Title: The Agony And The Ecstasy

Author: PEJA

Email: daltonavon@yahoo.com

Fandom: X-files

Pairing: Mulder/Skinner Krycek/

Rating: NC-17

Summary: Battered, near death, a broken man learns to trust....and live again

Archive: The WWOMB...Others ask and I'll very likely say yes,but I want to know where my baby stays.

Archive URL: https://www.squidge.org/~peja

Disclaimer: Krycek belongs to someone else, in a monitary way, but he belongs to me in a free spirit, wild and restless sort of way.

Author's Note: This is an AU....big surprise. If you don't like to see a broken husk of a ratman, don't read,

Author's Note 2: Anson Green is a Nick Lea character from the show ‘Maloney’ You can read his history at: http://nickzone.net/NickZone/pages/NZanson.htm

THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

BY PEJA

Riding a blaze of fiery agony, consciousness ripped through him. The breath hissed through his clenched teeth, exchanging places with the hollow whimper that erupted from deep inside his chest. Grinding his teeth, he rolled off his back onto one trembling arm. His arm gave under him and he barely managed to catch himself with one hand. New flame coursed from his fingertips, up his arm, a roiling firestorm raging through his trembling form.

Choking back a silent scream, he slumped onto his back, cradling his broken right hand with his good one. The slight impact had his insides rattling around under his skin. Curling onto his side, he coughed raggedly, vomiting up bitter metallic blood that kissed his tongue before oozing past panting lips, dribbling down his cheek and pooling in a puddle of blood below him.

Was this what it felt like to die? How much could a man stand and still survive?

Gritting his teeth against the acid ebb and flow riding his pulse into every cell of his body, he smeared away the wetness seeping from his eyes. Tears.... or blood?. Didn't matter, he was unable to see one way or the other. The thought amused him and a soft wheezing laugh burnt through him, dragging a ragged hiss of agonizing regret after it.

Got to get help, murmured through his head.

Breathing shallowly, he thrust past the pain, desperately seeking something, anything else to dwell upon. He found it in the rapid crunch, crunch crunch of shoes grinding hard stones under them. Someone passed nearby. A lot of someones, from the sound of things. All scurrying past, intent of their own lives.

Call out. Make some kind of sound. For god's sake, attract someone's attention, whispered through his mind. He eased in a shallow breath and opened his mouth to call out, but then, sighing tiredly, he let go of the thought. What difference would being found make?

Smiling in his decision, he closed his eyes and waited to die.

**************

"You rang?"

Walter Skinner looked up from the files in his hand and scowled. "Get in here and close the door, dammit."

Mulder didn't wait to be told twice. He closed the door.

"Lock it" Skinner tossed a key at him.

Snatching the key out of the air, Mulder obeyed again without argument.

Skinner leaned down, dipping into his bottom drawer and pulling out a bottle of Jack Daniels with two glasses. He splashed a generous measure into the glasses and pushed one toward Mulder.

"Sit." Skinner snatched up his own glass, taking a slow sip. "Get some of that in you first," he commanded, waving Mulder into the chair across from him.

Mulder picked up the tumbler and rolled it between his hands, never taking his wary gaze off his distraught superior and friend. "What's wrong, Skinner?"

One dark brow arched. "Fortify, Mulder. Believe me, what I have to tell you requires it."

Sighing, Mulder took a deep swallow then set the glass back down on the desk. "Okay, I'm ready. Spill it. What's got you so upset?"

The folder in Skinner's hand flopped down in front of Mulder. Mulder slanted him a curious glance then plucked up the file and opened it.

"Christ." Mulder looked up from the 8x10 glossy of Alex Krycek. He looked strangely peaceful, even with the bullet hole between his eyes. Mulder shook himself, hurling that thought away. "What's this all about, Skinner? Why am I looking at Krycek's file? He's dead . Why....?"

"That is not Krycek," Skinner pointed out the name on the file. "The man who was going to shoot you, the man I shot, was not Krycek."

"Anson Green?" Mulder read aloud. "But...."

"I got a call the other day. Seems they have a John Doe at Memorial Hospital. A fingerprint search pulled up his name. As you know, before I shot the man we thought was Krycek, we had an APB alert out on him. Apparently some wires got crossed and that alert was never canceled. The detectives investigating the John Doe called me to let me know they had a dead man in ICU."

Mulder's gaze dropped back to the file and the photo it contained.

"This guy...?"

"I called in some favors. Had our supposed Krycek exhumed and re-identified. Its definate. The man I killed, the man buried in Krycek's grave, was one Anson Green."

Brow puckered and pouting lips pursed, Mulder scanned the file in his hands. "The rap sheet says Green was unstable. Has several murders to his credit. Took a hospital mental ward hostage, including a police consultant. Says here he killed a cop in that skirmish." Mulder's curious gaze locked with dark eyes. "What was he doing on the streets, sir?"

Skinner shrugged. "The consortium pulls strings."

"So....?" His movements slow and studied, Mulder closed the file. "Krycek is alive. So....what?"

"Drink up, Mulder," Skinner advised, shoving the whiskey back into his drawer. He drained his own glass and stood, waiting for Mulder to finish his drink.

"Think I'll pass this time round." Mulder handed him the half full glass and gained his feet. "Like to have a clear head for this one."

Skinner smiled grimly. "Now that might be the best idea you've had this year." He carried the glasses to his private bath and rinsed them out, then returned to the office. "Lets go."

***************

Mulder crept silently up to the gently snoring man on the bed. Krycek..... Alive.

In his mind's eye, he relived the moments of staring down the barrel of that particular haunt, holding his breath while he waited for the deadly bite of the killing shot to end his life. The vision of this man holding his life in his hands..... No, Green It was Ansen Green, not Alex Krycek smirking over him with that gun in his hand.

Giving himself a mental shake, Mulder took a good hard look at the man sprawled on the bed, taking an inventory of the miles and miles of bandages over his chest, the right hand's splinted fingers, the hard cast on his right leg...The fading yellow splotches that spoke of the massive bruising that covered most of his body.

Fading?

Mulder searched out Skinner's quiet gaze suddenly, frowning. "How long has he been here?"

"Almost two weeks."

Shock spasmed across Mulder's lean features. "Two?" His gaze hardened. "And you knew how long?"

The older man's lips curled down slightly. "Almost two weeks."

Mulder held the other man's gaze for a long moment than turned back to the man who had been his enemy and his ally for so very long. "After everything he's done, I would of thought I'd feel some sort of perverse pleasure seeing him like this." he murmured.

Skinner arched a brow. "What do you feel, Mulder? About this man?"

"About him?" Mulder sighed heavily, raking his fingers through his hair. "I want to put my hands around his throat and squeeze until he doesn't have a breath left in him." He shook his head. "This guy has been my worst nightmare for so long. He killed my father, Skinner. And had a hand in killing Scully's sister. He put those deadly nanocytes inside you, for God's sake..."

"Someone who looked like him did those things, yes," Skinner said.

"Anson Green? You think everything this guy's done can be laid at the dead man's feet? You think...."

"The time line fits and I don't believe in coincidence," Skinner said firmly. "So yes, I think that Krycek was duped into working for old man Spender. I think when he found out what he was really helping to do, he turned. I think that's why he was contracted out and when the car bomb failed, I think our cigarette smoking adversary happened upon a man who looked enough like him to pass and used this man to make Krycek our prime suspect. It's not really that hard to plant prints when you know how, is it?"

"So, what?" Mulder demanded, his eyes flashing. "Are we supposed to just kiss him on the cheek," Shit, wrong thing to say. The memory of a dark hallway, green laughing eyes and a stolen kiss, brief to the point of imagining swam before his mind'e eye. He shoved it down brutally. "...And let him go on his way? No hard feelings and lets be friends?"

"Letting him go on his way is out of the question. In his conditon Krycek would be dead five minutes after he hit the streets."

Mulder met Skinner'e eyes. "I don't have a problem with that."

The man in the bed murmured softly, shifting slightly, then groaning and returning to his first postion.

Smiling softly, Skinner adjused the light blanket Krycek had kicked away back over his battered body. "No, I don't suppose you do, but unfortuantely for you, I do have a problem with it."

"Skinner, what the hell do you want me to do?"

Skinner didn't answer, instead he gave the sleeping man a careful shake. "Krycek. Wake up, you have visitors."

Krycek mumbled incoherantly and snuggled deeper into his pillow.

Skinner chuckled. "How the hell did he survive this long, sleeping like that?" He ruffled the slumbering man's thick, wavey hair. "Come on, Sleeping Beauty, time to wake up and face the world."

Mulder shot his companion a look that doubted his sanity.

From the bed, a shuddering sigh turned in to a slurred, "G'way....Wanna sleep..."

Mulder watched in growing horror as Krycek shrugged away from Skinner and simply rolled painfully into his bunched up pillow.

Skinner eased Krycek onto his back with the gentleness of a mother handling a new babe. "Time to wake up, Alex. Come on now, shake it off."

Haunted green eyes fluttered open slowly. "Wha....who?"

"You awake, Krycek?" Skinner asked, indulgent laughter richening his words.

Krycek plucked nervously at the blanket covering him. "So I'm told. Wha...?"

Mulder's hands curled into fists and he took one aggressive step forward. "We're asking the questions here, Krycek."

Skinner grabbed his arm, holding him back with a warning glare.

"Who did this to you, Krycek?" Skinner asked.

Krycek's head turned, tilting lightly, but his eyes never quite made contact. "What's it to you?"

Mulder threw Skinner a dubious glance. "Come on, Krycek. You know who we are. So you know the answer to that. Drop the games."

A spasm of fear crossed the bed bound man's pale face. "I ...know..? I....." One bandaged and splinted hand smoothed over the blanket, searching frantacally for the call button.

"Hu-hu." Mulder snatched the control up. "What's the matter, Krycek?" he taunted, dangling the box before Krycek's eyes. "Scared?"

A nervous laugh filled the air. "What.... are you going to do?" His hand never stopped searching. His glance never focused on the white call box either.

"Come on, Krycek," Mulder continued. "What game are you playing this time?"

Krycek brought both hands into his desperate search. "Nurse...." he shouted, "Help, nurse."

"Shut up, little fuck." Mulder bunched his fists in the hospital gown, dragging Krycek up against him. "Don't play us."

"Mulder."

Mulder's gaze stabbed into Skinner. "What?"

"Put him down." Skinner snarled. "Gently."

Mulder sneered into Krycek's pain-spiked eyes and did as he was ordered. "Sure, boss. Sure."

"Dammit, Mulder, look at him."

Mulder glared at the petrified man lying rigidly in the hospital bed.

"Look." Skinner waved a hand in front of Krycek's motionless gaze. "He's blind, Mulder."

"Bl...Blind?" Mulder pulled out the tiny flash he carried in his inside breast pocket and directed the beam toward Krycek's unblinking gaze. "Jesus." He shook his head, absorbing the implications. "God dammit," he murmured and whirled on his heel, storming out of the room.

*******************

Skinner caught up with Mulder several minutes later gazing out the huge window in the visitor's lounge.

"Mulder."

"He's faking, sir." Mulder grumbled.

"No," Skinner said softly. "He's not."

"He has to be," Mulder protested, whirling around to confront the other man. "Dammit, Skinner. I...." He sliced off this words with a vicious slash of his hand. "He's faking."

"Why is that so important?" Walter asked. "That he be faking?"

"Because, dammit." Mulder scrubbed his face angrily. "Because." He drew a shuddering breath. "Because I can't get the vision of him standing there with that gun pointed at my head. He was going to kill me. I know that without out a doubt. He had every intention of killing me."

"Not him, Green."

"I don't care. I don't care, do you hear? He had Krycek's face." Mulder railed. "That face."

"Yes, the same face. Different men."

Mulder dropped his head back against the chill glass. "Dammit, Skinner. I deal with weird every day of my life. Killer cockroaches....Alien bounty hunters...." He laughed bitterly. "Old man Spender and his weasel of a son. But this...." He waved a hand in the air. "This is just too much. Krycek died in front of my eyes, for Christ's sake. And now he's lying there, smiling at me like I should welcome him with open arms. Hell, he killed my father. He killed Sculley's sister."

Skinner sighed, shaking his head. "Only thing we can prove is he, or someone who looked like him was there. With the intel that your would be shooter was this Green character, we need more evidence to be certain. And remember, this is the man we know was meant to die in a car bombing. The same man who fed you vital information on several cases. Who can go in and out of the consortium's

stronghold without batting an eye apparently... while they are trying to kill him." Skinner's gaze bit into Mulder's.

Mulder broke the glance, dropping his chin onto his chest. "Two men and the same face. Two men..." He shook his head. "Unbelievable."

"We have the body in Krycek's grave," Skinner said softly. "And the living man in that hospital bed. What more proof do you need?"

Mulder drew a deep breath and met his Skinner's eyes. "What do you want me to do?"

Skinner's smile was positively devilish as he slipped an arm around Mulder's shoulders. "Here's the plan....."

********

Scully met the car before it stopped, scrambling around to the back door and opening it before Krycek even woke. She squeezed onto the floorboards, checking the IVs and slipping a blood pressure cup around one tightly muscled bicep, each movement economical.

"He's sedated?"

"Mildly." Skinner admitted. "Thought it would make it easier to transport him. He's still in a lot of pain."

Scully poked her head out of the car, waving Doggett over. "Getting him out of this car is going to be awkward."

Mulder bolted around, reached in past her and grabbing Krycek by the shirtfront, jerked him upright.

Krycek gasped out a broken moan, his head lolling forward.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Mulder?" Doggett wedged himself between Mulder and Krycek, preventing the scowling ex-agent from causing their patient any more agony. "That man had major surgery just a week ago. He's had his spleen removed. His ribs are mending. Did you know one grazed his lung? Are you trying to kill him?"

"No skin off my nose." Mulder let loose his hold on Krycek.

A hard hand on his arm had Mulder spinning around and nose to nose with a very angry young man. "You keep your hands off my patient, or there will be skin off your nose." the man hissed.