The Animal I Wanted by Ladyluck Chapter Four The Rat Why would I, a rat, bother to run through the maze at all, if I knew it was only a trick? When you've lived in a cage, you can't bear not to run, even if what you're running toward is an illusion. —Richard C. O'Brien Mulder was a man with a plan. A man with a mission. Ostensibly that mission was to buy a new ink cartridge for the printer. He had laundry to do, too, but Scully had a load going already, so he piled it haphazardly on the floor by the machine to deal with later. He could tell Scully was a little reluctant when he offered to go to the store. She didn't really like being alone with Krycek, any more than Alex liked being alone with her. But he could hardly give her his shopping list. Printer cartridge, pencils...oh, and could you pick me up some condoms and lube? I plan on fucking Krycek in the woods today. It took him longer than he expected, as he had to drive three towns over to find a large enough shopping center to make his purchases unobtrusively. When he got back Scully was at the table working at the laptop. Alex was nowhere to be seen; out on the screened porch, no doubt. Mulder often had the feeling that Krycek and Scully avoided all interaction when he wasn't around. His laundry sat in a clean pile. It had even been folded. Mulder turned to Scully with a happy smile. "Scully, you did my laundry? That's great." Scully's disdainful look said it all: I knew you were a little loony, Mulder, but not actively delusional. "Krycek was doing laundry earlier. Since he's been wearing all your clothes, I guess he was good enough to wash them too." Mulder raised his eyebrows. He hadn't noticed Krycek wearing any of his clothes, other than the green sweatshirt he had lent Alex on the first day. He wondered just how much she suspected, and if he could broach the next subject without tipping his hand entirely. Maybe a little reverse psychology... He changed into his running shorts and stood by the table doing stretches. "So, I thought I'd take a run." Scully's look was everything he could have hoped for. "What?" Mulder feigned innocence. "I need exercise." "Mulder..." "What, you don't want to be stuck with Krycek?" Mulder affected a pout. "Ok, what the hell, I'll take him out with me. He could probably use some exercise as well." "Mulder, he's injured. He doesn't need exercise, he needs rest." Scully headed to the kitchen area to replenish her coffee. "Oh, and that reminds me. The other night, you said he wasn't feeling well? What was wrong?" Scully had that determined look that meant she would not be put off with vague reassurances. Mulder shrugged. "A touch of fever, and phantom pains in his arm." Scully frowned. "He shouldn't still be having fever. He's on antibiotics." Mulder refrained from telling her that he doubted Krycek actually ever took any of the medications Scully gave him. "He's fine now. Really. I'll go slow." Mulder snagged a handful of sunflower seeds on his way out to the screened porch. "Don't say I never did anything for you." Alex was sitting with a book in his hand, but he was just staring into space, not reading it. He turned his head as Mulder stepped out onto the porch, his expression wary, then relaxing somewhat as he saw it was Mulder. "Hey," Mulder greeted him. "Feel like taking a walk?" Alex blinked at him. "Outside?" "No, around the kitchen. Very scenic this time of year." The little crease of impatience appeared between Alex's brows. He got to his feet, looking at Mulder a bit quizzically as if he suspected a trick. Cautiously, he followed Mulder out to the kitchen area. Scully looked up sharply as they approached, and Mulder put on his blandest expression. "See you later, Scully. " He scooped up another handful of sunflower seeds, since he hadn't really had breakfast. "You can take a bubble bath, do your nails, catch up on 'General Hospital'..." Scully rolled her eyes. Mulder perched on the edge of the table, looking down at her. He could almost hear her internal struggle. Krycek should not be out of the cabin. He's injured, he was sick, he's a fugitive...and I don't trust Mulder not to beat him to death out there. On the other hand, why should Mulder get to go gallivanting around wherever he pleases while I'm stuck here all afternoon with this—sociopathic weasel—who whips out his gun every time a chipmunk walks by? Oh hell... Scully cleared her throat. "Have a nice walk." She still looked a little dubious. Mulder reached out and squeezed her shoulder. He smiled down at her. "You can trust me, Scully." Scully scanned his face, and then nodded slowly, her features relaxing into warmth. "I trust you, Mulder." "Seeds?" He deposited a few on her stack of papers. Scully laughed. She slapped Mulder's bare leg lightly. "Just take it easy." They headed out. Mulder retrieved his loaded backpack from where he had stashed it in a corner of the front porch. Alex slanted an odd look at him as they started walking. "What?" "You and Scully..." It seemed like Alex was going to say more, but he didn't. "Aah, she's glad to have us out of her hair. She'll be okay." Alex's lashes fluttered and he looked down. Was he upset at the thought that Scully might suspect something? Mulder thought he had been discreet, but Krycek's paranoia was apparently immense and boundless. "Hey, thanks for doing my laundry before." Alex flushed. "I just threw it in with mine," he said, sounding annoyed and defensive. "No big deal." Mulder shrugged. Krycek certainly was in a prickly mood today. Mulder had thought he'd be happy getting out of the cabin. Not to mention getting laid. "So," Alex said, his voice challenging, "are we gonna run?" Mulder glanced at him in surprise. "No, we're just taking a walk. I promised Scully I wouldn't push you." Instantly he knew those words had been a mistake, as Alex's eyes flashed. "Anyway," Mulder said quickly, "you can't run in boots." "Why the hell not?" "Christ, Krycek. It's a beautiful sunny fall day. Can't you just relax and smell the ragweed?" "Mulder." Krycek's voice carried a dark undercurrent. "We'll be going on the raid soon. I need to be in shape." Mulder couldn't deny that the issue of Krycek's physical readiness for the raid had occurred to him as well. Alex's broken ribs had not fully healed yet, and two nights ago he'd been burning up with fever. But Krycek was the only one who had actually been inside the lab, the only one who knew exactly what they were looking for, and where. He was necessary. Mulder just hoped they wouldn't be in a situation where they had to make a run for it, or worse. Mulder set an easy pace, more jogging than running. Krycek kept up, but not without some difficulty. Mulder increased the speed, sprinting ahead, then jogged backwards, calling words of encouragement. "Come on Krycek...move your lazy ass." "Fuck you," Krycek panted. He was having a hard time establishing a rhythm with that artificial arm. Mulder could see that it threw his stride and balance off; instead of being able to use it to maintain the pace, it was pretty much a dead weight on that side. They reached a small clearing in the center of a grove of sycamore trees. Mulder took pity on Krycek and stopped to rest. Krycek collapsed on the ground, clutching his left side. Mulder paused in stretching. "You okay?" Krycek raised his middle finger, seemingly too winded to speak. Shit, did I push him too hard? Hope he has enough energy to fool around. "You better have some water in that backpack," Krycek rasped. "Among other things." Mulder tossed the backpack over to him. Krycek fished out a bottle of water and took a long drink before reaching for the pack again to sort through it. He pulled out protein bars, blanket, lube and condoms, looking up at Mulder with a little smirk. "You came prepared." Krycek squirted the water over his face, then shook it off, eyeing Mulder speculatively over the water bottle. "So, you planning on getting fucked, Mulder?" "Getting fucked. Fucking you. Whatever." Mulder sat down beside him and opened a bottle of water for himself. He didn't miss the slight wariness that came into Krycek's expression at his words. "You don't get fucked, Alex?" Alex looked down and away. He took a deep breath, then met Mulder's gaze, his eyes unfathomable. Or, you do get fucked, but not by me. Mulder couldn't help feeling rejected and disappointed. He could tell that Alex read that, could see the uncertainty and defensiveness in Alex's answering expression. Great, this is really setting the stage for hot monkey sex. He reached to touch Alex, and Alex shied away momentarily, before stiffening his shoulders as if willing himself not to. Mulder pulled his hand back, stunned. Alex wiped his face on the arm of his sweatshirt, not looking at Mulder. Oh, shit. That's why he won't let me fuck him. Because of what I tried to do. Well, there were only two ways out of this, other than pretending it all didn't happen and heading back, which he wasn't willing to do. He decided to leave the choice up to Alex. "Do you want to talk about it?" Alex did not respond, but every line of his posture screamed, NO! The fingers of his prosthetic hand clenched convulsively. He looked down at it but would not meet Mulder's eyes. Okay. Mulder tried again. "Or do you want to fuck me?" Alex's look was startled and a bit suspicious. "You ever been fucked by a man, Mulder?" "As opposed to what, Wangito the Wonder Donkey?" He smirked at Alex's cut-the-crap look. "Yeah, I've gotten fucked. It's been awhile though...that was back in college." "College!" Alex gave a little incredulous snort. "And I thought I was bad." "How long has it been for you?" Alex hesitated. "About...a year or two, maybe." His tone was casual; he didn't look at Mulder as he said it. Mulder studied him without speaking. A year or two, huh? You don't fool me, Alex. You know to the day when you last got fucked. And I'm betting it was not a good experience. "Well," Mulder said, "I guess it's like riding a bicycle, huh?" Experimentally, he laid his hand on Alex's shoulder, letting his fingertips brush up along Alex's neck. Alex made a small throaty sound and, to Mulder's astonishment, closed his eyes and arched his head back into Mulder's touch. Mulder decided to try a compliment; women always liked that. "You look hot." Alex paused, wiping sweat from his face again. "No, I just—" The realization seemed to hit him what Mulder had meant then, and he looked down, smiling ruefully. "Shit...okay." Mulder smiled back, charmed and disarmed by Alex's momentary awkwardness. He went on stroking Alex's neck and jaw. "Like riding a bicycle, huh?" Alex's husky voice acquired a silken edge. "Guess I oughta sell my car, then." He cast a look at Mulder, the green eyes widening with admiration and desire for a moment, before the curtain of lashes descended again. Wow. Mulder grinned at him, realizing that he had been outdone in the compliment department, but unable to suppress a sneaking glow of gratification. Things seemed to be going well, giving him courage for the next step. Slowly, he let his hand travel from Alex's neck to his shoulder, then down along the left arm. He willed himself not to hesitate as the flesh ended and he felt the firmer surface of the prosthesis under the fabric of Alex's shirt. Alex froze and tensed up instantly. Mulder stroked his palm down along the arm, in what he hoped was a casual, steady motion. Alex was absolutely still, staring at Mulder's hand as though it was a scorpion walking down his arm. Mulder's heart was beating so hard he was surprised it wasn't audible. Coming to the end of Alex's shirt, he slid his hand over the back of the prosthetic hand and took hold of it, wrapping his fingers around it. Alex's other hand was clenched into a fist; he quivered slightly, but he did not pull his hand away from Mulder's. Mulder let go and moved his hand to Alex's knee. Alex let out a small shaky breath, and Mulder breathed too. He had not realized until that moment how much tension he himself was holding. He rubbed Alex's leg in what he hoped was a soothing manner, trying to think of something normal to say. "It runs on batteries, huh?" Alex darted a look at Mulder. "Uhh...just the hand, myoelectric." He cleared his throat. "The arm is body-powered." Curiosity was overcoming Mulder's uneasiness. The myoelectric hand fascinated him; he wanted to pick it up and examine it and play with it, but he did not think Alex would appreciate that at all. "You, um, I guess you get more dexterity that way?" Alex lifted the hand and made a circle with the thumb and forefinger, then slowly repeated the gesture with each successive finger. "That's cool," Mulder said. Alex sat back a little, not saying anything. Mulder nodded wryly. "Sure it's cool, but it would be cooler to do it with my own damn hand, asshole?" Alex smirked. He seemed to relax a little bit. Mulder kept stroking his leg, running his fingers down along Alex's inner thigh. Alex's lashes fluttered for a second, and he let his legs fall open a bit more to accommodate Mulder's touch. "So," Mulder said. "Are we going to...get creative?" Alex bit his lip. Mulder could hear the slight catch in his breath. He had a sense that Alex was feeling the same way he was—apprehensive but also aroused—by the whole idea. "Mulder," Alex said, sounding hesitant. "I can't always...control it." He swallowed, slanting a quick glance at Mulder. "Sometimes it'll just...move, or clench up, on its own. Those supermarket security gates are a bitch." Mulder had a momentary queasy image of trying to explain to Scully how he had sustained an injury like that. But it was overridden by the strong sense that he had something to prove, to both Alex and himself. And he had never been fazed by kinky ideas in bed. Or, for that matter, out in the woods. "Well," he said, "you do use it on yourself, don't you?" Alex flushed slightly, looking down. Mulder couldn't tell whether he was embarrassed about doing that, or if he had been lying, just trying to spook Mulder. Alex seemed to come to a decision. He looked back up at Mulder. "Take your pants off," he said, his voice deepening to a smoky growl. Throwing caution to the winds, Mulder stripped off all his clothes. He spread the blanket out on the ground and sat down on it. He looked at Alex, waiting for him to get undressed too, but Alex just moved closer, to kneel on the edge of the blanket. Looking up, Mulder was struck by the expression in Alex's eyes, the hunger and heat and awe he saw there. What an expressive, striking face Alex had, when he dropped his guard and let his emotions show like this. Mulder pulled Alex to him for a kiss. Alex seemed momentarily surprised by that, but then returned the kiss somewhat hesitantly. Mulder chuckled inwardly. Alex would just have to get used to the fact that Mulder loved to kiss. Get used to it? Wasn't the idea to fuck him once and get it out of your system? Mulder couldn't worry about that right now, as Alex's mouth was moving downward. Alex nipped lightly at Mulder's nipples, then laved them roughly with short, hard flicks of his tongue that sent an electric charge zipping through Mulder. He nuzzled his face into Mulder's chest hair, then sucked hard at a spot just below Mulder's left pec. Mulder had never thought of that spot as an erogenous zone before, but it was fast becoming a prime candidate under Alex's enthusiastic ministrations. Leaving a love bite to mark the spot, Alex moved on. He shifted, positioning himself. Mulder thought of asking if it would be easier for Alex if Mulder was standing up, but the memory of that last time, Alex on his knees in Mulder's apartment, still stung. Alex bent his head to Mulder's cock. He rubbed his nose against it, inhaling deeply. Mulder was rock hard, the blood pounding through his groin. Then Alex's mouth closed over him, hot and strong. An incoherent cry broke from Mulder. He felt like the top of his head was going to come off. It had been an embarrassingly long time since he had gotten a blowjob that was not virtual. He sat up a bit, leaning on his elbows. The sight took his breath away: Alex's gorgeous bow-shaped mouth wrapped around his cock, taking it almost down to the root. Alex looked incredible, the long lashes spread against his cheek, wholly absorbed in what he was doing. At Mulder's change in position, Alex drew back, his eyes flicking to Mulder's. Mulder stroked his hair. "Just want to look at you." Alex tilted his head, giving Mulder a little smile. Slowly, teasingly, he rubbed Mulder's cock over his face, then let his lips and tongue brush across it. He parted his lips, letting his teeth just graze up against the head of Mulder's cock in the barest of bites. His tongue danced out over the crown. Mulder watched him, enthralled and incredibly aroused. He had never seen Alex like this—playful and sensual, and very aware of what he was doing to Mulder. As though he could wait no longer, Alex suddenly took Mulder in deeply and firmly, his tongue working like a piston against Mulder's shaft. The tip of his nose brushed through Mulder's pubes. Mulder could manage nothing more than, "Nnnnghah..." He reached down to grip the base of his cock, holding it steady as Alex's sucking became more vigorous. Alex stopped, and Mulder gasped out a breath of protest. Alex looked up at him, desire and trepidation mixing in his gaze. "Are you ready?" he said huskily. Mulder managed to cobble together enough brain cells to nod. Alex picked up the bottle of lube, applying a liberal amount to the fingers of the prosthetic hand. He reached down with the hand, and Mulder spread his legs a little wider to allow him access. Alex suddenly hesitated. He brought his right hand over, probing with two fingers into Mulder's cleft, and Mulder had a moment's sharp disappointment, thinking Alex was not going to go through with it. But apparently Alex was only searching for the right spot. Mulder felt the prosthetic fingers joining the real ones, then taking their place. Alex seemed to be holding his breath. It was obvious that he had never done this before with another person, and again Mulder felt that unsettling tenderness. He reached down to stroke Alex's jaw with the back of his knuckles. Alex looked up at him, and then his finger slid inside. It was...mechanical but not wholly mechanical, human but not wholly human. It was smoother than a finger, cooler to the touch and firmer...it could be a dildo, Mulder told himself, except that it...moved, and...stroked, and... ...Oh yeah... Mulder fell back onto the blanket. Stars were swirling behind his eyes; it felt like they were shooting through his body as well. Then Alex's tongue licked like wildfire up the underside of his cock. "You want to come?" Alex whispered. Mulder took hold of his cock again, pressing it against those warm, willing lips. "Yeah," he panted. Alex's touch slowed. His tongue traced feathery patterns over the head of Mulder's cock. "I want you to come saying my name." Don't tease you, huh? "Krycek?" "Asshole." "Asshole? Pet names already, the first time?" Alex's look at him was almost like saying his name in that way he had: Muuull-derrr. He withdrew his finger briefly, then added a second one along with it, lowering his mouth to Mulder's cock again. Mulder pressed his hands over his eyes. Groaning ecstatically, he let his legs fall open, humping upward into Alex's mouth, and let Alex play him like a musical instrument, using two fingers now, three, and it was unbelievable, like nothing he'd ever felt... Then he was erupting into Alex's mouth with a triumphant roar, the sensation so intense he could not speak or move for a moment. He reached up and pulled Alex down to him and kissed him. Alex rubbed his face against Mulder's neck. Mulder laughed effortlessly. He felt boneless, blissful. "What?" Alex asked. "You, me, this...did you ever think...?" Alex laughed too then. Mulder could feel his body shaking with it. "Aah, Mulder, only in my wildest dreams..." Mulder hugged him. He couldn't help noticing that Alex was still fully dressed while Mulder was completely naked. "Take off your clothes," he murmured, "and fuck me." Alex undressed swiftly, not looking at Mulder and not taking off his shirt. Kneeling on the edge of the blanket, he picked up one of the condoms and began tearing it open with his teeth. Mulder reached to take it from him. "Let me." Alex bristled instantly, tossing his head back like an affronted horse. "I can do it." Mulder looked at him. "I know you can," he said mildly. "I want to." Alex was only half hard. He made a soft low sound as Mulder began to stroke him. Alex had his hands resting on his thighs, knees spread wide and eyes downcast, almost resembling a supplicant in his posture. He hardened instantly under Mulder's touch, moaned "Oh...yeaaahh," as Mulder stroked his balls, and growled softly as Mulder bit his nipples. Mulder slowly rolled the condom on. Reaching for the lube, he applied it generously. Alex pushed Mulder down onto his back. With a look of intense concentration on his face, as through he was trying to crack a safe, he laid his hand on Mulder's belly and slowly pushed in. Alex was big. Mulder felt stretched, invaded; it hurt more than he had expected. He clenched his teeth and grunted involuntarily. Alex was watching him intently. "Hurts? Breathe—breathe a little..." Mulder drew in a long breath. The initial pain was subsiding, although it was still somewhat uncomfortable. "No...it's okay...just fuck me, that'll do the trick." Alex began to move, slowly and carefully, taking his time and watching Mulder. But it was just what Mulder didn't need. He wanted some hard, fast fucking that would carry him past the strangeness and discomfort, transport him the way Alex's magic fingers had before. He wiggled his ass impatiently. "C'mon...fuck me." Alex made a low sound, shutting his eyes momentarily. Mulder wasn't sure if he was too close to coming, or just afraid of hurting Mulder. He tried another tactic. "Come on, Krycek, don't be a wuss. I wouldn't be fucking a guy like you if I wanted it easy and gentle." Alex flinched at that as though Mulder had slapped him. Mulder was taken aback. He had wanted to make Krycek a little mad, get him worked up so that he would stop holding back so much. But Alex had looked really—hurt. He wondered at that. Krycek seemed too hard and cold to be hurt by something like that. "What? I thought you liked close encounters of the quick and dirty kind." Alex's lashes flickered. "Mulder...shut up." He sat up, pulling out and gazing at Mulder with a little frown. "Wait, Alex—" Mulder sat up too, putting his hands on Alex's shoulders. "I just meant—like I said, you're hot." The words didn't sound especially sincere, even to him, but Alex seemed somewhat mollified. "You want it hard, huh?" Alex's eyes glittered. He knelt between Mulder's legs to guide himself in. "Yeah," Mulder looked at him with a little grin. "Give it to me, tiger." Alex snorted. "Mulder, you're so..." The rest of his sentence was lost as he began to thrust, pumping into Mulder hard and fast. The discomfort hadn't entirely dissipated, but the harder rhythm was igniting a depth charge of pleasure within Mulder. He wanted to ask what Alex had been going to say but could manage nothing more articulate than, "Yeah...oh yeah...that's right..." Reaching down, he gripped Alex's ass with both hands, feeling the strong muscles clench as Alex drove into him. Alex shifted and almost toppled. He was supporting all his weight on the right and Mulder noticed his arm was beginning to shake a little. He grunted. "I can't—" Mulder slid the palms of his hands up under Alex's shirt, flat against Alex's chest. "I gotcha." He braced his elbows on the ground, taking Alex's weight and squeezing his nipples at the same time. Alex looked at him with a dazed expression for a moment. His face was flushed and feral-looking, his lips parted, his hair tousled and damp with sweat. You are so beautiful like this, like some kind of green-eyed jungle beast... "What?" Alex rasped. Fuck, did I say that aloud? Did I just call him beautiful? Going by Alex's skeptical smirk, he guessed he might have. Mulder looked up into his eyes. "Just fuck me." He moved his hands around to Alex's back, pulling Alex down onto him, kissing him and licking the sweat from his neck. "Harder...yeah, harder...that's it..." Alex took his mouth from Mulder's, biting along Mulder's collarbone, making low erotic sounds. Euphoric pleasure surged through Mulder; he felt it in his thighs, his nipples, the muscles of his jaw. He was getting half-hard again, with the combination of the friction against his cock and the sight and feel of Alex moving with him. He gripped Alex's ass again, then impulsively lifted his hand and brought it down, smacking Alex hard on the ass. "Yeah, Alex! Do it!" He felt Alex's body jerk at the impact. Alex stared at him, open-mouthed, his eyes wide. He leaned down and bit Mulder, hard, near his shoulder, and then he was slamming into Mulder, completely unleashed, throwing his head back with every thrust. Mulder licked his fingers. Reaching down, he stroked Alex's ass again, then pushed inside. Alex cried out, dark and lovely. Mulder felt Alex's muscles clenching around him. Alex tensed all over and came, wild and loud. Looking sweaty and radiant, he collapsed onto Mulder and lay there for several seconds, seemingly stunned. Mulder stroked his back lightly. The gentle touch seemed to bring Alex back to himself, and he rolled off Mulder, flopping onto his back with his arm thrown across his eyes. He lay like that for several minutes without stirring. Mulder propped himself on his elbow, bemused. He had never had a lover who was so openly and utterly unrestrained during sex, and then pulled into himself so completely afterward. Alex took his arm from his eyes, letting it rest on the grass. He stared off into the distance, blinking. Mulder moved his own hand, letting it brush the back of Alex's. Alex reached out his fingers, intertwining them with Mulder's and squeezing gently. Mulder was surprised and a bit touched. He squeezed back. Alex turned his head to look at Mulder with a curious expression for a moment, before closing his eyes again. You're an unusual guy, Alex, for sure, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, or with anyone else, right now. That thought jarred Mulder back to reality. Releasing Alex's hand, he got up, sprayed some water onto the towel and began to wash off. Alex remained where he was, gazing at Mulder. Mulder tossed the towel over to Alex, "Hey, Krycek, your spirit animal must be a slug." Alex rose quickly, cleaned up, and began to dress. Oddly modest, he turned his back to Mulder as he dressed, giving Mulder a great view of his ass. "Wait." Mulder stopped Alex with a hand as he was pulling up his briefs. Impulsively, he bent down, sucking hard at a spot on Alex's left cheek. He surveyed the small purpling mark with satisfaction. You're mine, Alex, you gorgeous... All right, Mulder, fucking pull yourself together already. Walking back, he laid a hand on Alex's back, then impulsively slid it down to Alex's waist and squeezed gently. Alex seemed startled but then moved closer, leaning his body into Mulder's. A few feet later the trail narrowed, and Mulder dropped his hand and walked ahead. They separated even further when they emerged from the woods, which was just as well. As the cabin came into view Mulder could see Scully standing in the doorway, apparently searching for them. Even at this distance he could tell she was agitated. Mulder broke into a fast jog. "Mulder, I'm glad you're back. Skinner just called. The raid is on for eight o'clock tonight." "Tonight!" Krycek said from behind Mulder, sounding surprised but exultant. They showered and packed quickly, then went over the plans a final time. Walking out to the car, Mulder felt the soreness in his ass and thighs. Scully was watching him with a look of concern. "Mulder, did you hurt yourself? You're limping a little." "Uh...tripped over a root," Mulder said nonchalantly. He could hardly keep the smile off his face. I got fucked, I got fucked good... Alex was leaning on the roof of the Lincoln, gazing at Mulder over the broad expanse of the car. He looked quite enticing, freshly shaved and showered, a dark gleam of amusement in his eyes at Mulder's remark. If it had been only the two of them, Mulder would have dragged him back inside for another quick go-round. He settled for shooting Alex a tiny, private smile. He would have liked to have Alex sit up front with him, but Scully was getting into the passenger seat, and he had no pretext for asking her to sit in the back. He had to be content with catching glimpses of Alex's face in the rear-view mirror. Alex looked excited and preoccupied. Mulder could almost feel the nervous tension humming through him, an echo of what he himself was feeling. "Are we being followed?" Scully's voice broke into his thoughts. "Huh?" Scully looked at the mirror, then craned her head around to look out the rear window. "Oh...nope, just...being cautious." I got fucked...I got fucked... Skinner was already there, waiting, when they arrived. They parked the car in the far lot where it would not be discovered should anyone still be on the premises. Alex strode up to Skinner, looking around. "Where are the other four men?" Skinner looked him up and down with thinly disguised hostility. "Inside already. You're late. Let's go." "Inside already?" Anger broke through Alex's control for a moment. "They were supposed to wait for instructions." "They had instructions, Krycek," Skinner rumbled. "My instructions." Mulder had to admire the way Alex stood up to Skinner. When Skinner got like this, blustering and barking out orders in that overbearing manner, Mulder would feel himself becoming defensive and irritated. But Alex just looked at Skinner coolly, speaking in level, measured tones. "They were supposed to wait and meet us here. I want to make sure they know where they're going and what they're supposed to be looking for." "Look, Krycek," Skinner snapped. "You're not heading this mission! You're not an agent of the Bureau. You're here solely as a courtesy. Those men were briefed and they're inside already. I suggest we do the same." Scully caught Mulder's eye. She looked as impatient as he felt. "Let's go," she said. "We go in the front, you go in the back," Mulder said. He slapped Alex lightly on the arm, urging him along, and was relieved when Alex followed him. They jogged around to the front of the building. It looked dark and silent. Mulder could see the faint beams of flashlights somewhere on the second floor. As they approached, Alex suddenly gripped Mulder's wrist with one black-leather gloved hand. He pulled Mulder around to face him and planted a swift, fierce kiss on the side of Mulder's mouth. Then he was moving again, hurrying on. They were about a hundred yards from the building when they heard it: a dull, muffled boom, like a crash, or a small explosion. They both froze, scanning the area. Mulder was certain it had come from inside the building. He was just about to say that to Alex when he noticed pale grey tendrils of smoke, pouring from a window on the second floor. "It's on fire!" "Shit!" Alex put a hand on Mulder's chest, holding him back. "Stay here! I'll check it out...you radio the others." Mulder shook him off. "They're all inside!" He raced toward the building, easily outdistancing Alex. What the hell had happened? Some chemical substance, accidentally tampered with by the agents? Scully...Skinner...were they all right? Had any of the live virus gotten loose? He heard Alex screaming his name, sounding frantic. And then a massive, blinding wall of heat and light and sound hit him, knocking him backwards, as the whole building went up. Mulder could not hear, could not see for a moment, could only react as he dove for the ground, covering his head with his arms. Debris was raining down all around him, burning fragments alighting in the grass. Something sharp slammed into the side of his head and a sickening vertiginous weakness flooded through him. Alex, where was Alex? And Scully, and Skinner...the agents in the building... Keeping his head down, Mulder began to crawl along the ground. There was a searing pain along his right temple and his mouth was full of a metallic, ashy taste. Thick smoke surrounded him, making him choke. He fought for breath, struggling to pull himself along. As if underwater, he could hear muffled sounds: the roaring and cracking of the burning building, a high distant sound that might be sirens, someone shouting his name hoarsely. Mulder felt a wetness running down along his jaw, and realized he was bleeding. He tried to call back, but his throat seized in a fit of coughing. Then Alex was there. "Mulder! Mulder, you all right?" Alex was panting, his eyes wide. He touched Mulder, patting him down with a shaking hand. He looked from Mulder to the burning lab and back, an expression of stunned desperation on his face. The building was now a solid tower of flames, waves of heat hitting them. There must have been one hell of a cache of explosives in there. "Scully..." "We've gotta get out of here," Alex rasped. "Can you walk?" Mulder nodded, which proved to be a bad idea, sending hammers of pain across his skull and down his neck. Trying to push himself upright, however, proved worse, as his vision splintered and the ground rocked beneath him. Then everything faded to black. Slowly surfacing, he felt the cold earth under his cheek, scrubby grass against his face. The acrid smell of smoke, static sound of a radio and Alex's voice saying hoarsely, "Mulder's hurt! We're in the front..." Then a hand on his arm, and a voice whispering near his ear, "Hang on, Fox." Darkness around him and a scent of leather. It felt like Alex was crouching over him, covering Mulder with his body. Mulder kept his eyes closed, waiting for the dizziness to subside. He heard other voices yelling for him: Scully and Skinner. Then they were running toward him, and Scully was down on the ground next to him, taking his pulse. Mulder opened his eyes and looked at her. He felt Alex's hand lift from his arm. Irrationally, he wanted to pull Alex back down to him. "Mulder, can you hear me?" "Yeah..." Gingerly, Mulder sat up. "Scully, you're all right?" Skinner reached down and yanked Alex up onto his feet. Mulder watched in shock as his boss reared back and slammed a pile driver punch into Alex's midsection. Alex dropped to the ground like a sack of stones. Skinner was breathing hard, his face twisted in an ugly snarl. "Four men were inside that building, Krycek! Four men...dead now...and you'll pay for this. You're not walking out of this one alive either!" "Sir..." Scully sounded shaken and uncertain. Mulder felt dazed. It had never crossed his mind that Alex could be behind this. From his vantage point on the ground, he looked around the circle of faces. Scully looked stricken, Skinner grimly furious, Alex devastated. Skinner pulled out his cuffs and fastened them on Alex's wrists behind his back. "You can't do that!" Alex sounded angry and almost scared. "I had nothing to do with this! And we can't leave. We have to get back inside the lab—" "The goddamn lab blew up, Krycek," Skinner snapped. "With four people inside. And it's on fire. Remember?" Alex sounded like he was making himself speak more calmly with an effort. "Whatever's left in there, we have to get it out. Before they get to it." "Before the Bureau finds any evidence on you, you mean? You're not getting anywhere near that lab again. You're in FBI custody, and that's where you'll stay." "Sir!" Mulder called sharply. Scully helped him to his feet. "Why would you think Krycek had anything to do with this?" "There were only eight people who knew this was going to happen tonight," Skinner said shortly. "The four of us and—those guys inside." He took hold of Krycek's shoulder, giving him a rough shove. "Start walking." They made the trek to Skinner's car in silence. Skinner got in back with Krycek, and Scully drove, steering the car through the narrow, rundown streets of Trenton to the FBI field office there. "Sir," Scully asked, her voice sounding strained, "who were the agents—inside?" "Holland, Feldstein, Reilly and Mariano." Mulder had known two of them. Holland was one of those big, quiet, capable guys, a twenty-year vet with a wife and two teenage sons at home. Mulder remembered him with his family at the annual picnic last year, Holland and his wife Joanna teasing each other with long-held private jokes. The two sons were at that awkward age, making Mulder glad his own adolescence was over. Someone was going to have to go tell Joanna and Holland's sons now. It was the job everyone dreaded. She looked to be one of those women who could cope with anything, but could she cope with this? And those boys, fatherless—Christ. And Mariano, young and brash, a ladies man, a joker. Good-looking kid. He was about the same age as Alex had been when Mulder first met him. More easygoing than Alex, and he didn't have Alex's razor-sharp mind, but a good man, a promising agent. His parents had been very proud. Now they would be getting that visit as well. What a waste, what a fucking waste. Does human life mean nothing to these scumbags? And with a chilling sense of dread, memories were descending on him: Alex shooting that militia driver right in front of Mulder; Alex in Hong Kong, pushing Jeraldine Kallenchuk out into the hall to be gunned down; Alex the last person seen with the vanished tram operator on Skyland Mountain... ...Cardinale naming Alex as his cohort in Melissa Scully's death... ...Alex killing... Mulder tasted bile. Quickly, he reached to roll the window down. Scully glanced over at him. "Are you okay?" "Just need some fresh air." "I'm taking you to the hospital after we drop off Skinner and Krycek." He managed to dissuade Scully from dragging him to the hospital, for the time being at least, but she did insist on examining him in an unused office of the Trenton FBI building while Skinner took Krycek off to be photographed and fingerprinted. "Do you think Krycek could really have done this?" Scully asked as she cleaned the wound on Mulder's temple. Mulder met her eyes. "I...I don't know." "I don't want to think..." Scully's voice shook slightly. She applied a butterfly bandage to Mulder's temple. "You really should get stitches there." Mulder waved her off. "Maybe later. I want to be there when they interrogate him." It took them several minutes to find out Krycek's whereabouts, given the usual Bureau tendency toward obfuscation and suspicion. Finally, Mulder and Scully were ushered into one of the interrogation rooms. Krycek was seated at a large table in the center of the room. Two other agents were in the room, along with Skinner. There was a large mirror on one wall that, Mulder knew, was actually a window through which others were no doubt watching. Krycek's eyes fixed intently on Mulder as he came in. "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully." Skinner introduced them. "This is Agent Bishop, and Agent Rowe." Rowe was beefy and bellicose, Bishop a tall, quieter black man. "I want to talk to Agent Mulder," Krycek said. "Alone." Mulder saw with a little shock that Krycek's prosthetic arm was missing. Alex noted the direction of Mulder's eyes. For just a second his face darkened, and Mulder saw clearly his humiliation and rage at their doing that to him. Then his expression turned flat and hard once again. Mulder leaned over to whisper to Skinner. "Where's his arm?" "We took it off. We wanted to check it for concealed weapons...or a detonator device." Krycek rolled his eyes at this, still gazing at Mulder. "I didn't blow up the fucking lab. I brought you this information. I organized this whole thing—" "Why should we believe any of this, Krycek?" Skinner barked. "Considering that you've lied about everything else in your life." "That's pretty much your modus operandi, isn't it?" Bishop said. "Lie, deny and justify. I've seen a lot of guys like you." Krycek turned to look at him. "Why don't you justify this? Holding me here with no evidence, while the people who did this are probably ransacking the lab right now." "No evidence?" Rowe slammed his hands on the table, bellowing the words in Krycek's face. "How about four dead agents?" Krycek met his gaze without flinching. "I didn't kill them." Rowe straightened up, breathing loudly. "But you know who did." "Of course I do." Krycek stared hard at Skinner. "You know who did, too." An angry red spread over Skinner's cheeks. He looked ready to punch Krycek again. Scully laid a hand on his arm, speaking into his ear. The two of them left the room. Not for the first time, Mulder wondered how deep the A. D.'s tie to the Consortium went, and how far he would go to cover it up. The door opened and another man came in. He was large, good-looking, with a self-assured, automatic smile. Mulder loathed him on sight. He nodded to his agents, then strode over to Mulder, glad-handing like a politician. "Ed Merriman. You're Agent Sculder?" "Mulder." Merriman turned to the table where Krycek sat. "Alex Kraychik?" His tone and demeanor were affable, as if they were meeting at a cocktail party, rather than an interrogation room. "I'm Assistant Director Merriman." Krycek looked a bit thrown by the man's approach. He said nothing and watched Merriman warily. Merriman laid some files on the table, pulling out the chair opposite Krycek. "So, Alex, I'm hoping we can work this out." The unctuous smile again. "Would you like some coffee?" Without waiting for Krycek's answer, he turned to Rowe, who was standing against the wall. "Bob, can we get Alex a cup of coffee?" Bob looked like he'd rather gouge out his eyes than fetch coffee for a Fed-killing felon like Alex Krycek, but he complied nevertheless. Merriman seated himself at the table and opened the file. "You used to be one of us, Alex." His tone was conversational. "But you quit to pursue a life of crime, hmm?" Mulder saw something in Alex's face at that. Merriman continued to turn the pages of the file. Finally he looked up. "Looks like you're in a pretty bad spot here, Alex. Being a former agent yourself, you might recall that we're a pretty close-knit bunch." Alex's chin went up. He continued to stare at Merriman in silence. "Maybe you didn't mean for anyone to get hurt, Alex. Isn't that right? You had a plan to destroy that lab and whatever was inside. It was just bad timing that those guys—" "I didn't mean for any of this to happen!" Alex's voice sounded higher than usual, tight with frustration and nerves. "Why would I blow up the lab? I need the—I need what's inside!" His eyes jumped to Mulder's again, as if for reassurance, and he drew in a deep breath. "How—how could I have set any of this up? I was miles away at the time, in Mulder's custody. We didn't even know until this afternoon that the raid was going to take place tonight." Merriman's smile never changed, but his pale blue eyes were suddenly quite cold. "Well, that's the thing, Alex. From the preliminary evidence, it looks like this might have been already rigged. A very sophisticated explosive device inside the walls." Mulder felt the news like a body blow, though he willed himself to keep his face impassive. "You put it in place, you go into hiding, and then—" Merriman leaned forward a few inches. "All it would take is a phone call. Or maybe a remote detonator." A remote detonator? Mulder knew exactly everything Alex had had on his back when he came to Mulder's apartment that night. Wallet, keys...cell phone. A detonator could easily masquerade as a cell phone. But Alex didn't have his cell phone. Mulder had taken it off him that night, in the apartment. Stepping behind Bishop so that he was out of Krycek's direct line of sight, Mulder reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. His fingers closed on the phone. It was turned off. He started to switch it on, then hesitated. What if it was some kind of detonator? It might set off any remaining explosives, and there were sure to be firefighters and— Don't be ridiculous. If it is a detonator, how would he have deployed it? It was in your pocket the whole fucking time. Mulder switched it on. It came to life with a little chirrup of readiness. A cell phone, nothing more. Krycek had not used it to set off the explosives. He could have used it to contact someone with the time of the raid, though. It would have been easy enough to sneak it out onto the screened porch while Mulder showered and Scully was distracted by preparations for the trip. Mulder put the cell phone back into his pocket. Alex was shaking his head at Merriman. "You're a pretty boy, Alex. And—" Merriman's eyes went to Alex's empty sleeve with such a blatantly phony look of sympathy that Mulder wanted to punch him, "—handicapped. It would be a shame to put you in a federal prison with—" For just a second Mulder saw it, the murderous rage that flashed up in the green eyes. Then Alex looked down, swallowing hard. "You do any fishing, Alex?" Merriman asked. Alex stared at him distrustfully for a moment before shaking his head. "No." Rowe returned with a cup of black coffee, which he set on the table midway between Alex and Merriman. Alex did not touch it. "Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the basic goal of fishing," Merriman said. Mulder could see Alex start to roll his eyes again, then stop himself. Meeting Merriman's gaze, Alex quirked an eyebrow upward. "To catch a fish." Merriman showed more teeth. "To catch a big fish." He leaned forward. "I don't think you're our big fish, Alex." Alex leaned back in his chair, letting his legs fall open. He rested his hand on his thigh and spoke in a low, smoky voice. "I don't think I'm your little fish either, Ed." Mulder felt his mouth drop open in disbelief at the undercurrent of innuendo in Alex's tone. Ed? "That's A. D. Merriman to you, punk!" Rowe snapped. Merriman quieted him with a wave of his hand. A muscle was twitching near his eye. "I think you might find it's in your best interests to deal with us." Alex lowered his lashes, then lifted them slowly, letting his eyes sweep up and down Merriman's body with a blatantly flirtatious smirk. Mulder felt his temper rising to the boiling point. He wanted to lunge across the table and slam Merriman's face down into it, then haul Alex up out of the chair and knock him across the room. Merriman appeared a bit disconcerted by the bedroom looks Alex was sending his way. He licked his lips, then sat back jerkily in his chair, knocking his pen to the floor in the process. He started to bend down to pick it up, then stopped, just staring at Alex. "I already made a deal with Mulder," Alex said. "He's the only one I'm making any deals with." "Ah, Agent Mully had to go take her partner to the hospital," Merriman said. Alex's look of baffled disgust was almost comical. His eyes went to Mulder's again. "Sir," Bishop said, "this is Agent Mulder." Merriman turned to look at Mulder. Abruptly, he rose from the table, nearly sending his file to the floor as well. "All right, Agent Mulder, have a go." He held the door open for Bishop and Rowe, then quickly followed them out. Once they were alone, Alex slumped forward, leaning his head in his hand. Mulder walked over to him. Bending down, he spoke under his breath, so he would not be heard through the viewing window. "Planning on fucking him too, Alex?" Anger sparked in Alex's eyes as he raised his head to stare at Mulder. "Get me out of here. You know I didn't do this." "How do I know that, Krycek?" Mulder hated the note of pleading he heard in his own voice. "I know you've killed other people...you've killed people right in front of me!" He suddenly couldn't stand to be near Alex any longer. Pushing up from the desk, he stumbled backwards, almost tripping over a chair. He walked to the window and stood with his back to Krycek, gazing out at the bleak, narrow streets below. "Jesus," Alex said raggedly. "I thought you'd be on my side at least." "Like last time, Krycek?" Mulder turned to look at him. "Are you having a good laugh at how you got me to fall for your bullshit yet again?" Krycek brought his hand down on the table, hard. "What the hell is going on? This isn't all about you, Mulder!" "Oh yeah?" Mulder kept his voice low. "Well, you made it all about me, didn't you? You came to me, you used me, over and over again. Why me, Krycek?" Frustration and pain overtook him. Cursing loudly, he shoved the chair viciously up against the table. Krycek flinched back at the impact, his eyes narrowing. Mulder faced him. "Why me?" Krycek's hand shot out, quick as a snake, to grab his arm. Intense feeling flooded into the green eyes as Krycek leaned forward, his voice grating on the word. "Because—" Whatever he had been going to say was interrupted as the door crashed open and Skinner and Rowe stormed in. Alex did not even appear to notice; he was still staring into Mulder's eyes, his fingers wrapped around Mulder's wrist. Mulder felt as though he were caught on a high voltage line. He could not break that current; he could not look away. "Take your hand off him, Krycek!" Skinner barked. Alex's eyes stayed riveted on Mulder for a moment, then he closed them and turned his head, his hand falling from Mulder's wrist. "Agent Mulder." Skinner jerked his head toward the door. Mulder followed him out, to where Scully was waiting in the hallway. Mulder's head was starting to ache. "I just got a call," Skinner said. "They found evidence that Krycek hacked into our computers." Mulder rubbed his head. "Hacked in—? When?" "It must have been from your laptop at the cabin." Skinner gave Mulder a measuring look. Scully spoke up. "Sir, as far as we know, Krycek was never alone on our laptop for any significant period of time." Except the other night. Mulder was remembering, Krycek sitting in the computer room. How long had he been there? Half an hour maybe? Was that enough time to hack into classified Bureau files? "I looked up some stuff on salamanders..." He had wondered at the time why Krycek would do that. Now he knew. What better way to distract Mulder? Mulder's head was splitting. He felt dizzy. "It's possible," he said. Suddenly getting the distinct feeling he was going to pass out again, or throw up, he leaned against the wall, taking in deep breaths through his mouth. "Mulder? Mulder!" Scully voice penetrated the spinning in his brain. "Here," she said, "sit down." He let her guide him to a chair and sat there with his eyes shut while she left and returned with a cold soda. "I'm taking you to the hospital," she said firmly. Mulder was in no shape to argue. He sat sipping the soda while she went down to bring the car around. The cold liquid with its jolt of caffeine and sugar revived him somewhat, and he walked back down the hall to look in the window of the interrogation room. Skinner was reentering the room, along with Bishop and Rowe, and two other agents, a Middle Eastern-looking woman, and a large, burly man who might have been Samoan. Krycek looked around at them, drawing back a bit. "Well, it's the I-have-a-dream team." Mulder both smirked and winced inwardly at the comment. Christ, Alex. Krycek was watching the door expectantly. "Where's Mulder?" Bishop answered sardonically. "Like we told you before, she took her partner to the hospital." At that, Krycek's eyes went to Skinner, who nodded curtly. "Mulder's in the hospital? Why?" There was a hint of agitation under Krycek's carefully controlled tone, which intensified as Skinner did not answer. "What's wrong with him?" "Possible concussion, thanks to your little stunt," Skinner snapped. "But—he was just in here! He looked all right to me." Krycek appeared definitely upset, looking with big alarmed eyes from face to face. But, Mulder wondered, was he concerned because Mulder was hurt? Or because he had figured Mulder for an easy mark, and now would have to deal with Skinner and the tougher Trenton agents? "Agent Mulder." Mulder turned from the window. It was Merriman, standing at his elbow. "Your partner's waiting with the car. I'll escort you down." Mulder followed him. As they rode down in the elevator Merriman turned to him. "How well do you know this guy Kraychik?" Mulder had no answer for that. Got a couple of weeks to listen...Ed? At the hospital, they had a half-hour wait before Scully started giving everyone hell. The doctor stitched up the cut on Mulder's temple and told him he might have a mild concussion. He suggested a head scan to be certain; Scully suggested a hotel room and rest, but Mulder insisted on going back to the FBI office. He had to find out the truth. He had to know if Alex had betrayed him again or not. Scully dropped him off and went to park the car. Mulder went to observe through the window of the interrogation room before going in. He wanted to get a feel for what Alex was saying and if he would tell them anything without Mulder there. Rowe was there, with the large, thuggish Samoan. Krycek was standing with his back against the wall, doubled over slightly. There was blood on his mouth. Mulder felt his heart rate speed up suddenly. Krycek was saying something they apparently did not like. The large one swore and slapped him across the side of the head, hard. Mulder hurried down the hall into the room. "What's going on?" he asked sharply. The large one turned briefly in his direction. "You've got quite a mouth on you, pretty boy," Rowe said to Krycek. Fury surged into Krycek's eyes. He pulled his head back and spit at them. Rowe jumped back with a loud curse. The large one seized Krycek, pulling him away from the wall and twisting his arm up behind his back. "Hey!" Mulder said. "Doesn't look like you have a lot of arms to spare," the large one said near Krycek's ear. "So I'd watch it if I were you." He gave Krycek's arm another yank. Krycek's face was contorted in a snarl of pain, but his eyes, clear and intense, went directly to Mulder's. Mulder felt frozen, unable to move for a moment. He did not know what to believe, how to feel. The large one gave Krycek's arm another twist. Krycek grunted harshly in pain, and then Mulder saw his face change, Krycek's eyes turning fierce and desperate, filling with a murderous determination. Krycek shifted his stance, baring his teeth, and Mulder knew he had to do something now, because Krycek was ready to do anything, he would try to kill them and almost certainly be killed himself in the process— "STOP!" Scully's voice cracked like a gunshot through the air. They all turned in astonishment to stare at the diminutive red-haired woman with the look of outrage on her face as she strode forward into the room. "Let go of his arm!" The large one looked to Rowe, who nodded. He released Krycek's arm. Krycek flexed his arm, rubbing it against his body. He was breathing hard and his eyes still glittered with a killing rage. "Agent Scully, " Rowe nodded to her. "This—punk—isn't being very cooperative." "He already killed four agents," the large one said truculently. "I didn't blow up that lab!" Krycek rasped. Scully looked from face to face. "I'm well aware that four men are dead. A couple of them were friends of mine. But in this country, we don't get suspects to cooperate by torturing them." The door opened again and Skinner and Merriman came in. Skinner looked at Scully. The Trenton agents looked at their boss. Merriman looked at Alex. Mulder tried to catch Alex's eye as well, but Alex was staring straight ahead, wearing the hard, wary look that Mulder was so familiar with. "I'd suggest," Merriman said finally, "that we put Mr. Kraychik in a holding cell for the night. In the meantime, once the fire's out, Crime Scene can go in and see what evidence they can come up with." He nodded to the two Trenton agents. "Take him downstairs." Krycek did not look at Mulder as they hauled him out. Skinner turned to Mulder. "Agent Mulder. How's the head?" Mulder shrugged it off. "Fine. Sir, about Krycek—" "We've gotten you two rooms for the night." Merriman's smoothness had returned. "There's one good hotel in Trenton—" Mulder interrupted him. "I'm staying here." At their dumbfounded looks, he elaborated. "To, um, keep an eye on Krycek." Skinner took off his glasses to clean them. "It's highly unlikely that Krycek is going to escape from a federal holding cell." "Mulder," Scully said, "you have a concussion. You need to rest." "A mild concussion. Mild concussion is nothing. I got one in a softball game when I was thirteen and I was back in the game twenty minutes later." "That explains a lot," Scully said dryly. Skinner frowned. "Are you sure you're not letting your personal feelings get into this?" It would almost have been funny, if it weren't such a horrible situation. No, Mulder could not keep his personal feelings out of this. He had never been able to, where Alex was concerned. Part of him really was strongly tempted to go back with Scully to the hotel, take a hot shower and lie on a nice clean bed, watch some mindless TV and just numb out. Let Krycek fend for himself, like the backstabbing scheming rat that he was. Unless he wasn't. If Alex was innocent, Mulder would be leaving him at the mercy of the Trenton feds, who had already shown their willingness to break his only arm. And Mulder knew Alex. Push him past a certain point and he would fight them tooth and claw, until they seriously hurt him or worse. And who was he kidding that he could just wipe his mind blank tonight in peaceful sleep? Already the guilt and disgust with himself were taking over, crushing him. He still did not know what to feel, what to believe, but either way he had been guilty as hell. He had just stood by and watched as they hurt Alex and threatened to maim him. He had stood there and said nothing, too conflicted to open his mouth because he had let Alex fuck him that morning. Or, he had let himself be taken in yet again. He had let Krycek pull this whole thing off right under his nose. Let him brazenly use Mulder's laptop to hack into Bureau files, destroy whatever was in that lab, murder four innocent people—and Mulder had been oblivious to all this, because he had let Alex fuck him that morning. Either way, letting Alex fuck him that morning had been the stupidest thing he had ever done. Knowing that didn't help, however. Too vividly, he could recall the sight of Alex going down on him, the pleasure erupting through him as Alex fucked him hard—even the kiss Alex had given him as they approached the lab. He almost wished the concussion was worse. He wouldn't have minded lapsing into total unconsciousness for about a month. I got fucked, all right. Skinner and Merriman exchanged looks. "If Agent Mulder wants to stand guard over the prisoner, it's acceptable to me," Merriman said. It took Mulder somewhat longer to convince Scully, but after several minutes of argument, he finally got her to let Skinner take her to the hotel. He headed down to the holding cells. There were only a couple of them, as federal prisoners probably didn't make their way to Trenton all that often. The female agent he had seen before escorted him along a dingy hallway incongruously painted the color of Band-Aids. She stopped short outside the cell with a stifled exclamation of dismay. Krycek was lying on the floor, doubled up with his arm wrapped around his midsection, looking barely conscious. Mulder felt fury rise within him. The female agent looked at Mulder. "He's okay?" Something in her tone checked the words that rose to Mulder's lips. "My partner's a doctor," he said. She nodded and handed him the keys without saying anything further. He watched her walk away. Mulder stood outside the cell, staring in. On the floor, Krycek remained immobile. His eyes were half-open, but Mulder wasn't sure if he realized Mulder was there or not. The cell was a bare eight-by-eight cubicle containing only a toilet and sink in the corner, and a cement slab with a foam pad on it for a bed. Krycek suddenly moved, pushing himself upright. He dragged himself the few feet over to the toilet and began retching violently. Unable to endure watching, Mulder turned and paced to the end of the hallway. Several excruciating minutes went by. Finally the awful sounds stopped, and there was only silence. Mulder walked back down the hallway. Krycek was kneeling in front of the toilet, his arm across it and his head resting on his arm. Mulder turned around and paced again. Why hadn't he accompanied Krycek down to the cell? Clearly, Rowe and the big thug had worked him over some more, once they were down here out of sight of Merriman and Scully. But he couldn't really blame them, if Krycek had indeed killed fellow agents. If he was guilty... If Krycek was guilty...so many things made sense now. The way Alex flinched or froze when Mulder touched him; the way he withdrew after sex. The offering up of all those tidbits of personal information—no doubt totally fabricated, custom-designed to engender empathy. What easier way to get to Mulder than dead family members? What better way to click with Scully than the lonely-boy-and-dog tale? All the little things—fixing Mulder coffee and tea, doing his goddamn laundry!—all carefully engineered, once again, to gain Mulder's trust. Just like he had done last time. But he must have known it wouldn't be so easy this time. So he had upped the ante. You knew I wouldn't trust you readily again, Alex. Unless, of course, I was thinking with my dick. Alex had played that just right, too. He hadn't made the mistake of coming on strong again, as he had in Mulder's apartment. This time he had acted hard-to-get, let Mulder initiate things, even made Mulder coax him a little. You made it seem like it was all my idea, so I wouldn't wonder what you were up to. Mulder found himself back in front of the cell. Krycek had not changed position. He sat leaning on the toilet with his head on his arm. "Christ, Krycek, why don't you get on the fucking bed at least?" Krycek lifted his head a fraction, gazing dully at the bed and then at the six feet of space that separated him from it. Mulder understood. Krycek did not think he could make it even that short distance, and he would not crawl in front of Mulder. Mulder paced back and forth before the cell, cursing. Finally, unable to stand it anymore, he unlocked the cell door and went over to Krycek. Krycek would not meet Mulder's eyes as Mulder knelt down beside him. Bracing himself, Mulder slung Krycek's arm over his shoulders. Krycek grunted sharply in pain as Mulder hauled him to his feet. Mulder half-carried, half-dragged him over to the bed and dumped him unceremoniously onto it. Krycek was heavy. And something else, Mulder realized. His energy was gone. Generally, touching Alex, Mulder could feel a kind of coiled energy humming through him. Now it was so low as to be almost indiscernible. He looked down at Krycek. Alex was clutching the blanket, his eyes squeezed shut. His tongue came out to lick at the blood on his lip. He gave a tiny, husky moan of pain. The soft sound brought back memories, almost unbearable, of Alex moaning and clutching the blanket like that earlier, a similar expression on his face... Fuck. Mulder left the cell, slamming the door behind him. He counted off the steps as he walked, trying to make his mind a blank, erase the terrible day and night. He glanced in as he passed the cell. Krycek was still half-sitting, half-lying on the bed. He seemed to be watching for Mulder. Mulder stumbled, feeling suddenly dizzy. The stitches in his head were throbbing like crazy. He pulled a chair over to sit outside Krycek's cell and dropped into it, rubbing his forehead with both hands. "Mulder?" Krycek said hoarsely. Mulder didn't open his eyes. "Shut up, Krycek." "You all right? They said...Scully took you to the hospital." "Just shut the fuck up." Just leave me alone don't ask me how I am don't act like you give a shit because chances are you don't, and you never did. You want me on your side against those Trenton thugs, fair enough, but don't ask me for more than that. They sat without speaking after that. Mulder felt himself drifting into a welcome fog. He was interrupted by the sound of his cell phone ringing; Scully, no doubt, calling to check on him. "Mulder...hello?...hello..." But the phone was still ringing. He was thinking that it must be a dream and wondering vaguely how he could wake up, because the ringing was damn annoying, when he noticed Krycek sitting up, staring at Mulder with a look of fear. It was not his phone that was ringing, but Krycek's. With surprising alacrity, Krycek staggered to the bars of the cell. Mulder flipped the phone open and stood close, holding it between them. Alex did not speak into the phone, just listened. A long moment passed. Then Mulder heard it, the voice he loathed above all others. The voice of evil, curling into his ears, his brain, like...smoke. "Hello, Alex." From Alex's quick intake of breath, Mulder thought he must be having a similar reaction. Their eyes jumped to each other and held. Alex was gripping the bars tightly; Mulder realized that it was probably the only way he was staying on his feet. "Did you get everything you wanted, Alex?" Alex erupted in a frenzied snarl. "I didn't want any of this!" "Tsk, tsk..." Spender's voice said reprovingly. "You never did have much self-control. Well, I just wanted to thank you for all you've given us, and tell you to enjoy your new home." The line went dead. Alex stared at the phone with an expression of numb horror. He looked back at Mulder. "I didn't give them anything!" His voice shook on the words. "I can't—I won't go back to prison. Not ever, Mulder." Mulder had a sudden overwhelming urge to put his hands through the bars and touch Alex, comfort him. He snapped the phone shut and stepped back. Alex seemed to gather his strength. He crossed the distance to the bed and fell heavily onto it. For a minute he just sat there, grasping the side of the bed, breathing unevenly. Then he raised his head and looked at Mulder. "I didn't do this." Mulder said nothing. "Are you going to stay here all night?" "Yeah." Silence fell again. Alex sat with his head bowed, staring at the floor. Mulder sat on the chair again and dozed. When he awoke some time later, all was quiet. Alex was stretched out on the bed. Mulder's ass and back hurt from sitting on the hard folding chair. He decided to try the bed in the other cell; while hardly luxurious, it had to be more comfortable than this. He unlocked the cell and lay down. The foam pad did little to cushion the hard cement, and the light made his head hurt. There was probably a central switch that turned them off, but he did not have the energy to hunt for it. He wondered if the light bothered Krycek too, or if he preferred it to the dark. The cell was small and he wondered if Alex felt claustrophobic, or if he was in too much pain to really care. He managed to drift off again. Confused images of the blast swam through his mind, and he slept fitfully. A muffled sound woke him. Alex was moving around in the cell. "Mulder...?" Alex called softly. Mulder was struck by the note of hopelessness in the quiet voice. He thinks I abandoned him. "I'm here, Alex." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he could have kicked himself for the reassuring tone. Don't let him see he still gets to you. But another part of his mind was saying wearily, Fuck it. Who knew what was coming tomorrow. Most likely Alex would be a Federal prisoner, would be facing a trial. And then...Mulder stared upward at the ceiling, feeling as hopeless as Alex had sounded. Was Alex guilty or innocent? Had Spender called him to thank him for a job well done, or to twist the knife before letting him rot in prison again? And the most troubling thoughts of all, the ones that kept nagging at him, despite his best efforts to block them out. Even if Alex was guilty, did Mulder really want to see him sent to prison, knowing what he would probably face there? And, even if he was innocent this time, Mulder had no doubt that Alex was capable of doing this, had no doubt done things like this and worse, many times over. But this time, this time...had he been the one? He stared upward at the ceiling, but there were no answers there, only some old graffiti, still visible under a layer of paint, that read, "THE GOVERMINT MUST BE OVERTHRONE." Mulder awakened to voices outside the cell—three people he had never seen before. They were gawking in at him with a mixture of revulsion and curiosity. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Good morning." They stared as though he were a zoo creature that had suddenly started speaking. Mulder strolled toward the cell door and pulled it open. They all recoiled, and one of them appeared to be going for his gun. Mulder held up a hand. Moving with deliberate slowness, he produced his I.D. "Agent Fox Mulder." They gazed at him in consternation. Mulder exited the cell, not happy that he had to deal with this first thing in the morning. His stitches itched and throbbed, he had a foul taste in his mouth, and his clothes still stank of smoke. "You're looking for Alex Krycek? He's in the other cage." They exchanged looks of confused chagrin. One of them mumbled, "But he said—" "Who said? Krycek?" Mulder hoped to hell these people were clerks or security, and not federal agents. They all peered into the other cell. Krycek was seated on the bed, his back to the wall. His face was bruised and puffy, his lip cut and swollen, and he looked pale and exhausted, but he was sitting upright, and there was a hard, smartass glint in his eyes. "So," Krycek rasped, "due process goes by the wayside here and police brutality lives. Are you going to fucking starve me as well?" Somewhat to Mulder's surprise, the three strangers looked his way. He shrugged. "Get him something to eat." "You want something too?" Mulder shrugged again. "Sure." They continued to stare in through the bars. Krycek was sitting with his right side to them, but as he shifted to speak, the empty sleeve on the left side became visible. "One arm," Mulder heard one of them mutter. He felt a flash of anger. Did they imagine Alex couldn't hear them? Emotion flickered in Alex's eyes for a second, and his face turned hard and dangerous. He stared piercingly out at the three strangers with an almost palpable air of menace. There was an edge to his voice when he spoke. "Yeah, you never know where I might be concealing an AK-47." Way to help your case there, Krycek. No one would take you for a ruthless killer now. But he couldn't really blame Alex. He would have had the same perverse desire to horrify these idiots. The three strangers trooped off. Mulder and Krycek looked at each other for a long moment. Then Krycek pushed himself up from the bed, moving with some difficulty, and headed for the toilet. Mulder walked off down the hallway as Krycek took a lengthy pee. He realized he could use a men's room too, and headed off to find one and clean up a bit. When he returned Krycek was back on the bed. Mulder sat in the chair outside the cell. Krycek turned to look at him. "I need the limb back, Mulder. In one piece." His voice and expression were flat and tough, but Mulder could hear the underlying urgency. "I'll get it back to you." Alex nodded, but he wasn't finished. "Mulder...you have to get into the lab." "Alex, you saw that thing go up. There is no lab anymore. It's a pile of smoking rubble by now." Despite himself, he could not suppress a shudder at the thought of picking through the charred remains, possibly finding—"Besides, it's a crime scene." "I know—" Alex's voice cracked slightly, "—I know all the vaccine must be gone, but the files—the computers—are all down in the basement. It's possible the blast didn't destroy them all. You have to get in there, Mulder. If there's anything left in there, you're gonna need it." Alex sat leaning forward on the bed, staring at Mulder intently and speaking in a low, rapid voice. Mulder knew that tone and look very well. It was one Alex used when he wanted something from Mulder, and Mulder usually ended up giving it to him. Maybe knowing this as well, or simply taking Mulder's silence for acquiescence, Krycek began to give instructions on what to look for and how to get down to the basement computers. "Down two flights of stairs. The door's unmarked but it's a data room. Get the drives from the computers, and anything else you can." Mulder didn't miss that he was now saying "you" instead of "we." Had Alex given up hope of getting out of prison? Or was he setting a new trap for Mulder? No, Mulder didn't seriously think so. He didn't have any personal fear of Krycek. If Krycek wanted to kill Mulder, he had had many, many opportunities. No, Mulder thought sourly, he was probably more valuable to Krycek alive, as an entry to places and information Krycek did not have access to, and as a sort of human shield in times like these. And an easy piece of ass. Abruptly, Krycek stopped speaking, looking disconcerted by the expression on Mulder's face. Mulder gazed back, putting on the deadpan look he used to unnerve suspects. Krycek shifted on the bed, frowning, looking down and then up again at Mulder. A sudden realization clicked in Mulder's mind, his thoughts jumping to another topic. "The vaccine. They wouldn't have destroyed it." Krycek stared at him, open-mouthed. "They need it, for themselves. But they wouldn't need that much. They probably have their own stash, in another lab somewhere. Why were they manufacturing that much? To sell it?" Krycek nodded. "They were going to make deals with heads of state, when the time came." He gave a tiny, bitter smirk. "It would become...very valuable." "I'll bet." Mulder felt a chill. "So what were you going to do with it?" Krycek met his gaze steadily. "You know what I was going to do." "Give it to me, and then disappear?" At Krycek's nod, Mulder felt frustration rising. "And what was I supposed to do with it?" Without you? "I knew you would do the right thing. You're not interested in money, or power. You—you're—" Krycek's lashes fluttered, and his gaze fell away from Mulder's. "How do you know that?" Mulder asked dryly. Krycek did not respond. A flush colored his cheeks. He looked oddly vulnerable for a moment, sitting with his head bowed in the cell. Footsteps sounded at the end of the hall. Instantly Krycek seemed to prick up his ears, raising his hand slightly to silence Mulder. One of the three from the morning, a young guy in his twenties, was returning, bearing bags from McDonalds. Mulder raised an eyebrow. "Mickey D's? Don't you have a Starbucks? What is this place, a cultural wasteland?" "It's Trenton," the young guy said, without a hint of irony. He handed one of the bags to Mulder with a significant look. "This is yours." He held up the second bag. "This one is his." Mulder gave the one meant for him to Krycek, and tossed the contents of the other in the trash. They had probably spit in the food, or worse. Alex devoured the greasy egg sandwich with more speed than enthusiasm. He took a few sips of the coffee and grimaced. Mulder's head was hurting again, and he leaned back against the wall, folding his arms and half-closing his eyes. "Mulder!" Mulder snapped to attention, and Alex stopped mid-chew. Scully was walking down the hallway toward him, sounding perturbed and glaring at Mulder. "Have you been here all night? I thought you were going to stay for a couple of hours, and then go get some rest!" Mulder stood up, rubbing his neck sheepishly. "I got some rest." "Dozing in a prison hallway when you have a concussion isn't rest," Scully said. In the cell, Mulder saw Alex's head come up quickly at her words. "They want you to give your statement now. Are you up to that?" "Yeah, sure, whatever." Mulder followed her down the hall. He could feel Alex's eyes on his back as he walked away. "What about Krycek?" He kept his voice low so Alex would not overhear. "What's happening with him?" "I don't know. I just got here." In a room with Merriman, Bishop, and the female agent from the night before, he gave them his version of the night's events. Alex Krycek had brought him some information on a possible bioweapons lab. The plans for the raid had been kept top secret so as not to alarm anyone. The building had blown up as they approached. No, he hadn't seen Krycek using a detonator or any sort of device, but yes, they had been separated at the time of the explosion. "After he left the Bureau, were you and Kraychik on good terms?" "No." "He was working with these people, correct?" Merriman said. "He could still be working with them, couldn't he?" Mulder fought back the irrational impulse to protect Alex, rather than tell the truth. "Yes," he said tiredly. "He could." Bishop leaned forward. "What I don't get is why he would lead you to this, then try to destroy the place. I'm thinking there had to be a reason he wanted the FBI involved. Does he have some kind of grudge against the government?" Mulder pondered this. "Not that I know of." Honesty compelled him to speak further. "He could be doing someone else's bidding. Or he could have his own agenda." Because you always do, don't you, Alex? And you never let me, or anyone else, in on it. Scully was waiting outside when he emerged from the room. It had been a little over an hour. "I want you to go back to the hotel, now, and get some rest." She wrinkled up her nose. "Besides, you stink." "Scully, you silver-tongued devil." But he couldn't deny that a shower and a decent cup of coffee did sound great. "Will you be there if they question him? And call me if anything new develops?" She dropped the car keys in his hand. "Yes, definitely." It was a beautiful day outside, the bright sunlight making the streets of Trenton look golden and peaceful. Trenton's "one good hotel" proved surprisingly luxurious. Mulder sprawled on the comfortable bed wrapped in only the hotel bathrobe, watching TV and eating a cheesesteak from room service. Still, the picture of Alex sitting there, battered and downcast in the small, dingy cell, kept invading his thoughts. He remembered Alex calling his name last night...Alex calling his name in the silo... And it shook him to realize that he didn't know which thought disturbed him most: Alex Krycek the remorseless killer, murdering four people in cold blood; or Alex Krycek the human being, alone and afraid and needing him. The sound of his phone pulled Mulder out of a deep, dreamless sleep. Looking at the clock, he was shocked to see that four hours had passed. He dressed quickly and ran a comb through his hair. Scully hadn't told him much on the phone, only that there was a new development and that Skinner wanted to talk to both of them. He had a horrible feeling of dread that the "new development" was that Crime Scene had found some solid evidence to tie Alex to the blast. If that happened, Alex would be formally arrested and taken to a federal prison. There would be nothing Mulder could do for him then. And why the hell would you want to? He killed people, innocent people, and he used you. No matter how good a fuck he is... He was outwardly calm as he walked into the Trenton FBI office, but inside he felt as close to shooting himself as he'd ever come. Alex, how could you fucking do this to me? Skinner and Scully were waiting upstairs. "Agent Mulder," Skinner said, "are you willing to assume custody of Krycek?" Mulder swallowed. "To transport him to a prison facility?" Skinner's dour look suggested that he'd vastly prefer that option. "He's being released to your custody for the time being." Mulder was speechless for a moment. "What does that mean? He's guilty, or he's not?" "He's still a suspect," Skinner said tersely. "But there's not enough evidence to justify holding him," Scully finished. There had to be more to it than they were telling him, Mulder knew. He wondered just what the hell was going on. "So...what are we supposed to do with him?" he asked. "Take him back to the cabin?" Skinner started to say something, then apparently changed his mind. "That's probably best." At Scully's appalled look, he added, "I can get someone else to take over if you've had enough." "No!" Mulder said sharply, just as Scully was saying, "Yes!" in relief. They stared at each other. Scully looked baffled and angry. Mulder felt backed against the wall. Skinner finally broke the standoff. "Would you be willing to do it just until the end of the week, until we can get this sorted out?" Scully looked at both of them like they were a couple of rotting anchovies she had found hiding under a leaf of her Caesar salad. "Just one week." Alex was sitting on the bed, staring intently down the hallway to see who was coming. When he saw it was Mulder, Scully and Skinner he pushed himself up, rather stiffly, to stand facing them. "Okay, Krycek," Skinner said. "You're being released to the custody of these agents." For a moment, Alex just looked bewildered. Then his eyes jumped to Mulder's, widening with a flash of hope and relief. Mulder felt a stab of guilt at that, since he hadn't had anything to do with Alex getting released. "They'll take you back to the safe house tonight," Skinner said. Scully was staring at the floor, her arms folded. Alex had been about to say something to Skinner, but at those words he looked directly at Mulder. "We have to get back into the lab. If there's anything left, we have to salvage it." "I think he's right," Mulder said. Scully looked at him as though he had lost his mind completely. Mulder was pondering whether it would be possible to do it without his boss's approval when Skinner unexpectedly gave a short nod. While Skinner and Scully went to gas up the car and check out of the hotel, Mulder got Krycek released and retrieved his personal belongings. Thankfully, the prosthetic arm did not appear to have been tampered with. Mulder waited outside while Alex was in the men's room getting cleaned up and putting his arm back on. It took a while, but Mulder did not go in to help or call to him. He thought Alex would want privacy, and he did not want to be alone with Alex in there. He wondered if there would be anything salvageable in the lab. They had the vaccine formula, but Alex had only a few vials of the actual vaccine on hand in the plant genetics lab. Could it be replicated from those? How far would this set them back? Alex emerged, prosthetic arm on and wearing his leather jacket. Despite himself, Mulder could not help smiling at the sight. Alex gave a tiny smile in return as he walked towards Mulder. His expression suddenly changed, looking over Mulder's shoulder. Mulder turned. Merriman was coming down the hall. Merriman halted, his cold, almost colorless eyes flicking from Mulder to Krycek with an odd expression. Mulder felt a twinge of apprehension. How much did Merriman suspect about his relationship with Alex; how much had he guessed? "Where to now?" Merriman asked. Alex leaned back against the wall, gazing at Merriman. You could read just about anything into that look: cunning, defiance, desire. He did not answer, leaving that up to Mulder. "Back to D. C.," Mulder said. He did not fully trust Merriman. His irritation and distrust of Krycek were returning full force as well. He was glad to see Scully and Skinner heading their way. The lab stairwell was dark, reeking of smoke and a hideous burned-chemical stench. Mulder fought back the queasy dread that threatened to paralyze him. They were making their way down to the basement, where the computers were, following Krycek. He felt a hand on his back, guiding him along. Alex? Scully? But it was Skinner. He was glad after all that Skinner had decided to accompany them, even if he was only doing it to keep an eye on Krycek. It had been Skinner's credentials and title that got them past the guards and Crime Scene officers. The bombed building had looked even worse in daylight, a mass of rubble and twisted metal. Somewhere in there, four people lay dead. Glancing around at his companions as they got out of the car, Mulder could see the same shock and devastation on their faces that he was feeling. Krycek swallowed hard and closed his eyes for a moment. Was it for real? "One more flight," Krycek called back. Mulder forced himself to just put one foot in front of the other, take in deep breaths through his mouth. Memories were flooding back. He and Bobby Kenneally, thirteen years old, crouching in the ruins of Bobby's burned house. They had spent the night in the building to deter looters. Mulder had been terrified the whole time. In his mind he kept seeing the raging flames and fearing the building would go up again around them. Bobby was his best friend. Unlike almost everyone else, he never made fun of Mulder's first name. Bobby was the first guy Mulder had ever jerked off with. Not that night; he didn't think they had even touched that night. But other nights, sleepovers, Bobby's hand reaching for him in the dark and the smell of sex. He had not wanted to be there, in the burned building that night. He had been there because of Bobby. Just as he would rather be anywhere but here, right now, but he was here because of Alex. No. That wasn't so. He had been the one who told Bobby they should watch for looters. He was here now because of his own knowledge as well, his own need to do whatever was necessary. He had never been able to close his eyes and let someone else take care of things. Distracted, he collided abruptly with the black-leather wall of Alex's back. For one second, the comforting scent of Alex was like a beacon. He wanted to wrap his arms around Alex's waist and press his face into Alex's hair. Alex turned, almost whacking Mulder with the flashlight. Alex tilted the light so the beam would not be in Mulder's eyes. "You okay?" Alex said. "Fine," Mulder said shortly. "Maybe you should stay in the car," Scully said. Mulder shook his head, setting off a small wave of dizziness. "Probably a good idea, Agent Mulder," Skinner said. Alex said only, "It should be better downstairs, easier to breathe." Scully moved to Mulder's side, taking his hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze. She was the only one there who knew how much he hated fire. Alex was still standing with the light pointed downward. It caught their clasped hands. Alex turned abruptly, the darkness hiding his face. "Come on," he said tightly. They reached the foot of the stairs. Alex pulled open the door. He paused for a moment, apparently orienting himself, then strode on. Mulder followed, more slowly, peering into the rooms. Most of them had escaped the fire, but the impact of the blast was apparent from the degree of destruction. Office furniture, papers and lab equipment were scattered and smashed everywhere. Another memory hit. Standing in numb despair amidst the burned wreckage of his office, feeling the same sense of devastation as when Scully was abducted and then Alex disappeared. The knowledge that they could take what mattered most from him, and there was nothing he could do about it, no way to fight them. Ahead of them, Krycek's steps quickened. Having apparently located the data room, he pushed open a door and disappeared inside. Mulder followed. The sight from the doorway brought him up short in stunned dismay. Part of a wall had come down over where the desks had been. Mulder could see a shattered monitor, but the computers themselves had apparently been sitting on the floor, and they were buried in a mangled mass of sheetrock and shelving. A water cooler was upended in one corner, its broken jug soaking the debris and adding to the damage. Alex turned around and slammed his hand against the wall, hard. He leaned his forehead against it, slumping there, his hand clenched into a fist above his head. Without thinking, Mulder started instantly to go to him. "Mulder, stop! Don't do anything to him!" It was Scully, her voice strained but with the steely ring of an order. Mulder froze, and Krycek spun around instantly, staring warily at the three of them as if he was about to be jumped. He gripped the flashlight and squared his shoulders, making his face hard and impassive. Mulder spoke quietly, thinking aloud. "These computers are no good. We'll never get them out." Krycek opened his mouth, looking tremendously upset. Mulder could tell that Alex was ready to start digging the drives out with his bare hand. He held Krycek's gaze with his own. "I saw another one in the other office. It's partly buried too, but we might be able to salvage it to some extent. If it's the server drive, then maybe..." Once again Mulder was glad Skinner was with them. Neither he nor Krycek was in good enough shape to dig the other computer out easily, and Scully, though strong, was small. With Skinner's strength, the job went quickly. Alex produced his knife, using the screwdriver attachment to remove the hard drive. Miraculously, it looked undamaged. "Mulder," Scully said from behind him. Mulder turned. She had unearthed a metal strongbox amidst the mangled remains of what had once been a file cabinet. "Alex," Mulder said. Alex looked up. Seeing the strongbox, his eyes widened. "Backups of the data," he breathed. "Most of it is stored off-site, but they kept a copy here as well. If this is it, then we might have lost only the data that was entered since the last backup." Mulder felt Alex's ferocious hope surge through him as well. "Let's take it to the Gunmen. They'll have all the equipment, and they can get the data even if the files have been wiped." The Lone Gunmen cast fascinated glances at the dangerous criminal Alex Krycek, right on their very own lipstick-red sofa! Never mind that Krycek was slumped in a corner of the sofa with his eyes half-shut, looking barely capable of walking across the room without help. Scully brought Krycek a couple of pills and a glass of water. "Your antibiotic and pain meds. And here—" She dug into her purse, unearthing a granola bar. "You shouldn't take them on an empty stomach." Krycek looked at the granola bar without much enthusiasm. He took a tiny bite from the corner, grimaced and laid it down on the table. Mulder couldn't really blame him. The bar resembled a small brick of compressed sawdust with some insect fragments embedded here and there. "Hey, dude, want some Captain Crunch?" Langley offered. "Yeah," Krycek said, as if this was the first sensible suggestion he'd heard all day. Mulder regarded the computer screen, which was filling rapidly with numbers, looking like something out of an old sci-fi movie. Frohike had hooked up the hard drive to their monitor, and the screen was filling rapidly with numbers, looking like something out of an old sci-fi movie. Scully took out her cell phone. Mulder guessed she was calling either Skinner or Paul. He saw her face soften as she spoke, and knew it was Paul. "Boys," he heard Krycek say with a slight edge to his tone. Mulder turned. The Gunmen were standing around, openly watching Alex eat a bowl of Captain Crunch. Alex looked rather fed up at the attention. He was using the prosthetic only to brace the bowl in his lap, eating rather awkwardly. Mulder wondered if the arm was hurting him again. Mulder moved over, getting between Alex and the Gunmen. "Fro, what the hell is that up on the screen?" As if inhabited by a single consciousness, the three Gunmen turned to the screen, all explaining at once. Mulder nodded, only half-listening—something to do with binary code and bitmaps. Scully was still on the phone, sounding upset now. "I understand you're on duty tonight, but I was hoping—" Catching Mulder looking at her, she lowered her voice and walked off down the hall. Mulder smirked to himself. Trouble in paradise, apparently. And what are you feeling so smug about? Her lover just has to work late. Yours might have killed four people. Mulder's emotions swung violently between wanting to beat Alex to death with his bare hands, and longing to go over to the couch, pull Alex down into his lap, stroke his hair and hold him. He sat down on the other end of the couch. He could feel Alex's awareness of him, and his of Alex, like a magnetic charge between them. Exhaustion overcame him, and he leaned back, closing his eyes. He dozed sporadically. Opening his eyes, he saw Krycek was now seated at the computer. Byers was saying admiringly, "You are good." Scully had taken off her shoes and was talking with Frohike. Mulder let himself drift off again. Voices filtered through his consciousness. He realized some time had passed. Everyone was now gathered around the computer. Frohike was seated, typing something. Krycek said something about experiments and trial runs. Scully asked a question. Apparently they had succeeded in pulling some files off the retrieved hard drive. Mulder knew he should go over and join them but his head was starting to ache again, and inertia seemed to have set in. He let the voices flow over him, watching in a kind of stupor. "Shit!" Krycek hissed suddenly. Mulder came fully alert. "How the hell did they get this?" Krycek said, almost to himself. Scully's tone changed too. "You had human subjects?" Krycek didn't answer for a moment. He was staring fixedly at the screen, looking almost panicked. "Just one," he rasped finally. Mulder got up and walked closer to peer over Scully's shoulder at the screen. The other disks hadn't mentioned any human subjects, only lab animals. It appeared to be notes on a trial of the vaccine. The letters blurred together and danced, unintelligible hieroglyphs. He blinked and shook his head, trying to clear his vision. Scully frowned. "You actually injected someone with the black oil?" Mulder felt a wave of nausea hit him. Tunguska...the gulag...straps binding him to a table...chicken wire encasing his face... "We needed a human subject," Krycek was saying. "We had to test it on a human, to make sure it worked." ...the black, viscous substance dripping down, oozing into his eyes, his mouth, and he could not turn his head, could not escape it...opening his mouth to scream, he felt the oil flooding in ... Scully turned angry eyes on Krycek. "It says here that it didn't work! That the subject suffered severe side effects." "Just for a week or so." Krycek swallowed, his voice sounding strained. "Anyway, it's not important. That subject was...atypical." ...choking, the indescribably horrible sensation, like being hollowed out under his skin...the slimy metallic taste running all through him... "Not important?" Scully's tone grew colder. "Atypical how?" "There were...anomalies in the blood...a pre-existing condition..." ...cold in the chamber, so cold on his bare arms and chest...the wire pressing down on his face, holding him in place... "It says here the side effects persisted." Scully scanned the screen. "What kind of side effects?" ...and the vaccine itself, like battery acid running through his veins...his body aching and burning all over...lying weak and helpless on the cold stone floor of the cell... "That one subject is junk! It was a mistake. The vaccine will work on anyone who hasn't—on a normal person, it will work." "A human being is junk?" Scully's voice was rising, her anger and dislike of Krycek coming through strongly now. "This person suffered destructive, probably permanent effects from—" ...while Krycek was getting cozy with the guards, sleeping in a warm bed, laughing and lighting cigarettes for Mulder's tormentors. Only the adrenaline determination to kill Krycek had made Mulder drag his battered body up that morning. "Listen, no one was forced! It was a mistake to use that particular subject, I should have realized—but the animal trials were successful and time was running out—" "Experimenting on human subjects like this goes against every scientific protocol!" Marita Covarrubias in the decontamination center, her once elegant face and body ravaged...Mulder recalled his horror, his sorrow. "I didn't have time to worry about scientific protocol!" Krycek said impatiently. "I had to—look, the only important thing here is—the vaccine works." "Yes," Scully snapped, "I believe the Nazis used that line of reasoning as well." "Are you calling me a Nazi?" Krycek's control seemed to crack at that, and he took a step toward Scully, his eyes angry. "I'm not a Nazi!" Rationally, Mulder did not think Krycek would ever have put his hands on Scully. It was just what Krycek did, getting in people's faces, being confrontational. But rationality was slipping from Mulder; he felt too raw and assaulted by the terrible flood of memories. His head was throbbing, and Krycek's belligerent stance and tone had raised his hackles already. Krycek seemed to be looming over Scully—he had been a party to her abduction, tried to kill her once— Then he took that step toward her. It was as if someone had struck a match and tossed it. The lit match flared, hurtled downward, and landed in the pool of gasoline that was Mulder. "Cut the shit, Krycek!" Mulder exploded, pushing past Scully and shoving Krycek backwards, hard. Krycek stumbled and almost fell, but righted himself, grimacing in pain. Every neuron in Mulder's body was firing the same message, urging him to beat the crap out of Krycek, crush him once and for all. "You're no better than the Nazis, no better than the colonists! You let them do that to me in Tunguska, you let them do it to Marita, and now you took some other poor bastard to experiment on—like you did with that kid Dmitri—" "Mulder." Scully put a hand on his chest, restraining him. Mulder started to turn away, then spun back, rage and disgust roiling up within him. "You deserved to lose your fucking arm! You deserve to lose everything!" "I DID!" Fury blazed up in Krycek's eyes as he screamed the words in Mulder's face, his voice raw and uneven. "I did lose everything, you self-righteous arrogant fuck! Everything I worked for—it's all gone to hell, along with everything else!" Krycek's chest heaved. His fist was clenched and for a moment Mulder thought Krycek might hit him; he almost hoped he would. Then Krycek pushed roughly past him and stormed down the hall. In the dead silence that followed Mulder heard a door click shut. No one would meet his eyes. Everyone seemed shaken by the ugly scene. Scully stood with her hand over her face for a moment. Slowly, she collected her shoes and purse. "I—I'm going to go. Can you call me a cab?" "Oh, uh, sure." Byers reached for the phone. A wave of dizziness washed over Mulder, leaving him with only enough strength to get to the couch and drop back down onto it. He leaned forward, resting his head on his wrists. Dimly he heard movement and voices: Langley asking if he was all right; Scully telling Krycek to go in one of the bedrooms and get some sleep; Frohike offering to walk Scully down to her cab. He remained where he was, grateful for the dark behind his closed eyelids and the sound of his own breathing. Mulder awoke sometime later, stretched out on the couch. It was dawn, the sky just getting light. The Gunmen were still at the computer; he could hear the soft clicking of the keys. Mulder chuckled wearily to himself and sat up. He was about to make a wisecrack when he saw that it was not Byers or Frohike but the larger, darker figure of Krycek sitting there. The slight change in Krycek's posture, a fractional movement of his head, told Mulder that he was aware Mulder was awake. Mulder walked over to him. Krycek had what looked like a medical chart up on the screen, staring at it with a troubled frown. The words Human Subject Trial were printed across the top. He had time to see the screen for only a moment before Krycek cleared it. Krycek was fully dressed, with the leather jacket on. Mulder wondered if he had ever taken it off. It would be just like Krycek to sleep with it on. Or not sleep, as he didn't look particularly rested. "Pull that up again." "That's a medical record," Krycek rasped. "It's confidential." Mulder wanted to smack him in the head. "Don't tell me you finally found an ethic, Krycek. That's kind of oxymoronic." "Fuck you," Krycek said, but it was the exhausted snarl of a wounded animal being prodded with a stick. Mulder noted how Krycek had tensed back in his chair, as if expecting Mulder to hit him. Mulder was suddenly sick of all this. He walked over to the nearest chair and dropped into it. His stitches were throbbing and itching. Irritably, he rubbed at them. Krycek's eyes went there, settling on the stitches, although his expression didn't change. Mulder closed his eyes, letting his eidetic memory play back what had been on the screen. A date, approximately six months ago, with what was presumably a doctor's note. "Sub rpts ctd int SE: intrt pn, msc wkns, elv tmp, LOA." The rest of the page was blood work results, totally incomprehensible to Mulder. Not that the note was much clearer. Mulder gestured at the screen. "So who was your subject?" He thought for a minute that Krycek was not going to answer; indeed, he wondered if Krycek had even heard him. Then the low gravelly voice said, "A volunteer." After a moment Krycek added, "An adult." Mulder thought he saw a tiny flicker of pain in Krycek's eyes at the words, but he couldn't be sure. "Do I know this person?" Krycek turned his head to look at Mulder, his expression unreadable. Mulder felt the weight of that look. "Not really," Krycek said. There was a finality in his voice that made Mulder understand any further questions would get him nowhere. "Why does it matter?" Krycek asked softly. Because you did it, Alex. Not the Russians, or the Consortium this time. You. I wanted to believe you were better than that; I wanted to believe you had changed. Maybe you never changed. Maybe you did kill those four men. Maybe I'll never know. Mulder stood up. "I'm going to make some coffee." Krycek looked up at him with a curious expression. "And some Captain Crunch," Mulder said. Krycek's lashes flickered slightly, but the expressiveness Mulder had been struck by was gone. Now he might have been made of stone. He did not answer, but he must have been hungry, for he got up and followed Mulder to the kitchen. Mulder made coffee, and Krycek got out the Captain Crunch and milk and a couple of mismatched bowls. Mulder noted that the kitchen was even more ill-equipped than his own. Under different circumstances he might have joked with Alex about that. Now they ate in silence, not meeting each other's eyes. Alex let the prosthetic hand rest on the table, still not using it much. The black-leather-covered fingers jerked spasmodically, as if of their own volition. Mulder had noticed that sometimes happened when Alex was very tired or stressed. Seeing Mulder's gaze, Krycek moved the hand to his lap, away from Mulder's scrutiny. Two days ago they had been lovers. He could recall, too vividly, the feel of Alex's body, muscles moving under the skin as Alex fucked him, the taste of Alex's sweat and the sound of husky laughter. Now there might have been a thousand miles between them. Frohike came into the kitchen, yawning. He shook his head at the sight of the Captain Crunch. "You don't have to eat that crap. We have Instant Cream of Wheat." He pulled a box from the shelf and set it on the table. "Oh, I thought that was spackle," Mulder said. Alex rose without speaking. He took his bowl to the sink, washed it and replaced it in the cabinet, and left the room. Frohike looked at Mulder. "Did you guys kiss and make up?" Mulder felt almost reckless enough to tell the truth. If you only knew. He jerked his head toward the door Krycek had gone through. "He a good hacker?" Frohike's eyes gleamed appreciatively. "Oh yeah." "Could he hack into a government database?" "Sure. And they'd never know it." Mulder digested this thoughtfully. While Krycek and the Gunmen worked on the hard drive all morning, Mulder went through the printouts. Much of it was incomprehensible to him, scattered fragments of data and medical trials. He got a clean sheet of paper and jotted down everything he could remember of the Human Subject data from the computer screen. He knew it was probably an exercise in futility. They would probably never find out who the human subject had been, even if that person was still alive. Scully arrived in the late afternoon. She had gotten her hair done and looked rejuvenated, practically glowing. "Been with Paul, I see?" Mulder said dryly. Alex glanced up from the computer screen, looking from Mulder to Scully. Scully was all smiles. "Paul took the morning off and we went out to brunch. Then I met my mother and we tried on wedding dresses." Seeing that her all-male audience was less than impressed, she rolled her eyes. "Well, it was a lot of fun." "We might be a bunch of social misfits," Langley offered, "but we're happy for you." Mulder looked at Alex, feeling a bit miffed at the characterization. Alex didn't react. Scully's smile faded slightly as she looked around the room, apparently recalling her assignment. Mulder felt the guilt boring through his innards. Once again, he was dragging Scully away from her fiancé and her happy life in D. C., to help him on one of his more ill-conceived quests. She often accused him of not respecting her feelings, and that was probably never truer than in this case. Soon her air of happy excitement would be gone, replaced by resignation and worry. He couldn't even say for sure that Alex hadn't done this. "Of course you guys are invited," Scully was saying. "You do own suits, don't you?" Mulder turned away, unable to listen any longer. He noticed Krycek watching him keenly as he did so. For the first time, a flash of emotion broke through, and Krycek looked deeply unhappy. Mulder wondered why it should bother Krycek that Scully was making wedding plans. Did Alex have a thing for Scully? No, more likely he was worried about her jeopardizing his plans by not wanting to work on this case. Mulder drove the first half of the way on the trip back to the cabin. Neither Krycek nor Scully asked to drive or even spoke much. Scully's mood had gotten progressively more morose as the day wore on, and now she looked ready to bite his head off. They stopped at a little out-of-the-way place, not wanting Krycek to attract too much attention with the bruises on his face. Scully headed for the clean, well-lit convenience store while Mulder and Krycek used the tiny and indescribably filthy gas station bathroom. Walking back, Krycek moved slowly and seemed to stumble. Mulder put a hand automatically on his back, guiding him to the car. Krycek half-heartedly shook him off. Krycek got into the back seat. Mulder stayed outside, leaning against the car, waiting for Scully. Broken glass was scattered about, green and glittering under the lights. He leaned his head back, looking up at the stars. They were surprisingly clear tonight, and he found he could pick out several of the constellations. It brought back uncomfortable memories of standing with Alex, looking up at the sky that night. Did he even really know any of the constellations, or was that another line of bull he was feeding me? I don't think he actually named any. He had a furious impulse to open the car door, yank Krycek out, and demand that he identify a few. But Alex looked like he was leaning heavily on the door, and would probably tumble out onto his face if Mulder opened it suddenly. And he had no doubt that Scully would pick that exact moment to return. Well, Alex couldn't have been faking everything. A man couldn't fake some things the way a woman could. The responses of his body—those had been real, at least. On the other hand, some guys—porn stars came instantly to mind—didn't need to actually fake it. They could perform on command. Alex had enough control over his body to be able to resist a dose of Haldol, to fight off a panic attack in the car trunk. Getting hard and coming at will would probably be a piece of cake to him. The image of Alex as a porn star sent an uncomfortable rush of arousal through Mulder. Cursing under his breath, he smacked his hand against the car hood in furious frustration. Alex stared up wide-eyed through the window at him. Scully returned, bearing three foil-wrapped hot dogs and sodas. She handed the food to Mulder without a word, and started to open the driver's side door. "You want to take a turn driving?" Mulder asked. Scully paused with the door half-open. "That's right, Mulder. I'm going to drive." Icy irritation dripped from every word. Mulder stared at her. "Can I talk to you a minute?" Scully met his look head-on. She slammed the car door shut. "Talk." Setting the food down on the hood of the car, Mulder gestured for her to move a few feet from the car, out of earshot of Krycek. "Look, Scully, I know you didn't want to leave Pau—" "Don't make this out to be me not wanting to do my job, Mulder! I can do my job! What I resent is being dragged out here to satisfy your wrongheaded personal vendettas." Mulder shook his head. "That's not what I'm doing." "Four people are dead, Mulder! People I knew, people I was friendly with!" Scully's voice shook slightly, and she took a deep breath. "Your beating up and torturing Krycek isn't going to bring them back. I'm not going to be dragged along on some kind of cowboy vigilante—" "Scully, believe me, it isn't—" "I had to shoot you once to keep you from killing him, Mulder! Every chance you get you go after him. Are you telling me I'm not going to have to spend all my time trying to protect a repugnant sociopath like Alex Krycek from my own partner?" Scully's voice had risen sharply on the last words, so much so that Mulder was sure Krycek had heard her from the car. Her eyes flashed. "In Trenton," she burst out, "in the cell, did you think I wouldn't notice he'd been beaten?" Mulder was speechless for a second. "You thought I did that?" Scully stared at him. He could see the realization, and then the relief, flooding her face. "The Trenton people...you were...guarding him?" "I don't know if he's guilty or innocent, Scully, but—he's got important information." Her shoulders slumped and she put a hand to her eyes. "Mulder...you ..." He put his arms around her. She felt like a small-boned bird. It hit him with a little shock that she now felt strange to him because he was used to holding Alex. Or maybe because he wanted to be holding Alex. He remembered Alex collapsing into his arms, panting and shuddering, laughing helplessly against his shoulder. Ahh, Mulder, only in my wildest dreams... Christ. "Oof!" Scully's small exclamation of discomfort startled him back to the present. He realized he was squeezing her too hard. For a moment, the awful emptiness and ache were almost too much to bear. "Mulder?" Scully was looking up into his face. Contrite, he reached to stroke her hair in an automatic gesture. Over her shoulder, he saw movement in the car as Alex turned his head away with a convulsive jerk. So it was doing something to Alex, too, seeing Mulder touch Scully. He was not as impassive as he seemed. Mulder had an immediate impulse to step away from her, before he caught himself and thought, screw that. Scully was his closest friend in the world; she had looked out for him and supported him a thousand times, in a thousand ways. He would never have to wonder if she were capable of this kind of treachery and violence. He knew implicitly that she was not, never would be. He put his arm around her and walked her to the car. She retrieved the food off the roof, handed Mulder a hot dog and reached to pass one back to Krycek. Krycek shook his head. Scully frowned. "You should eat, Krycek. Have you eaten anything all day?" "I'm not hungry," Krycek rasped. Scully shot a glance at Mulder. "Take it, Krycek," Mulder said impatiently. Krycek muttered something under his breath, but he took the hot dog. Mulder dozed in the seat, scattered impressions flickering through his mind. Broken patterns, the endless highway, green eyes too full of feeling, and the acrid smell of smoke... As they pulled up to the cabin, Krycek did not look good. He was leaning against the door, clutching his side, his eyes shut and his face tight with pain. The uneaten hot dog lay on the seat beside him. "Krycek?" Scully sounded concerned. "We're here. Are you okay to walk?" "I'm fine," Krycek snarled, just as Mulder had known he would. Inside the cabin, he went immediately to the cot and lay down, without even bothering to remove his boots or jacket. Mulder felt uneasy at this. It wasn't like Krycek to show weakness so obviously. He doubted that Krycek was suddenly feeling more trusting or comfortable around him and Scully, so he must be a lot worse off than he was letting on. Scully brought him medications and checked his vital signs, and Krycek simply complied, without protest. As soon as she was done, he rolled over with his back to them, curling in on himself and shutting them out as best he could. The atmosphere in the cabin over the next few days was bleak. Nobody spoke much. There was no overt hostility, but the budding camaraderie of shared meals and conversation and movies was gone. Krycek spent most of his time in the computer room, poring obsessively over the retrieved files. Scully and Mulder passed the day sorting through the printouts, trying to glean whatever bits of useful information they could. Krycek did not cook; Scully lived on Diet Coke and yogurt. At night Mulder would watch TV undisturbed on the couch until the wee hours of the morning, when Krycek would finally stumble out of the computer room and crawl into bed without a word. It was getting to Mulder. Only the thought that it would not last much longer kept him from completely losing it. Skinner had promised Scully she could return to D. C. at the end of the week. Mulder wasn't sure whether they would be replaced by other agents at that time, or if Skinner hoped to have enough evidence by then to arrest Alex. Either way, it sucked. But then, so did this. He would have loved to go running, to visit Tomasina again. He thought yearningly of her neat cottage with the cat and the chickens and her mischievous grin. But to take off on an expedition like that, he knew, would not be a good idea right now. It was the evening of the third day, and nothing had changed. He and Scully were sitting at the table, surrounded by the stacks of papers and file detritus. Scully had her glasses on, making notes, a dispirited look on her face. She bent to pick up a piece of paper from the pile, started to hand it to Mulder, then paused, scanning it with a look of perplexity. Mulder saw that it was the page where he had jotted down the human subject data from the computer screen. Suddenly unable to deal with this any longer, he left the table, pushed open the door to the screened porch and went outside. He needed some fresh air. There was a hush to the night outside, but it seemed full of life, unlike the dead silence of the cabin. He sat down on the end of the settee, in the spot Alex usually occupied. The questions and doubts were swirling around in his mind. He forced himself to stop, draw a breath, and think about it clearly and rationally. He was a profiler. Well, it was about time he started profiling Krycek. It was possible, granted, that everything Alex had told him had been true, every action sincere. It was also entirely possible that it had all been an act, a calculated tactic to worm his way into Mulder's trust again. Most probably, the truth lay somewhere in between. It was Mulder's task now to sort it out. Alex had said he lost his father—and mother and unborn siblings, too, by extension—at age eight. He had been taken in by relatives, or possibly foster families. Mulder had a feeling they had not been very happy or safe homes. He recalled Alex's stoicism in the face of beatings, and how Alex had said they used to punish him by shutting him up in a dark closet, the thing he feared most. Was that piece true? Well, Krycek was definitely claustrophobic. That had been an unmistakable panic attack in Mulder's bathroom. And Mulder had felt him shaking in the trunk, Alex's heart beating too hard and too fast. There would be no reason for Krycek to fake a weakness like that. Mulder turned over the pieces in his mind. Krycek's hypervigilance, the ability to mask his emotions, the proficiency at blending in and adapting his personality, the strange combination of aggressiveness and submission—it all fit the picture. Growing up in an environment like that, where he couldn't be certain he wouldn't be hurt, terrified, or abandoned at any given moment, Alex would have learned to watch his back, to adapt who he was to whatever was needed at that point in time. He would have found it difficult, if not impossible, to trust anyone. He would have built up huge emotional walls, had trouble getting close to people or maintaining long-term relationships...and if he did find himself feeling something for someone, he would have a near-paranoid fear of being betrayed or abandoned again... Sound like someone you know? Mulder shoved that thought firmly from his mind. He was here to profile Alex Krycek, not—anyone else. He suddenly had the disconcerting realization that he couldn't really fault Alex for any of it. Alex's ease with lying, his chameleon-like personality, his caginess with personal details—these were all survival skills. Even the blatant come-on to Merriman. He recalled Alex's rage at the way Merriman was speaking to him, and how Merriman had almost bolted from the room once Alex started giving him the eye. Alex was good at reading people, good at knowing how to get to them. Including Mulder? He recalled the strong emotion in Alex's voice when he thanked Mulder for bringing him the hot towels to ease the pain in his arm. That had been real, Mulder believed. Alex had sounded overwhelmed by the idea of someone taking care of him, as though he were totally unused to it. If no one had ever cared for Alex, how could he be expected to care for anyone else? And by extension, if his life was miserable, devalued—if he was told his very birth had been an accident—why would he value anyone else's life? Mulder drew in a sharp breath. It was the classic sociopathic pattern—the child who had been so damaged by early neglect or abuse that he was left unable to form any true human connection. Killing people would not bother him, because he lacked the capacity to empathize, to see them as fully human. An icy tendril of despair snaked through Mulder's gut. He leaned forward, letting his head drop into his hands. Okay, but wait. Alex had said, while he was drugged, that he had regrets. When Mulder mentioned Dmitri, he had seen a flicker of pain in Alex's eyes. And—the dog. A well-known indicator of sociopathic behavior in childhood was hurting or torturing animals. But Alex—if his story could be believed—had not hurt the dog. He had fed it, played with it—even, Mulder had a hunch, given it a name. Maybe he was grasping at straws, but straws were better than nothing. They might give him something to hang on to— Hang on, Fox. Mulder's head came up with a start, and he stared into the darkness, remembering. Alex whispering those words, not knowing that Mulder was conscious and could hear him. Alex shielding Mulder with his body. Alex telling Mulder to wait outside while he went into the burning building. Had Mulder not been the better runner, Alex would have taken the brunt of the blast. Apparently Alex could care, did care, about one person, at least. Mulder heard a high-pitched sound, but he was so deep in thought that it took three rings before he recognized it as his cell phone. He glanced at it in surprise. It was close to midnight. "Mulder." "There's been a development," Skinner's voice said without preamble. "Did you know Steven Feldstein at all?" "Just that he was one of the agents who died in the raid." "Except that he didn't." "He survived?" Mulder asked, baffled. "Crime Scene combed the place for two days and found no trace of his body. His apartment's empty, and his phone's been disconnected. Sound familiar?" Mulder shut his eyes against the memories, forcing himself to focus on the present. "So Krycek is in the clear then?" "Well..." Skinner's tone turned grudging, "he's not our main suspect. That doesn't mean he wasn't in on it. There's still the matter of him hacking into our database." "If he hacked in," Mulder said, "you'd never know it. He's not sloppy, or careless. Someone else did that, probably to set him up." How long have you known this? Since the day before yesterday? But you let us all twist in the wind for days. He didn't have to ask why, or who had been turning up the heat on Skinner. He could still hear that reptilian voice in his ear. "Did you get what you wanted, Alex?" And Alex screaming at Mulder that he had lost everything. "Well, I'll tell Krycek the news," Mulder said. He could not resist adding, "And Scully will be glad to know we're not guarding a mass murderer." There was a moment of silence, and he knew his barb had hit home. "He might not have been behind this, but he's still got plenty of blood on his hands," Skinner said. "Watch your back, Agent Mulder. Don't let him fuck you over." Mulder put his phone away and headed inside to tell Scully and Alex. Scully had gone to bed; her door was shut. In the computer room, Alex was leaning on his elbow, chin on hand, apparently deeply focused on the screen. He didn't stir when Mulder said his name. Coming closer, Mulder realized he was asleep. He reached out and shook Alex's shoulder gently. "Alex, hey, wake—" With a hoarse cry, Alex started violently awake. He leaped up and away from Mulder's touch, sending the chair flying. Breathing hard, he flattened himself back against the wall and stared at Mulder wide-eyed. Stunned, Mulder held up his hands. "Take it easy. I just wanted to—" Alex drew in a deep breath, looking hard at Mulder. "What?" "Skinner just called me. You're in the clear." Mulder related Skinner's news. He was unprepared for the flash of pain that crossed Alex's face. "How old was Feldstein?" Alex asked. "Was he young?" "I have no idea," Mulder said. "He disappeared," Alex said softly. "Yeah." Despite himself, Mulder could not keep the edge out of his voice. "It's like deja vu all over again, isn't it?" He ran a hand through his hair. He hadn't meant to delve into the past, but there it was again, as usual. "Do you know how I felt when I found out you were gone that day? What a kick in the balls that was?" Alex nodded slowly. "Yeah," he whispered. "I do." "You know what I thought at first? That they had used you and killed you too!" Mulder remembered pacing around Skinner's office, furious, helpless, wanting to strike out at them. "Who are these people," he had exploded, "who can just murder with impunity and we can't do anything about it?" He had told Skinner Alex was involved, had laid out the damning evidence. It was the only logical conclusion. But he kept seeing Alex's face in his mind, and all his convictions would start to dissolve. "I didn't know what to wish for," Mulder said. "Either they had gotten to you too, and you were dead...or you were one of them." Alex made a small, choked sound. His eyes looked huge and dark. "Mulder, I—" "Why didn't you come to me?" Mulder tried to keep his voice under control. "I would have tried to help you." Alex looked down briefly. A muscle worked in his jaw. " I didn't—I—I couldn't trust you." Mulder felt that like a punch to his solar plexus. He knew it showed on his face. "I didn't trust anybody!" Alex's voice went high and cracked on the words. There was a fleeting look of desperation in his eyes. "I couldn't, Mulder." "Well, apparently, you trusted Cancerman." Mulder couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice. "Enough to do his dirty work" "Trusted him?" Alex sounded incredulous. "Mulder, you—you don't know—" Mulder folded his arms. "Well, tell me." Alex stared at him, open-mouthed. "Tell me," Mulder said again. Alex looked away, clutching his left shoulder. "I met him while I was at Quantico. He—took an interest in me—" "Sexually?" "No!" A dull flush colored Alex's cheekbones. "I'm not the Consortium fucktoy, no matter what you might think, Mulder!" "Okay." Mulder made his voice as mild as possible. "Why was he interested in you?" "He said he had information about my father's death." Alex's voice shook slightly on the words, and he drew in a deep breath. "How and why he died. It was always—this big mystery when I was growing up. My mother was pretty young when she got—when she got married, and she—she couldn't deal with a lot of this stuff. They told us he died in a routine training mission. They—they said he had a psychotic break and had to be subdued." Alex swallowed, looking away. "I didn't know what that meant at the time." Well, how the hell could you? You were eight. "My father wouldn't—he was stable, Mulder, strong, he never—lost control like that." Alex's eyes burned with intensity. "Spender told me—the truth was that my father was KGB. He was recruited by our government as a double agent—" "Is that how you got involved with it?" Mulder asked. He had suspected Alex had some KGB connection, after Tunguska. "My grandfather was KGB—Alexei Arntzen—I'm named after him." Alex ducked his head. A muscle worked in his jaw. "I didn't know him much, growing up—he lived in Russia. He contacted me when I was seventeen and told me he would pay for my education." "And in return you'd work for the KGB." Alex shook his head. "It wasn't that cut-and-dried." His voice was low. He glanced up at Mulder again. "He was really all the family I had, Mulder." "Okay. I'm sorry. Your father's death?" "Spender told me he was—" Alex pressed a hand to his mouth,"—he was deliberately murdered by—our government. For what he knew and—what he had found out. I—I love this country, but I—he had evidence, Mulder!" Mulder nodded. It must have been an unbearable position for Alex to be in—training to be an agent of the federal government, and then to find out that they had murdered his father. "He said," Alex sounded tired, "that it was a few corrupt people who were in power, and that he and others were working against them, to bring them down. And then—then he showed me things—about the colonization, about the cover-ups. At first he just asked me to do little things here and there, but then—" Alex bit his lip. "I didn't like it, but by then I was..." Alex's voice trailed off. Mulder frowned. "Why didn't you go to your grandfather? Wouldn't he have protected you?" Alex's voice was almost inaudible. "He died in my senior year of college." Jesus, Alex. "So you lost your father and your grandfather, and then Spender took an interest in you." It wasn't hard to draw inferences from that. He knew Alex had picked up on it too. "What about your mother? Is she alive?" "Last I heard," Alex said flatly, "she drank herself to death." He swallowed. "I didn't go back for the funeral." "Alex..." At the gentleness and sympathy in Mulder's tone, Alex pulled back, his eyes turning hard. "I didn't stay with Spender because he was a—a father figure, or any of that crap, Mulder. I believed he had a cause. I was sick of being treated like shit!" "Spender didn't treat you like shit?" Mulder asked dryly. Alex flushed again. "Not always. Not like in the Bureau. I always dreamed of being FBI, I busted my ass in training, and then nobody ever listened to a goddamn word I said. They had me fetching coffee!" Mulder rolled his eyes in disbelief. "Alex, that's true for all new agents. Do you think you're special? Do you think I got any respect when I started out? Hell, do you think I get any respect now? I'm down in the fucking basement!" "Well, you—you're different," Alex said. Yeah, go ahead and say it: You're a crackpot, Mulder. "You have—you have a sense of who you are, and nothing's going to take that away." Alex's voice was very low. "Me—I gave that up a long time ago." Tokala...you will go where you should go. "You're right when you say I don't have friends or family anymore," Alex said. "But it wasn't always that way. I was a normal person once—I had friends, I had a life. But after awhile you—you can't trust anyone, you can't—" Mulder started to say something, anything to stem the halting, anguished words, but Alex stopped him with a shake of his head. "I thought it was worth it, Mulder, I didn't care...I thought it was all worth it if I could get that vaccine developed. But they—" Alex sucked in a sharp breath. His fist was clenched. "They don't care what happens, they don't care if the whole world goes to hell, so long as they get what they want." His voice scraped on the words, nearly breaking. Mulder didn't know what he wanted to do, or what he was going to do. He only knew he couldn't stand seeing Alex in this much pain. There was less than two feet of space between them, but to cross it would be like stepping off a precipice. He could turn around now, go back out to Scully, to safety, to his familiar routine of doubt and cynicism. They could all go back to D. C., and Alex would be out of their lives forever. Mulder moved closer and crossed the chasm. "Alex." Please don't let me fall. Please be telling the truth; please be someone I can believe in. He put his hands on Alex's shoulders. "You do have a friend." Alex stood still for a minute. Then he stepped forward hesitantly, laying his hand on Mulder's back. Mulder pulled him closer, putting his arms around Alex's neck and letting his head come to rest against Alex's shoulder. After a moment Alex followed suit. They stood that way for a few moments, breathing raggedly, not so much embracing as leaning against one another. Alex trembled slightly in his arms. Mulder felt him take a long shaky breath. Was Alex afraid of falling too? Mulder had doubted him, had let the other Feds beat him and almost break his arm, had said— "I didn't mean those things," Mulder whispered. "You didn't deserve any of that." Alex's arm went around him, hugging Mulder harder than he'd ever been hugged in his life. "'S'alright," Alex sighed into the curve of Mulder's neck. Mulder knew he should feel ambivalent, should be cautious. But it was all dissipating in the overwhelming sense of rightness and satisfaction he was feeling at holding Alex again, like an astronaut finally touching down on home ground. Please don't betray me, Alex. Please don't... But even as he thought that, he was lifting his head, letting his lips just brush against Alex's hair. Alex sighed huskily. A thrill spiked through Mulder at the sound. He could feel himself coming alive again, every nerve and pore of his body reawakening, like new green emerging from the frozen earth. Gradually, by degrees, Mulder's mouth moved down along the line of Alex's jaw, reveling in the gritty feel of Alex's unshaven skin. Alex's lips parted. He seemed to be holding his breath, waiting. Mulder kissed the corner of Alex's mouth. Slowly, Alex turned his head and tilted his mouth to Mulder's. With a sense of discovery, like stepping barefoot into a new land, Mulder felt the softness of Alex's lips press against his. They kissed, slow and warm, drew back and returned to each other with a wondering hunger. All Mulder's nerve endings felt concentrated in those kisses, their mouths drawn to each other, over and over. Time slowed; everything else in the world became irrelevant. There was only Alex and lips and breath and the tip of Alex's tongue tracing over Mulder's mouth, leaving rivulets of pleasure in its wake. "Don't close your eyes," Alex whispered. "I want to look in your eyes." And Mulder was falling, not the horrifying plummet he had imagined, but a free fall of weightless surrender. Alex's name was singing through his mind, as though it had been carved somewhere deep inside him. He stroked his fingers through Alex's hair, then cupped Alex's face in his hands. Gently, he kissed the cut on Alex's lip, the small graze above Alex's eyebrow, the tip of Alex's nose. Alex tensed and trembled, looking almost afraid. Mulder leaned forward again, parting Alex's lips and letting his tongue stroke Alex's. He could feel every hair on his body standing up, an electric current running over his skin and humming through his blood. Alex's body was waking up too. Mulder could feel it in the energy that seemed to flow back into Alex; he could feel it as Alex's hand moved down to Mulder's hips, pressing Mulder's crotch up against the swelling hardness in his own. Slowly, rhythmically, Mulder began to grind his hips into Alex's, his cock nudging back and forth across Alex's. Alex gave a low, whispery moan against Mulder's mouth. He began to move too, rocking up against Mulder in the same unhurried cadence, as he nibbled and sucked gently on Mulder's lower lip. How could he have thought Alex cold stone, or himself for that matter? Every millimeter of Mulder's body felt ultrasensitized, the smoldering embers slowly blooming into flame. He was flying now, everything in him carried on that slow, sensual dance, tasting each other, body to body... The sudden muted scrape of a door opening made them both jump. Scully. Mulder stepped back hastily, just in time, as she came peering into the computer room. "Mulder?" Scully's voice was somewhere between a question and a warning. Mulder glanced around at her, then at the room, taking in the scene as she would see it: the chair overturned, Alex backed against the wall, his eyes wide, his hair and clothes mussed, Mulder standing too close. "What's going on?" Scully asked. Mulder was glad that he blocked her view of Alex somewhat; in the sweatpants Alex was wearing, his state of arousal was very obvious. The same thought must have occurred to Alex as, turning quickly, he bent down to rummage through the box of files on the floor. "It's okay, Scully," Mulder said. He put a hand on her back, ushering her out of the room. "I need to talk to you. Skinner called me..." "Mulder...you weren't...?" "No, I just startled him. He's jumpy. Listen—" He told her the news about the missing agent. Scully sat down on the couch, gazing at Mulder with a perplexed frown. "So they don't think Krycek had anything to do with this?" "Scully, why would he? He was working against them. This was a big loss for him, too." He knew it sounded strange for him to be making a case for Alex. Scully blinked at him, like she couldn't quite take it all in. "So, the question is," Scully said after a long moment, "what do we do with him now?" Mulder knew what he'd like to do with Alex now, but that was a short-term solution at best. Obviously, from the content of the phone call, Spender had known where Alex was that night. How? And did he know where Alex was at this very moment? Was the old man just biding his time until he could strike? How safe were they here, really? And what was the alternative? He doubted that Alex would agree to go into any sort of witness protection program. And the idea of Alex vanishing into that bureaucratic anonymity disturbed him more than he cared to admit. He doubted that Alex would agree to go into any sort of witness protection program. And the idea of Alex vanishing into that bureaucratic anonymity disturbed him more than he cared to admit. Alex came out of the computer room, apparently having gotten himself under control. Not looking at either of them, he went to the kitchen and got a glass of water. Scully shot him a glance, looking somewhat flustered. Mulder knew she had nothing to be embarrassed about; she had been nothing but fair to Krycek, more so than anyone. An awkward silence descended. Scully rose from the couch. "I'm going to bed." She started for the bedroom, then halted as she passed the table, lifting a sheet of paper from the piles there. "Oh, Mulder, what is this?" Mulder peered over her shoulder. It was the human subject data he had jotted down. 'Sub rpts ctd int SE: intrt pn, msc wkns, elv tmp, LOA.' Scully read it aloud. "Subject reports continued intermittent side effects...intractable pain, muscle weakness, elevated temperature, loss of appetite...?" Mulder was about to say it was nothing and take it from her, when he caught sight of Alex's face. Alex stared at him with a trapped, almost desperate look. "This is Krycek, I suppose?" Scully said. She continued reading, frowning. "These are very peculiar blood levels. Are you sure this is right?" Alex gave a small quick shake of his head. Mulder knew what that meant. Alex didn't want him to say anything to Scully. But Scully was too smart for that; he could see it already in her perturbed expression, the realization dawning. "It was you, Krycek?" Scully said. "Side effects...anomalies in the blood...you were the human subject?" Alex leaned back against the cabinets, shaking his head. "No. It wasn't me." But the bright, cagey look in his eyes was one Mulder knew well. "You injected yourself with the black oil?" Mulder's skin prickled at the very thought. "Shit, Alex, how could you do that to yourself?" It did not feel like a revelation; more like a confirmation of something he had not wanted to face. "Well, who the hell else was I going to use?" "The anomalies in your blood," Scully said slowly, "that was because you were—inhabited—previously by the sentient form of the black oil?" Her tone was professional, a doctor taking a history, but Mulder saw a faint shudder run through Alex at her words. "Why didn't you just tell us that, Krycek?" Scully asked. Her tone was plain: It would have saved a lot of fighting the other night. Alex stared at her open-mouthed, an incredulous frown on his face. He set the water glass down hard and turned to leave the kitchen. "Don't run away, Alex," Mulder said urgently. "Let us help you." Alex spun around swiftly, his eyes hardening, visibly armored and ready for battle. Scully stiffened, looking from Alex to Mulder and back again. Mulder put out a placating hand. "Look—it's really late. Why don't we get some rest and deal with all of this in the morning." Scully rubbed her forehead. Mulder could almost hear her thinking. Two more days of this lunacy and I can go home. She nodded. "Good idea. Good night." Surprisingly, she included Alex in that, with a look and nod to him as well as Mulder. Mulder walked to the couch and sat down. Alex remained where he was. Mulder looked up at him. "I know you must be feeling—" Alex broke into Mulder's carefully soothing tone with a scathing growl. "Spare me the ten-cent psychological crap, Mulder. I don't need it." Mulder refrained from pointing out that his psychological insights did come from a degree at Oxford, rather than the paperback aisle at the local drugstore. He leaned back on the couch and spoke in his normal monotone. "All right. You're right. I don't have the faintest fucking idea what you're going through. But I meant what I said. Let us try to help you." "Us?" Alex asked pointedly. "Scully's a doctor." "Yeah, a doctor who hates my guts." But Alex looked away as he said it, and Mulder had a sudden sense of walls crumbling, of Alex being too tired and too low right now to keep up the tough faÁade any longer. Alex walked over to the armchair and dropped into it. "How did you—?" Mulder didn't even know what he wanted to ask. How did you find the courage to do that to yourself? How did you explain the anomalies to the scientists? How did you expect to make it, on your own, after you gave me the apple? "The scientists didn't want to do it," Alex said, leaning back in the chair. "They had the same objections as—" As we did. "So I just went ahead and did it on my own, and let them deal with it after the fact." Mulder closed his eyes against that image. Alex's next words jolted him back. "In Tunguska, Mulder, I was trying to get you out. I had to convince the guards...if I hadn't gone to them, they would have tortured us both, maybe killed us." Mulder sucked in a deep breath. "As it was, they just tortured me." Alex leaned forward. "I wanted you to have the vaccine. I didn't know they would—" "Would it have made a difference if you had?" He could see the reflexive lie rising, and then Alex stopping himself. Alex gazed at Mulder in silence. He didn't have to say anything. Mulder knew the answer. Nothing would have stopped Alex from getting out of that cell. He remembered how panicked Alex had been, clawing at the bars on the door and window, his eyes wide and frantic. And he remembered, too, how he had treated Alex during those few days—punching him, choking him, slamming him with the butt of the gun...leaving him cuffed in the car for hours...watching as Skinner beat him and left him out on the balcony all night...threatening to abandon him in long-term parking at the airport. Alex had freaked out at that, as Mulder had known he would. But he had taken it all, without fighting back, or even protesting other than snarls of pain and some Russian curses. He had taken it all until that moment in the cell when he pushed Mulder away. Don't touch me again. And then he had walked up to Mulder, standing just inches from him, staring into his eyes with that intense, burning look. Or touch me differently. Would that have made a difference, if he had? He had wanted to, so much, the crazy desire surging through him. Alex was sweating, stripped to his white T-shirt. Mulder could sense the tension and desperation coiled inside him, could feel how it would erupt into passion if he pushed Alex back against the wall and then— Even now, he felt a jolt of heat come up through his balls at the thought. But he hadn't trusted it, any of it. The situation was too dangerous, too precarious. He didn't trust Alex. And he didn't trust himself when he was around Alex. How did you weigh it out, all the pain, all the loss? He had been infected with the black oil; Alex had lost his arm. He had had his trust betrayed; Alex had been ensnared by the Consortium. How could you ever try to balance these things? He forced himself to keep a neutral tone. "So you're sick now?" "It's not exactly like I'm sick." Alex spoke in a carefully controlled voice, staring over Mulder's head at a spot on the far wall. "Most of the time I feel fine. Just sometimes...like if I get injured...it's like my body goes haywire. It feels like...like burning-hot lead in my bones..." He shook his head. "Usually, if I sleep on it, it's better in the morning." "Is it getting better with time?" Mulder asked. "The effects wearing off?" Alex opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. Mulder wasn't sure if he had been going to lie or tell the truth. Whatever it was, he obviously couldn't bring himself to do it. But the sadness, the helplessness in his eyes gave it away. And Mulder remembered, having seen it, Alex's lowered energy, the agonizing pain and weakness that seemed to increase each time. It was getting worse, not better. Mulder blinked away the stinging in his eyes. "Well," he got out, "you just have to stop getting injured." One corner of Alex's mouth turned up. His voice sounded hoarse when he spoke. "Now why didn't I think of that?" They sat in silence. Mulder could hear the wind outside. He wanted, more than anything, to go to Alex, to put his arms around him and hang on tight. But he could hear Scully still moving around in the bedroom; she might come out at any minute. He had already slipped by saying "Alex" instead of "Krycek" a couple of times tonight. And he wasn't even sure Alex would welcome that right now. Their eyes met, and held. Once again Mulder had that sense that they were on the same wavelength, both of them recalling those moments in the computer room. How incredible it felt to hold each other again, their bodies moving together, and Alex's mouth brushing unhurriedly, almost lazily, over his, as if they had all the time in the world. Chapter Five: The Blackbird ereshkigal44@yahoo.com

[Stories by Author] [Stories by Title] [Mailing List] [Krycek/Skinner] [Links] [Submissions] [Home]