffeine but knowing that his sick stomach wouldn't tolerate it.

"No, my bad," Doggett relented. "I know you're goin' through a rough time." He went over to sit at his own desk and settled in with his own coffee. "So, about today's agenda. You said you wanted to take this national. But are you goin' to do that before, uh, before..."

"Deploying the dragging units to search for Krycek's body in the water," Mulder supplied.

"Uh, yeah, that," said Doggett, who now looked at Reyes in an apparent attempt to get support.

"Mulder," Reyes said cautiously. "Like I said last night, we have to be thorough, and today marks the fifth day he's been missing. The sooner we get on this the better."

Mulder sighed. "Well, I suppose there's no reason that we can't begin both pursuits at the same time. Okay, Doggett, why don't you..."

Mulder was interrupted by the ringing of his desk phone. He snatched the receiver and held it up to his ear. "Mulder!" he answered eagerly, hopes high. His face then fell slightly. "Oh. Okay, put him through." He looked at his office mates. "It's the police in Ohio," he related in disappointment. "It's probably just a follow-up call about those missing suspects from the Shiedler murders last March," he said as he pressed the button to put the caller on speaker- phone.

"Hello? Is there an Agent Fox Mulder there?"

"This is Mulder."

"Agent Mulder, this is Officer Mark Johnston of the Larrabee, Ohio Police Department. I got your name to call in connection with a guy we've got over here in lockup on assault and battery charges. The guy has no ID and refuses to tell us who he really is, so we were hoping that you could verify that information for us."

"Yeah, if this is regarding the murders of Paul and Ruby Sheidler, then the guy you've got locked up is most likely one of the three Sheidler cousins. They're suspected of trying to cover up the murders by making it appear as if they were part of a satanic cult. Let's see, the cousins' names all started with the same letter, uh, I think it was 'B', yeah, 'B', their names were Brian, Ben, and..."

"Excuse me, Agent Mulder, but I'm not familiar with any Scheidler murder case."

"You're not? Didn't the police captain from Youngstown put you in contact with me?"

"No, sir."

"Then I don't understand. How did you get my name?"

"Well like I said the perp won't tell us who he is, so I took a chance and called the place listed on the logo that's on the back of his shirt. I got lucky. They seemed to know who he was and they gave me your name and number, told me that you were the person to call."

"His shirt logo?" Mulder asked.

"Yes, it says 'Elmhurst Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center'."

Mulder flew up to a standing position, eyes wide and heart suddenly stampeding. "Oh my god!" he cried into the phone. He looked over at Doggett and Reyes, who had both risen and were approaching his desk. "Oh my god!" he repeated, this time with a smile. He turned back to the phone. "Is he all right?!"

"So you do know this guy, huh? Are you sure?" asked the officer. "I haven't even described him to you yet."

"He's got brown hair and green eyes and his name is Alex Krycek! Is he all right?" Mulder felt his heart beating so strongly that he thought it would burst through his chest. He heard it pulsing so loudly in his ears that he had trouble hearing over the phone.

"Yes, he's fine. And Alex Krycek is the same name I was given by the administrator from Elmhurst, but I need to be absolutely certain that we're all talking about the same man. Can you describe him in more detail for me?"

"What?" asked Mulder, completely befuddled in his excitement. "Oh, uh, he's about my height, uh, I mean he's about six foot one..."

Doggett and Reyes were smiling as they listened to the call over the speaker. Doggett was trying to get Mulder's attention and when he got it he pointed to his own left arm. Mulder just looked at him perplexed and Doggett chuckled.

"His arm, Molder, his arm."

Mulder's eyes conveyed sudden comprehension. "He's missing his left arm!" he virtually yelled into the phone.

"Yep, that's him," said the officer.

The knots that had been twisted inside Mulder suddenly unwound. The tightness in his gut and chest ceased to exist and was immediately replaced with a feeling of supreme elation. He felt as if he were floating up and away in the air.

"Agent Mulder, are you still there?" came the voice over the phone.

His mind was in a million scattered places, and it took him a few moments to compose himself and focus on the task at hand.

"Yes, I'm here. Listen, Officer Johnston, Alex Krycek is a friend of mine with a brain injury that makes it difficult for him to speak in ways that most people can understand. That's why he hasn't told you who he is. It's not because he's refusing to cooperate. I'm going to take the first flight I can get over there so I can talk to him."

"You're coming all the way over here from Washington, D.C.?" asked the officer.

"I'm the only one who can really understand him. Listen, you make sure that he's treated right, and you be sure to tell him that I'm on my way, okay?"

"Okay."

"Now you said you're in Larrabee? Where's the nearest airport?"

"Columbus. It's forty-eight miles northeast of us."

"I have to check the flights, but make sure to tell him that I'll be there some time today."

"Okay. Then I guess I'll see you later, Agent Mulder."

"Right. Thank you for calling, Officer."

Mulder hung up the phone and just stared at his coworkers with a huge smile.

Reyes laughed. "Mulder, you've had that smile on for almost the whole time you were on the phone." She stepped closer to him and gave him a brief hug. "It's a good look on you."

"I'm happy for ya, Molder." Doggett said as he gave Mulder a couple of pats on the shoulder. "I'm still not Krycek's biggest fan. I dunno that I'll ever be able to reconcile my past dealin's with him, but I see by what you've been goin' through that he means a lot to you."

"Thanks. I really appreciate all the hard work you've put into helping me find him."

Doggett grinned and shook his head. "For all the good it did. Thank god for T-shirts, huh?"

Mulder chuckled. "You're not kidding. I didn't even realize he was wearing one of those shirts. He had his jacket on that whole day we were last together." Mulder turned and sat back down at his desk, and began tapping on the keyboard. "I've got to check on these flights."

"Larrabee frickin' Ohio. How the hell did Krycek end up there?" Doggett wondered aloud.

Mulder stopped typing as he wondered the same thing. "I don't know, but I bet it wasn't easy on him." The high that he had been on for the last few minutes started shrinking a bit as he speculated about what Krycek might have had to endure these last five days. These glum thoughts made Mulder want to get to Krycek as soon as possible, but his computer search revealed that there were no imminent flights to Columbus.

"Damn, the first flight I can get out of here isn't for another three- and-a-half hours."

"That's okay, Mulder. It gives you time to go freshen up at your place, first," said Reyes.

"Yeah, ya wouldn't want Krycek to see ya coming lookin like that, would ya?" Doggett teased.

"Message noted and received," smiled Mulder. "Okay then," he said, getting up from the desk, "I'm off to shower and shave. I'll keep you guys posted." He headed for the door, musing about the fact that for the first time in days the prospect of going home to his apartment did not upset him.

Mulder arrived at the police station in the early afternoon. He rushed through the front door and pulled his ID out for the receptionist.

"Hello, I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder of the FBI here to see Officer Johnston. Tell him to hurry, please," he said impatiently.

"Really? The FBI?" she asked as she viewed his badge, clearly impressed. She looked up at him. "I'm sorry, but Officer Johnston isn't here."

"What? I just spoke with him this morning. He said he'd be here waiting for me!"

"He was called away on an emergency shortly after he arrived here this morning, and he hasn't returned yet."

"Look, I'm here to pick up Alex Krycek, the man you have in lockup. If Johnston's not here then he must have told someone else to be expecting me in his place. Find out, would you?" As the receptionist made a phone call, Mulder began bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, creating a vision of nervous energy.

She hung up from her conversation and looked up at Mulder. "Captain McNeil is coming out to speak to you," she said.

A few minutes later a man approached Mulder with an outstretched hand. "Agent Mulder, is it? Captain McNeil."

Mulder shook the offered hand. "I'm here for Alex Krycek."

"Yes, I just now found out that's the name of our mystery man."

"Johnston didn't tell you this morning?"

The captain shook his head. "Sorry for the confusion, Agent Mulder. Before I came out here I called Johnston to clear this up. He apologizes, but he ran out of here so fast this morning right after he hung up with you, that he didn't have time to fill in the rest of us on Krycek's identity. That's why no one was expecting you."

"Wait a minute. Are you telling me Johnston didn't even tell Krycek that I was on my way?"

"Johnston said he forgot, but he apologized for that, too," replied the captain.

"Damn it!" screamed Mulder furiously. "Take me to him, right now!"

In the lockup section they passed two holding cells, one of which held several women and the other several men, but no Krycek. At his inquiry, the captain explained that the people in the holding cells were there for nonviolent crimes like prostitution and public drunkenness. Krycek wasn't put in with them because he had severely beaten a man, which in and of itself was enough reason to keep him out of the holding cells, but on top of that they couldn't rule out that he might be psychotic because he only spoke in gibberish. Mulder assured the captain that Krycek was not dangerous and explained about his brain damaged speech, and insisted that if he beat a man it was only because he had good reason to and it must have been in self-defense. He told him he wanted his cell door unlocked as soon as they got there so that he could get inside.

They went through another door and went into a room with four small cells, all of them empty except for one. The captain unlocked the door and Mulder entered the cell, staring at the dejected man on the cot, who hadn't bothered looking up at his visitor. Krycek was sitting sideways on the cot with his shoulders slumped, hand absently caressing his stump, with his head slightly lowered, eyes gazing at nothing. Mulder had never seen anyone look so totally lost and forlorn, and his heart broke for him. Mulder's chest tightened and his throat thickened as he approached the cot.

"Alex..."

Alex's eyes shot up towards the familiar voice and widened in an incredibly sad mixture of shock and relief. He gasped out a barely audible "Fibster!" and arose from the cot to meet Mulder. When Mulder grabbed his shoulders, Alex's eyes became wet and his lips began to quiver over shaky breath. He put his head down ashamedly, and Mulder pulled him into a tight hug.

"Alex, thank god I found you! You don't know what I've been going through, looking for you, god, I thought...I thought...thank god I found you."

Alex remained still for long moments, head down against Mulder's shoulder, allowing himself to be held. Then Mulder felt Alex take a deep breath after which he gently pushed himself out of the hug and stepped back, raising his head to Mulder, who could see that he was much more visibly composed. His eyes were now dry but sad, which was the only expression in his otherwise impassive face. In fact, Mulder thought he looked rather stoic despite the fading bruises on his cheek and chin.

"Look at you," Mulder said, gently touching his face just below one bruise. "Are you all right?"

//Yeah, I'm fine.//

He moved his fingers from his face down to rest on his hand. "Jesus Alex, what happened? How did you end up here?"

Alex sighed heavily.

//I was stupid, Mulder. I was so mad at you I didn't want to face you again that night, so I decided not to come back until morning. I walked around for hours and tried to sleep in the park, but there really wasn't any place inconspicuous enough. That's when I noticed a trailer home hitched to a car, and it was unlocked so I went in to sleep on the bed for awhile. But...but I must have really been wiped out because the next thing I know I woke up and we were going fast, really fast on the highway. The driver must've been going about eighty, and there was no way I was going to jump out. He didn't stop until we got here.//

Alex lowered his head and Mulder had to struggle to hear his next words.

//I spent the day wandering around...I didn't know what to do...// he said softly, voice cracking.

"It's okay, Alex," Mulder comforted, squeezing his fingers around the hand they had been resting on.

Alex looked up at Mulder, eyes sad. //I just wanted to be by myself for awhile. Guess I can't even manage that.//

He pulled himself together and continued.

//Then that night some punk surprised me and grabbed the wallet from my pocket. I started to run after him but he had a partner, a big partner, who blocked my way. We got into it and I really laid into him,// Alex said without remorse. //I needed that wallet, Mulder. It was the only link I had to you, so I tried to down this guy quick so I could go after the runner. But I never had the chance because a cop passing by in his squad caught us in the act, and tried to get it out of us what was going down. This guy tells the cop that I was mugging him, and since I couldn't say anything to contradict that, I was the one who was arrested. I've been sitting in this cell the last four days, thinking I'd never get out and never...never see you again.//

"It's over, Alex. I'm here."

Alex closed his eyes and squeezed Mulder's hand back. When he opened them he cast a glance at the captain.

//Guess I owe the cops here for finding the guy who ran off with my ID.//

"No, actually they never did recover your wallet. They traced me because you were wearing one of your shirts with the Elmhurst logo on it, and they called over there."

"Wait a minute," the captain interrupted. "Are you going to tell me that you're actually *talking* with this guy? You understand all that gibberish he's spewing?"

"Of course I'm talking to him, Captain. What sounds like nonsense to you is actually coded speech patterns that I've come to understand thoroughly," Mulder explained, figuring it wasn't that much of a lie. "And according to him, he was the one mugged, and the guy he beat up was trying to stop him from going after the one who ran off with his wallet."

"Well, that's not how the statement went from the alleged victim. His injuries were enough that he needed medical treatment, and your friend here isn't going anywhere since the charges still hold," the captain said, almost apologetically.

"Then I'll just have to go see the *alleged* victim and see if he'd like to come clean," he said to the captain, then turned again to Alex. "I'll be back soon. You're getting out of here as soon as I clear this up."

//Sure, Mulder. Thanks.//

Mulder started to leave, but Alex stepped to him and grabbed his hand again.

//Mulder, wait...//

Mulder saw the anxious look on Alex's face.

//They took my damn arm, Mulder. I want it back. Now.//

Mulder thought that Alex might have been trying to sound demanding, but it came out more like a woeful plea. He could only imagine how Alex felt. It must have been frightening enough to feel helpless about his situation without the added indignity of being stripped of a body part. But based on the need he heard in his voice, Mulder suspected it had more to do with getting the equivalent of a security blanket back again rather than regaining his dignity.

"Captain, I'd appreciate it if you could see to it that he gets his arm back, right away."

"I don't know...it's not policy to allow something in the cell that could be used as a weapon."

"Give him his arm back, damn it!"

"All right, I guess it's okay," the captain said, walking to the wall phone where he pressed a button. "Yeah, get someone to bring that fake arm over to the prisoner in solitary."

Mulder didn't leave until it was delivered.

Less than two hours later, Mulder returned with a smile, which faded as he approached Alex's cell and saw his demeanor. He had made the mistake of assuming that now that the shock of being found had dissipated, that Alex would look happy at the prospect of going home. Instead the impassive mask that he had seen bits and pieces of earlier was now firmly in place. The guard that accompanied Mulder unlocked the cell door and then left the room, leaving them alone together. When Mulder entered the cell he tried to lighten the mood.

"Good news, Alex. Handling that jerk was a piece of cake. He wanted nothing to do with the threat of the feds coming down on him," he chuckled. "I suggested that his actions had impeded an ongoing federal investigation and that it'd be a lot better for him if he confessed and took the rap for assault and serve his time in the local lockdown, rather than have to face federal charges. He came back here with me straight away and gave a new statement. They're processing him now...he may even get your old cell," he laughed. "We're outa here, Alex. Let's go."

Alex had listened sedately, and when he rose to follow Mulder out of the cell he made no move to touch his hand to say anything.

Alex had also remained completely silent on the drive to the airport and on the plane, despite Mulder's attempts at levity. It seemed to Mulder that he was trying his best to avoid eye contact. On the plane, Mulder turned to Alex, who was slumped against the wall in his window seat gazing unfocussed out the window. Mulder took his hand.

"Alex, you're awfully quiet. Are you all right?"

//Yeah,// he replied softly.

"I'm so sorry you had to go through all that..."

//I'm fine.//

"This was all my fault, Alex. I never should have gone off on you like I did that night...I was just taking out my frustrations on you. That was so wrong of me and I was planning to apologize when you came home, but..."

//It wasn't your fault. I'm fine. I'm just going to try to sleep until we land,// he said unemotionally.

Mulder left him alone, although he noticed that Alex never closed his eyes and continued to stare blankly out the window for the duration of the trip.

When they disembarked from the plane, Mulder wasn't surprised to see Reyes waiting for them. He figured that Doggett was there simply because Reyes had dragged him along with her, or perhaps he was there in support of Mulder. Nevertheless, he too wore a smile as they approached. Mulder noticed that Alex didn't drop his mask of indifference as the pair came up to them, not even when Reyes embraced him.

"Alex, you had us scared stiff! You okay?" she asked.

He just looked at her unemotionally.

"I was really worried about you," she added.

Alex sighed and reached for Mulder's hand.

"He'll not runover."

"He says he's fine," Mulder said.

"Good, good, I'm so relieved," she said, smiling.

"Good ta have ya back, man. Molder here was goin' nuts!" Doggett said. "Crazy the way it happened, you takin' a nap in a mobile home and all. Jeesh, it coulda ended up a lot worse for you. Musta been sumthen, though, what you went through all alone out there."

Alex blinked slowly and seemed unfocused, as if only half- listening. "He'll dumbling item really is needer those end-ups, only. Huger meaning isn't. Runover isn't he'll not," he emitted calmly.

Mulder looked at Alex for a few moments, concerned at his impassivity, before interpreting for him.

"I did a stupid thing and had to pay the consequences, that's all. No big deal. I'm fine."

Mulder noted that Alex had turned his eyes from the pair to gaze at the floor, and knew he wouldn't be offering anything more to say. He knew Alex just wanted to get home, so he turned to Doggett and Reyes.

"Look, we really appreciate you coming down here like this. Now..." he forced a smile. "Is this just a social visit or are you here to take us home?"

A short while later they arrived at the apartment. Alex stood for a moment after entering, as if not knowing what to do, then went to sit on the sofa. Mulder watched him sitting there, staring at the wall with the same sad expression he'd worn most of the day. Upon further reflection Mulder decided that it was less a look of sadness in his eyes than a look of having given up. Mulder couldn't stand to see that look of complete resignation in Alex. If Alex hadn't been slipping into a deep depression before, he certainly was now. He went to stand next to him, reaching down to touch his neck.

"Hey, I've got a lot of leftovers in the fridge. How about if I heat something up for us?"

//No thanks.//

"Alex, you didn't eat anything on the plane."

//I'm not hungry.//

"You know, I wasn't hungry either, for days while you were missing. People kept bringing me food to try to make me eat, but I couldn't, so it all ended up in the freezer," he chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. "But now that you're back I'm ravenous. Guess my stomach decided it was time to catch up. Anyway there's so much food in there I'm going to need help eating it, so I'll make a little bit for you, okay?"

//I don't want any,// he said blandly to the wall. //Sorry you didn't eat while I was gone. I didn't mean to cause you so much trouble.//

"Alex, stop it, damn it!" Mulder sat down next to him and took hold of his chin, turning his face towards him. "Stop blaming yourself for this, none of this was your fault!"

Alex's head was forced to face Mulder, but he turned his eyes aside. Mulder shook his chin to try to get his focus back.

"Jesus, Alex, you won't even look at me. I hate seeing you acting like a zombie, with that dead look in your eyes. Talk to me...I can help you get through this."

//There's nothing to talk about. An extreme event simply reminded me just how seriously I need to consider my limitations. I had started to forget that, but now I won't,// he said calmly.

"Yes, but...but you're holding it all so tightly inside you. It's okay to scream and kick the furniture if you have to, you know."

//Why? A tantrum isn't going to change how I am, so I just have to accept it. There's nothing more I can do about it or say about it. It's just how it is.//

Mulder sighed and let go of his chin, and sat back on the sofa. He decided not to push the issue any further, since the experience was still too raw and he knew Alex needed time to come to terms with his recent ordeal.

"Okay. I'm here for you whenever you need to talk about it, remember that."

The two of them sat on the sofa in an uncomfortable silence until the loud rumbling of Mulder's stomach made itself known. He chuckled.

"I'm gonna heat something up for me, then I'm coming right back here to continue with the promise I made awhile ago, remember? The Knicks are on, and I promised myself I'd do my damnedest to turn you into a fan."

Mulder ate during the game, trying his best to keep the mood light with comments and jokes about the players and the game. Alex sat in silence, passively looking at the screen, but each time Mulder glanced at him he could see that his eyes were largely unfocused. During the second quarter break, Mulder took his dirty dishes to the kitchen and was returning to resume his seat on the sofa when he suddenly remembered something.

"Oh, hey, I forgot. I got something for you when you were away."

He took a bag out of his desk drawer and sat back down next to Alex. He removed a necklace and a bracelet from the bag and placed them in Alex's hand.

"They're Medical Alert identification tags. They list your name, type of disability, address, my name, and all of my phone numbers. I wanted to be sure that if we ever got separated again that there'd be an easy way for you to get back home."

Mulder saw a bit of emotion crack through Alex's eyes as he stared at the items in his hand, and he hoped he hadn't gone too far so soon after his return. He didn't want to magnify the fact that Alex was so totally dependent on him. It was true that Alex had just announced earlier that not only did he acknowledge this total dependence, but that he had to accept it. But saying something and wearing a tangible symbol of it were two entirely different things.

"I didn't know if you'd prefer the necklace or the bracelet, so I got you both. I...I hope you won't mind wearing them."

Silence filled the air for several moments, followed by a soft //I won't mind. Thank you.//

"Good, now I don't have to worry about you not getting home if someone grabs your wallet again."

They watched the second half of the game much like they had watched the first half, with Mulder trying to get Alex involved in the action but Alex just blankly watching the screen. Mulder noticed that the only times his eyes became focused were when he occasionally turned them from the television to stare at the identification jewelry on the table.

After the game ended, Alex took Mulder's hand and spoke to him as he rose from the sofa.

//I'm tired. See you in the morning.//

He let go of Mulder's hand and took a few steps towards his room, then stopped. He slowly returned to the table and picked up his identification tags, then went into his room and closed the door.

Mulder went to bed on the sofa shortly after that, needing to crash after the long stressful days he had endured. However, he had always been a very light sleeper and at some point a noise woke him up. He lay there wondering what it was, and was just drifting back to sleep again when he heard it again. And again. He sprang up on the couch to listen. He could just barely hear it but there was no mistaking what it was. Alex was crying.

He turned on the lights and made his way over to the closed door and listened to the soft, muffled sobs. He briefly debated whether he should just let him be alone, but he couldn't stay away. He opened the door and gave his eyes a few moments to adjust to the darkened room. Through the light emitted from the hallway he saw Alex sitting on the side of the bed, clutching a pillow to his bare chest, his face buried in the pillow to capture the sobs. At closer inspection Mulder saw that Alex was wearing the necklace with the identification tag. He sat down next to Alex and put his arm around him, pulling him close. Alex resisted for a few moments and then relented, letting himself be held.

//I hate this,// he sobbed quietly into the pillow. //I hate this.//

"I know, Alex," he soothed. "I hate your disability, too."

//I hate this, I hate this, I hate this...//

Mulder held him as the sobbing intensified.

//I...// Alex gasped out on a hiccuping breath into the pillow, followed by several sobs.

//hate...// he gasped out again, more sobs following.

//this// he gasped out before the sobs continued.

The sobs continued to strengthen until they evolved into long, drawn out moans.

//I HATE THIS!!// he cried out in anguish, breaking Mulder's heart even more than it already was.

Mulder didn't say anything, for his words were not what Alex needed right now. The night wore on, and he continued to hold Alex while he cried out his pain into his pillow.

The next several days were very subdued. They put off their trip to the West Coast facilities for awhile, Mulder preferring to research from home rather than getting right back into the travel mode after what Alex had been through. Besides, although he didn't want to admit it, he doubted that the outcome of the trip would be better than any of the others that they had been on. Still, they had to keep trying.

At the end of the week Mulder received an urgent call from Scully's mother. She had been babysitting William since Scully was out of town at a forensic pathologist teaching convention. Now Margaret called with the news that her son and daughter-in-law had been injured in a car accident. Bill and Tara were expected to make full recoveries, but for now Margaret needed to fly to San Diego to take care of their children. She told Mulder over the phone that she would be dropping Will off with him on her way to the airport.

While waiting for William's arrival, the two men were sitting side by side next to the computer at Mulder's desk. They were currently doubling up their efforts to trace large iron shipments and were checking some things online. The time could have been cut in half if Alex was able to use a computer, but they had managed after all these months to work well online together.

//That part's interesting about the Oregon plant. Go to that site, Mulder.//

"Where? I don't see that."

//Down there,// he directed verbally, not being able to simply point to the link. //Six paragraphs down, second sentence from the end.//

"Oh, okay. Hey Alex, I hope you won't mind it when Will is here."

//Why should I mind? I like kids.//

"You do?"

//Why does that surprise you?//

"It doesn't, it's just that I never knew you liked them, that's all."

//There are lots of things I like that you don't know about.//

"Really? Like what?"

//Renaissance art, classical music...//

"What? You never listen to classical music when we're driving."

//Have to be in the right mood.//

"So, what else do you like?"

Alex stared at Mulder intensely for several moments.

"Uh, why are you looking at me like that? If it's because you think it's a stupid question, it's not. I hardly know anything about you."

Alex continued to stare. //What I like, what I really like is...// He broke away from his stare and smiled coyly. //Well, maybe someday you'll find out, but for now I'll keep it to myself. Makes me more mysterious, right?//

Mulder wondered at this odd behavior but was interrupted by the knocking on the door. He got up and let Margaret and William inside.

"Hi Daddy!"

"Hiya, buddy!" He lifted Will up gave him a kiss and a hug, and continued to hold him in his arms while he spoke to Scully's mother.

"Maggie, it's really great that Will is here. I'm just sorry that it took an emergency to get Scully to agree to this."

"She doesn't know yet," said Margaret. At Mulder's shocked look, she explained. "There just wasn't any time to contact her. I'll deal with my stubborn Dana later tonight, once I get settled at Bill and Tara's place."

"Ooh boy. Somehow I think she'll find a way to blame me for this."

"No, don't worry, Fox. I'll make sure she knows it was all my idea, including the fact that I purposely misled you to think that she had already agreed to this beforehand."

"Yes, you did," Mulder acknowledged.

"Well, really, someone had to do *something* to try and fix this mess. This is more than just your apartment, Fox, it's William's home. He's lived with you half the week for his whole life. He needs to be here."

"Wiyum like it here wit Daddy," the youngster agreed.

"I know you do, sweetheart, which is why Grandma Maggie brought you here," she said to William. "Fox, I'm sure once Dana sees how happy that William is to be staying with you again and how well he gets along with Alex, then she'll come around. She just isn't able to take the first step, that's all."

"Why Maggie Scully, you little sneak," Mulder grinned. "I bet you were hoping all along for some opportunity to come up that would allow you to do this very thing."

"Of course! What kind of grandmother would I be if I didn't try to make things right for my grandson?"

She shared a chuckle with Mulder as Alex came up to them in the vestibule.

"Hello, Alex," grinned Margaret. "It's nice to see you again and I wish I had time to stay and talk, but I'm running late for the airport." She turned to the boy in Mulder's arms. "Have fun, William. Grandma has to go now." She kissed him goodbye. She turned to Alex and handed him the backpack and the bag that she had been holding. "William's current favorite trains and cars are in the bag. I really do have to get going. Bye Fox, bye Alex." She smiled and departed.

Mulder turned William in his arms so that he was facing Alex.

"Will, this is my friend, Alex. He talks a bit differently than what you're used to hearing, but he's really nice."

"Hi Awex," greeted William. "Me Wiyum."

"Gloversby until everwhen littler mansbe."

William giggled. "He's siwwy, Daddy."

"He said you're silly, Alex. William, it's not nice to say that about..."

Mulder was interrupted by Alex, who reached out to touch his hand.

//I *know* what he said, Mulder, you don't have to interpret for him, too. And don't admonish him. He's right, I do sound silly to him. It's okay.//

"Okay, well listen Will, Alex and I need to just finish at the computer for a little while. You can play with your toys on the coffee table here for a little bit by yourself, okay?" Mulder bent and let Will get down from his arms. Will retrieved his bag from Alex and then scampered into the living room, where he opened the bag and let the small trains and cars fall onto the coffee table.

Will was good about playing by himself for quite awhile, making crashing noises as he slammed his cars together, but eventually he turned to Mulder.

"Daddy wanna pa-lay Wiyum now?"

"No, I'm still busy, Will. Just a little while more, okay?"

"Awex wanna pa-lay Wiyum now?"

"Will, please don't bother..."

Before he could finish his sentence, Alex had moved to the floor to sit next to Will. He rolled a car on the table and guided it to gently crash into the car Will was holding. Will squealed with delight, and the two of them continued to crash cars while Mulder continued at the computer. After awhile Will moved to stand behind the seated man and put his small arms around Alex's neck, pressing himself against Alex's back.

"Wiyum wanna pa-lay horsey."

Mulder was about to intervene and explain to Will about Alex's prosthetic and that it wouldn't be easy for him to crawl around on all fours, but Alex merely boosted Will onto his shoulders and started walking on his knees. Will laughed and laughed as Alex made several revolutions around the living room.

"That morseymorse was awakenot."

"No Awex! More! More!"

"He'll knobbies bandage. Whysnot his owners ones watchedywatchwatch?"

"Okay! Lemme down!"

No sooner had Will's feet touched the floor than he bounced over to the television cabinet and picked up a video, expertly inserting it into the video player and turning on the television. He bounced back to the sofa and climbed onto the seat.

"Huwwy, Awex. Thomas come on now!"

Mulder saw Alex staring at Will with wide eyes, and assumed that the last thing he wanted to do was to watch a children's video.

"Uh, sorry, Alex, but 'Thomas the Tank Engine' comes with the territory. You really shouldn't be looking at Will like that until the twentieth or thirtieth time he asks you to watch it with him."

Alex hurried to Mulder and touched his hand.

//I think he understood me!//

"What?"

//As soon as I suggested he watch a video, he ran over and got one!//

"Really?! Wait, I don't know, Alex. He can only go so long before he needs his Thomas fix. He always does this."

//Ask him to tell you what I said.//

"Will, can you tell Daddy what Alex was saying to you when you were playing horsey?"

"He said, he said the horsey was gedding tired an' his knees was hurting, so he wanna'd watch video instead."

//Yes! Yes, that's exactly what I said! I can't believe this!//

"Me neither!" Mulder laughed. "Although...actually, I should have thought about this before. We speculated that it might be something in my DNA that allows me to understand you, so it only stands to reason that my son might also be able to."

//I...I guess. Wow.// Alex stared at Will for a minute. //Think you can talk Scully into letting him stay here more often?//

"Of course," he said, squeezing his hand. Alex was obviously overjoyed that there was another person in the world that could understand him, and Mulder was thrilled for him. "I'll convince her Alex, you can be sure of it, I promise." Mulder wasn't exactly sure how, but he knew that this was a promise he was going to keep.

"Daddy! Awex! Bad Diesel gonna go faw in da water! Watch! You watching?!" The boy's eyes widened as he watched the train fall over the cliff and plummet into the river below. A squeal of delight erupted from him as if it were the first time he had ever seen this scene. He looked over at them and pointed to the screen. "Now Thomas get him out. Thomas help bad Diesel!"

"Good for Thomas!" Mulder chimed. "We love Thomas, don't we Will? Let me know when they all get back to the station safely, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy."

Alex went to sit on the sofa and he pulled Will onto his lap, holding one of his little hands. Mulder continued at the computer, enjoying listening as the occasional jargon-speak questions from Alex were readily answered by Will, who appeared only too happy to be able to explain to someone new about all of the different trains on the Isle of Sodor.

Later that evening the men were sitting on the sofa and Mulder noticed Alex staring at Will's closed bedroom door.

"He's sleeping, Alex. You can talk with him again tomorrow," Mulder teased. "But seriously, I'm glad he's in your life now and you've got someone new to talk with."

Alex looked back at the bedroom door. //He talks very well for his age. He's precocious, isn't he?//

"Yes, but not extraordinarily so. A lot of kids his age can talk like that. I did when I was that age. I'll warn you right now though that when he gets on a roll there's no stopping him and he can talk nonstop until you keep looking at the clock waiting for his bedtime."

//I won't mind, I'll talk with him until we're both blue in the face. Two whole people in the world I can talk with is one more than I had yesterday.//

Mulder smiled sadly at Alex, happy that his friend was able to derive such joy from this new gift considering how small it was relative to the enormity of his situation. A thought occurred to Mulder at that.

"I wonder if my brother can understand you, too."

//Jeffrey? I don't think so. I mean, I know you have the same father, but I don't recall finding out about any of them messing around with his junk DNA like they did with yours.//

"Well, we'll find out sooner or later. Jeff's been a frequent visitor because of Will. He really loves his nephew and makes it a point to come around enough to get to know him...and me. We've actually gotten close. Turns out he's a nice guy," Mulder said, giving a momentary grin that quickly turned to a frown. "I just wish there was some way I could help him be happier. I could kill Spender for what he did to him."

//I don't know how anyone could do that to their own son. To inject him with something that would burn his skin from the inside out, from head to toe...it's unconscionable. Your father really is a monster, Mulder.//

"Another thing we agree on. Seems I find more things I have in common with you every day."

//Well one more thing we now have in common is that Will has us both wrapped around his little finger,// Alex grinned. He looked at Mulder warmly. //I'm glad he's in your life, Mulder. I don't mean for me, I mean for you. He's such a wonderful kid. You're a very lucky man and I'm sincerely happy for you that you have him in your life. You deserve that kind of happiness.//

Mulder could feel the genuine warmth and compassion in those words, and was truly touched.

"Thank you, Alex. That's very kind of you to say."

Alex continued to gaze warmly at him for so long that Mulder started to feel strangely uncomfortable.

"Uh...yeah, that Will is something. I know I'm lucky to have him."

Mulder saw Alex snap out of whatever state he was in and he turned his head away, once again looking towards Will's door. Alex studied the door for awhile, and when he turned back he looked pensive.

//So apart from being precocious and having DNA that can understand me, Will seems so...so normal.//

Mulder laughed. "Well of course he's normal."

Alex sighed. //I'm glad, don't get me wrong, but...you see, this is just another example of how all the information I had access to wasn't necessarily correct. I was led to believe that Will was supposed to have some type of special abilities, more than just inheriting his daddy's DNA.//

"He did. He used to. According to Scully he used to be able to exhibit telekinesis. Apparently he could move the mobile over his crib just by looking at it."

//What do you mean he used to? He can't anymore?//

"No, any special abilities he had left him after Jeff injected him with something when he was a newborn."

//He what?!//

"It's a strange story, Alex, I'm just glad it turned out so well. Jeff never had direct access to the Consortium except, ironically, when he was being burned in one of their labs. He was recovering when he heard Spender talking about Will. He overheard him saying that Will's birth could be very important to the aliens, and he was going to use Will as a bargaining chip for himself and his colleagues. But then Jeff overheard there was a serum that would make Will's value to the aliens disappear, so he found out where it was and stole it. Can you believe he was able to be that together in his condition?"

Alex sat captivated. //Go on.//

"My brother wanted to help his nephew be safe from the aliens and stick it to the old man at the same time. So he injected Will. Scully found out and freaked, but after a thorough medical evaluation they said he was totally normal."

//Did Jeff know what was in the serum?//

"He didn't know for sure, but he thought he heard them say something about a metal compound containing magnetite."

//Magnetite...//

Mulder noticed that Alex was concentrating on something.

"You know something about it?"

//I think I remember seeing something about that years ago, somewhere. I must have come across it in one of the Consortium files, but I can't be sure. And that made William completely normal?//

"Yes, completely. Well, except for some little thing that the doctors said not to worry about because it would resolve itself, and it did."

//What was that?//

"Nothing, really. They just found that he had slightly elevated iron levels, but they leveled out quickly."

//Iron...//

Alex's eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He sat up straight and frowned.

"Alex, don't be concerned about Will, he's fine now. I guess we'll never know what the aliens wanted with him."

//No, no, there's something...Something's not right.// Alex was becoming agitated.

"Alex, what is it? Are you remembering something?"

//I think so, but I can't grab it. Something from some of the files maybe...//

Alex got up and started pacing back and forth, minutes passing by with the intense concentration never leaving his face. He stopped moving and stood staring transfixed at Will's bedroom door, which unnerved Mulder. He got up and went over to Alex.

//There's something...something...it's bits and pieces just beyond my reach and I can't shake this feeling that if I could just add them up it would involve Will. Damn it! If I could only remember!//

"Will's got to be okay, all the doctors say he is. Jesus, if there's anything wrong with him it'll kill me and Scully. I don't think Scully could take it after everything she's been through..."

//Scully...//

Alex tensed, his eyes widening.

//Mulder, I think I just figured out what the aliens wanted with Will!//

"What, Alex, what?!"

//You know that hundreds of women abductees were experimented on, with chips implanted to support the gestation of alien hybrids, and you know that Scully was one of them.//

"Yes, I know about those women, but Scully wasn't one of them. They never implanted a hybrid in Scully. She told me she feared it at first, but she knew from the earliest ultrasounds and amnios that she was carrying a totally human child."

//Not totally human, Mulder. Not in the beginning anyway.//

"What the hell are you talking about?"

//This is...yes, this is all starting to make sense now. Years ago I remember finding a document that listed possible avenues for future research. There had to be dozens and dozens of ideas, but now I think one of them wasn't just merely an idea...I think it had already reached the research stage at that time, and I think Scully eventually ended up being part of the development stage.//

"What was it?" Mulder asked, shaken.

Alex took a breath and looked Mulder squarely in the eyes.

//Mulder...the plan was for the first naturally born super-soldier. I think they realized their plan in Will.//

"What? That's ridiculous! You're way off base here, Alex."

//They had to be referring to Will! Think about it, Mulder. The night Will was born, before I got shot we were all racing around like crazy trying to protect Scully from Billy Miles and the other super- soldiers. They wanted to hurt that baby for some reason, Mulder. They were afraid of a Being greater than themselves, in the Almighty sense. But from what you told me happened, when they found Scully and Will they just looked at him and left him alone. It must have been because they discovered that he was nothing more than a super- soldier. Human born, yes, but otherwise just like they were.//

"That's really a stretch, Alex. There could have been any number of reasons they left him alone."

//It makes sense, Mulder. You said they found high iron levels in Will's system after Jeffrey's injection cured him. That was probably all that remained of his original super-soldier chemistry.//

"Jesus Christ, Alex, a little iron in the blood doesn't mean a baby is a super-soldier. Lots of babies probably have high iron levels."

//But do those babies have mothers who were abducted and had their reproductive systems experimented on and chips placed in their necks to sustain the pregnancies of those experiments? Did those babies have mothers who were barren before they conceived? Scully had to have gotten pregnant for a reason, Mulder.//

"Alex...Alex, come here, sit down with me," Mulder said gently.

Mulder walked to the sofa and pulled Alex along by the hand he was still holding.

//Mulderrr...// he complained as he was being dragged along.

After sitting down, Mulder looked affectionately at Alex.

"Alex, I really appreciate the fact that you're trying to make sense of everything, but I think you're overcompensating here to make up for all the failures we've had these last months. You *know* I'm usually the one to believe the most unlikely possibilities, but in this case I really think you're grasping at straws. There's really not a lot to go on, here."

//It's more than just the iron levels, Mulder. Now that I remember the document I'm pretty sure I recall it saying that any woman carrying an experimental super-solder fetus would need to avoid strong magnetic fields or else she might abort. And Jeff said the serum injected into Will was some sort of magnetite compound, so...it all fits together. If they were worried that strong magnetic fields could abort a super- soldier fetus, then the magnetism in the magnetite might have been responsible for destroying the super- soldier elements in Will.//

"Well, I admit you pulled all that together nicely, Alex, but it's still all conjecture. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying we'll never know for sure."

//I don't want to be right about this, but I think I am. If Will hadn't been cured you might have had a super-soldier toddler on your hands.//

"Don't even joke about that."

//I'm not joking. I'm serious, what would you do? I wonder if the magnetite would've been able to cure a two year-old as easily as it could a newborn.//

"I'm just glad we don't have to find out. But, hypothetically speaking, if we did just suddenly now discover he was part super- soldier then we'd just have to hope the magnetite *would* be able to cure him now that he is two. Or that it would still cure him if we found out when he was five or ten or at any age for that matter...even if we didn't discover it until after he became an adult."

Alex's eyes widened.

//Mulder, what you just said...I think you're on to something. If the magnetite would be able to cure the super-soldier elements out of an adult Will, then what would it do to the super-soldiers that are being made by Spender?//

"I don't know if it would affect them the same way since they're not part human. If your theory is correct and Will was supposed to be a super-soldier, he would also have remained part human. But those others, the ones we ran into before, they weren't human anymore. They were one hundred percent super-soldier."

//Right, which means that if anything, the magnetite should affect them even *more* than it did Will, maybe even destroy them.//

"They seemed virtually indestructible to us."

//Yes, but the aliens took them all with them when they left, so you don't know for sure.// Alex was starting to become excited. //If this is true, and if we can't find Spender before he dispenses the soldiers, then at least we might have come up with a way to destroy them.//

"Well that's assuming that your entire theory is correct, Alex. We still don't know if you put the pieces together the right way."

//I know I'm right, even if you can't believe me yet. You can just say 'I told you so' when there are super-soldiers fighting all over the world and it turns out that magnetite can destroy them,// Alex smirked. //As a matter of fact, I think I should invest in magnetite mining right now before anyone figures out how in demand it's going to be in a matter of months.//

"Sounds like you've definitely given up the search, Alex."

//No...// Alex sighed. //I'll keep trying to find Spender until my dying day. It's just that, come on, we've got to be realistic and admit we're probably not going to get to him in time. But I'll keep doing whatever it takes to find him even if it means checking out every former Consortium facility and tracking every supply of iron to see where it gets shipped...//

There was a sharp intake of breath as Alex stopped in mid-sentence.

//Oh my god. That's it! That's it, Mulder!//

Alex bounded off the sofa and began a frenzied pacing.

"Theresby only not midkling!"

Mulder got up and grabbed him, stopping him in his tracks. Alex was breathing excitedly.

//If magnetite can stop the soldiers then Spender must already know about it! He'd want the magnetite as an anti-weapon, just in case. He's probably producing the anti-weapons for safe measure, or knowing him, he's selling the anti-weapons along with the soldiers themselves to make an even greater profit. Which means he's probably hoarding supplies of magnetite. Don't you see what that means, Mulder?//

"What, Alex?"

//We've been tracking the wrong metal!//

"Now you think we should start tracking magnetite? I don't know Alex, we're running out of time as it is, and this whole magnetite thing is still just your own theory. I don't think we should stop tracking the iron...at least we know we have a chance there."

//Then don't stop tracking it but start tracking the magnetite, too! I'm asking you to trust my instincts here, Mulder. Can't you just do that for me?//

Mulder deliberated only momentarily. He did trust Alex's insights, but in addition to that, the bright look of hope on Alex's face was something he hadn't seen in months and he wanted it to stay.

"Okay, magnetite, here we come," he smiled.

They soon discovered that magnetite was an extremely common metal found in many places around the globe, but they were determined not to let their hopes disappear and began the tedious process of tracking all mining and manufacturing sources. Doggett and Reyes took on a large part of this aspect of the hunt while Mulder and Alex continued to look for clues in the former Consortium businesses.

A few weeks passed and Mulder and Alex were investigating yet another formerly Consortium-owned facility, this one currently operating as a profitable metallurgy research laboratory. It wasn't difficult to obtain access or even search any of these companies. Mulder simply presented themselves as federal agents on the trail of a murderer who was known to have a professional knowledge of certain metals, particularly magnetite. The manager of this particular facility, like most of the others that they had encountered in their travels, did not mind the federal investigation of their files.

"Agent Mulder, is there anything else I can do to be of assistance?" asked Mr. Patel, the manager.

"Well, we didn't find anything in your employee files, so we'll need to check all the information relating to your outsourcing facilities and any other companies that you do business with."

"That shouldn't take long. We don't outsource, we do everything right here. And we're currently only involved with a handful of industries. I'll pull up those files on my computer and you can help yourself. I'd like to be able to help you apprehend this man if I can."

Mr. Patel led them from the Human Resource office to his own office. He brought up the files that they were looking for. "Go ahead and download whatever you need to. Take your time, search the whole computer if you have to. We've got nothing to hide here. Now, if you'll excuse me, there are some things I need to attend to, so just get someone to page me when you're done."

After thoroughly going through the computer, they downloaded the things that they thought might be pertinent and then began to check the paper files in the filing cabinet.

Mulder pulled out a file with excitement. "Alex, look, this one's labeled 'magnetite'." They opened the file, but it consisted only of one typewritten page listing dates in single file, covering the course of twenty years.

This was the only paper file they found that had mentioned magnetite, so Mulder brought it with him when they went to find the manager. Mulder stopped someone in the hall and requested that she page Mr. Patel.

"Oh, no need for that. I just saw him in the lunchroom. It's around the corner there to the left," said the employee.

Mulder and Alex entered the large lunchroom, which was empty except for Mr. Patel, who was filling his cup at the coffee station. As Mulder went to speak to him, he noticed Alex veer off towards the wall, where he began to look at small rocks enclosed within some display cases. It was only then that Mulder noticed that the room was lined with these museum-type display cases along two of its walls. He saw Alex quickly look at all of the displays, and then walk briskly back to him. He could tell that his partner had something to say, so he held his hand behind his back, out of reach of the manager's eyesight. Sure enough, when Alex reached him, he discreetly touched his hand while whispering in his ear.

//Mulder, those cases are filled with meteorites, and most of them are labeled as magnetite. Ask him about them.//

Mulder listened, and then addressed Mr. Patel.

"Excuse my partner, he has a severe case of laryngitis," explained Mulder.

"Ah, so that's why you've been so quiet," Mr. Patel said to Alex sympathetically.

"My partner is wondering about those rocks in the display cases. He says they're all labeled as meteorites."

"Yes, they're relatively rare, which is why we've made such a show of them," smiled the metallurgist proudly. "When I first took over this place from the former management a couple of years ago, most of them were in storage. I felt it was only proper that they all be on display." Mr. Patel looked up and down the cases along the walls. "I'm not sure why they're here or what the previous owners were doing with them, but they aroused my curiosity. So I've kind of made it my pastime to study the history of meteorites."

"These meteorites were brought here by the former owners," Mulder said, repeating aloud what the manager had stated.

//If they were all here when the Consortium ran this place, then why are the ones made of magnetite in cases that are obviously newer than the other kinds?// Alex whispered.

Mulder surveyed the glass cases about the room, and noticed that some of them were bordered with obviously old and chipped painted wood while others appeared bordered with shiny steel.

"Is there any particular reason why some are in newer cases?" asked Mulder.

"Hmm, yes, it's the oddest thing," said Mr. Patel. "We've got records showing that all of these meteorites had been brought into this building over the course of the last two decades. But for whatever reason, only those you see there were already on display when we acquired this company," he said, pointing to the older cases. "Those are the ones that contain nickel and aluminum. All of the meteorites containing magnetite had been locked away in the vault, before I retrieved them. We just purchased those new cases for them about a year ago, so we could bring the magnetite out of hiding." He scratched his head. "I have no idea why they were locked up, since they're no more rare than any of the others out here. Magnetite meteorites may be valuable in a research sense, but not monetarily."

Mulder looked at Alex, and he could see the same wheels turning inside his head that were turning inside his own.

"You said they were relatively rare. The ones with magnetite, how rare are those, exactly?" asked Mulder.

"Well, by far most meteors fall into the oceans. But there are still numerable accounts of significant meteor showers on dry land throughout recorded history, all around the world. In fact, one of the largest events occurred right here in the American Southwest in ancient times. There've been stories recorded by Indians..."

"The Anasazi," Mulder interrupted, looking at Alex. He knew that Alex was aware of his former travails in that territory several years earlier.

"Ah, so you knew about that one already?" smiled Mr. Patel.

"I knew there were ancient Anasazi rock carvings depicting vast meteor showers, but I wasn't aware that they were magnetite meteorites."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Patel. "That area is currently a well-known source for scientists to hunt for meteor fragments, and a large portion of them contain magnetite."

Mulder lifted the file folder that he held. "We found this file that pertains to magnetite. There are dates here going back some twenty years. I take it that this is what you were referring to before when you said you had records of how long these particular meteorites have been here." Mr. Patel looked at the file and nodded. "And these numbers here, right next to the dates, those look like coordinates. Is that where these meteorites came from?"

"That would be my guess," said Mr. Patel with a nod. "I checked out those coordinates myself. They cover a wide area of the Southwest, across parts of New Mexico and Arizona. It makes sense that they'd be from the desert where there's a record of such a big meteor shower, ancient as that record was."

Mulder reached out his hand. "We won't keep you any longer. Thank you for all of your help."

Mr. Patel switched his coffee to his other hand and shook Mulder's hand, and then Alex's. "No thanks are necessary. It's my privilege to help the FBI. If I did help, that is."

"I think you just may have," said Mulder. "We can see ourselves out."

"All right. Bye then," said the manager. He switched his coffee back to his right hand and departed the room.

Mulder turned to Alex. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

//I think so. This has got to mean something, that they hid those meteorites away like that. So maybe we're not just looking for any old magnetite, but magnetite that came specifically from meteorites.//

"That's what I was thinking. And maybe Will..."

//was injected with magnetite from a meteorite,// finished Alex for him.

"Yeah," said Mulder, brows furrowing in thought.

//So are you starting to finally really believe that I'm on to something, now?// teased Alex.

"I'm here, aren't I?" he replied with a brief grin. "Let's copy this page and look into these coordinates. I think we've just significantly narrowed our search parameters."

//I think so too.// Alex sounded determined. //This has to be the beginning of the end for Spender. It has to be.//

Mulder felt something from Alex that he had declined to express verbally. Despite the determination in Alex's voice, Mulder detected a twinge of fear in his expression and felt waves of nervous energy coming off of him.

"Alex, we both want to catch Spender so bad we can taste it. And yes, I think we've got something really solid to go on this time. But even if this doesn't pan out, I know you did your best."

//You're having doubts already? You just said it was a solid lead for once.//

"It is. You're missing the point." Mulder sighed. "I guess I'm not making myself very clear. The thing is, sometimes I get the feeling that as much as you want Spender caught for the sake of the world, you have just as big a need to catch him so that you can prove yourself, too." He raised his brows at Alex to challenge him to deny it, but Alex remained silent. "You don't have to prove yourself to me. Whether or not you were right all along about this magnetite, and whether or not it leads us to Spender, I believe you tried your very best to stop him. I believe in you. Okay?"

The fear left Alex's eyes and his expression eased. //Okay.// He turned his head away for several long moments before looking at Mulder again. //Thanks. That means a lot to me,// he said softly.

Mulder grinned and held up the file. "Come on, partner. We've got ourselves a fish to fry."

Alex rolled his eyes and grinned. //Uh, we're off to the desert. Don't you mean a rattlesnake to rustle?//

"A scorpion to seize?" chuckled Mulder as they began to head towards the door.

//A lizard to lock up?//

"A dry cactus to de-prick?"

//I get to do the de-pricking,// demanded Alex lightly.

"Only if I get to watch."

//Pervert,// Alex teased.

"And damn proud of it," Mulder asserted.

The next day the team focused their attention on the New Mexican desert. Mulder and Krycek began the drive to the area while they had their D.C. team use Bureau resources to pull up information on any businesses that had been established near there within the past two years. It was only a matter of hours before Doggett and Reyes called them with something that they found particularly suspicious. A mining site had opened shortly after the last of the aliens were known to have vacated the Earth. This mine was located in the very region of the most prominent meteorite fields.

Mulder and Alex went to check out this mining operation. What they found was a low warehouse housed near the edge of a quarry. The bulldozers were at work digging up the earth and placing it in a series of dump trucks that were circulating back and forth between the warehouse and the quarry. They staked out the warehouse for the entire day and were planning to break in to scope it out that night. However, near the end of the day a large semi-truck pulled out of the back of the warehouse and they mutually decided that it would be more prudent to follow it rather than to check out the warehouse.

They tracked the truck across New Mexico and had just crossed the Arizona border when the truck turned off the main highway. They followed it until it maneuvered itself down smaller and smaller roads, finally turning onto a narrow frontage road. They turned onto the road, trailing undetected about a mile behind with their headlights off and following the truck's taillights in the dark. The truck came to a stop next to the docking section of a large building. Mulder parked the car and they got out to run closer, stopping to hide behind a cropping of boulders. Once their night- vision binoculars were in place they saw that the building bore a simple sign reading 'Megalo Manufacturing'. The driver of the truck honked his horn, after which a man came out of the building and went up to the truck. The driver conversed briefly with this man before he pulled into the garage entrance next to the dock.

Mulder was considering what their next move should be when he felt a hand come crashing down on his.

//Mulder!// exclaimed Alex quietly, trying to keep his voice down. //That man that was talking to the truck driver, I've seen him before, with Spender!//

"Are you sure? He's so far away."

//Yes, yes! We did it, Mulder, we found it!//

"Oh my god, Alex, you were right all along!" He smiled widely at Alex, who wore a matching smile. "You're brilliant! I'd always thought we'd make great partners!"

Alex didn't offer anything more, but the smile remained on his face for quite some time.

They continued watching for awhile, but nothing was happening.

"Okay, we better get out of here and call in the troops."

The troops, a.k.a. Doggett and Reyes, arrived the next day with powerful surveillance equipment. The four of them were able to set up shop in an apartment that was on the top floor of a building on the outskirts of town, approximately two miles from the plant. Since the land was relatively flat and there were no high buildings between the apartment and Megalo Manufacturing, they were able to maintain surveillance of the plant grounds with a high-powered telescope that had night-vision capabilities.

They saw that there were actually two buildings. The semi-truck that they had followed had pulled into a low concrete structure located a few hundred feet from a larger building. They surveyed the plant around the clock for a week, pleased to find that the employees kept regular hours and that there was only one nighttime guard on the exterior of each building. The relative lack of security was evidence that Spender was confident that he would never be tracked down. These two guards stuck to their rotations without breaking their routines. Thus they decided on a plan where they felt it would be relatively easy to break into both buildings on the same night. Doggett and Reyes would remain in the apartment with the high-powered telescope since it afforded them the ability to see the comings and goings of the entire property, and they could transmit any emergency information to the ear pieces that Mulder and Alex would be wearing.

On the night in question Mulder and Krycek hid near the low concrete building, waiting for the guard to pass. When he turned the corner they knew they had several minutes to pick the lock before he returned. They had come well-prepared for all types of locks so it was only a minute before they were in. The unique thing about this building was that it didn't have any windows, so they were not concerned with being detected when they turned on their flashlights. Once they verified that there was no one inside, they turned on the lights. Both men were immediately surprised by how small the interior space was relative to the total size of the building. The interior held several storage container cars from semi-trucks that matched the one pulled by the eighteen-wheeler they had followed from the meteor field. The container cars were filled with dirt and rocks that they assumed consisted of magnetite meteorites. There was a conveyor belt arising from one of the cars that led to some manufacturing machinery, the other side of which had a series of several chutes that opened over large vats completely filled with bullets. It was obvious that the purpose of this building was to convert the raw ore material into magnetite bullets. Krycek grabbed a bullet and pocketed it.

Mulder alerted Doggett and Reyes that they were done with the search of this building. When they were told that it was safe to do so, they exited and ran to the pre-arranged hiding spot to prepare for their next entry. This second building was significantly more difficult to break into, but they made it in without being detected. Inside there was a relatively small area filled with manufacturing equipment. They broke through a locked interior door to find themselves in an immense warehouse filled with thousands of metal canisters lying side by side on the floor. Mulder and Alex grimaced and looked at each other, since they were certain what was contained within each man-sized canister. Each canister appeared to be sealed with two metal bands that encircled it, each with a small blinking light near the point where the bands joined together. Alex informed Mulder that all of these blinking lights were red, and that there were also unlit green lights next to the lit red ones. Upon closer inspection they saw that each canister was numbered.

Near the wall was a table with a computer. When they inspected it they found the monitor displayed what had to be the equivalent of a large control panel with a numbered grid, each individual square in the grid displaying a blinking red icon.

"The numbers on this grid must correspond to each individual canister. You said that they're all blinking red, but they each have an unlit icon, also. Are those green?" he asked Krycek.

//Yes, that must be how each canister is opened individually. But look near the top of the screen, Mulder. There's a large green icon on top of the screen that says 'ALL OPEN'. That must open them all simultaneously.//

Mulder shuddered. "Yeah, well we'll just play 'show and tell' with one for now. Go ahead and pick a number, Alex, and I'll open it to see what's inside. Better pick one that's not too close. That way we can see what's inside if we use our binoculars, but it won't be too close in case we have to close the lid again quickly. Spender said he'd be shipping these soldiers in an inert state, but who knows what they're capable of at this point in their processing."

They looked at the rows of canisters lined up in front of them.

//Wait a minute, our guns are useless against these things, but...// Alex said as he removed his gun from its holster. He removed the magnetite bullet from his pocket and attempted to load it into the gun's chamber, but it wouldn't fit. //Damn. Oh well, it was worth a try.// He placed the bullet in his left hand while holstering his gun with his right. Scanning the flat rows of canisters before them, he said //Number 1800.//

"Okay, here goes. Opening canister number 1800." Mulder clicked on the icon on the computer screen that would open canister 1800.

The canister opened and using their binoculars they saw a humanoid figure laying inside, eyes closed. The figure began to shake slightly and slowly rose up and out of the canister until it was hovering in mid- air. There was a visible protrusion on the back of the neck confirming its identity as a super-soldier. Its eyes were still closed and its floating body became increasingly wracked with shaking that soon became so severe that the arms and legs flailed wildly, making the creature look totally helpless and oblivious to what was happening to it. The shuddering body then began to slowly move towards them through the air. They looked at each other as it approached.

"Shit! Let's get out of here!"

They ran back towards the door and the soldier changed its course so that it was still coming directly at them, picking up speed and closing the distance. Looking back over his shoulder at its progress, Mulder couldn't figure out how it could look so totally out of control, limbs flailing and seemingly unaware of where it was going, and yet still be able to come straight at them. A sudden insight came to him.

"Throw the bullet! It's being pulled by the bullet, throw it Alex, throw it!"

The body was zooming at them with increasing speed. Still running, Alex tried to get the bullet from the grasp of the prosthetic, but couldn't. He shot a look of total panic at Mulder, who, also still running, grabbed his hand and pulled the fake fingers apart, snatched the bullet and threw it across the room. Just inches from reaching them, the speeding soldier abruptly changed course and flew across the room to where the bullet had fallen. With unerring accuracy the soldier's flying body traced the path of the bullet and then crashed down on top of it. The men watched as the shaking body turned black from head to toe and then exploded. All that remained of it was a small pile of metallic powder.

Both men were still breathing heavily, trying to catch their breath from their narrow escape.

//Damn hand locked up! Thanks, partner, I owe you one.//

"What's the use of having a gun filled with those bullets if the soldiers are just going to come crashing down on top of you?" Mulder panted between breaths. "Why would anyone carry a gun with bullets like that?"

//It has its definite advantages. If you see a soldier coming at you from a distance, you can just shoot the bullet in its general direction and it will fly to it instead of to you. You wouldn't even need to get off a clean shot.//

Mulder went over to retrieve the bullet and pocketed it along with the small amount of metal powder from the floor, leaving no trail of the destroyed soldier. He joined Alex back at the computer, and then clicked on the control to close the canister. If they were lucky, no one would discover that it was empty. After they were satisfied that they had downloaded all pertinent information from the computer, Mulder signaled to their backup that they were ready to be led safely away from the building.

The information downloaded from the facility's computer provided some much-needed information. The team was relieved to discover that none of the canisters had been shipped off yet, with the earliest shipments scheduled for the following month. They had found the soldiers just in time. A plan was devised based on what they had learned during their raid. The way the soldier was drawn to one small bullet, they concluded that an entire warehouse full of magnetite bullets and magnetite ore would be sufficient to draw all of the soldiers to it. They calculated that the small interior of the first building relative to its total size meant that the walls were ten feet thick of solid concrete. These thick walls would effectively prevent any magnetic fields from permeating outside from its vast stores of magnetite. They downloaded the control panel function of the second facility's computer into a palm pilot. The plan was to implode the walls of both buildings and use the palm pilot to open all of the canisters simultaneously. If their calculations were correct, the lifeless soldiers would all fly the distance between the two buildings and be destroyed by the magnetite bullets and ore.

After obtaining the proper explosives and after studying the best ways to implode thick walls, everything was set and ready to go. Reyes would serve as their lookout so that Mulder and Alex could enter the property undetected at three a.m. and set the explosives in place under the cover of darkness. Doggett's function would be to drive straight into one of the parking lots at dawn and get the attention of the two security guards. He would identify himself as a federal agent and distract them with questions about an ongoing federal investigation of Megalo Manufacturing. He would then produce documents that would allow him to usher the two guards off to the local FBI field office for immediate interrogation, thus ensuring that the guards would not be able to interfere with their plans once the bombs went off. Doggett's bogus paperwork would make it clear that the men would not be wise to mess with the federal government on this matter. The plan was to set off the bombs in the early light of morning as soon as the guards had left the property; this way Mulder and Alex could witness the event in daylight to verify that all the soldiers had been destroyed, and it would all be over before any of the regular employees arrived for work.

On the designated morning, Mulder and Alex had set up the explosive devices to detonate the south wall of the building that housed the soldiers and the north wall of the building that housed the magnetite. After they were successful in getting everything in place, they waited for Doggett to show up before continuing with the plan. Alex's job would be to detonate the wall of the building with the soldiers while Mulder detonated the wall with the magnetite behind it. Doggett arrived and played his part while the two men sat together in hiding listening to his conversation with the guards in the parking lot. Through their ear pieces they heard one of the guards inform Doggett that he should return later to speak to their boss, Mr. Megalo, who had flown into town the previous night and was due to come to the plant in a few hours. Doggett showed them a photo of Spender, which both guards confirmed was their Mr. Megalo. With Mulder giving him instructions in his ear piece, Doggett told the guards to call their boss and get him to the plant immediately because an Agent Doggett wanted to see him.

Thirty minutes later all three parties heard Reyes in their ear pieces announcing the approach of a sedan, which she verified had the driver as its only occupant. After Spender got out of the car and approached Doggett, Mulder could hear him question the agent as to what he was doing there. Doggett told him that the person he really wanted to speak to was around the far corner of the building nearest them.

Mulder turned to Alex.

"This is it, Spender's coming. You better get out of here and get to your post. Good luck, Alex."

Alex grabbed his hand. //This is it! Good luck, Mulder.//

Alex broke contact and took a few steps away before coming back to take hold of Mulder's hand again. He stared deeply at Mulder, who couldn't identify the emotions that he was seeing in Alex's eyes. Mulder waited for him to speak but soon wondered if he was going to say anything at all.

"Alex, what are you doing? What did you want to say?"

//I didn't want to say anything. Something could go wrong and this could all go to hell and...and I just wanted to hold your hand one more time before we do this.//

Alex smiled and squeezed Mulder's hand briefly before taking off and running towards the other building. Mulder watched him disappear and considered how lucky he was to have such a good friend and partner. He was puzzled by the momentary burning emotion he'd glimpsed in Alex's eyes; despite how close they had become, he sometimes couldn't figure Alex out. His attention was diverted towards the sound of someone coming from the opposite direction. He leaned against the north wall of the concrete building and watched Spender approach him. As he neared, Mulder could see that he was trying to maintain his ever-calm façade but obvious tension was slipping through.

"Fox. How did you find me?"

Staring straight at Spender, Mulder merely said "Now. Do it now."

With that a tremendous thunderous roar filled the air as the south wall of the other building, a few hundred feet away from them, imploded on itself. Spender stood still in shock but remained silent during the short thirty seconds it took for it all to be finished. A few minutes later, enough of the dust had receded so that in the distance they could see that the thousands of canisters were now totally exposed to their view. Spender turned back to Mulder.

"Give this up, Fox. You may have somehow found the soldiers, but there's nothing you can do to stop them. They're indestructible. You've forced me to alter my plans," he continued, somewhat desperately. "I can have them at my complete command to follow my bidding right here and now."

"I know how to destroy them."

"I sincerely doubt that you do. Now for your own sake you should stop bluffing and leave me to my plans. Otherwise, within twenty minutes I can have a few of them programmed to come out of their inert state of being and to follow my orders. You really wouldn't want that to happen, now would you? They will follow you and Agent Doggett to the ends of the world to put an end to you."

"I'm not going anywhere."

Spender pulled out a palm pilot and pushed some buttons.

"You've forced my hand, Fox. I didn't want it to end this way for you. I've programmed orders into a few of the soldiers to hunt you down. The programming will take effect in twenty minutes."

"Twenty minutes? Is that the best you can do?" Mulder laughed.

With that he ran away from Spender, stopping when he was a safe distance from the concrete building. He detonated his bombs, and with a terrible roar the north wall of the storage building came crashing in. The wall of concrete imploded slightly inward, causing the contents of the building to come spilling over where the wall used to be, effectively creating a thirty foot high by a hundred foot long mountain of magnetite bullets and ore. Through the thick dust Mulder could see that Spender was lifting himself to a standing position after having been felled by the debris. He walked back over to Spender and saw that he was buried past his knees in the far outer edge of the magnetite pile. Unable to lift his legs out of the pile that surrounded him, the old man bent down to furiously scoop away all of the debris. He unearthed enough of the magnetite to discover that his legs were pinned by several large chunks of concrete. Mulder watched as he struggled to move the chunks out of the way, but he couldn't budge them. Finally, after accepting his inability to extricate himself, Spender stood tall and faced Mulder.

"And just what do you think you have accomplished here by blowing up a building full of dirt?" Spender asked nervously.

"It's not just dirt, it's a rare form of magnetite that fell to Earth in meteorites. And I know exactly what it can do."

"That's impossible. How could you have known that?"

"A little birdie told me," said Mulder as he cast his head to the side to watch an approaching figure.

Spender squinted through the settling dust as he tried to identify the man coming to stand next to Mulder. His eyes widened in recognition.

"Alex Krycek," Spender said to Mulder, ignoring the presence of the other man. "He couldn't have had anything to do with any of this. He certainly wasn't the one who told you anything."

"On the contrary, Alex had everything to do with this. He figured it all out, Spender. He told me all about the magnetite, why it cured William, and how you were planning to use my son as a bargaining chip for your cheap soul, you bastard!"

"No, that's impossible. He's an inconsequential brain-damaged trifle who can't communicate."

Alex glared at Spender and lifted the palm pilot he was holding chest high. He placed his thumb over a button but did not depress it, and looked over at Mulder. Mulder placed his thumb on top of Alex's, making contact with him but still not pressing the button. Alex looked back at Spender.

"Visionly spelster him not uppittyways!" Alex spat at the old man.

Without breaking physical contact of their thumbs, both men walked backwards until they were out of range of the huge magnetite pile. Mulder shouted to Spender.

"Alex said 'See you in hell!'"

The partners looked at each other, then together they pressed their thumbs down on the button. A grating noise in the distance could be heard as thousands of canisters opened simultaneously. The three men saw soldier after soldier begin to rise from its canister, hovering briefly in the air before being propelled forcefully towards the magnetite by the powerful magnetic pull of the huge mountain, each then exploding into dust upon impact. Mulder and Alex watched as Spender, legs trapped in place in front of the mountain, kept dodging the soldiers that were catapulting past him. Soon the number of flying bodies grew to the point that they were one big flock, all migrating towards their imminent destruction. The zooming bodies of hundreds and hundreds of the soldiers pummeled Spender on their way to the mountain behind him. It was all over in a matter of minutes. There were no more soldiers, and there was very little left of C.G.B. Spender.

Two days later

Spirits were high as Mulder and Alex got ready to drive to the airport for their trip home. They had said their goodbyes to Doggett and Reyes, who were remaining in Arizona to work with the local division of the Bureau to handle the cleanup and paperwork. Mulder had rolled down the top of the convertible he had rented. They drove along, the freeing sensation of the wind serving to enhance the freedom that they already felt with the demise of Spender and his evil plans. As usual, Mulder steered with his left hand while his right hand rested on the passenger seat so that Alex could reach over and touch it with his real hand if he wanted to say something. Alex had been touching Mulder's hand during the entire drive thus far as he sang along with the fast-paced U2 song on the radio.

//I said, can't stop the dance! Maybe this is my last chance...Two hearts beat as one...//

Mulder had missed Alex's singing. He regretted that as their situation had declined after those first energetically hopeful weeks, so did their levity, and Alex had stopped singing. Mulder was glad to hear it again now, for it signified Alex's lighter state of mind.

//I try to spit it out...I try to explain the way I feel, Oh yeah, Two hearts...//

Mulder turned and smiled at his passenger. "Alex," Mulder said, interrupting the singing. "I just want to say I'm glad I got to work with you on the same side for once. Before, for all those years we were on opposite sides, well we might have had the same goal but you sure made it hard to befriend you. I'm glad that's changed."

//Me too,// Alex said, still humming along to the upbeat song.

"Back then you drove me crazy," Mulder laughed. "You always twisted the truth so much it hardly resembled English and no one could understand you!" Mulder had meant it in jest but he cringed inwardly at his poor choice of words and regretted them as soon as they had escaped his lips. He looked apologetically at Alex.

Alex shrugged. //Guess nothing's changed then.// He burst into laughter, chortling for several long moments before getting himself under control and taking a breath. //Ahhhh, I crack myself up,// he chuckled.

Mulder was happily stunned. This was the very first time that he had ever heard Alex make fun of his brain damage. For him to be able to joke about it boded well for his ability to cope with his disability in the future. Alex took the hand he was holding and placed it on the steering wheel.

//Here Mulder, you can have your hand back.//

"Silgersly whism...go by onto majorrrrr-slee!" he sang.

Alex continued to sing along with the radio, obviously not caring that Mulder couldn't understand him. Another first.

"WENTWANNABEESLY SLITHLY EVER NO MORESLY IS APPILY DOWNSTER AWAAAY!!!!"

Mulder laughed as Alex sang his happy heart out to the open air, his real arm flying above him in the wind as it moved to the music.

Hegal Place, Four months later

The men had settled into a comfortable routine now that 'Project Stop Spender' was over. Mulder would only stay at the Hoover for three- quarters of the day and then finish his workday at home, reviewing his case files with Alex to get his input. They'd research the cases together, and Alex would almost always accompany Mulder if he went out of town on field assignment. Doggett, Reyes, and Scully were the only ones who knew of this working arrangement, but they had all agreed to keep it discreet since it wasn't protocol to have civilians assisting federal agents. Doggett and Reyes had no problem with this and were happy that Alex had something to keep him busy. Scully, on the other hand, only kept quiet as a promise to Mulder.

Alex never brought up the question of the permanence of either this working arrangement or his very presence in Mulder's life, and neither did Mulder. Mulder had told himself that he was only thinking about the present. He had found himself with an almost overpowering desire to make sure that Alex was happy, which was why he had suggested that Alex take on this role as his unoffical partner. Mulder knew that the euphoria of the super-soldier success would not sustain Alex forever and he wanted to provide him with productive and stimulating work to keep his mind sharp and his spirits up. He hoped that it was enough for Alex, who had to spend much of the day alone in the apartment with nothing to do but read or watch television. Mulder couldn't help but notice the supreme look of happiness on Alex's face each time he came through the door each afternoon. He always felt bad about that, as if Alex were a dog awaiting his master's return.

One thing that definitely lightened Alex's spirits was the fact that Will was back on his regular schedule of staying with Mulder three days each week. Mulder had put his foot down and demanded that his rights as a father be met, persuading Scully to come for a few visits with Alex and Will, where she had seen for herself how well they had gotten along. She admitted to Mulder that when Will was at home with her, all he talked about was his best friend Alex. Scully had finally relented, telling Mulder that since it was obvious to her that Alex wasn't going anywhere soon, then she had no other choice. She told Mulder that she was able to change her mind because Will's disposition had entirely changed for the better once he had started staying with him again. She was just relieved to have a happy child again, and to get Mulder and her mother off of her back.

Scully did make it clear that she would have never come to this decision if it hadn't also been for her clinical assessment of Alex. Now that she had finally observed him, she had agreed from a medical standpoint that no matter what Alex had been in the past, he no longer had the capabilities to commit any nefarious activities even if he wanted to. The only way Alex could do so was if Mulder was acting as his accomplice. She finally had to admit that in his present condition he would not be a bad influence on Will.

The one thing Scully did insist on was that he not be left alone with Will. She needed someone with them who could contact emergency services, and Mulder and Alex both agreed wholeheartedly. Will was dropped off with Mulder on Thursday nights, and Mulder didn't leave for work until the nanny arrived on Friday. The nanny left in the early afternoon when Mulder returned from work, and then it was just the three of them until Sunday evening. Between their work and the visits with Will, the days passed by quickly.

Jeffrey had also been a frequent visitor and Mulder was thrilled for Alex when they discovered that his brother could understand him. They weren't sure if Jeffrey had obtained his ability through DNA manipulation the same way as Mulder had, or if he had simply inherited it from his mother. Cassandra had been well on her way to becoming a hybrid before she had ever become pregnant with Jeffrey. It didn't matter to Mulder; he was just happy that there were now three people in the world that Alex could converse with.

They were always eager to have Jeffrey as a visitor, but they were a bit concerned by his latest phone call. Jeffrey had announced that he would be driving into town that night and he would like to see them as soon as possible. A few hours after dinner, there was a knock on the door and Mulder went to get it.

"Thanks for letting me stop by so late," said Jeffrey. "I really wanted to talk to you both before tomorrow." He looked over to where Alex was sitting on the sofa. "Hi Alex."

"What's up, Jeff?" asked Mulder. "It sounded important when you called."

"I'm in town because I wanted to visit with Will tomorrow over at his mother's place. I'll be leaving on a personal mission and I may not be able to see him again for awhile."

"Personal mission?" asked Mulder.

Jeffrey nodded and then went to sit on the chair that was on the opposite side of the coffee table from the sofa. Mulder went to sit next to Alex.

"Yes. I've recently came upon some information that leads me to suspect that one of the alien healers is still on this planet, and I'm going to try to find him." Both of the men on the sofa straightened up at this news. "You already know that Consortium and governmental reports indicate that all aliens without exception have vacated our planet. But I couldn't help but wonder if this was really true. I...I needed to cling to the hope that I wouldn't have to live like this for the rest of my life, so...I became fixated with the possibility that some of the healers remained. I started tracking the internet for any reports of seemingly miraculous healings. News reports, personal reports, even live journals. There are literally thousands of stories you can find about that online, and for a long time it seemed that my searching wouldn't get me anywhere, that I was just wasting my time and should give up."

Jeffery paused and looked at his ugly scarred hands. "But my determination was renewed each morning when I awoke to see the charred carcass that is my body. And it was doubly renewed each morning when I looked in the mirror and saw a hideous abomination staring back at me." He looked at Mulder and Alex. "The two of you should consider yourselves lucky that all I've allowed you to see are my hands. I haven't allowed you to see the monstrosity that lies beneath this latex mask." Jeffrey sighed. "Every morning I put my face on, one piece at a time. Latex forehead, cheeks, ears, nose, chin, neck. It's a routine that I wouldn't wish on anyone."

Jeffrey sat silent, lost in his thoughts, while Mulder and Alex allowed him time to struggle with his own personal demons and collect himself. Eventually he began again.

"So I kept searching the net, and then recently found my efforts may have started to pay off. I found a few reports that mentioned the presence of a stranger that appeared to be the cause of miraculous healing. No one could verify this, because he would seem to vanish within minutes of the healing, before anyone could interview him. But these reports all described him as being a middle-aged man. I know it was very little to go on, but being as desperate as I was I went to talk to some of the people involved in an incident in Alabama. I got as many of the witnesses as I could together and asked them for a more thorough description of the stranger."

Jeff held up his hands. "These things may be offensive to look at, but they can still draw," he said, trying ineffectively to smile through the latex. "I was always a pretty good artist, so I came up with a composite of what the stranger looked like based on what the witnesses had to offer. When I showed it to them, they all agreed that the rendition was a good likeness. It didn't really offer me any real hope, though, until a couple of weeks ago when I went to check out a similar event in Illinois. I talked to some people there that had witnessed a man get hit by a car last year. They remembered that one of the men in the crowd briefly crouched over the bloody man and then stood back and announced that there was no need to call for an ambulance. They remembered telling this stranger that he was crazy, that the hit-and-run victim's head was smashed in and he was dying. Then the people were distracted by the sound of the victim moaning as he got up from where he was laying the street, holding his head like he merely had a headache. When they turned around again to look for the stranger in the crowd that had gathered, he wasn't there. I showed them my drawing and they thought they maybe recognized him as the man in question, but so much time had elapsed that they couldn't be sure."

Jeffrey chuckled sadly. "The sign of a desperate man, grasping at straws and trying to arrange evidence out of possibly nothing. I realize that there may have been other valid reasons for these people's seemingly miraculous recoveries. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the injuries the victims suffered weren't severe in the first place, and that the crowds just panicked and imagined the situations to be worse than they really were. And I can't really tie the two events together, since the last group couldn't actually identify the man in the picture with any certainty at all. But it's all I have, and it's a start. It may be a fool's quest, but I have to see where it leads."

"Jeff," Mulder said. "I've seen one of these healers. What does he look like?"

Jeffrey withdrew a piece of paper from his pocket. He unfolded it and reached over the coffee table to show it to Mulder. Mulder looked at the drawing.

"You're not grasping at straws, Jeff. This is the healer I knew, Jeremiah Smith."

Jeffrey's eyes brightened. "Are you sure?" Mulder nodded. "Oh, thank god!" Jeffrey exclaimed. "I wished it to be true so much!" There was silence for a few minutes as Jeffrey took the time to compose himself. "Now if only I can be lucky enough to actually find him. The last lead I have is from an incident in Brazil a few months ago. I guess this guy Smith seems to be in constant motion, never in one place for very long."

"It definitely sounds like Smith's been trying to keep a low profile," Mulder said. "Jeff, I hate to say this, but I think you should be prepared for the possibility that you may never catch up with him."

"I know that, but I have to try. I can't stand living like this. Sure, I can get by in public by wearing this latex face. But it's still not a real face, and more than that, it's not my face, it's not me. I want to feel like myself again, like a real person. I feel trapped inside of these scars; they're keeping me from connecting with people, making me feel so isolated. I'll follow Smith around the world for the rest of my life if I have to."

Alex had sat riveted to everything that Jeffrey had said. Now he leaned forward to reach his hand out across the table so that he could talk to Jeffrey, who reached forward and took Alex's hand in his. Mulder, not wanting to miss out on Alex's part of their conversation, placed his hand on the back of Alex's neck.

Alex stared intently at Jeffrey. //I'm going with you.//

"What?" Mulder asked, startled.

"I thought that you might want to," Jeffrey admitted with a soft smile. "That's part of the reason I stopped by before flying out of the country."

"But Alex, you can't just leave and go traipsing all over the world looking for this guy," Mulder said, alarmed.

//Why not? I want the same thing Jeffrey wants. And he could use my help. Maybe we could find him more quickly if we were both looking for him.//

"But..."

//But what, Mulder? I want to be normal again! Jeffrey said he feels trapped and isolated. You know more than anyone that's exactly how I feel, too.//

There was nothing Mulder could say to that.

Jeffrey broke the silence. "I'd like it if you came with me, Alex. Like you said, we both have similar motivations, and as far as finding him, well, two heads are better than one. Plus, I'll really appreciate the company." He cast Mulder an almost guilty look before turning back to Alex. "My plane to Brazil leaves tomorrow night at nine-fifteen. Will you be ready to come with me that soon?"

//I'll be ready.//

"Good, I'm glad. And I already checked the availability on my flight, so I know there are still plenty of seats left. Well, I should go now. I need to rest up for my big day with Will tomorrow. Much as I love him, my nephew can be pretty exhausting," Jeffrey chuckled. "Alex, how about I pick you up about six tomorrow night?"

//Sure, okay.//

The trio broke physical contact with each other and stood up. They walked Jeffrey to the door.

"Good night. I'll see you both tomorrow."

"Good night, Jeff."

After Jeffrey left, Mulder and Alex faced each other, neither one quite sure of what to say.

"Well, it's gonna be kind of strange having you gone. I guess I've gotten used to you being around all the time."

Alex took his hand. //Being 'around'? I've been more than just 'around', Mulder, I've been virtually glued to your side for months! God, I can't even talk to you from just a few feet away! I'm always in your personal space, touching you to be able to talk to you, or to anyone else.//

"It doesn't bother me, Alex, not at all. You know I'm only too glad to be your link to the outside world."

Alex tightened his hand around Mulder's. //I know it doesn't bother you, and I'm thankful for that every day, I really am. But it bothers *me*, Mulder. I need to see if there's a way for me to talk to people when you're not around. I can't stand being so dependent, knowing that I can only speak through you or Jeffrey or Will.//

Mulder nodded. "I know, Alex. I hate seeing you so frustrated all the time. If there's a chance that Smith can help you, then I know you have to go for it." Mulder sighed. "I didn't mean for it to sound like I didn't want you to go. It's just that I'm going to miss you."

//I'm going to miss you, too.// They looked at each other fondly. //I don't suppose you could just drop everything and come with us, could you? It'd be fun having you along.//

Mulder raised his brows. "If my job was the only factor, then I might actually consider a leave of absence," Mulder said. "But I can't leave Will. He depends on our weekly time together, and I want to be there for him. I missed so much time with him already during all those months we were hunting Spender."

//I know. Will needs you, and I wouldn't want you to leave him. I just had to ask, that's all.//

They looked at each other affectionately and held hands for a silent minute, but neither one offered anything more to say. Their warm gaze into each other's eyes deepened, stirring new feelings in Mulder that he could not categorize. He saw these feelings reciprocated back at him, but then Alex suddenly turned his head. When Alex turned back, he kept his eyes to the floor.

//Guess I should get to bed, then. It's late, and I've got a lot to do tomorrow before I go.//

"Yeah, okay. See you tomorrow."

//Good night, Mulder.//

The next morning Mulder had rushed off to an early meeting, leaving before Alex was awake. He came home that afternoon to find Jeff was there but was just leaving. His brother had been considerate enough earlier in the day to pick up Alex so that he too could spend some time with Will, and he had just brought Alex back a few minutes before Mulder came in. Jeffrey said he had to attend to some last minute details and told Alex he'd be back later to pick him up for the airport. Mulder said his goodbyes to his brother now, since Jeff said that he would just call from the car when he returned and wouldn't be coming back upstairs.

After Jeffrey left, the two men made a quick dinner which Alex rushed through, explaining that he had to pack. After wolfing down his food, Alex disappeared into his bedroom. Mulder couldn't be sure, but it seemed to him that Alex was tense and was purposely trying to avoid spending what little time left that they had together. Mulder understood Alex's behavior since he felt the same way. The fact that they would soon be apart after spending so much time together was something that Mulder did not feel comfortable about, so avoiding the source of his problem seemed to be the best way for him to handle it.

It puzzled Mulder as to why he felt so intensely about Alex leaving. He tried to be rational about it. After all, he had to be supportive of his friend, and it wasn't like Alex was going to be gone forever. So he tried to occupy himself with the newspaper and pretend that it didn't bother him that Alex was in the next room packing and that now Mulder would be coming home to an empty apartment for who knows how long. But it was no use; he found he was so uneasy about Alex's impending departure that he had no idea what he had been reading for the last thirty minutes. When he saw Alex come out of his bedroom and set his packed duffel bags near the door, he felt his gut twinge. On their own joint excursions, Alex had traveled only with one small duffel bag. Now the two very large duffel bags sitting on the floor reinforced the fact that Alex would be gone longer than he ever had been before. Mulder looked over sadly at the bags, and then up to Alex, who looked back at him with similarly sad eyes. Mulder decided that this was his last chance to say a proper goodbye.

"Jeff isn't here yet," Mulder said, rising from the sofa. He gestured towards the liquor cabinet with his hand. "Goodbye drink before you go?"

Mulder reached up to retrieve the liquor cabinet key from the shelf above, which was high enough to be safe from William's curious explorations. He poured a scotch for himself and a vodka for Alex. Drinks in hand, they proceeded to settle themselves on the sofa with Mulder seated to the right of Alex. Mulder lifted the back of Alex's shirt with his left hand. He rested his palm on the bare skin of Alex's back, which had become their customary position to facilitate communication if their hands were occupied; it allowed them to converse freely and yet still leave both of their right hands free while they sorted through papers or ate dinner in front of the TV. As the warmth of Alex's skin seeped into Mulder's hand, he realized how much he was going to miss this small intimacy. Mulder turned slightly to face Alex.

"Well, here's to a good flight," Mulder said, taking a sip. "So, when you find Smith, you gonna ask about that?" Mulder asked, nodding towards the prosthesis.

//Huh? Oh, my arm. Yeah, I'll ask him, but if he can't fix it, then so be it.//

"You're awfully blasé about that."

//Before Skinner shot me, I would have done anything, and I mean *anything*, to get my arm back. I thought losing my arm was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, until I woke up in the rehab center. To be fully aware and not be able to communicate with anyone, that was far worse. My arm seems almost inconsequential to that, relatively speaking. I mean, I can still be myself without the arm. Hell, I can still be myself if I were paralyzed and in a wheelchair. But how can I be myself without being able to communicate?//

Mulder nodded his understanding. "Well, I hope Smith will still be in Rio, and you'll be home in a couple weeks."

//I hope so, too, that's why we're going. But we have to be realistic. We don't know that the man in the Rio incident was Smith, and even if it was, it happened a few months ago. If it doesn't pan out, we'll just keep trying the next lead. Sooner or later we'll catch up to him.//

"Alex, you know I want this for you, I really do. But I have to tell you the same thing I told Jeff. You have to prepare yourself for the possibility that you may never find Smith."

//Don't be a killjoy, Mulder. You're the one whose motto is 'I want to believe.'//

"That wasn't my intent. I just wanted you to know that in the eventuality that you don't find him, that, well, that I'll always be here for you. I want you to find what you're looking for but if it doesn't happen, then I hope that you can somehow reconcile yourself to be content with the life you have here. I realize it's not much of a life, with me and my family as your only portal for communication, but if it turns out that it's all you're going to have, then I hope that you can find a way to live with that. I know you got a fucking raw deal, Alex, but just think how much better this is compared to when you were locked in silence at the rehab center. So, if it comes down to it, then I need you to promise me you'll concentrate on the positives in your life."

//Ah, the inner psychologist makes his presence known.//

"No, I'm saying it as your friend," Mulder said, mildly irritated at having his intentions be misunderstood. He set his drink down and put his right hand on Alex's shoulder. "C'mon, damn it, you know I care about you! I may never have said it, but you know I do. We've gotten so close. You're my best friend, and I hardly think I'm off the mark by saying that I'm your best friend, too." Mulder let go of his shoulder and reclined a bit, his left arm still resting on Alex's back.

Alex looked down and studied the vodka in his hand for awhile. When he looked back up, Mulder could see the tender emotion in his eyes.

//After you found me at the rehab center, you let me into your life because you needed me to be your partner, so without hesitation you let me move in here with you. It was the most expedient way to get the job done and get the bastard, so it made sense. But after our mission was accomplished and you didn't need me as your partner anymore, you let me stay on here as your friend. I don't think I've ever thanked you for that; no one's ever shown me so much kindness and consideration before. Well, the staff at Elmhurst did, but that's because it was their job and they had to. But you did it as a friend. I don't think you could ever know how much that meant to me, Mulder. How much it means to me. I've needed a friend so badly, for so long. Not just since my brain injury, but for years. Do you know when the last time I had a friend was?//

Mulder saw that he expected an answer, so he shook his head.

//It was when I was your partner in the FBI. I considered you to be my friend even though I was spying on you. Pretty sad, huh? I'm sorry I couldn't return the favor and be your friend; I'm sorry I had to betray you. I tried to make it up to you through the years, though. I kept trying to be your friend again, but it never worked out.//

"You've got to be kidding me. Is that what you were trying to do every time you showed up?"

//Well, that and further my agenda at the same time. Much as I needed to gain your friendship, though, it always ended up taking a back seat to the work. Turns out the opportunity was never quite right to bring you into my world, to let you know what I knew.//

"I wish you would have, Alex."

//It wouldn't have been safe for you. Or maybe it would have been okay, I don't know. I certainly didn't have all the answers, so I just did what I thought was best at the time.//

"And what you thought was best was keeping me in the dark."

//Yeah. I wish I could have told you everything, right from the start when we were partners. Maybe then my life wouldn't have gone to hell after I left the Bureau. I kept trying to do the right thing, tried to stay on top of things, played everyone off each other to give myself time and access to find answers to prevent colonization, and what did I get for my efforts? I got to miss getting blown to bits by a car bomb by only a matter of seconds. I got to be possessed by an alien and spend days dying in a silo, thinking I'd never get out. I got to lose my damn arm. I got to spend a year in a Tunisian hell-hole of a prison.//

Alex sighed and closed his eyes for a few moments. He then shook his head slowly and looked at Mulder with weary eyes. //You know, some people probably think that if a man survived all that, it'd make him stronger. But it didn't make me stronger. Just the opposite. It wore and wore at me. I felt worthless, and that was *before* Skinner scrambled my brains,// Alex laughed sadly.

//I felt useless because no matter what I tried to do, after everything I'd suffered for the cause, we were still no closer to stopping colonization. So I was at a low point even before I was shot. The only thing that kept me going was that as long as I wasn't dead, I still had a chance to find some way to try and stop them.// The sadness grew in Alex's eyes. //Next thing I know I'm trapped in my own head and can't get anyone to hear me. I lost the chance to help save us from aliens. I thought my life had been hell for years, but at least I had been fighting for something.// Alex paused, looking down. //When I lost the ability to fight the future, I thought it was the end for me,// he said softly.

The implications inherent in that last statement startled Mulder. Maybe Reyes and Doggett had been correct in their assumption that it was possible for Alex to have suicidal tendencies. "But Alex, you weren't useless there at the Center. You had a job, you helped people. You must have had some hope; I heard you laughing there, with the other patients."

//Sure, I helped out with the other patients some. But I felt an overpowering purposelessness compared to my life before. I was nothing but an empty shell, just going through the motions to get through each day.//

Alex looked back up, this time with a twinkle in his eyes and a small smile on his face. //Until you came back into my life and gave me a new sense of hope. I still remember my last day at the Center. Within the space of a few minutes I found out that you could understand me and that there was no more alien threat! God, it was so sublime I felt reborn. And when you took me home with you to partner up together against Spender, you gave me a new sense of purpose. Can you understand how important that was for me, Mulder? When we were working together towards a common cause, and when we succeeded, I felt like I was worth something again. Being your partner these last few months gave me that. I needed that Mulder, I really did. It was my lifeline.//

Alex looked down at his drink and then set it on the table next to Mulder's glass. He took Mulder's hand and squeezed it. //But as much as I needed that, as important as it was to me, it paled in comparison to what else you did for me. You became a friend, a real, honest-to- god, bona fide friend. I know I say that like it's the most rare thing on Earth, but as I've just told you, in my world, it is. Your friendship made me feel even more worthwhile as a person. You helped me regain my respect for myself, and...and...because of you I don't hate myself anymore.//

Alex's heartfelt tone overwhelmed Mulder. He began to rub small circles with the hand that was on Alex's back. "Oh, Alex."

Alex's eyes were filled with devotion. //You did that for me. You.// He wrapped his arm around Mulder, pulling him into a hug. //Thank you, Fox. Thank you for giving me back my soul.//

Mulder embraced him tightly, overcome with emotion. "Alex, I needed you, too. You gave me back my spirit."

Alex slowly pulled out of the hug. //What do you mean?//

"Alex, I'm so glad that I came into your life when you were so lost and I was able to help you. But I was lost, too. I know it's not fair to compare how each of our lives was going when we met up again, but I felt empty and purposeless too. The guilt was starting to consume me; here I was with a good job and a beautiful, vibrant child who gave me so much joy, and yet I felt vacant inside. I thought it was because the quest I was on for most of my life was suddenly over and I wasn't used to the placidity of a normal life. And I was partly right. When Spender dropped a new mission in my lap, I grabbed at it. But I think I'm beginning to realize that what I was missing was a whole lot more than the fight itself. The battle ended months ago, and yet I don't feel empty at all. I feel a spark for life inside of me burning bright, Alex, and I'm beginning to comprehend that it's because of you. I needed a friend like you, Alex. I've never felt closer to anyone in my life, not even Scully. I needed a best friend like you to give me back my spirit for life. Thank you for that."

Alex's face showed that he was clearly affected by Mulder's sentiments, and he appeared unable to speak for a minute. Then he smiled. //Well, then it's settled. What we have here is a Mutual Admiration Society.// They both chuckled softly. //Let's toast the new club.// Alex picked up his drink and waited for Mulder to do the same. //To friendship.//

"To friendship."

They clinked their glasses together and drank to the toast. A moment later, Mulder's cell rang.

"Mulder... Yeah, he is... Okay. Listen, I'm gonna be calling a lot to check up on you guys... Yeah, yeah. Bye. Take care." He switched off the phone. "Jeff's parked downstairs." He held up his glass. "Until we meet again."

Alex held up his glass. //Until we meet again.//

They tapped glasses and took a sip, never taking their eyes off each other.

"Bye, Alex. I'm really going to miss you." Mulder suddenly felt overwhelmed with affection, and before he realized what he was doing he leaned in and kissed Alex's cheek.

Alex, still holding his drink, wrapped his arm around Mulder's neck so that he couldn't pull back too far. Alex remained still, staring into Mulder's eyes for long moments.

"Alex?" He was momentarily confused by Alex's complete stillness and the intensity of his burning stare. Mulder's eyes widened in realization just before Alex closed the small distance and softly pressed their lips together. His gasp of surprise permitted Alex's tongue to access his mouth, where it stroked feather light across his palate several times before it began to dance with its mate. Alex's touch was so gentle and full of passion that Mulder couldn't help but succumb to the kiss, allowing his tongue to be tended to with soft devotion. The slow twirling continued on and on, seemingly forever, until both men needed air and they unwillingly parted.

Alex unwrapped his arm from Mulder's neck. He sat back to study Mulder's reaction, his own face apprehensive.

Mulder stared back at Alex in wonder. "Wow," he breathed.

//I've been wanting to do that for a long time.//

Mulder just sat there for a minute, gazing at Alex and blinking repeatedly in wonder as he attempted to assess his feelings.

"I...I didn't realize it until just now, but...but I'm pretty sure I've been wanting you to do that for a long time, too."

Alex smiled hugely.

//I finally did it. I've been wanting to kiss you like that since we were partners on the Grissom case. I can't believe I actually did it! I wasn't planning to, but I guess I just couldn't help it,// Alex explained, still smiling and suddenly blushing like a schoolboy.

"Wow, well...wow," Mulder said with a stupefied smile. "What, uhm, what exactly does this mean, Alex?"

Alex chuckled. //I don't know. We'll figure it out when I get back.//

"Well then hurry up and get back as soon as you can!" Mulder chuckled back, although he meant it seriously.

The euphoria in Alex's face disappeared and he frowned. //Yeah, we'll have a lot of things to figure out. I still have a lot of explaining to do, Mulder, about the things I did before. We have to talk about that.//

"No we don't," responded Mulder immediately, and he knew without a doubt that it was true. "We don't have to talk about any of that. Nothing that happened back then matters anymore, Alex. You had reasons for the things you did. The whole world was at stake, for god's sake. We were different people. We've both changed."

//You haven't. You're the same man that I've always admired. But as for me, back then I...//

"I told you it doesn't matter," Mulder interjected warmly.

//But...//

"But nothing! End of story," Mulder persisted. "Believe me, Alex, the *only* thing I care about is the fact that I never want to see your face again the way it is now, all scared and sad. I want to see it the way it was a minute ago after you kissed me. That's all that matters to me now."

Mulder saw Alex look at him with fearful doubt, so he put everything that he was feeling at that moment in his eyes as he stared back at Alex. It must have worked, for a tremendous smile spread across Alex's face.

"Now *that's* what I'm talking about!" Mulder smiled back.

Two short toots of a car horn from the street below brought them out of their reverie.

//Jeff's waiting.// Alex sighed. //Bye, Fox.//

"Wait, just one more toast," Mulder said as he picked up his glass. He smiled. "To us."

Alex smiled back. //To us.//

They tapped their glasses together and drank to the salutation. Alex got up and walked to the closet, where he retrieved his jacket and put it on, then went to the front door and opened it before reaching down to pick up his bags. He looked back at the man on the sofa and gave him a sad smile, turned, and walked out the door.

Mulder sat on the sofa for hours, lost in contemplation. Finally he got up, went to the front door, and closed it.

Hegal Place, September 15, 2004

Mulder took a sip of his scotch. The untouched glass of vodka on the coffee table served as a harsh reminder that this was the eight-month anniversary since he had seen Alex. On the fifteenth of each month, Mulder would pour a glass of scotch for himself and a glass of vodka for Alex, wondering when the time would come when his toast would be shared. Tonight was the eighth time that he had repeated this ritual. Although alone, drinking to Alex's memory always seemed to comfort Mulder. To him, it seemed like Alex had been gone forever.

He called Alex and Jeff several times a week for the latest updates on their progress. The latest leads they were following had occurred more and more recently, so there was hope. Each time he called he made sure he spent time conversing with Alex, even though it wasn't the most intimate way to have a conversation since Jeff was the one actually talking on the phone acting as interpreter. Mulder missed Alex so much that he often had him take the phone and just jibber- jabber away in his jargon-speak for long minutes just so he could hear his voice, neither man caring that the conversation could not be understood.

He hated the time away, but he knew he'd hate it even more if Alex had stayed and hadn't tried to do this for himself. In retrospect, he knew that Alex would have ended up hating himself and resenting Mulder if he had not attempted to regain control over his life by searching for a chance at recovery. If Alex was successful in his quest, then the only remaining barriers that still kept him prisoner would be lifted and Alex would be free to pursue life to the fullest. This was Mulder's most fervent wish for Alex. But if fate would not allow it to be, and Alex returned in the same condition as when he left, then Mulder still had high aspirations for him...for them. Mulder knew that the friendship he shared with him had allowed Alex to be able to slowly redeem his value as a human being. This was Mulder's most crowning achievement, the one that he prized more than any other of his accomplishments. It gave Mulder hope for their future, regardless of whether or not Alex was ever cured, for now that Alex had learned to love himself again he would be better able to love Mulder. Mulder smiled at that thought and picked up his scotch from the table, where it sat next to the glass of vodka he had poured for Alex.

"You're not here to drink with me, Alex, but I have my memories of you to keep me company." He raised his glass in salute. "So Cheers, Memory. You will always be a part of me. I don't know when my Alex will return, so for now...welcome home, Memory. Welcome home." He clinked his own glass onto the vodka glass and took a swig of his scotch. He raised his glass high once again. "To us."

Thanks to Logan for the song lyrics

"Memory" by Concrete Blonde

fill another glass for me,
another one for you.
the lights are blinking red & green
the sky is finally turning blue oh
memory,
so dear to me as I am here with you.

we let ourselves get close only to
finally pull away
we lose ourselves in time & then we
realize today's today oh
memory, like melody,
softly plays.

hours into days & years
so misty & so sad
like a beautiful young ingenue
gone slowly quietly mad oh,
memory, like a melody,
softly fades.

pour another glass for you,
another one for me
the night is dying
we're alive
& happy to be here
creating melodies
& memories
life is so very rich
& made of these
oh, memory
melody,
you will always be a part of me
so welcome home.
welcome home.