The Legacy

Fandom: The X-Files

Category/Rated: Slash NC-17

Year/Length: ~22,447 words

Pairing: Mulder/Krycek

Disclaimer: The powers of 1013 are mighty, but I think I provide better closure.

Summary: The action follows on some 6 months after Requiem.

Author's Notes: Lots of people have been involved in the crafting of this story. It got stuck and needed help all over the place. So, thanks to DeAnna for the idea. Lynda and Bonita for making me get it right, and to Sebastian and Jennie and Terri for picking it over and making sure that it was legible.

The office was dark with the color of rich, burnished wood and held a long table with a dozen chairs. Each of the people sitting around the table in a conference room deep within the J. Edgar Hoover Building seemed puzzled. This summoning was baffling to all of them.

Fox Mulder looked around at the assembled faces, and frowned. His partner - currently on maternity leave - was there, heavily pregnant but still managing to look cool and elegant despite her current girth. He hadn't seen her for a couple of days, and to his astonishment she seemed to have increased in size by an enormous amount. As he studied her petite frame, he wondered if she'd look just like a beach ball before she came to term. She seemed rapidly to be approaching the completely spherical.

He'd offered to marry her when he'd finally returned, dazed, confused and without more than a handful of vaguely remembered impressions.

When Skinner and Krycek had finally wrested him free from the grip of the alien rebels, bringing him back to DC after close to six months, he'd been horrified that Scully - his Scully - had obviously been fucking around in his absence. She'd been well along by that time. Then, when he'd heard the strange story he'd been determined to do the right thing by her.

She'd considered it with an amused quirk at the corner of her mouth, then thanked him gravely.

"But you don't love me, Mulder."

"Scully, of course I love you. How can you say that?"

"It's very simple, Mulder. You don't love me. See, it's not difficult to say." She'd then given him the smile of a Madonna - the 'Material Girl' Madonna. Pregnancy had only increased her feisty nature.

He'd been aggrieved, more than a little relieved, and felt free to be sulky about her refusal. Now, comfortable in the knowledge that he was off the hook, he was at liberty to dote on her, spoil her, and generally drive her half demented with his tenderness and caring. He'd also felt justified in hounding her with his endless perfectly couched questions, constant probing and the incessant wheedling he considered appropriate to solve the X File that he perceived her to be.

Today he could see faint strain lines around her eyes, and although she favored him with her sweetest smile, he could see that she was concerned about the reason for this meeting.

Maggie Scully had come along with Dana as support, or because she'd been summoned. Mulder wasn't sure, but she was a comforting presence whatever the reason. Mulder could see that Scully was tempted to lean against her and flashed her a grin... he liked Maggie Scully, liked her a lot.

Walter Skinner was sitting erectly in his seat, tapping a pen. The scowl on his face suggested that he had better things to do elsewhere, and Mulder suspected that Skinner knew more about this meeting than the rest of them.

He'd met the icy blonde in the corner, and his eyes widened when he noticed that she was present. She seemed on edge, chewing on the cuticle of one elegantly manicured nail, and nervously eyeing the three men who were seated beside her.

As ever, the three oddball characters that comprised the Lone Gunmen were bickering sotto voce, paying no heed to the rest of the room.

At the far corner, lurking in the shadows, sat a man that Mulder had long since stopped trying to fathom. He was dark and saturnine, and his remarkable eyes were fixed on Mulder, his expression unreadable. As Mulder's eyes met his, Alex Krycek's lips quirked in the vestige of a smile.

Mulder held his gaze, unsmiling as he took in the sleek elegance if his dark nemesis. Clad in finely tailored black he was a far cry from the eager-beaver young man Mulder had first known. He looked stunning and, after a moment, Mulder averted his eyes in confusion, unsure what his gut was telling him. Alex Krycek had come out of a Tunisian Penal Colony hell-hole looking better than someone who'd spent a fortune, traveled to a spa and been waited on hand and foot. He was unfathomable in every way.

Despite the fact that Krycek had worked alongside Skinner to rescue him from the alien, Mulder still clung to his unreasoning dislike that had begun so long ago when the man's duplicity had been exposed. Krycek made him feel uncomfortable in a way that he didn't want to examine too closely. He'd never been good at admitting he was wrong, and his perception that Alex Krycek had fooled him had been enough for Mulder. His fury at having been duped by Krycek had been more than enough to ensure that he would never forgive the man. Krycek could have come to him wearing wings and a halo, and Mulder would still have damned him as the perfidious bastard he perceived him to be.

As he looked around at the assembly of people, he wondered for the umpteenth time what they were all doing there. He could tell that the others were wondering too. The conversational hubbub swelled and murmured all about him, and then was suddenly cut off. A diamond clear silence fell as the door opened, admitting the lawyer who bustled in, briefcase and folders in hand.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen." The man was small and round, with a high-domed forehead over which he had carefully combed the remnants of his hair, and a surprisingly deep voice that made the room at large sit up and take note. "I trust I find you all in good health." He surveyed the occupants of the room with the benevolent air of a bishop supervising his flock.

"You may well be wondering what has called you all here today. I'd like to thank you for coming, and hope that this gathering will be both informative and profitable for you all." He beamed around at the assembly. "Strict secrecy was imposed on me as to the purpose of the meeting, so you are not as yet aware of what that may be. However it's now time to reveal why you were asked to come here. I can reveal to you that this is the preliminary to the reading of the last will and testament of Mr. Charles Geoffrey Burton Spender. You are all beneficiaries under the terms of his will and that's why I invited you to come here today. Under the terms of his will, we meet today so that you may receive information that Mr. Spender felt would benefit you. In due time, we will reconvene and at that second meeting you will learn what your legacy will entail."

Mulder blinked. Cancerman dead? He hadn't heard. Well, he certainly wouldn't be missed. How come he hadn't heard about it? Surely he should have been told. Possibly he was not deemed to be completely trustworthy since his abduction.

Why would the old devil include Fox Mulder in his will? The whole idea was bizarre, or at least it would have been had Mulder lived an ordinary life. The days before his abduction floated back to him as the little lawyer continued to speak. Krycek had said he was going to send Spender back to hell. It looked as though that was where the cancerous bastard had taken up residence now. If Mulder ever admitted a belief in hell, Cancerman would be the reason for it.

Mulder raised his eyes, looking for Krycek, wondering if he'd be able to fathom from the other man's expression whether or not he'd been actively responsible for sending him on his way, but knowing that he'd never been able to read a thing on Krycek's face.

Krycek was just being handed a large wallet file full of papers, and all Mulder could discern was his profile as he gravely nodded his thanks to the portly little lawyer. He watched Krycek for a minute or two, but came out of his reverie at the sound of his mother's name. The lawyer had another wallet file in his hand and was looking around the room expectantly.

"Teena Mulder?" The little man was still looking around, and Mulder realized that he ought to speak up.

"My mother died last winter, sir."

The little man turned to him, placing the folder down on the table as he did so. "Ah, in that case you must be Fox Mulder. Mr. Spender left me special instructions regarding you, sir. I'll be with you in one minute," and continued to pass out folders and sheaves of paper to the occupants of the room.

It seemed as if Mulder would be last. They were all leafing through paperwork when the folder with his name was finally handed to him, and the little man bustled out of the room, closing the door behind himself. He'd barely opened the flap when Maggie Scully gave a shriek and leapt up, her chair flying backwards to topple as she stood, face white and eyes bright with distress.

Scully turned to her, and tried to soothe her. On the table, scattered where she'd dropped them, lay a series of photographs; red hair spilled out like a halo; red blood, bright as a flag, and Melissa Scully sprawled on the floor for all to see. In Maggie's hand were other photographs, photos that depicted her husband, now dead, lying naked in the arms of a woman Mulder hadn't seen before.

A stapled stack of receipts for a hotel in Baltimore fluttered down to lay forgotten on the floor as Maggie Scully began to cry.

Langly had looked up from his reading when Maggie had erupted, and now appeared so pale that he was almost white. Frohike and Byers were busily reading their own files as Langly got up, stiff legged, and walked jerkily from his place to the door, grabbing the handle and yanking. It remained stubbornly shut.

The lawyer, it would seem, had locked them in. Apparently there was to be no escape from whatever this was.

"HIV positive? Ringo, how..." Frohike's voice fell like ashes. The room was riveted, first on Frohike, and then on Langly. "Oh, fuck, Ringo, you never told us...."

The sorry details of Langly's visit to a particular bathhouse and his subsequent affair with a young man who looked for all the world like a younger Alex Krycek, and who had recently died of AIDS, were revealed piecemeal to the rest as the gunmen began to talk. Absently Mulder reflected that Langly's sex life had never been evident, at least not to him. That he had a sex life at all was astonishing.

The Gunmen had withdrawn into a huddle. Mulder could hear the muffled conversation as Byers showed the other two the final proof that Suzanne Modeski was now dead, indeed had been ordered killed by the very man who had made the information available to him.

Frohike, who was holding the testament to a hidden wife and child he had abandoned as a younger man, and the information about their deaths due to his interference in CSM's affairs, seemed to have shrunk in the minutes that had just passed by.

"I'm beginning to detect a pattern here. Anyone else feel as nauseated as I do?" Byers's voice was low and strained. Everyone's eyes flew to him save for those of Krycek, who seemed lost in thought as he leafed through the pages he'd been given, a frown on his face.

The resulting hubbub as everyone began speaking at once, was deafening. Skinner had a treatise on nanotechnology and information about shares in the company that was developing it, along with the information that told him for sure he would live with the curse of the things inside him, permanent and easily activated, for the rest of his life.

Marita reluctantly produced transcripts of conversations between CSM and Krycek that revealed he'd been ordered against his will to seduce her to the Consortium cause, despite his sexual orientation. It didn't seemed like a terrible blow for her until Langly produced her letters to Alex Krycek, the letters that revealed her love for the man who hadn't wanted her, and who had seduced her to order.

Krycek, whose preference, it would seem, was for male rather than female company, had protested his disgust for the task in a series of conversations that spanned several years. Once again there were audiocassettes, and videotape as well. Marita was white with fury and appeared to be about to start yelling angrily when Scully gave a low moan and passed out.

People zeroed in on Scully like heat seeking missiles. Mulder dropped his own file yet again and rushed around the table to her. Frohike and Walter Skinner clashed heads as they stooped over together to kneel beside her. It was Marita who picked up the papers that Scully had been reading as the rest attempted to call Dana Scully back from her faint.

"The filthy old bastard!" All eyes turned to Marita whose low voice, icily controlled, but horrified nonetheless, had caused the sudden silence. "He's there. He's found a way."

Her shaking finger indicated Scully, who was only now beginning to come to. Covarrubias looked dreadful, but Scully looked worse. As Margaret Scully fussed over her daughter, tears welled up in Scully's eyes and began to course down her cheeks.

Mulder snatched the file from Marita who seemed shaken to her very soul.

As he began to leaf through it, he could hear his partner sobbing softly. He stared at the pages, remembering their content without comprehending - a snapshot of futility he couldn't avoid. The papers were charts, and as he studied them it became apparent that they were the genetic charts for three people.

The first chart was labeled Dana Scully. The second was marked with the name of Charles Spender, and the third, identical to it, was untitled.

There were a bunch of further medical charts, transcripts of an abortive surgical procedure that had involved the Cancerman and Mulder himself, and then a description of a surgery that had implanted an embryo into Dana Scully.

This meant that the baby was... His mind reeled. He knew that he'd accepted most things in his life with an aggressively open mind -after all, they did call him Spooky - but this was a more extreme possibility than any he ever wanted to contemplate. The longed-for gift of a baby now carried a taint, and he felt for his fragile partner, who had lost so much already, and who at last had seemed to regain a little fraction of what she had lost.

He looked around the room. Everyone seemed shaken, save for Krycek who was apparently still absorbed in his own reading material. Mulder turned with trepidation to his own file and opened the cover with a trembling hand.

Nightmares! Bloody nightmares lurked inside. Details of his mother's trysts with the Smoker, photographs... dammit, photographs of the two of them together and letters "from Teena, to Charles, with love" brought the bile flooding to his mouth. Further genetic blueprints for Fox William Mulder showed his true parentage, and he closed his eyes against the sudden sparkling heat of the tears that prickled against his eyelids. He was Fox Mulder. He hadn't changed. Why should this... this foulness make him feel so dirty, so exposed?

He'd known. Hadn't he? The cancerous bastard's attitude towards him had told its own tale and if he'd needed further proof, how many times had Krycek told him "I didn't kill your father." Mulder wondered what he'd say if he asked him again now.

Krycek! They'd heard almost everyone's dark secrets now except for Krycek's, and Mulder was willing to bet that he had some truly fine skeletons lurking in his cupboard. Frankly, at this moment Mulder wanted to see Krycek crumple the way that the rest of them had. He needed to know that the bastard hadn't escaped somehow the way he always seemed - to Mulder - to wriggle out from painful consequences. He turned to see what was happening with Krycek, and as he did so, the final pack of papers in his folder slipped to the ground unread.

At a cursory glance, Krycek didn't seem to have been moved, but on closer inspection Mulder could see that Krycek's color had left him and his tanned face had taken on an unhealthy pallor. His eyes, burning fever bright in his set face, stared, unfocused, and his expression was one that told of horror and darkness. Mulder felt a shiver of unpleasant glee as he took in the dark man's feelings. Somehow the knowledge that Krycek had demons to plague him made Mulder feel bitter satisfaction. He had never been able to bear Krycek's stoic acceptance of things that would have driven other men mad. Just once, he wanted to see Krycek's pain, and know that he hurt. It would somehow begin to make amends for the agonies Mulder had felt at the other man's betrayal.

At that moment the door reopened, admitting the fussy little lawyer, who was holding a long metal box, which he carried over to place in front of the motionless Krycek.

"Ah, you seem to be ready for this now. I'll be in touch with you all over the next few days, and eventually we'll reconvene to see about your legacies. Until then, good day." He turned and bustled away, leaving a riot brewing in his wake.

Krycek had stood, and was now opening the box he'd been given. Almost unconsciously, everyone leaned forward in anticipation. When Krycek sprang back with a low cry full of pain, there was a collective sigh that went around the gathering.

Nobody tried to stop him as he flung himself from the room, and seconds later he could be heard retching. There was a confusion of babble as everyone speculated, and nobody wanted to investigate just what was in that box.

It was Margaret Scully who at last followed him outside, and whose scream brought the rest of them running. Alex Krycek stood swaying, his face a white and glittering mask as he fumbled for the gun that had been between his lips seconds before. His chin came up in a familiar gesture as he looked at them.

"No more of this. It's over now," was all he said, and then he brought up his hand again, intent on getting the job done. Mulder divined his plan seconds before the gun reached its target and launched himself at Krycek, catching him in the midsection and taking him down onto the floor as the gun discharged loudly in the confines of the corridor. The very idea of Krycek escaping from this mess made him feel quite dizzy. Krycek had to be there. He was a constant. If he were to leave, Mulder couldn't imagine how the world would be, and that thought made him furious.

"No, you fucker! You don't get off so lightly. You caused it. You'll live with it."

Mulder didn't know why the thought of Krycek's suicide was so uncomfortable, but he knocked the gun from the other man's hand, and felt better when he saw it spin out of reach. There was blood on the floor now, and it was obvious that Krycek had succeeded in shooting himself although it was equally obvious that he hadn't managed to put an end to his existence. He looked down at Krycek, trying to determine whether or not the other man had caused himself any real damage. A long furrow where the bullet had passed ran down Krycek's thigh, oozing sluggishly. The silk pants were history. "Guess you failed."

Krycek's choked reply was in Russian, and then he spat full at Mulder. Mulder felt the familiar roar of fury surge through him with an emotion that might have been gratitude. For a second he'd been feeling sympathy for the bastard. Now, given permission to allow his anger full rein, he raised his hands and hit, hit again, all of his frustrations discharging themselves in the wet and bloody smack of fists on flesh.

When they pulled him away from Krycek, the man lay unconscious, bloody and bruised.

Scully had picked up Krycek's gun, swiftly removing the bullets from the chamber. Mulder didn't know if she'd spoken at all while he had been beating Krycek, but now she looked at him with something that, to him, seemed suspiciously like contempt.

"Scully, I..." He made a move towards her, intending to explain, although he had no idea himself what had motivated him. She backed away, and shook her head when he would have continued, and then turned back to the unconscious man on the floor, crouching with difficulty, ungainly in her gravid condition.

"Mulder, not now. Can't you see that he needs help?" She settled beside Krycek, demanding that an ambulance be called, her hands gentling and probing as she attempted to staunch the flow of blood from his thigh. As the paramedics bore him away she followed, telling them that the man was suicidal and needed to be kept under observation.

Mulder was outraged. His Scully was sympathizing with a treacherous bastard at his expense. No matter that the bastard in question had assisted in her abduction, and had certainly been present when her sister had been dealt the shot that ended her life; she was acting as though he were just anyone. He ground his teeth as he watched them take Krycek away, and the rest of the crowd seemed to disperse along with him.

His nerves jangling, Mulder returned to the boardroom and began to leaf through the folder that Krycek had abandoned. His object was more one of savage enjoyment of the other man's despair than anything else. However, he wasn't prepared for the all-encompassing contents of Krycek's folder. The man seemed to have ten times the amount of material the rest of the group had received. Mulder frowned. He felt jittery still as he began to read. The man's life was there, laid out in receipts and reports for all to see. Payments to Mikhael and Ludmilla Kreuschev for their infant son who had been surrendered in totality in return for safe passage out of the Soviet Union and a new life under American skies were succeeded by reports on his progress through to adulthood.

Invoices and receipts for education in a variety of topics, school reports and papers that discussed the conditioning he had undergone came next, and Mulder shook his head. This was evil. They'd taken a baby and compromised his humanity. He read on, savagely suppressing the glimmer of insight he was being handed, ruthlessly ignoring compassion he didn't want to feel at the way Krycek had been manufactured by the men who had purchased him.

The instructions to Cardinale and Krycek for Scully's execution were next, and stapled behind it were the orders to kill Bill and Fox Mulder. Clipped to that one was the mandate that gave Cardinale the order to ensure Krycek was terminated. Mulder shuddered. This made no sense. He needed time to take it all in. Why had Cardinale been given orders to kill a man who appeared to be the Consortium's chief thug?

He gathered up Krycek's papers along with his own, needing to get out of there. None of the others were anywhere in sight. They'd apparently had enough of the claustrophobic contact. There was no sign of anyone else save for Skinner, and he could hear his boss yelling somewhere that was close, but not immediately visible to him.

He turned to leave the room, and caught sight of the metal box that had provoked such a reaction from Krycek. It was too much to resist. Moving over, he flung it open. Later, he realized his life began to change at that moment of discovery.

At first, the contents didn't register. The smell of mold permeated his senses, and he looked into the box uncomprehending. There was a rust pitted machete, a wristwatch, and lying beneath them...

Mulder turned and vomited.

...Bones. There were bones. Bones with pieces of dead flesh on them, the ends of them splintered and broken, rife with deeply hacked indentations.

Later, Mulder had reached his apartment and found the bottle of scotch that had been in his kitchen cupboard for years. He filled a glass with it, took a drink and then topped it off with more and knocked it back with a shudder. He reached for the papers that he'd brought with him, opting for a study of Krycek's file rather than his own, as he tried to get inside the minds of both the men who had done this, and of Krycek himself.

It seemed as if there had been little or no chance for the baby who had grown to become his hated adversary. Controlled from infancy until the attempted assassination attempt had cut him loose from the puppet masters who had choreographed his dance, Krycek had refused to kill Fox Mulder, and been condemned to die himself for it.

They'd ordered his death following his continued failure to give them what they wanted. He'd failed to kill Fox Mulder, and now Mulder was searching for reasons why. He flashed back to the way Krycek had been, recalling the moments when they had sat side by side, beginning to share in the pleasure of unraveling a mystery as he, Mulder, the great profiler, had stupidly allowed himself to trust. He'd been fooled, and that was what really hurt. Somehow he'd never gotten over the stinging sensation that he'd set himself up to be laughed at by someone he'd grown to... He shook himself and returned to the papers.

Krycek's subsequent rise through the ranks of the Consortium following his escape from Russia had been an obvious thorn in the Smoker's side. It seemed that the Englishman had seen his continued potential and overruled Spender repeatedly, much to the evil old monster's chagrin.

It was satisfying to see the Cancerman squirm with distaste as he was forced by circumstance to use the very being that he'd helped to construct. Somehow, Krycek had laid his hands on alien technology, and gained the upper hand. Possessing the nanotechnology had been enough to keep him safe.

Mulder wore a wry smile as he acknowledged a grudging admiration for the man. His survival skills were incredible. He knew, deep within himself, that he would not have survived half of the things that had been done to Krycek. He was feeling the effects of the unaccustomed alcohol now. These were thoughts that he would never have admitted to himself sober, but in his current state he couldn't hold them at bay.

Orders to take Krycek and incarcerate him in a jail on the outskirts of Tunis gave Mulder a moment's unease and then, as he read through the subsequent reports and correspondence, he couldn't help but wonder how the man had survived.

There was a crudely printed note from a guard asking if 'K' should be held out of the general population because of his handicap. Spender's response that he needed to learn to take care of himself and that the cost of keeping him in solitary would be prohibitive made Mulder feel sick as he pictured himself in the place of the other.

Mulder recalled the day that Skinner had ushered Krycek into the office of the X-Files. He'd looked so calm, so sleek. It had been easy to jump to conclusions, think the worst of him, and want to beat him bloody. He'd always wanted to do that. The pattern was deeply ingrained in him. When at last he'd been forced to be civil to the bastard, he'd asked "Why me? Why now?" and looked no further than the glib answer he'd received.

It seemed as though he and Krycek were destined to fight. He wondered why it was that the facile response from Alex Krycek had been acceptable; when from anyone else it would have been the prelude to endless probing. His mind skated over more thoughts that he really didn't wish to pursue. Krycek was disturbing to him. That was enough, and so he'd accepted the offhand response and condemned the man roundly for his malevolence.

Looking back now, he could see how wrong he'd been. He had a sense of growing malaise as the things he was discovering contaminated the 'Krycek' he had built up in his mind. He was uneasy now, and his mind was seething with the things he didn't want to know. He considered the day Skinner had brought him in. Krycek had been calm, true enough, but he must only have been a day or two out of his incarceration and the fanatic gleam he'd seen and despised so much in the glazed green eyes had now taken on a whole new meaning.

He'd watched Krycek tear into the Chinese takeaway that they'd ordered and thought him greedy, but now it was apparent that the man had been starving. Here in his hands he held the proof of that. Strangely, he could see that he'd known it all along. He just hadn't wanted to acknowledge the fact even to himself.

Suddenly Mulder's well-ordered world, with its carefully organized system of beliefs, was no longer good or even true. He felt sick. Leaving the papers where they were, he rose to go and find Krycek, and hopefully gain the answers to some of the questions that were buzzing inside his head.

The man lying in the bed didn't look like a vicious killer. He didn't look like a traitor or a liar or a thief. He looked like an innocent. He looked like a beautiful shell found on the beach, an exotic and hollow remain, filled with endless empty corridors where life no longer existed.

He lay with his eyes closed against the world, hectic dots of color on his cheeks that stood out stark against the pallor of his skin. His face had been washed, but there were still raised and purple bruises on it from the beating Mulder had given him. Even in sleep he seemed restless and as Mulder stood watching him, he felt something within his chest flutter and slide until it lay liquid in the pit of his stomach.

Bad idea! he chided himself. This was a very bad idea. He turned to leave and at that point Krycek opened his eyes.

"Hello, Mulder. Come to gloat?" The soft voice was thick with something better left unexpressed, and almost instantly Mulder felt the familiar anger flash through him again. He didn't know what he had been going to do or to say. All he had was the moment, and he heard his own words through a fog of unreasoning anger.

"Isn't the hospital environment a bit sterile, Krycek? I thought that maggots preferred the trash. What's the matter, hell too hot for you at this time of year?"

"Yeah?" Krycek was rigid and white lipped. "Tell me again that bit about my moral dipstick. You wanna see it? You wanna touch it? What a hypocrite you are, Mulder." He subsided, chest heaving, and Mulder took two steps forward as his fists balled.

It was the flash of satisfaction in Krycek's watching eyes that gave away his intention, and Mulder stopped short.

The bastard wants me to kill him. He *wants* me to kill him.

"Shut up Krycek, I know what you want and I won't give it to you."

"You never have." The soft reply was hardly audible, and Alex Krycek allowed his lashes to drift down onto his cheeks, shutting him and his hostility out, and because obliging the man in the bed was the last thing on his mind, Fox Mulder turned on his heel and left the room. He ran back to his car, attempting to stay ahead of those thoughts he didn't want to acknowledge.

Once home again, Mulder set about trying to clear his mind. He went for a run, pushing himself hard in his attempt to get the uneasy thoughts that plagued him either to go away or to make sense.

He had decided to try to find enlightenment in the remains of his bottle of scotch on his return, but as he ran up to the front door of his building the lanky figure of Ringo Langly uncurled itself from the shadows and fell into step beside him.

Unspeaking, the two of them took the elevator up to apartment 42 and once inside the door Mulder made for his scotch, tossing a glass to the technogeek, and then pouring them both a generous quantity. Flopping down onto his couch he tried to prepare himself mentally for whatever had brought Langly here.

"What's on your mind, Ringo?" Awareness of the things he'd learned about Langly earlier in the day buzzed in his brain and he gazed moodily at his crossed ankles, unable to meet the blond man's eyes. Langly seemed tense and edgy, and somehow Mulder knew that he was there for some kind of reckoning.

"I came to set you straight, man. You need it." Langly fell silent once again, gloomily sipping at his drink.

"Straight about what? I'm not with you."

"Krycek. Do you know what happened to him? Do you know where he's been and why? I do, and it's time I gave you the full scoop." Mulder's head jerked up at Langly's words, and now he was staring at the blond, his eyes like bruises as the words slammed home.

"Why should I care? What does Krycek have to do with me?" He knew that he was being surly, but he needed to keep the wounds fresh and sore. He didn't know what Langly was planning, but somehow he sensed that the payoff would be something he wouldn't like.

"You treat him like shit, you asshole, and he's done so much for you. He's saved your life again and again despite the personal suffering it's caused him." Langly's voice was bitter, and Mulder saw that despite his peace and love hippie persona, Ringo Langly was an angry man.

"Now just why would a man who killed my father and betrayed me repeatedly want to do that, do you suppose?" Mulder's sarcastic words brought redness flaming into Langly's cheeks, angry against the pasty white.

"Because he loves you, asshole!"

Langly's words were quiet but furious. "He can't see anyone but you. He never could. You always make everything about yourself, Mulder, and this one time, you arrogant shit, you happen to be right." The last few words were choked off. Mulder sat gaping at him as he attempted to process the concepts.

"Spender took you from the hospital to have a part of your brain removed. Do you remember that?" There was anger in Langly's voice. Each word was savagely spat out until Mulder wanted to shut it all off, close his ears to the assault on his cherished ideas.

"Alex was the one who stopped it from happening. He stole the vital piece of the ship and hid it. When Diana Fowley managed to circumvent the damned thing, and wouldn't be stopped, he killed her to save you." Mulder gazed at Langly, his brow furrowed.

"I don't understand. How did that save me?" Inside he was horrorstricken. Diana... Krycek had killed Diana, and that was yet another thing to hold against him, to add to the grudge he bore against the double agent.

Langly glared at him, the reflection of light off his glasses masking whatever emotion might have been visible in his eyes. His mouth was set and unsmiling.

"Spender wanted your hypothalamus. There's something that yours secretes, which opens your mind to others, and he wanted it. He was going to take it too. The alien technology required was all almost in place when Alex found out. He went crazy because he was so afraid that you would be harmed. He killed for you, and you didn't even know it. When the smoking bastard caught him he had Alex thrown in jail in Tunisia. That's where I finally found him and got him out."

"You got him out? How did you..?" Even as he asked the questions, he knew the answers. He'd seen Langly's 'Kung Fu' at work and knew that the man was a virtuoso on the keys of a computer.

"I managed to contact Covarrubias in Frankfurt and let her believe that I was the Smoker. I knew the passwords. It wasn't difficult. She arranged to buy him out with the money I transferred to her." Langly smiled. "It was out of his account, too. How cool is that? That smoking bastard must have wet himself when Alex suddenly turned up." The smile flared, faded and was gone.

"Mulder, the bottom line is that Alex kept you alive. He'd give his freedom for you, and when you seem to be trying to kill him it makes me crazy." Langly's face was contorted with a variety of emotions, all of them ugly. "Give him a little space. He's a human being. He's more of a human being than you are."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Do you love anyone, Mulder? Do you sacrifice for anyone? Have you ever given yourself for anyone? Alex has, and he still does. You, you asshole, you!"

"Langly, what's it to you? I don't understand. How do you know any of this?

"Because I care." The words were spoken in a soft growl. "Stupid, isn't it? I love him. He loves you, and you, you dumb fuck, only love yourself. What are you anyway, Mulder? You certainly aren't happy." Langly had risen and was now pacing the room, his drink forgotten in his hand as he poured out his feelings.

"He's always come to me. He's been doing it since you and he were partnered together chasing after Augustus Cole. He knows that if he comes to me I'll keep him safe. When he needs help, it's me he turns to. I know him, Mulder, and I've watched you fuck him over since the first time you brought him round to our place looking for information about Parris Island. I've been with him while he mended from your beatings. I've heard him crying out in the night; only it's you he cries for. It's your name, not mine, and I'm paying the penalty for that as well even though Alex doesn't know, didn't know until that damn meeting. I wanted him to come to me when he needed me, so I never told him how I felt. I knew he'd stop seeing me if he knew. Alex knows what it's like to love someone who doesn't love him, he wouldn't have done that to me." He stopped talking and looked curiously at the drink in his hand as though he hadn't ever seen one before. Then, deliberately, he raised his arm, whipcord strong, and hurled the heavy glass into Mulder's TV screen.

The smell of the whisky pervaded the room as the amber droplets flew. The crunching tinkle as the glass made contact with the screen was the opening movement to a symphony. The television made its own sullen sound as the tube exploded. Mulder leapt to his feet angrily, his vocal protests the counterpoint to the melody of explosion and shattering glass, but Langly had turned already and stalked out of the apartment, abandoning the smell of burning electronics overlaid with the acrid tang of alcohol, and leaving Mulder to try and integrate these new truths into his visualization of the cosmic all.

In total bewilderment, he turned back to the papers he'd brought home and began to go through them again. Here was a memo from Spender stating that Krycek was to be left in a missile silo in North Dakota. Next was one that arranged a car bomb to take him out.

A sheaf tacked together revealed intelligence reports that Mulder and Krycek were on their way to Russia, with updates that seemed to reveal their every move. There were instructions to the gulag officers to keep the pair of them in the cell together, updates on the escape, and another memo that stated the Consortium would seek 'outside' help in incapacitating Krycek so that Mulder could return home.

A hand written note on the back, in Cyrillic had been annotated with the information that the job was now done, and that a souvenir was to be sent back to him. Finally, a letter to Alex himself, from Spender was blunt and to the point.

Alex:

I want you to have my most prized possessions. I've waited for just such an occasion to give you this box. It's too bad I won't be able to see your face when you open it.

Think of me, won't you?

C.E.G. Spender

Mulder's gaze finally lighted on the small package that had been included in his own folder. He poured himself another drink and sat down to open it up. Slitting the manila envelope along the top he upended it and dumped out the contents.

There were letters, three of them, each in its own envelope, sealed and addressed neatly to Fox Mulder. None of them bore stamps and Mulder turned them over in his hands, trying somehow to divine the contents from the tidy printing on the envelopes. Each had been numbered in black marker.

Eventually he took a knife from his pocket and slit the envelopes open. Within were several pages, all written in the same hand, and Mulder recognized it only too well. He'd seen it on plenty of reports in times gone by.

Alex Krycek had written him letters. This was a frightening thought. He made to put them away, but in the same way that a sore tooth invites one to probe it, the letters loomed until at last he reached for them.

Each letter bore a date; they spanned several years. Mulder sighed heavily, and began to read the first.

Dear Mulder:

I'm here in my apartment waiting for them to come and get me. There's really no point in running. There's nowhere I could go.

I was sent to make sure that you didn't uncover the truth. Instead I saved you from them. You wouldn't have survived their plans for you. I knew that Scully would.

I love you - have from the beginning. That's why I couldn't stay and betray you. I know how much you hate betrayals.

That's why I'm writing to you. So you'll realize why I did what I did and forgive me: so you'll know I did not betray you.

Be safe Mulder. Please be safe.

I love you,

Alex.

Mulder crumpled the paper between his fingers and drew back his arm to throw the offending thing across the room; then he thought better of it, smoothing it out again before tucking it back into its envelope

The second letter was stained with rusty brown patches, and some of the writing had faded. It was legible, but barely.

M:

We were a day away from my plan for our freedom, and we both have immunity from the black cancer in our systems now.

I kept you safe and you've given me pain and horror in return. I'm Russian. We keep everything from a loved one and cherish it. It's likely to be the last thing you ever give me.

Do you even know what you did? I hope so, because if we ever do meet, and you ask me if I'm unarmed, I will shoot you.

Forever,

Alex.

Mulder closed his eyes. This wasn't what he wanted to read. He wanted to hold onto his hatred, and somehow it was slipping away from him, leaving him aching and bruised.

The final letter lay on the table in front of him and he tried to ignore it for a few minutes, leafing idly though a stack of information about his sister's abduction, and his father's... that was to say William Mulder's complicity in that event. He didn't see it. As he laid the papers down, he couldn't have said what he'd read. The damned letter glowed on the table, a red rag to catch his gaze even as he tried to ignore it.

His mind racing, he pounded on the coffee table in his irritation. He didn't want to think about Alex Krycek. That line "We were a day away from freedom" was pounding through his mind. He felt pain and anger. There was a sinking feeling that emptied his gut as he began to understand just what Krycek had lost. What he had taken.

He sat motionless, deep in thought, for a very long time while shadows lengthened. When finally he stirred, it was quite dark although perversely the letter still shone, a pale patch in the darkness. Mulder ran his fingers through his hair and stood, reaching at last to turn on the light before picking up the last letter and moving to stand beneath the lamp as he began to read.

Mulder, my Fox:

We've come full circle. Once again I've sacrificed one of your women to ensure that you are safe. This time he had you, and despite my interference, my theft of the equipment he needed, he was still going to try the surgery that would have rendered you mindless.

I couldn't let him. I love you, always have. I killed Fowley. She was a willing part of the plan to destroy you, but by now I know you are so entrenched in your hatred of me it won't matter.

I made sure that Scully would be able to do what was needed to get you out before I left and then I ran. He'll find me. It's just a matter of time. He'll find me, and this time he'll make me beg before he lets me die.

This is my gift to you, my Fox. I give it freely; knowing that there's no way you can refuse it. I'm Russian. You can't refuse our gifts.

My love and all that entails are with you now and forever.

Alex.

The taste at the back of Mulder's throat was bitter as he read the final words. Suddenly he was aware that however much scotch he drank he wasn't going to be able to forget this. His gorge rose and he flung himself to the bathroom, barely making it to the lavatory before he fell to his knees, and his stomach muscles clenched, once again forcing their contents from him while he shivered, blindly horrified as the truth tried to surface from under all the lies.

Krycek was... No! Too much! It would be far better if he could think of him as a villainous bottom- feeder without morals. Mulder didn't want these toxic gifts of whatever passed for love in the viciousness that lurked within Krycek's mind.

Hauling himself back to his feet at long last he turned on the tap, bending to sluice his mouth and spit in an attempt to neutralize the oily, acid vomit-taste that filled it. It wouldn't leave him, and finally he reached for the toothpaste to exorcise the foulness.

His thoughts spread wildly, oil on water, polluted, contaminated, unclean, dammit. He thought that he might never be clean again. Krycek. Oh, fuck!

Reviewing his sordid history with Krycek it all clicked home. The last piece of the puzzle that was Alex Krycek slotted in to form a seamless whole. The bastard loved him, had been protecting him. That's why he'd turned up again and again to cause him grief and interfere with his karma.

Mulder had thought Krycek enjoyed playing with him, got a kick out of fucking him over and all of a sudden the world had lurched sideways leaving him here with the undeniable proof of Krycek's love.

His fucking unwanted love!

Score another hit for Cancerman! He was reaching out from beyond the grave to tweak at Mulder's emotions, making him go where he'd avoided going for so long.

Returning to his couch, he sat again, his busy mind and unfortunately perfect memory carving slices of the past to serve up to his quivering palate. He saw Krycek, dirty and desperate, pinned up against a phone, his voice like diamond dust begging Mulder to "Finish it. Do it to me," and himself, hard as rock, pressing in against the lean, supplicant form as he savored the blood he had drawn - the blood he was going to draw.

Krycek on his back against the hood of a car while he, Mulder, pounded him, venting every spiteful feeling he had ever known until Scully had put a hole in him.

Krycek, shivering with cold, pressed into his body, both arms tight around him as the pair of them tried to keep warm despite their hatred for each other.

Krycek kissing his cheek and tossing him his gun before sauntering away after restoring his faith in the presence of the alien threat.

All of these and more flew by him. How could he have missed it? How could he not have seen it? Some profiler, he! Krycek had been there every step of the way, showing up time and again with his toxic love gifts, much like a cat depositing a dead bird at his master's feet to await the loving thanks he would never receive.

It was dawn before he moved, tired and numb, to lean back against his old couch and close his eyes.

He slept for an hour or two and dreamed of large green eyes that fixed his gaze, pinning his soul until his secret heart might burst. When he awoke he was stiff and sore and incredibly aroused.

The thought of Krycek was like a hangnail. One wanted to be rid of it, but couldn't leave it be, couldn't stop thinking about it, probing it even when good judgment screamed that one should leave it alone.

Alex Krycek was attractive. His outer beauty hid a diseased and ugly soul, thought Mulder to himself, but he was a very pretty package despite that. All the evidence he had amassed to the contrary was as nothing. Krycek was evil, because any other reality would mean that he, Mulder, had behaved inexcusably. That thought was too terrible for Mulder to contemplate.

The day dragged by as he completed reports alone in his office. There had never been more paperwork, or less to tell. His own abduction was a hazy mélange of memories half recalled. His hypotheses were merely fancies, and his time absent from the world mysterious even to him.

By lunchtime, he had had enough - more than enough. He'd built a new picture of Krycek for himself, but he didn't want to look closely at it.

Rising from his desk, he flung open the door to his office, tossed his jacket over his shoulder and headed for the parking lot.

His drive to the hospital was surreal. He was never sure afterwards how he'd gotten there, so bound up was he with his attempts to sort things out and lay them in order somehow within his quaking mind. His inner eye saw his nemesis standing over him, with that slight curl of lip that was almost a smile as he told Mulder "I'd just as soon kill you as not," before kissing him.

He saw again the tenderness that had been lurking, unacknowledged in his eyes and wondered how he could have mistaken that for anything else. By the time he parked his car he was sweating.

Walking through the hospital to the room where he'd seen Krycek the previous evening, Mulder tried to decide just what it was that he needed to say: what profit there would be in coming here to confront the man once more.

Pushing into the room, accusatory words already on his lips, he found it empty of the man he'd come to face. On inquiry, he was directed to an entirely different area of the hospital. He knew when he had found the correct place even though Krycek was nowhere to be seen. In a corner, huddled and miserable, sat Ringo Langly.

"Langly? Where's Krycek?"

Langly raised haunted eyes to study Mulder, and Mulder suddenly felt his gut clench with a sense of dread that he just couldn't contain.

"They took him into surgery. He tried again." The voice was toneless, and Langly subsided into his corner once more without any further amplification.

"Tried? What do you mean, tried?" Mulder's brow furrowed.

"He stuck a knife into himself. I came just in time to catch him, and I stopped him, but next time he'll probably be more careful. They're patching up the damage now, but he doesn't want to live any more. He said we can do it all without him from now on. Said you don't need him any more." Langly removed his glasses and wiped at his eyes, his movements jerky with anger. He swore fluently as he replaced them. The tears continued to well up and spill down his cheeks.

Mulder sat down on the bed, his knees suddenly incapable of holding him. Why would Krycek do this now?

His brain flashed unbidden back to the earlier scene. He didn't feel very proud of himself now. Hanging his head, he settled himself to wait, the thoughts in his head spinning as images rose up to jolt him.

It was several hours later that they were discovered, and given directions to the secure ward where Krycek had been taken. He and Langly hadn't spoken again, and the time had spun out as they waited - an aching emptiness in which he floated, aware of his surroundings, but not of them. Inside his head he could hear Krycek's voice, rough and caressing, saying the same little Russian phrase over and over again until his head began to spin and his right cheek burned where the man's lips pressed against it.

When they finally arrived in the room where Krycek had being taken, they were just wheeling him down the corridor. The figure that lay on the gurney seemed somehow smaller and far frailer than the man that Mulder remembered. . He was like a stone left in the desert, as though the eternal blasting of fate had whittled him down to his core. He was without his false arm and the stump, scarred and hideous, lay in plain sight as they transferred him to the bed, hooking him up to drips and machinery Mulder didn't understand, then applying the padded restraints that would prevent him from harming himself again.

Neither he nor Langly moved as the nurses made Krycek comfortable and then left him lying, a silent, pathetic exclamation point in the very center of the bed. Finally, after a long pause, Mulder moved in close and adjusted the covers over that glaringly imperfect arm before returning to take a seat.

Langly's head jerked up at that, but he said nothing, merely watching Mulder for a second or two before slumping back into his own chair.

Krycek lay pale. His eyes seemed like bruises, and the marks of their recent battle stood out on his waxen flesh, graffiti on a work of art.

They'd stitched him and inserted tubes into veins on his arm. A dressing showed bulky through the thin sheet that covered him. Mulder couldn't take his eyes off the silent form, although he couldn't have said why.

Time flowed, molasses thick and cloying. In the room all was still save for the ragged hitch of the wounded man's breathing, and the faint but regular beep of an esoteric machine that related somehow to Krycek's well being.

A doctor came by and checked Krycek's vital signs before making a note on the chart at the foot of the bed. He turned to leave again, and Mulder stood, putting out a hand to detain him.

"What can you tell me, Doc? How is he?"

"He'll be coming around soon. He had a lucky escape. Are you a member of his family? We need to get some forms completed." The small, dark skinned medic was checking his watch as he spoke, and anger flared inside Mulder. He bit his lip.

Tovarich. He called me tovarich, once, thought Mulder, his brain spinning crazily.

"No, I'm a... friend. Will he be okay?"

"As long as he doesn't attempt something foolish again I see no reason why not. However you must be aware that he did try to kill himself. If you're his friend you need to help him overcome whatever it is that's troubling him. You'll excuse me, please? I have an important meeting. I'll send someone down to discuss his status with you."

The man departed, white coat flapping behind him: Krycek obviously already banished from his mind.

Mulder was poised to grab the man by the scruff of his neck and haul him back to give an accounting when a faint moan from the bed raised the fine hairs on his nape, and he whirled.

Langly had leant forward and was hanging over Krycek, his face stamped with longing that appeared bone deep. Krycek's head stirred on the pillow.

"What is it, Alyosha? Come on back. You're safe here." Langly's voice was gentle, and Mulder knew he was seeing something private. He had the feeling that if he spoke, or moved, something delicate would fracture and be gone. He froze; ready to turn and leave, then exhaled once, a long, shuddering sigh.

No, he thought, this is how it is, and who the hell knows how it will be? Like it or not, I'm somewhere in the middle of this. Resolutely, he turned back into the room.

Krycek's forehead was slick with sweat, and his face was etched with pain. In a second more his eyes flicked open and fixed on the gaunt face that loomed above him.

"Ringo." There was anger there, bitterness and exhaustion in the faint croak of the voice. "You fucking jerk. Why couldn't you just let me go?" The words matched the anguish in the pinched, bruised face, and a world of tenderness vibrated in Langly's reply as he smoothed Krycek's short-cropped hair.

"I couldn't envisage a world without you in it, tovarich. See. I brought him for you. I brought him to see what he's done to you." He turned his face away from Krycek's wide-eyed confusion and scrubbed impotently at his cheeks. Then he turned back to kiss Krycek, a soft peck, before standing and blundering towards the door.

Mulder moved in to hold him back.

"Langly...?" and Langly shoved at him violently, sending him flying to land on his behind as the blond hacker made his escape.

The door swung closed again, and Mulder climbed slowly to his feet, rubbing his tailbone ruefully. Now there was nothing else for it. He moved reluctantly to where Krycek lay.

The injured man looked at him, seemingly without recognition. Mulder wasn't sure how to proceed. Nothing in his textbooks fitted this moment. He was frozen - a fly in amber, trapped by too much time and too many memories. Nothing that he wanted to say seemed to make any sense to him.

Finally he made an attempt.

"Krycek? Alex?" The given name felt thick on his tongue as he spoke it. Krycek frowned and closed his eyes as if to negate Mulder's presence at his bedside. Mulder felt the familiar anger rise in his throat as though it were an old friend.

"Oh, no you don't!" He nudged the edge of the bed angrily, and Krycek gave a heavy sigh, allowing his eyelids to lift again. His pupils were huge, and he looked lost. Mulder shook himself. This wasn't going the way he wanted it to, and it had only just begun.

The look of profound helplessness was present for only a second before the shutters he knew so well came down. All the familiar Krycek mannerisms manifested themselves as the chin tilted up and the crease along the top of his nose appeared.

"What the hell do you want from me, Mulder? Did you come to trade insults? Just get it all out and fuck off. I'm tired of it." He coughed a little and his forehead creased in pain. Mulder looked around for water, and spotted a jug on the dresser. Pouring some, he held Krycek's head and placed the glass to his lips. The injured man turned his head away, and after a minute, Mulder laid the glass to one side.

Releasing him, and feeling the fingers of his left hand tingle where he'd touched the other's hair, Mulder backed away, making time for himself as he put the glass back onto the dresser.

"Langly told me... " Mulder began, and then stopped as Krycek hissed for all the world like an angry cat.

"That fucking fool. What did he tell you?" Krycek's face gained color, cheeks flaming red as he spat out the words. Mulder, uncertain, stood aimlessly, waiting for a pause in the other man's invective.

"Krycek, I..."

"Get the hell out of here, Mulder. I don't need you or your guilt. Go find some other worthy recipient." Once again, Krycek cut him off before he could say what he was thinking, and at that, Mulder lost the artificial calm that had enclosed him.

"Listen to me, Krycek. I'm trying to help, you sorry son of a bitch."

Krycek glared at him, tired, foggy eyes burning in a pale face. "Go Mulder. I'm too tired to play at being your nemesis right now."

Mulder exhaled angrily, and then retreated, allowing the door of the cubicle to slap shut behind him as the other man closed his eyes once again and appeared to sleep.

He strode up and down in the corridor outside the room and attempted to make sense of his feelings. He didn't know why he was still there. He only knew that he couldn't leave, and that Alex Krycek somehow needed him. He felt unsettled, torn, but each time he tried to leave the hospital he found himself returning to the door of the room that held the still, pale figure of his ex partner and sometime opponent.

It took him several hours to admit it to himself, but in the end he acknowledged that he had given Krycek scant charity in his dealings with him. At last he pushed open the door and strode back to stand beside the bed that held the injured man. He hooked the leg of the chair that Langly had occupied, and dragged it in close with his foot before sitting down.

Krycek was sleeping still. His head was flung back and he was making a frankly adenoidal sound, much as though he was sawing wood. There was a faint trace of drool at the corner of his open mouth. Mulder surveyed the charmless sight wryly. The man somehow managed to look angelic even when snoring his head off. Why the hell did he persist in bringing himself to Mulder's notice?

Krycek shifted restlessly, and his mouth closed abruptly, his breathing settled down to a quiet snuffling as he continued to sleep. Mulder sat, keeping his vigil, long after the light faded from the room, and the noisy hospital quieted down. He gazed at Krycek, trying to make sense of the man. Langly had said that Krycek loved him. He'd read the letters in Krycek's own handwriting, so that much was true.

Krycek loved him. Mulder was still not sure what that meant. He wondered how he, Mulder, felt about Krycek. Somehow the playing field had shifted and he no longer knew with utter certainty that the man was evil incarnate. He had clung grimly to his cherished beliefs in the face of all odds, because to let them go would be to admit to himself that he had treated Krycek badly, but even he had to admit that he'd been harsh.

Now, it seemed as though the only problem remaining was how to treat Krycek. What was the correct etiquette for dealing with a hired gun, a loose cannon that loved you, protected you, but killed your friends, and fucked with your mind every chance he got? Had Nancy Mitford ever covered how to address someone that you'd always been prone to whaling the shit out of when she'd written her famous book about etiquette?

*Maybe I should just kiss him and have done with it,* mused Mulder, not entirely in jest. He looked at Krycek, who still slept, and his eyes traced the contours of his face and body. He was well made. It wouldn't be hard to imagine...

He stood. It was close to midnight and he needed a bathroom. If he was going to stay here, and heavens knew why, but it seemed as though he was, then he had to have coffee. Krycek seemed to be sleeping soundly enough, and according to the medical charts at the foot of the bed he'd been pumped with enough sedative to keep him out for hours yet. It would be time enough for action when the man in the bed began to come around. Then, Mulder would be able to try and make sense of the enigma over whom he was maintaining his vigil.

Mulder left the room quietly and went in search of relief for his bladder.

When he finally returned he'd washed his face and, although he still hadn't located any coffee, he'd found a soda machine that had dispensed a can of something that glowed a virulent orange. Having popped the tab and studied it for traces of alien possession, he resumed his seat at the bedside, and began to ingest the liquid. Sleep was threatening to overtake him, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to go home. He arranged his length as comfortably as he could and then sat back to contemplate the cause of his current crisis of conscience.

He must have fallen asleep, because the nurse woke him sometime later, clattering in with a tray of instruments and beginning to change the bag that hung from the drip stand over Krycek. His body was stiff and sore, and he stood, stretching briefly as his neck cracked, and his joints followed suit. She smiled at him and continued with her tasks, first checking pulse and temperature, then noting them onto Alex's chart.

"Good morning. Is there coffee anywhere around these parts, nurse?" he inquired, mildly.

"I can show you the kitchen if you don't mind waiting a minute," she smiled in reply. "He'll be waking up soon. Are you his brother?"

"I'm his friend," he asserted again, astonished at how easy that was to say. "He's had a rough ride. I'm a therapist. I want to help him."

The nurse looked him up and down, and then came over to stand beside him.

"You realize that he's on a lot of medication? We can't permit him to harm himself within the hospital. He'll be kept sedated until it's possible to have a psychiatric evaluation. You may be with him as long as you don't agitate him, but I must caution you against getting him upset. We'll ask you to leave if anything disturbs him." He smiled and nodded, and she gathered up her equipment, beckoning him to follow her.

At 7:30 he had found and consumed breakfast and was sitting beside Krycek's bed once again, coffee in a mug on the floor beside him. The papers from the folder that the CSM had left him were on his lap, and he was sifting through them once more, trying to find any clues to Krycek's reaction.

When Krycek's eyes fluttered open, Mulder was ready. He would use Alex Krycek's state of drug- induced confusion, and get into his psyche at last. This was going to be fun.

Knowing that he would refuse liquid, Mulder gave him no chance, moistening the other man's dry lips with a tiny sponge, and then moving back to regard him once more.

Krycek's eyes were vague and clouded, and his brow was creased in confusion. Mulder moved closer, and began.

"How are you feeling, Alex?" Soft words, gentle voice, and Krycek thought for a moment before replying.

"Not so good. Feel empty. All used up." His voice was faint and Mulder paused for a minute, allowing Krycek to relax again. After a few minutes he spoke once more.

"Tell me what you mean? Why do you feel that way?" Krycek took in a deep breath and shuddered as he let it go again.

"What you mean?" His voice was stronger now, but Mulder still had to lean close to hear him, and his speech was slow, slurred and dreamy. "'Sall been a joke. Never had a life, did I? All 'llusion. Not real. Already dead really."

"Did you know Spender when you were a child?" There was a pause. Mulder looked to Krycek and saw his face twisted in pain. "Alex, it's okay. You can tell me. If you tell me, I can help you."

"Knew Spender. He was..." Krycek stopped speaking. "Mulder. Shouldn't be talking to you. Gonna be sorry." He'd closed his eyes, and now he averted his head on the pillow. Mulder leaned forward again, tracing Krycek's cheek with one long forefinger. The other man lay still for a few seconds and then turned back to him.

"Fucking with me. Always get what you want. Can't... " He closed his eyes again and lay silent. After a few minutes, Mulder spoke again, gently.

"You're tired, Alex. I can tell that you're tired. I want to help you. Let it out to me, Alex. Then you'll be able to heal." His voice was low and monotonous, and he spoke in rhythmic sentences as he wove a spell of uneasy well being around the drugged-up figure in the bed.

"Not good... " The lashes flickered on the bruised cheeks. "Don' love me."

"You love Fox Mulder, Alex. Why? He hasn't been very good to you." Mulder was tense in his seat as he waited to see if Alex would respond. It all hung on how empty he was feeling. The drugs he was on were powerful hypnotics, and Mulder was hoping that the suggestions he made would suffice. Minutes passed. The man in the bed lay still, and moisture seeped from beneath the lowered lashes. Mulder reached out and gently wiped it away. At last, Alex shuddered and began to talk.

"Mulder. Fox Mulder. Love him. Always wanted him. Take care of him." Mulder's heart leapt. He was going to get there, into Krycek's mind at last. He leaned forward, keeping his voice calm with an effort.

"You take care of him? He must be grateful to you for that, Alex."

There was movement from the pillow as Krycek shook his head from side to side.

"Grateful? Bastard wants to kill me. Doesn't know..." His voice trailed away. He seemed to be talking to himself as much as to Mulder, and his interrogator knew that he would need to go slowly.

"He doesn't know...?" The prompt hung in the air and Mulder willed Krycek to take it. The time ticked by relentlessly. He was almost there. The key was in the lock and if he could only turn it without breaking it he'd have all the answers he craved. "What should he know, Alex?"

"Don' wan' tell him. He won' like it. Bitch would've killed him to find out..." Alex coughed and was silent for a minute. Mulder thought that he'd lost him, but then the voice began again, slurred and rough. "She an' Spender laughed. She was gon' kill him to get into his brain. Didn't love him. I... I stopped her."

"He wasn't grateful then, Alex?" Mulder knew that Krycek had killed Fowley and it seemed that he was now going to find out why.

"Din' know. They got me. Put me in the prison then. Had to trus' Scully t' get him out. She kicks ass." A smile so brief as to be almost an illusion lit the pale face below him. "Left it to Dana."

That gave Mulder pause. Scully had known? How was that possible? Scully would never... He tried again.

"You can trust Scully, can't you, Alex?"

Once more the tiny glimmer of a smile rippled over Krycek's face and was gone.

"Me n' Scully... got to keep 'm out of trouble. Good team." Mulder thought that he'd paused, but then he continued. "He loves her. Do anything for her. Not me. Always get Dana to do it. Good girl, Dana."

Mulder froze. He recalled a night, long gone, when he'd had this man under his hands, and he'd been about to kill him. Scully had put a bullet into his shoulder, and Krycek had lived to plague him another day. Now he wondered if Scully was on his side, whether Scully had ever been on his side.

"I can see that you're proud of your team. Sounds as if you're right to be proud. Tell me about your team, Alex." Krycek's brow furrowed and he shook his head a little, denying Mulder's words.

"She looks out for him. Me too. Now she knows I need t' help him too. Din' like it at first, but now she knows I c'n help 'm." He sighed, and again, the glitter of tears showed beneath the thick veil of sooty lashes.

"How do you help him, Alex?"

"Kill'm all if they wan' hurt him. Nobody c'n hurt 'm." There was a little animation in his voice at that, and Mulder shivered at the intensity in the other man's voice. "Love him. Mine to love, n' mine to protect. Only me...'n sometimes Scully..."

"Were you protecting him against his father, Alex?" Mulder was very still. Now he'd find out. Now he'd know. Alex Krycek seemed to shudder once and then the cracked lips began to move again, the hoarse voice to utter words he wasn't sure he was ready for.

"He killed Jeff, y'know? I let 'm. Din' try to stop 'm. Jeff din' have the gene like Fox. Fuck 'm. He's dead now. Can't hurt'm any more. Fell down the stairs. Was time to get rid of 'm. Evil ol' bastard." Mulder shook his head impatiently, about to blurt out his frustrations, and then recollected himself. He leaned to place his face close to Krycek's ear.

"Fox always thought that Bill Mulder was his father. Was he a danger to Fox too?" Mulder's breath puffed against Krycek's cheek as he spoke, and he suppressed a little smile as he saw the tremor run through the injured man.

"Bill Mulder...?" Krycek stopped speaking again, and Mulder resisted the urge to take hold of him and shake the words from him. "Was gonna kill my Fox. Had t' shoot 'm. Was gonna...." The voice died again, and suddenly Mulder found himself looking into a pair of fever-bright eyes. "Love you, Fox. You don' fool me. Don' need me any more now."

Mulder blinked. He wasn't sure what the other man was trying to tell him. He didn't feel that he'd ever needed his protection, but he could hear the resignation in Krycek's voice. His mind skated over the information that Krycek had just given him. Bill Mulder would have killed him. Krycek had shot Bill Mulder, who was, horribly, not his father. The sick fuck in the bed loved him. He'd known that already, true, but he still felt nauseated when he contemplated the lengths to which Krycek seemed prepared to go for him.

Grimly suppressing his feelings until there would be time for a careful deconstruction of the events, Mulder choked back the words that wanted to rise to the surface, and returned to the job in hand.

"Isn't it time to live for yourself now, Alex? Cancerman is gone and can't control you again. You're free."

"Not free. Tied to Fox an' can' get free from him."

"What if he set you free"

"Can't do it. Not his choice to make."

"Why, Alex? Why do you love him?"

Alex turned his head again, and despite his apparent grogginess he moved, lightning fast, to place his lips against Mulder's. For a second the contact was made, and they kissed, then Mulder jerked away. Finally, Krycek allowed his head to fall back to the pillow.

"Go 'way, Fox. Leave me 'lone."

Mulder was stunned for a moment. Even now, the man was onto him. He would find a way into him. He thought that the things that Alex had told him had the ring of truth to them, but there was so much more that he wanted to discover.

"You don't get rid of me so easily. Why don't you sleep now? I'm going home to change, but I'll be back later."

Krycek eyed him drowsily, and then closed his eyes. A few seconds later, he was snoring again. Mulder stood looking at him for a long time before turning away to go home.

Mulder stood under the shower, feeling the knots of tension - born of sleeping in the uncomfortable confines of a hospital chair - dissolve under the needle spray of hot water. He was confused and disoriented. He had gone through life in the certainty of the unchanging order of things and he was not used to making mistakes. He was even less used to acknowledging the mistakes that he did make.

He needed to think about the things he'd learned. He was disquieted by Krycek's apparent vulnerability. To him, Krycek had assumed an almost mythic nature, seemingly unkillable as he danced through Mulder's life creating havoc. He was the Trickster, the Lord of Misrule.

Mulder had spared the man nothing as he heaped onto his image every bad thing that happened to him. The idea that this... this demon had been protecting him all along was not merely worrying, it was terrifying because it turned his entire life on its heels. He thought of Krycek, lying in the bed in the hospital, and all that he knew was that the man must not be allowed to take his own life. The only one who would ever be permitted to put an end to Alex's existence was Fox Mulder.

Alex had said that he wasn't free, that he was bound to Mulder by bonds of love that he couldn't break. Mulder had somehow accepted those bonds, there in the hospital, and had taken them to himself. He would decide when Alex should die, and he didn't know what he would choose yet.

Emerging from the shower to towel himself dry and scrape the stubble from his chin, he brooded. Wrapped deep in thought, he moved to his bedroom and lay down, thoughts of Krycek flitting across the canvas of his mind. He needed to understand Krycek. He needed to make sense of all of this.

He drifted off into sleep, still pondering the significance of the things he'd discovered.

His appearance beside the wounded man's bed later on the next day made Krycek groan.

Sleep had apparently done him some good although he still seemed hazy, and the medication was definitely making him high.

When he saw Mulder at the door, he closed his eyes in irritation. The G-man came in, determined to keep his temper and somehow make a connection with Krycek.

Mulder had brought him gifts. In his arms he had juice and chocolate, a couple of books, and a small ghetto blaster. Dumping them on the table beside the bed with the air of a conjurer, Mulder drew up a chair and prepared to tough out the stony silence he could see brewing. He reached into his pocket and produced a couple of CDs that he recalled Krycek had enjoyed back when they were partners, and began to set up the music for him.

The synthesized artistry of Kraftwerk rolled out of the portable player, and Mulder sank back into the chair, opened a book, and settled himself down to wait. Time passed by, and still the other man said nothing, although after some minutes he reopened his eyes and looked at Mulder, with an expression that might have been exasperation.

"Why, Mulder?" He had been reading, apparently lost in his book. Krycek's voice was the faintest whisper, and yet the sound rolled through Mulder's brain, echoing his own thoughts. Why indeed? he asked himself. He was forced to respond that he didn't know why, only that Krycek must live so that he, Mulder could finally understand. He lowered the book.

"I don't know, Krycek. I really don't. It's just that... " His voice dwindled to silence. He had no idea what to say, still hadn't worked it out for himself, and only knew that somehow it was necessary that Alex Krycek recover his will to live. He turned to meet Krycek's eyes full on and used the only weapon he could think that would work on him. "It's important to me. I don't know why. Okay?"

Krycek closed his eyes again, and silence drifted over the two of them again. After a long pause, Mulder sighed, and replaced the CD. Soft music shimmered in the air and he resumed his reading. Slowly, Krycek rolled his head to look at Mulder once more.

"It's all too much. When did I ever stand a chance? They had me before I was even born, Mulder." Bleak words hung between the two men, and the soul that lurked behind Krycek's eyes was equally bleak. Mulder turned the words over and over, examining them. Finally he leaned forward to meet the sad eyes.

"All of that's over, Krycek. It's only now that you'd be free. If you choose to die now, you'll have let him win. Do you really want that? I thought you had more... "He cast around for the right word, knowing that it was here, now, that he could make a difference. "...More spirit."

Krycek's face closed up, and he said nothing for a long time. Mulder returned to his reading again but couldn't concentrate. His skin prickled with the awareness of the issues that were being deliberated. It popped into his mind, unbidden, that Krycek and he were somehow the same, and that they shared a loneliness between them that was so bone deep it could not be expressed. The only difference was in their circumstances. They'd both been dragged from pillar to post by the cynical men who'd manipulated them. They'd been led by the nose; forced to do, and feel and believe in things that were merely experiments into their nature. No wonder Krycek had cracked at last. If that were the case, he knew what to say.

"We're alike, Krycek. Don't you see? They made us run in mazes, as though we were rats." He stopped. Maybe that was not the best simile he could have chosen. He watched Krycek narrowly, but the irony of it didn't seem to have had undue effects. "The only freedom you'll ever have starts now, Krycek. Everything that went before it has gone, and you're alone, but at least what you do from here on is going to be your choice. Are you going to throw that away? If you do, that old fuck with his cigarettes and his deranged schemes is going to be watching you from somewhere warm, and laughing while he waits for you to join him."

Krycek averted his eyes again, and Mulder thought that he'd lost him. He tried one more thing.

"How about we have a deal?" That brought the head whipping back round on its pillow. The face was tense and slick with sweat, the mouth set hard and the eyes veiled with heavy lids, feathered with lush, curling lashes. It was apparent that there was something within Krycek, some hope that he needed to disguise. Mulder salted that away with satisfaction, and continued. "You've got your pardon. How about you give things a little time? We could set a date. If things don't improve for you, I'll kill you myself."

Harsh words, some might have thought, but Mulder knew with deadly certainty that they would work. He'd finally gotten the measure of the man in the bed. He knew - or thought he knew - all of the buttons that he could push to make Krycek do what he wanted of him. He'd keep Krycek alive for now, and study him like a bug in a bottle. Once he'd catalogued the man, why then he would be free to go, but for now, Fox Mulder needed him around.

A faint flush spread over Krycek's face, and the glimmerings of a hopeless longing peeped from his eyes before they were closed again, the hope locked down in whatever fastness Krycek had disciplined himself to use. That was fine. Mulder could wait. He was trained to wait.

Wait he did, as shadows lengthened and another night drew in. At last, Krycek turned back to him.

"It's August now." The words were tentative, spoken in a breathy whisper that played over Mulder's ears like fur.

"Yeah," Mulder agreed. "Is that significant?"

"November first is All Saints' Day. I'll wait until then." The voice was stronger. Mulder felt the tension leaving him, felt his scalp loosen, and the muscles of his neck begin to relax. He would have his guinea pig after all, and when he was done, why then Krycek could go fuck himself as far as Mulder was concerned. Mulder nodded at Krycek, unsmiling. "So, Mulder..."

Mulder raised an eyebrow in polite inquiry, his mind already roaming forward to the possibilities of investigating this man. He would lay him out and inspect his every response. It was going to be so very satisfying.

"You have chocolate?"

It had begun.

Krycek's incarceration in the secure ward continued as he recovered. He had been interviewed by a psychiatrist, who prescribed medication and diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic. Mulder was totally convinced that he was wrong. Krycek would require further study, but he knew beyond a doubt that the man was completely sane. He also knew the medication that was given to the recovering man was being flushed down the toilet on a regular basis, although he didn't mention that, even to Krycek.

When the assassin - or whatever he was these days - had finally been allowed up out of bed, he'd been twitchy. Mulder, who had imagined that he was going to have a gentle, doting, compliant Ratboy to study and deconstruct had suddenly found himself battling an angry, disturbing man who gave him nothing.

He wasn't sure how this had happened, or why, but he was hanging in, his attempts to peel the Krycek psyche like an onion being blandly countered by the bastard he was supposed to be helping.

Mulder was outraged. This wasn't how things were meant to be. Krycek was supposed to have become all warm compliance. Where was the fucker's gratitude? He was definitely not adhering to the rules. Time and again, Mulder found the little shit weaseling out of the revelations that he'd begun to crave. Krycek had decided to live for now, and was working on making Mulder regret that he'd spent the time persuading him.

The day of Krycek's discharge, Mulder had arrived armed with clothes and sympathy, ready to take the other man out of the hospital environment he knew Krycek hated, and found that he flatly refused to come with him.

"Fuck off, Mulder. I don't need your help. I don't need you stomping around inside my head." Krycek was adamant.

"Krycek, I want you to come home with me. You need..." Mulder was humbling himself, and it was an effort. He seethed inside with the knowledge that the jerk he was pleading with just didn't understand. It was necessary that the man should come with Mulder and continue to be studied.

"Get out of my way, Mulder. I'm leaving, but not with you." Mulder blinked. He'd talked Krycek out of ending it all. The bastard owed him. How could he behave this way? He laid a hand on Krycek's shoulder, and grunted as it was removed unceremoniously, and somewhat painfully.

"Are you arguing with me, Krycek?" The words were flung at him - a challenge. He would win it. He had to.

"No. Arguing would be making reasoned and coherent counterpoints to discredit your claims. I'm just flatly refusing to do what I'm told." Mulder saw red. The fucker was laughing at him. He closed his fist, ready to move in and beat the other man to a pulp all over again, but Krycek forestalled him.

A single punch, so hard and fast that he didn't see it coming, knocked him back to lie on the floor. By the time he'd gathered his scattered wits and sat up, hand cradling his aching jaw, Krycek had gone.

The month of August rolled over into September, and brought with it a searing heat wave. Mulder hadn't seen Krycek since his unceremonious departure from the hospital, and Langly refused to speak to him, avoiding him when he was at the Lone Gunmen's headquarters. The other two had begun to treat him differently as well, and he found an entire new wave of resentment rising up against Krycek. He had decided that Krycek had double-crossed him, and as ever, it was easy to think the worst of the man.

He'd plunged himself into an administrative frenzy. His abduction and subsequent return was to be documented and investigated. For once, he was his own X-File and that was a strange, wonderfully scary notion.

He spent a lot of time with Scully, who was quite understandably terrified that the baby she was carrying might turn out to be a monster. When she was finally brought to bed, she gave birth to a perfectly unremarkable, red-faced little boy, who seemed to Mulder to spend all his waking hours either screaming or feeding.

After the first few, anguished days, Scully seemed to settle into a Madonna-like calm as she tended the baby. There had been no signs of him being aware, of having an adult consciousness within him, and so Mulder relaxed. He asked Scully to marry him again, and when she giggled at him, he became cranky. He didn't think that he was such a bad bargain.

He most definitely didn't think of Alex Krycek.

It was the beginning of October when he received the invitation. He'd all but forgotten that there was to be a second meeting to read the smoking bastard's Will. When the invitation to the reading hit his mailbox, Mulder was thinking of other things.

Ringo Langly had been taken ill, and was now deteriorating, day by day. The thin, gaunt blond was now skeletal, and lesions covered his body. On the up side, he had relented, and was now treating Mulder much as he always had, but the office of the Lone Gunmen was no longer a happy place. They had suddenly grown old, without ever growing up.

Byers had taken on himself the task of nursing Langly, who seemed to grow fainter and more faded with each passing day, as though he were a ghost, depending on people's memories of him to tie him to the terrestrial plane. The normally dapper man was losing weight, and the carefully tended beard was showing signs of silver amongst the black.

Frohike didn't seem to change, but he was seldom far from Langly's side, and kept up a barrage of good- natured taunts that seemed to cheer them all even though they appeared to be insulting. Their paper was not published that month.

Mulder was sitting with the three of them late one Friday night drinking tea, and arguing about crop circles, when Alex Krycek appeared. He didn't seem to notice Mulder, or if he did, he wasn't paying any attention to him. He made for Langly, who lay on the couch, and knelt down to look hard at him.

"Oh, fuck, Ringo! I thought that you'd be careful, as paranoid as you are. What did you do to yourself?" He leaned forward to lay his forehead against the thin man's wizened shoulder for a single minute, and Langly's face lit up, although he didn't try to touch Alex in return.

As Alex drew away again, Langly fixed him with a burning look.

"Did you bring it?"

Alex didn't make any response at first, merely sitting back on his heels with an obscure expression that brought silence to the room, to lie over them like a blanket. Then he nodded, and reached into the pocket of his pants to draw out a small packet, which he tossed onto Langly's lap.

Byers was the first to make any kind of response. He shrieked "No!" and flung himself at the package. Alex fended him off easily, and Langly's hands closed over it. Byers made an attempt to fight Krycek, and now knelt on the floor, sobbing softly, blood dripping from his nose as he crouched.

Krycek laid a hand gently onto John Byers' back, and murmured, "I know; but it's his choice, John."

Mulder had remained silent throughout all of this, but now he decided to speak up.

"Krycek, are you by any chance attempting to commit a crime here?" he asked, his voice mild. All heads snapped to look in his direction, and Mulder began to feel that he should have remained silent, though it had never stopped him before.

The response was astonishing. Byers scrambled up, and together he, Frohike and Krycek seemed to close in and form a protective barrier in front of Langly, who was still holding the package. There was silence for a few moments, and then Frohike cleared his throat.

Frohike had always reminded Mulder of a small monkey. Though he possessed a real talent with computers, his social skills had never been particularly polished, and he didn't beat about the bush.

"Keep out of this, Mulder," he growled.

"I'm trying to understand something here, Frohike." Mulder was no less direct. "Why don't you just explain 'Doctor Death' here's role in this little drama, and I'll be happy to keep out of your hair."

Frohike muttered a curse and started forward, fists balled, completely unfazed by the fact that Mulder stood a good foot taller than he did and probably outweighed him by about sixty pounds. It was Krycek who restrained him, and murmured soothingly. As Frohike stepped back, Krycek moved forward.

"Come on, Mulder. You and I are overdue for a talk. We need to leave these guys together and get a few things straightened out." He crossed to where Mulder still sat, and sank down sinuously beside his chair. Mulder wasn't sure whether Krycek was attempting a distraction or not, but he couldn't ignore the plea. The gunmen were now in a huddle around the couch, talking very quietly, and whatever his suspicions might be, it seemed as though there would be nothing happening immediately. He turned to Krycek.

"Okay, Krycek. If you think that you have an explanation for what's going down here, spill it. I don't like to see my friends in trouble." Mulder glanced nervously towards the trio in the corner. He was so uneasy now that there was an acid taste in his mouth. Krycek had begun speaking to him, and with difficulty Mulder dragged his attention back to the man sitting beside him.

"He's out of time, Mulder. You must see that." The intimacy of Krycek's softly spoken words was a palpable, seductive thing that stopped the breath in his throat and made him tingle.

He turned to meet Krycek's drowning gaze, and for once there was no irritation or animosity in his expression. Mulder's stomach lurched. He suddenly needed to touch the other man, to run his finger down over Krycek's forehead, along the small snip of the nose and over the full, mobile mouth. He bit his lip and sat on his hands, astounded at the sheer silliness of the thought.

"That's not the point, Krycek. I want to know what you're giving him, and why." Mulder's voice was a knife that cut the warmth of the room. "He's my friend," he added, plaintively.

"He's mine too, Mulder," said Krycek, patiently. "He's helped me out more than you'll ever know, and he should be allowed the dignity of choice. You can see what's happening to him. He wants it over and done with. Why won't you let him have what he wants?"

Mulder opened his mouth to rebut, and then closed it once more abruptly as the look of suffering on Krycek's face suddenly stood out in sharp relief. There seemed to be nothing that he could say, so he contented himself with nodding.

"How long does he have?" Mulder indicated the trio in the background with a sharp jerk of his head. Krycek winced.

"Once he takes the stuff I've given him, it will all be over in just a few minutes. He won't feel any pain at all." The tip of Krycek's nose was red, and his eyes suspiciously bright as he spoke, but he held Mulder's gaze almost defiantly, as though he were daring Mulder to respond.

After a minute of reflection, Mulder shook his head.

"How friendly were you with Langly, Krycek? Are you infected too?" He tried to pitch his voice kindly, but there was something in the way he spoke. Krycek's eyes flashed, and he straightened.

"What's it to you, Mulder? You gonna profile me and write me up for your X-Files? No thanks." Mulder reached for him angrily, about to shake him, only thinking better of it when he saw the familiar scornful expression steal over Krycek's face. The man was irritating. That was one constant Mulder could count on. Even with Langly on his deathbed, there seemed to be friction between them.

Krycek stared at him levelly, chin hiked in as arrogant an expression as Mulder had ever seen, and Mulder gritted his teeth in his effort to stop himself from pounding on the other man. Suddenly, an image of Krycek in jail somewhere in a foreign land because of him floated before him, and he drew away, chest heaving. Krycek appeared to be taken aback.

"The truth is out there, Mulder. Way to hell-and-gone out there." He seemed to have relaxed a little, and the flat tone of anger had left his voice, but he was still not happy. Mulder leaned forward again to meet his eyes.

"Can we talk about this without causing an international riot? Is that possible?" he mused, as much to himself as to Krycek. Krycek turned again and faced him, daring him with his eyes to make something of the encounter.

"I don't know. Can you? It's not something I've had any chance at until now." He seemed to be regaining his control and there were no longer the tell-tales of distress that had shown themselves in his face just a few minutes ago. Mulder closed his eyes, and waited for a heartbeat.

"Ringo helped me out a few times, and saved my butt more times than I deserve. He loves me, but we've never been lovers. I feel guilty that I always took, and the only thing I can give him now is a quick death."

It was too much. Krycek's voice broke, and he turned his head away. In a rare moment of tact, Mulder backed off, and laid a gentle hand on Krycek's shoulder.

"Are you guys gonna take all night?" Frohike had approached them as they remained locked into their insane battle of wills, and they both jumped as he approached. "Ringo wants to say goodbye." The little man's cheeks were wet as the tears streamed from his eyes.

They said no more, and both of them rose to go to the couch where Langly lay. He'd lost most of the blond hair that had been his trademark, and his face was pale and cadaverous, covered in blemishes. He smiled as he saw the two of them approaching.

"You finally got it together?" he said as they both sat down on the floor beside the couch. "That's good." He fixed Mulder with a look that was so piercing it practically pinned him to the furniture. "Alyosha needs love. He's been through hell."

Mulder opened his mouth to demur, and then subsided again when Krycek dug him sharply in the ribs.

"It's okay, Ringo. I'll be fine." Krycek spoke softly, and Mulder looked at him, one eyebrow raised. "Fox and me - we're gonna be great together." Krycek shot Mulder a challenging glance, and then slid a warm arm around Mulder's shoulders. Mulder felt as though he was leaving reality behind and entering some strange twilight zone. He smiled uncertainly, and then looked back at Langly. The others gathered round, and John Byers handed the sick man a glass of water.

Mulder's mind was racing. He was aware of the heat generated by Krycek's arm around him, and he could smell his subtle scent. His head swam, and he wondered how it would be if he leaned in to press his tongue to the little pulse he could see beating just below Krycek's ear. Mentally he shook himself. This wasn't at all the way he ought to be behaving while Langly was dying. Whoever had said that death made people horny was right. He had a severe case of bulging briefs right now, and he wasn't sure if it was the best or the worst thing that had happened to him tonight.

They were all speaking at once. One by one, they took their farewell of Ringo Langly, Frohike still weeping unashamedly. Mulder had never been good at this kind of thing, and when it was his turn, he was silent, not trusting himself to speak, not knowing what to say anyway. Langly surveyed him for a minute, a hectic flush on the sallow cheeks.

"Kiss him for me."

"What?" This was from left field. Mulder was unsure what to say in response.

"Fox?" Krycek's husky, hateful, sensual voice came from close by his left ear.

"What?" he said again, his mind refusing to process this new situation. A hand grabbed the back of his neck, and he was pulled into an embrace that was sudden, and shocking. Teeth pressed hard onto his lips until he drew them back, and then his jaw was forced open to admit a demanding, probing tongue.

It was a second or two before Mulder realized that Krycek was kissing him, and when he did, he gave a little moan as he felt his insides turn liquid. There was nothing tender about the way Krycek was using his mouth. Somehow, in his fantasies, Mulder had always imagined that Krycek's lips would be soft, and that he would kiss romantically. This vacuum cleaner impression, coupled with the abrasion of teeth on sensitive tissues, was not at all what he'd imagined. He moaned, his body tingling in spite of itself, as Krycek's tongue slid over his, teasing.

When at last the other man let him go, he was breathless, dazed. There was a moment of strange hush as he tried to recover his breath, and damp down the feelings of lust that seethed inside him. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Krycek was no longer looking at him.

Krycek had moved the few feet necessary to reach the couch, and he was kneeling, tears glistening on his face.

Ringo Langly was dead.

Mulder remained, shocked. His world was changing far too fast for him to be able to cope with it. He bowed his head, recalling his meeting with Langly, and the other gunmen, and their insane chase after Suzanne Modeski. He thought of Langly's arrogant assumption that there was no computer he couldn't force to divulge its secrets. He could hear him, tapping at keys, crowing, "My Kung Fu's the best." He shivered. This wasn't how the world was supposed to be.

"Alex," he said, in a very small voice. There was no answer forthcoming, and he lifted his head to search for Krycek. He was nowhere to be seen.

"Alex?" he called again, this time louder, more desperate.

"He's gone." Byers' voice was flat. At first, Mulder thought that he meant Langly, but then it dawned on him what the Gunman had meant. The rat bastard had run out on him.

The sun was beginning to show above the roofs by the time Fox Mulder finally returned to his apartment. He'd been to a bar, and then another. He'd done a significant amount of drinking, but it hadn't done him any good. His mind buzzed and stuttered as he thought about the things that had happened earlier.

Alex Krycek had brought the means of Langly's death to him, and then shed tears as the man had died. Alex had kissed him - for Langly, or so it would appear. He had accepted the kiss, melted into it in fact, and he didn't quite know where that placed him.

He was tired, confused, and more than a little drunk, with the beginnings of a huge headache when he pushed open the door to number 42.

The place was quiet, as usual, and Mulder, intent on getting to his bed as soon as possible, didn't even think to check his couch. He shed his jacket at the door, toed off his shoes as he crossed the hallway to enter the living room, and tossed his suit coat onto the chair beside his computer desk. His hand had moved up, ready to remove his already loosened tie as he stumbled across the floor towards his bedroom, intent on finding sweats and crashing out for what little remained of the night

"You took your time."

The voice was harsh and much louder than his irritated brain was ready to handle. He whirled around towards the couch, and faced the man about whom he'd been having so many dark and confusing thoughts.

"What's it to you? You're not my mother. What the hell are you doing here?" Mulder was tired and enervated. He just wanted to get the man out of his way so that he could sleep. No way did he want to get involved in any great soul searching right now. It was too late for that.

Krycek laughed, low and dirty, and Mulder felt his hackles rising.

"You bastard!" he exclaimed, striding forward now, his fist balled, his body taut and ready. Krycek remained seated for the time being, and yawned, stretching histrionically. Mulder growled, reaching to pull him up out of his seat.

"What's the matter, Mulder? Afraid to come home? Being alone more than you can handle?" Krycek stood, unfolding long limbs to stand toe to toe with Mulder. His hoarse whisper, ragged as the smile of a shark, raised the hair on the back of Mulder's neck.

Mulder sighed. He was tired, and it looked as if there was going to be an argument whether or not he wanted one. He started to speak and then stopped again, abruptly, closing his eyes to try and clear away the cobwebs that were filling his head.

"Are you going to tell me what this is all about, Alex? Why the hell were you playing Dr. Kevorkian? Is this some variation on your usual game? I'm tired, Alex. I don't want to play any more. Go home and leave me alone." He turned to go to his bedroom, leaving Krycek with an aggravating smirk on his face.

Krycek seized Mulder's shoulder, spinning him around as he yanked hard on it. Mulder wheeled, his face creased in discomfort as he glared daggers at Krycek, whose insolent expression made Mulder want to... what did he want to do? Hit him? He shook his head to try and remove the disturbing images that lurked within.

"Get back here, Mulder. Talk a little. I think we both need it." He wasn't prepared for the long, slow flush that crept over the beleaguered G-man's face. "Come on, Mulder. Don't make me do all the work here. Give me a break." Krycek looked at Mulder and for a second a flash of longing showed in his eyes, before the lids came down, ruthlessly shutting him out as lashes curled like feathers onto his cheeks. Mulder suddenly became acutely aware of the other man, his breathing, his face, exquisite in confusion, and the way he ducked his head to avoid his gaze.

He'd been prepared to talk, wanted to in fact, but that deliberate veiling of the eyes, that act of shuttering his face in an odd semblance of submission had made Mulder's anger rise like a knot in his chest and he growled, tearing himself away from Krycek's grasp again.

Krycek growled, no submission apparent now. He crowded Mulder back against the wall, seizing the tie that still hung loosened about Mulder's neck, and twisted his fingers into it until it was tight about the G- man's throat. His face was hard and set.

"You're going to stay here and talk to me, Mulder. You've brought this stuff up. Now stay and resolve it."

Mulder let go a breath with an audible sigh and relaxed against the wall. Okay, he thought. If Alex wants uncomfortable truths, we have those to spare. He bit back a smile and went on the attack.

"Why did you write the letters, Krycek?" Whatever Krycek had been expecting him to ask, it certainly wasn't this. His eyelids flew open again, and his gaze was suddenly wide and a little afraid. The effect on Mulder was visceral, a punch to the gut that he wasn't inclined to examine too carefully for fear of what he might discover about himself.

"Letters?" The single word was spoken in a kind of horrified whisper. There was a long pause, and Mulder felt time slow down in the still, cocooning darkness that shrouded the room. "What are you talking about, Mulder?"

Mulder surveyed him, watching the flicker that demonstrated the man's attempt at duplicity. Strange - he'd always thought of Krycek as the world's best liar. What was happening here? Krycek licked his lips, and the curling glide of red tongue across plush lips mesmerized Mulder. He felt a strange warm state kicking in somewhere in his nether regions, and shook his head in an attempt to clear it.

"The Cancerman left me three letters, Krycek. They were from you. I read them. I want to know why you wrote them. I want to know why you... why you never sent them to me." He leaned forward away from the wall, hoping to conceal the fact that he suddenly felt flustered and jittery. It didn't work. Krycek's hand tightened painfully hard in the twist of necktie that he held in his hand, and his body pressed hot against him.

Krycek said nothing for a while, and Mulder thought that he was just going to ignore the question. He was working on a somewhat less confrontational manner of asking the same thing when Krycek seemed to make a decision. He met Mulder's eyes, and his face was suddenly resolute, as though he had determined on a plan of action and now his way was clear.

"I never intended for them to go to you, Mulder. He only found three? That astonishes me. I really do think that he was the devil himself, because the bastard seems to have known every last little thing, every intimate little detail. Did you know that he had me thrown into the jail in Tunisia? He never came to see me, because by that time he was sick, but he had videotape of me taken and sent back to him so that he could gloat. I found it later." Krycek stopped talking. His voice cracked.

"Why did you write them, Krycek?" Dogged, Mulder returned to the question, watching with some satisfaction as the shutters came down over Krycek's face again.

"Why do you think?" was the strained reply, and the color rose again to tint the pale face red. He didn't answer; he merely shook his head. The distress in his face showed as a tightening of the jaw and a faint wince. Mulder smiled.

"I think you maybe gave that away back in the hospital. Dammit, you said so in the letters themselves. You love me. What I want to know is..." His voice petered out. What did he really want to know? He already knew that Krycek was in love with him. What he really wanted to know was how it would feel to...

*Don't go there.* It was too late, his cock was tightening and filling. His entire body was suddenly 'suddenly primed for action. and he stood, shrinking away in an effort to prevent Krycek from noticing his state of arousal. It didn't work.

"Are you coming on to me?" Krycek's incredulous voice reached him through a cocooning layer of lust, and he took a deep breath. No way could he move right now. For Krycek to realize his current state was just not permissible. He cringed mentally at the very idea.

"Are you that short of dates, Krycek?" Concentrate on dead things, Mulder, he thought - roadkill, worms, Cheese Whizz. You don't want to blow your cover. He's a fucking unscrupulous bastard. He'll use it, and he'll use you. Then he'll fuck you up and fuck off. He raised his eyes to Krycek's again in defiance, and then slumped in defeat when Krycek leant forward against him, pressing squarely against his erection. The arousal he'd been feeling evaporated in a welter of fearful ruminations.

"You appear to be more desperate than I am." There was an amused gleam at the back of Krycek's eyes as swung his hips from side to side, taking in Mulder's current state. "Did you come here thinking I'd give you a sample; that I'd put out for you, just because you're you? You've got a nerve."

Mulder's jaw dropped, and he raised a hand in protest, his demeanor agitated, and his erection returning, stronger than ever because of the anger flaring within him.

"Listen, you asshole. I wanted to try and make things right between us because..." His words were cut off as Krycek's prosthetic hand shot out to grab his shirtfront, yanking him forward until they were face to face and only a fraction of an inch apart.

"Shut up, Mulder." Krycek had a curious smile on his face as he twisted his flesh hand tighter around Mulder's tie and hauled him in closer, so close that Mulder could feel the warmth of the other man's breath: so tight that his own breath was in danger of stopping.

"You know it all, don't you? You're thinking that I'm pathetic. You're imagining I'm an easy lay, and it'll be fun seeing how the other half lives, aren't you? That I've got the hots for you? That I'd kill to get my gums around your plums? That I want to nibble your knockwurst? Hell, why not? There's no secret about it any longer. How about it, straight boy?" His tone was savage. Mulder swallowed nervously, and then grunted, a strange, high-pitched sound as Krycek yanked the tie and brought their mouths together.

The feel of Krycek's lips on his for the second time in twenty-four hours was at first unsettling. Mulder thought that they felt soft, softer than they had the afternoon before, far softer than he'd thought they would although it wasn't a gentle kiss. Krycek invaded his mouth, stripping away his conscious thought and reaching a place that lay far beyond as the other explored him. The breath seemed to leave his body with the advent of that supple softness pressing into his own. Then, his world was reduced to a heartbeat, the synchrony of parting lips, questing tongues, and silky hair beneath his fingers as all unaware he brought up his hands to hold Krycek's head still against the kiss.

Krycek moved forward, pushing against his body until it became apparent that he was not the only one who was sporting an erection. He felt dizzy as the tie cut the circulation of blood to his brain and he could hear the rushing of it in his head, the pounding of blood in his ears as he tried to stay upright. Bright flashes had begun to cloud his vision, and still Krycek didn't let him go.

A shimmering sparkle of otherworldly starlight bloomed within his head, bursting out of him like the tide, and he crumpled, to sag between Krycek and the wall.

Hands on his body, roughly moving him, broke through the fuzziness of anoxia. He felt a sudden chill, and then he was roughly turned over. He moaned, and the hand holding the tie jerked on it, making his throat ache, and causing the blood to pound in his ears. He lay, confused, and felt the prickling sensation of hands on his skin, and then sharp pain that burned, pierced, hurt.

He screamed, and the pain came again. As he slowly regained his wits, it suddenly dawned on him that he was being raped. Krycek was using him, and he couldn't resist, couldn't fight as the pain grew stronger, harsher. He cried out once more. He could hear Krycek talking to him, telling him things that he didn't want to hear as he worked his way inside him. He shouted then.

"Get off me. What are you doing?"

"I'll show you. I'll teach you." Krycek was hoarse as he pushed his way into Mulder's tight behind, and then there was a minute's pause, a sharp intake of breath from Krycek, and the pain stopped.

"Oh, God. Oh, Mulder, I'm so sorry." The constriction around his neck was released, and suddenly Mulder could breathe again. Krycek was rolling him over, and then he felt arms around him and Krycek was holding him tightly, his face buried in Mulder's neck.

"Don't. Please, don't." Mulder wasn't sure what he wanted Krycek to stop. He put a hand up to touch the soft, short hair of the man who'd been tormenting him. "I never meant things to be like this. I..."

"Jesus, Fox, you make me crazy. Nobody else in the world ever made me lose my temper the way that you do. Please can't we stop the games?" Krycek hauled himself up off the floor, adjusting his clothing as he did so. His erection had vanished with the realization of his own brutality. He stooped to assist Mulder, lifting him, and helping him with his torn pants. He supported Mulder, still coughing and wheezing, over to the couch, and assisted him as he sat down.

"I'm not playing any..." Mulder bit back the rest of the sentence. He knew that it was a lie. The two of them had played games since the first time they'd met, and much of the instigation had come from him. He felt ashamed. "I'm sorry. I'll try."

Krycek put his hands on Mulder's shoulders, turning him in towards him. Mulder's insides seemed to go into meltdown as Krycek looked at him. This was disturbing. He shivered. For a long while, Krycek merely sat, holding him by the shoulders, staring into his eyes as though he thought that he would somehow divine his intentions from what he saw. Mulder began to shift uneasily.

"You have to stop the games as well." His voice was still hoarse from his earlier strangling, but he made no effort to move, merely waiting with increasing trepidation for whatever Krycek might do next.

Long moments hung over them, tattered rags of the truth that seemed to stretch time as they sat, each with his own private thoughts, and then Krycek put up his flesh hand to touch Mulder's lips in a gesture that spoke of nervousness.

"I won't play any more," he said. "I love you. I always have."

It seemed to Mulder that he was having trouble with his breathing. There didn't seem to be enough air anywhere to fill his lungs, and his erection was suddenly back, stronger than ever as he gazed at Krycek, his brain sluggish as molasses. There was no sound save for the wild pounding of the blood through his veins, and he sat mesmerized as he gazed at Alex, sinking himself into the shining eyes that held him captive.

Eons later, he leaned forward to touch his lips to Krycek's, and the world seemed to shiver. Krycek seemed stunned as soft, full lips clung to his, sweet at last against his mouth. He sat still, prosthetic hand on Mulder's shoulder and flesh hand laid against Mulder's cheek while Mulder's mouth grew bold, and he parted his lips to escalate the caress.

When Krycek finally reacted, he gave a groan that was harsh and heartfelt and then pulled Mulder in tight against him, turning the kiss around to assume control.

Mouths. Alex Krycek's mouth against his, soft, slick and moist, made him feel jittery inside. Lips, clinging to his, sliding warm and silky on him, tongue invading, probing into the sensitive cavity of his mouth, tracing soft tissue, learning the flat planes of enamel that bordered. All Mulder could focus on was the place where they were joined.

Inside his chest there was a fluttering, as though small birds were trapped there and wanted madly to escape from their confines. There was no longer any doubt in his mind but that he wanted this. Slowly, carefully, his hands came up to rest on Alex's upper arms, holding them gently in an attempt to remain unobtrusive, as if he might scare the other man away if he made any sudden movement.

Drawing apart, it became apparent that Krycek was as affected as Mulder. His face was no longer guarded, and the longing on it was so apparent that Mulder caught his breath. Suddenly shy, he hung his head, wondering how he could do this, cause this effect in this man. Krycek broke the spell, moving back from him and rising to his feet.

"What? Where are you going?" Mulder stretched out his hand as Krycek moved away. "Don't go. We're just beginning to make a little sense." Krycek stopped his slow drift towards the door, and stood waiting.

"Bad idea, Mulder. Bad idea on so many levels that it's scary!" He took another step back, and Mulder suddenly gathered himself and hurled himself off the couch at Krycek, tackling him to the ground in a flurry of wildly waving arms and legs.

There was a grunt as Mulder's shoulder took him in the midriff, driving the air from his lungs. Krycek was borne backwards to land heavily on his back. Together, the two men sprawled, limbs tangled, and then Mulder pinned the still winded Alex, wrapping his arms around him and kissing him, all finesse gone as his need spoke for him.

At first, Krycek struggled, but as Mulder's clumsy kisses continued, it was suddenly obvious that something had snapped. He began to respond, mouth turning under Mulder's and opening to accept and welcome the attention. By the time Mulder finally drew away, the pair of them were hard and panting.

"Not a bad idea. Possibly the best idea I've ever had." Mulder was lying on Krycek, and his face was so close that the other man's breath puffed against his lips. He tried a smile, wanting to be believed this once. Krycek was taut in his arms, and he could feel the fine trembling as he lay, still, but ready to take flight if the opportunity presented itself.

"Don't..." Like the sigh of the wind in storm tossed trees, Krycek voiced his plea. In lieu of an answer, Mulder renewed his assault on the other's mouth, claiming it for his own as he worried at it, nipping at the plush lips before pressing home to plunge his tongue inside. Mulder was by now so horny that he had begun to buck against the man he held captive, and finally Krycek struggled his mouth free to gasp out his capitulation.

"For goodness sake, Mulder, if this is going to happen, it needs to happen somewhere a little more comfortable than this floor of yours." Mulder eyed him narrowly, and then reluctantly rolled away, sitting up before climbing to his feet. Looking at Krycek, he felt connections opening within him, and knew that he wanted him, had always wanted him.

He took Alex's hand, pulling him to his feet and into his arms again, holding tightly to him as though he might vanish away if ever he should release him. He felt a lump grow in his throat. He wanted to say he was sorry: that he hadn't realized just what his feelings truly were. He wanted to beg forgiveness. All he could do was look into Krycek's eyes, and wish for time to turn its wheel backwards. He tried to speak, then cleared his throat and tried again. When his voice at last returned, it was a small victory.

"It's going to happen. It has to." Together they stood, surrounded by the prickling memories of a thousand unkindnesses, a million cutting words, and blood, so much blood between them. Krycek moved at last, a little gesture as though to banish the past, then he reached up and deliberately removed the now crumpled tie that still hung around Mulder's neck like a leash.

There were no more words spoken then. Mulder's lips came down on Krycek's, and there was no more room or breath with which to speak them. Slowly, they found fastenings and catches, removing each other's clothing as though they were in a dream. There was no longer any need to hurry. This wouldn't be furtive. This would have the necessary time devoted to it, because it would erase all the petty hatred of the past and make them whole again.

When at last they stood naked beside each other, they didn't race to the bedroom. Mulder held onto Krycek's hand, still afraid that he might bolt although his common sense told him that it was unlikely now. Krycek stood, straight and somehow defiant, chin up in the familiar posture that told Mulder he was hurting inside. Mulder suddenly felt very protective of him.

"Come here." His words made Alex shudder, but he obediently moved to stand within the circle of Mulder's arms, and when Mulder caught him up in his embrace, he closed his eyes, face set with a determination not to show pain should it occur. Mulder couldn't bear to see it. He sought Alex's mouth again blindly, feeling the sinewy length of the body he was holding as a bright flame, warming him, making him shiver with lust.

The world narrowed its focus until Alex Krycek was all he saw, all he felt, all he could ever want. The press and slide of flesh on firm, smooth flesh was an excitement so intense that he had to hold on to Krycek in order to remain standing. Alex, too, was feeling the emotion. He could tell. The man was shaking as he strained against Mulder.

There were no words. Mulder merely began to walk, still holding Alex's body against him as he moved back and through the door of his bedroom. When Alex's shins came in contact with the edge of the bed, Mulder lowered him down and followed, stretching himself out over the length of the other.

Kisses followed, deep and sweet, each man finding his own truth in the meeting of their mouths. For Mulder, the sight of Alex lying in his arms was shocking to him. He'd imagined what it might be like, but always in his mind he'd seen the other as in control, forcing him to accept caresses. This perfect acceptance of his touches, his kisses was so exciting that he felt as though he might burst. When Alex finally touched his cock, long sure strokes against his own it was as though something shattered, taking him to a place where there was only heat and light and sensation so strong and sweet that it made him drunk.

Alex rolled him over, the rub and glide ceased for a moment, to begin all over again as he spat on his hand and returned it to their cocks, and then, just as he believed that he could take no more without exploding, Alex reared up and Mulder suddenly felt himself encompassed, enclosed in heat that sucked at him, clung to him so tightly that he cried out.

There was no way he could hold back, and he plunged home, stripped by the slick closeness as Alex sank onto him with his own sounds of bliss.

A thrust, and another, and Alex was arched, spine bowed as he sprayed Mulder's belly with thick, white fluid. Mulder could see Alex through a shimmering haze as he felt his body tingle, thrill and release. Afterwards, he could not have said when he finally came, it was so intense, so all encompassing, but he knew that he was crying out, calling on Alex, and saying words that he wasn't sure he ought to have spoken.

Lying, holding Alex to him, he knew that this was the way it should be, the way it always should have been. Thinking so, he dropped to sleep, arms around the rat that had disrupted his life one last time.

They awoke in the early afternoon to a day that was bright and cold. A shaft of sunlight had settled on Mulder's face, making him sneeze. His awakening was sudden, and his awareness of the sleek, dark head that lay beside him on the pillow was not instant. As Alex cracked open one sleepy eye and peered at him, the events of earlier that morning flooded back with a rush that made him gasp.

He and Krycek? The thought jarred. Whatever had he done? Alex's lazy smile made his stomach flip, and a tentative hand reached from below the bedclothes to stroke his arm.

God help me, he thought, his mind reeling at this new development. I'm in love with Alex Krycek.

Later he couldn't believe that he had never realized until that moment how much he cared for Alex Ratboy Krycek. He looked at Alex, really looked at him, taking in the lines that showed around his eyes revealing humor and stress despite his apparent youth, the purity of cheek and mouth, the faint crease over his nose that showed even when his face was at rest, and the pirate smile flashing strong white teeth between the whisker-stained cheeks.

"I don't know what to say." Mulder's voice was flat, dispassionate as he awaited some petty cruelty from Krycek, vengeance for a host of historical slights, both real and imagined.

Krycek's face shuttered suddenly, and Mulder wanted to cry out in protest as the smile faded.

"What do you want to say?" It was Krycek's game voice, the slight sneer obvious. The difference was that now, Mulder knew it for what it was. He reached for Krycek, moving closer to him until he was near enough to feel the heat from his body, aware of the slight hitch of breath that tried not to be a flinch as he drew closer.

"I want to say I love you. I want to tell you that I'm sorry for... for everything. I don't know if that's enough."

The look on Alex's face let him know that it was.

The meeting room had not changed, but the attendees for the final reading of C. G. B. Spender's last will and testament certainly had. When Mulder and Krycek finally arrived together, a bare minute before the appointed time, it was to a room that held only Dana Scully and her baby, accompanied by Walter Skinner. None of the others had appeared, and Mulder couldn't blame them. Mrs. Scully had shunned the meeting, refusing even to discuss attending. The remaining gunmen were grieving for their lost companion, and had merely shrugged when Mulder had offered them a ride. Marita Covarrubias was in China. Alex had received e-mail from her the previous day, and she'd been understandably vulgar when offered the opportunity to attend. Mulder wondered why he and Alex had bothered coming, but he thought that Alex required closure, and Alex - Alex had merely nodded when Mulder had announced that they were going to go.

The same lawyer who had attended the first meeting was present, already seated at the table, papers spread out in front of him. As they entered, he smiled and nodded, making a note on the paper that lay on the table.

As the hour chimed four, he coughed and cleared his throat.

"Welcome to you all. If we can begin the proceedings... Mr. Spender asked that his estate be shared amongst those of you who attended this final meeting...."

After the gathering dispersed, Mulder sat, shaking his head. He'd never been poor, but this wealth was too much to handle. He wasn't sure if he wanted it.

"He owed you, Mulder," said Scully. "He gave you more pain and suffering than any one person should bear. He gave us all that." The baby squalled briefly, and she picked him up, rocking him gently as she spoke. "You two look as though you're on the road to recovery, and I'm glad of that." She turned to glance at Skinner, who was sitting, silently taking in the scene, nodding occasionally. "I'm quitting the FBI. I'm glad that you seem to have found someone, Mulder. I have, and I'd hate to see you alone when I'm so happy." She reached back to take hold of Walter Skinner's hand.

Skinner? Mulder looked at the AD, and shook his head. There was a most un-Skinner-like smile on his face as he held Dana Scully's hand. He shrugged, moving closer to Alex.

Oh, well, it was time for a little happiness.

As they stood up to go out into the encroaching gloom of twilight, he found himself laughing, and Alex Krycek, assassin, traitor and dark force for the Consortium laughed with him.

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