From: verilyverily314@hotmail.com
Date: 12 Apr 2004 07:14:43 -0700
Subject: [atxc-pi] NEW: Approaching Concinnity (5/6) -R- (0/2)
Source: atxc
 
Title: Approaching Concinnity (5/6) 
Author: Verily 
 
Part 1
Please see part 0 (template) for story information.

APPROACHING CONCINNITY (Part 5)
By Verily

See part 1 for disclaimers etc.

***

3:59 AM
29 December 2000
Easthampton, Vermont

He regained consciousness in pieces.  Sound came first.

"This isn't going to work."  The voice sounded angry, familiar.  

"I know."  This one was different, softer.  It took him a moment to place it,
but finally he did.  Skinner.  "What do you think we should do?"

There was an incredulous laugh.  "You're asking me?"  

"Yeah," Skinner said.

"I think we should seriously consider faking his death."  Comprehension was
leaking in along with the sound, and he recognized the second speaker.  Krycek. 

He made a serious effort to open his eyes, and got a flash of a room lit only
by moonlight and of Krycek's silhouette, an opaque, colorless profile against
the Venetian blinds that scored the star-filled sky with lines of deeper
blackness.  His eyes slipped shut again.  

"And you think that would stop them?"  Skinner's whisper rose skeptically from
the air at his left.

"No.  You're right.  It's probably not worth it."  Krycek paused and two
seconds ticked by as Mulder felt, at the very edges of his tenuous
consciousness, Krycek's mind flip rapidly through possibilities and problems. 
The flow, a seemingly haphazard sequence of still pictures and word fragments
that his unintentional voyeurism could make no sense of, raced by him, much too 
fast to follow or process.  Impossible to interpret, until Krycek himself
totaled up some unseen mathematical equation and concluded, unambiguously, that 
it was "Definitely not worth it."

"We could put him in protective custody."  

"Can you really picture him going along with that?"  

"Shit.  No.  He's so goddamn willful sometimes."  

"All the time."  Krycek's voice was dry. 

Mulder managed to pull his eyes open, and keep them that way.  Krycek was
staring out the window.  Watching the road.  

He tried to shift slightly into a sitting position, but muscles, tormented past 
the point of reason, forced to work for so long on so little, were not in the
mood to cooperate.  He clamped his jaw shut on a moan that tried to force its
way out treacherously from behind his teeth.    

"Hey.  Mulder.  Come on."  Skinner's voice sounded very close.  

Mulder opened eyes he didn't remember closing, to see Skinner kneeling beside
him on the bed.  He helped Mulder sit up, adjusting the pillows behind him
before easing him back.  

"Thanks," Mulder rasped at him, barely recognizing his own voice.  His eyes
flicked to Krycek as the other man closed the blinds with an audible click,
momentarily plunging the room into total darkness.  

"Krycek?"  It was Skinner's voice, confused, suspicious.  

"Yeah?"  Krycek said casually as he turned on the lamp beside the bed,
appearing next to them, disquietingly close, undeniably human, in the light of
an eighty-watt bulb beneath a golden lampshade.  Mulder felt the illumination
like a lance, and pressed his right hand savagely across his eyes.  He
preferred the dark.  

"Oh God," he whispered.  

"It's not that bad."  Behind Krycek's voice Mulder could hear a strange mixture 
of the men Krycek had been. The nave kid, the traitor, the conspirator, all men 
that Krycek had made him believe in.  He bent his head, and for a moment he
thought he could smell hair gel in an autopsy bay, and the earthy, dangerous
aroma of rotting leaves in a Russian forest.  He would never be able to leave
those men behind him.  He didn't have the luxury of starting with a blank
slate.

//I don't know what to think.  He confuses me.//  

"You'll get used to it eventually," Krycek said evenly.  Startled, Mulder
jerked his head out of his hand to look up at him.  

"What?"

"The light, Mulder.  Just give it a minute."  Mulder blinked rapidly, fighting
the urge to shield his eyes with his hands again.  

//You can't hear me, Krycek.  Can you?//  

The other man didn't give any indication of having heard Mulder's thoughts, but 
Mulder remained skeptical.  He still had no idea what had caused the momentary
connection between the two of them in his apartment the night that they had
stolen the vaccine.  He scanned Krycek's eyes, looking for any sign of
deception.  

It wasn't deception that caught his attention.  

"Holy shit."  Mulder reached up, his right hand tilting Krycek's face gently,
running a thumb along the dark bruising that marked the side of the other man's 
neck.  Krycek flinched, pulling away almost immediately, giving Mulder a
guarded look.  

"Better than a broken neck," Krycek said with a shrug, gracefully launching
himself off the bed to prowl around the confines of the room.  "It was lucky
you were wearing your ankle holster."  

The statement was almost a question, but Mulder chose to ignore it.  

"Did you call the Gunmen?" He tried to relax against the pillows.

"Yeah," Skinner said from his left.  "I called from a payphone just outside the 
city."  As the AD spoke, Krycek opened a door and slipped out of the room. 
"They were OK," Skinner continued, "But pretty spooked.  They're heading out of 
town, just to be on the safe side."

"Did they say where they were going?" 

"They wouldn't tell me."  

Mulder nodded as Krycek reentered the room, a glass of water in his right hand. 
He set it on the nightstand.    

"You need to take these," Krycek said, pulling Mulder's antibiotics out of his
coat pocket, and rattling the brown prescription bottle enticingly.

Mulder said nothing as Krycek deftly opened the bottle with one hand, and shook 
a pill into his compliant palm.   For a few seconds he tasted the almost
imperceptible bitterness of the drug before Krycek handed him the water, and he 
washed the taste away.    

Mulder looked down, and then back at Krycek.  

"I can't believe you had the presence of mind to grab those," he said softly. 
Krycek just shrugged.  The other man's eyes were fixed on the water, which
shimmered in the lamplight, revealing previously invisible tremors in Mulder's
hand.  Krycek reached forward, closing his fingers around Mulder's, stilling
the water and taking the glass from him to set it on the nightstand with
exaggerated care.  

"Where are we?"  Mulder asked, finally feeling his brain reengage.   

"Vermont," Skinner said, rejoining the conversation from his perch on the left
side of the bed.

"Vermont?  Shit, what time is it?"  

"A little past four AM," Skinner said, checking his watch.  

"Why Vermont? And why-"

He was cut off by the ringing of Skinner's cell phone.  Skinner frowned, his
jaw tightening.    

"Skinner."  

Mulder chewed on the inside of his lip.  

"What can I do for you, Agent Doggett?"  

Beside him, Krycek froze, eyes narrowed.  

"I'm aware of that," Skinner snapped.  "What were you doing at my apartment?"

Mulder felt shock course through him.  Certainly it was impossible that Doggett 
had anything to do with the assassination attempt.

//Isn't it?//

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Krycek shake his head, and he turned to
see the other man looking at Skinner.  Krycek made a cutting motion with his
hand.  

"What kind of information?"  Skinner's tone was suspicious.  

Skinner held up his hand, palm outward, looking at Krycek.  

"What makes you think Agent Mulder is with me?"  

Krycek shot to his feet, rounding the bed in quick, purposeful strides. 
Skinner stood as well.  He turned to face Krycek, hand still extended.  Mulder
sat up straight, ready to intervene if-

"I'll think about it."

Lightning fast, Krycek ripped the phone from Skinner's hand, and savagely hit
the End button before throwing it across the room.  Mulder flinched as the
plastic shattered against a wall.  The two men stood silently, inches apart,
each holding onto his control by a fingernail.  

Krycek broke the silence first.

"Unacceptable."  

Even in the dim light, Mulder could see a red flush spreading over the AD's
skin.  "Unacceptable?"

//I need to diffuse this now.//

"I think-" Mulder began, but Skinner cut him off with a wave of his hand,
talking easily over Mulder's abused voice.  

"I'll tell you what's unacceptable," Skinner said, voice getting quieter and
more deadly as he continued.  "Unacceptable is a man who betrayed his badge and 
his country telling me that I can't trust one of my own agents, whose integrity 
has never wavered to my knowledge."

"Agent Doggett is a moron."

"Agent Doggett is a decent man."

"I wouldn't put much stock in your ability to judge character, Walter.  After
all, I slipped right below your radar when you made me Mulder's partner seven
years ago."

Skinner glared daggers at him.

"Or maybe," Krycek continued, "I didn't.  Maybe you knew," Krycek said, voice
low.  "Maybe you knew all along who I was, and you didn't tell him." Krycek
tipped his head toward Mulder, then continued ruthlessly.  "But more
importantly, you didn't tell HER.  Not before it was too late."  

//Scully.//  

Mulder felt his muscles clench involuntarily at the memory of Scully's
abduction.  Skinner didn't seem to be able to help himself as he moved
suddenly, driving his fist into Krycek's solar plexus.  Krycek bent double, his 
arm coming around his chest, without a sound.  

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Mulder rasped as he stood
unsteadily, looking across the width of the bed that separated him from the two 
combatants.  As he watched, Krycek's hand disappeared into the depths of his
leather jacket.    

"Now you listen to me," Skinner growled menacingly, jerking Krycek up by his
collar.    In a movement that was too fast to follow, the younger man whipped
his gun from its holster, cocked it, and pressed it against Skinner's
temple.

"Back off."  Krycek's voice was low, even, giving no indication that he had
been even remotely winded by the sucker punch.  Skinner released his collar,
and took a step back.

"Drop it, Krycek," Mulder said, his voice steely.  

"That only works if you're armed, Mulder.  I have both your guns. Now, sit down 
on your hands."  Krycek's eyes flicked to Mulder for a split second before
settling back on Skinner.  Mulder remained standing.  

"Goddamn it!"  Krycek said, exasperated.  "I just want to have a conversation
without someone beating the shit out of me!"

Mulder sat down on the bed.  

"Now I want to make one thing absolutely clear."  Krycek's voice had dropped to 
a dangerous hiss.  "This isn't the goddamn FBI, Skinner."  Krycek spat.  "I
don't take orders.  I give them.  I'm not one of your agents."

"Damn straight you're not."  

They glared at each other over the barrel of the Sig Sauer.  

"Do you know how long it takes to triangulate on a cell phone signal?"  Kryceck 
asked.

"Two minutes."  

"With FBI standard equipment, yes.  If the right technology is used," the flow
of words paused for a split second, "The RIGHT technology, you understand?  It
takes only thirty-nine seconds and that is why I cut you off at thirty-seven. 
You have no idea who you are dealing with.  You have no idea WHAT you are
dealing with."  Krycek took a breath. 

"Agent Doggett is not working with them," Skinner said through gritted teeth.

"You don't know that."   

"Mulder read his thoughts.  He would know if Doggett-"

"That was over two weeks ago."  Krycek's words were acid-drenched.  "And I will 
not allow you to make command decisions that might endanger all of us, simply
because you feel the need to take charge out of habit."

"I don't trust your judgment, Krycek," Skinner snapped.

"We have no one else," Mulder said, breaking in.

Their heads snapped around like they had forgotten he was in the room.  

"Put the gun down, Krycek."  He managed to frame his words as a request this
time.

Krycek clicked the safety back into place, looking at Skinner. The gun
disappeared inside the leather coat.  

"What did Doggett want?"  Mulder asked, suppressing a cough as he leaned back
against the pillows.

"He wanted to meet with us tomorrow at a bar in Virginia.  Apparently he and
Scully have some evidence they think we should see."

"He AND Scully?" Mulder echoed, hearing the confusion in his own voice.

"Absolutely not."  As Krycek spoke, Mulder watched him run a hand through hair
that was, as always, way the hell too short.  "It sounds like a setup."  

"He seemed legit to me."  Skinner folded his arms.

Mulder felt his headache return with a vengeance.  

"Then by all means," Krycek said, throwing up his hand and stalking away from
Skinner.  "Go.  Have your meeting.  But HE," Krycek said, pointing at Mulder,
"Stays."  

"Oh like Hell!"  Mulder tried to shout, but his voice, still raw from his
intimate encounter with the Pacific and the exertion earlier in the day, failed 
him.  "I'm not letting him go in there alone, not knowing if-"

"You. Stay."  

Mulder looked to Skinner for support.  "Actually, Mulder," the AD said,
dropping his eyes, "I think you should lie low for a while."  

Mulder caught a very subtle nod from Krycek, and suddenly he suspected that
they had discussed this at length before he woke up.  

//They want me out of the way.  They want me to stay-//

He broke off, a far more insidious suspicion entering his mind.

//He took my weapons.//

Panic crept up on him, gliding slowly from a knot deep in his chest, climbing
his throat, choking him.  He couldn't stay here, not like this, not in forced
relaxation, alone and comfortable with only his thoughts to keep him company
while others stood holding lines of defense.  He stood again, as abused muscles 
protested, needing suddenly to get away from the bed.  

Imprisonment, even with padded corners, would surely kill him.  

"Why did you take my guns?"  His voice was even; propelled by sheer willpower,
it rose above the breathlessness that gripped him.

They stared at him.  Skinner's eyes were cautious, concerned.  Krycek's face
was a confusing mix of understanding, amusement, and something more indefinite, 
as if he had recognized an old friend unexpectedly on an otherwise boring
Sunday afternoon.   

"Mulder," Skinner began, but Mulder cut him off.

"I think I'd like them back, if you don't mind."  He touched his fingers to the 
wall, drawing support from its solidity.    

Krycek nodded, coming forward cautiously, hand outstretched.  He reached around 
behind Mulder, and pulled both guns out from underneath the pillows Mulder had
been leaning against.  He set the smaller weapon, which Mulder usually wore on
his ankle, gently on the nightstand.  Then he handed the Sig to Mulder.  

He stared at the gun in his hand, feeling like a complete idiot.

"But you said-" he trailed off, or his voice gave out.  He wasn't sure which.  

"I lied."  Krycek shrugged, giving him a wry smile.  "That surprises you?"

Mulder just stared at him.

Krycek sauntered back to the window, briefly opening the slats of the blinds to 
look out into the night.  

"Isn't your motto 'trust no one?'" Skinner asked him, looking at the ceiling
like he was asking for divine patience.  

"Look," Mulder said, recovering his composure.  "We need to figure out what the 
hell we're going to do."  He dropped to the bed, pulling his feet under him to
sit cross-legged.  Krycek left the window and mirrored his position at the foot 
of the bed while Skinner sat down to Mulder's left with a sigh.  

"We've got five months," Mulder said softly.  "We need to figure out how to
make the most of them."  No one said anything.  He chewed on the inside of his
lip, taking a moment before he had to admit the inevitable.

"I think I'm done at the Bureau."  

"I think we may both be done, Mulder."  Skinner's voice was pained.  

"They won't let you go easily," Krycek said. "Those who don't want you dead
will want to keep you where they can see you."  

"We're as good as dead if we go back there," Skinner said, shaking his head.

"We need protection," Krycek said.  "We need to convince the collaborators that 
we're too strong to be fucked with." 

"A faction?" Skinner asked skeptically.  "Something to balance Marita's power
base?" 

Mulder sensed that Krycek actually had something more elaborate in mind.  He
chewed his lip.  

"We don't have the resources or the personnel to oppose her," Skinner said, and 
there was a kind of grim finality in his voice that made Krycek's mouth
tighten, and his muscles tense as he stood.  

"So we steal the resources and recruit the personnel.  Hell.  We already have
three people, five guns, and a car.  We're doing pretty well."  

"What about the vaccine?"  Skinner asked.  "Or have you forgotten about that?"

Krycek's head whipped around.  "I've devoted my life to that vaccine.  It's
always on my mind."  

"Then how do you plan to distribute it, if we can't operate through official
channels?"  Mulder spoke up, hoping to forestall another argument. 

"Who says we can't?  As I'm sure you both have suspected, the military has been 
involved in concealing the colonization plans since the 1950s.  You can bet
that there are people over at the pentagon who would be more than willing to
help us.  The DOD already has a base of operations that they plan to use when
the colonists make their first move.  Contacting them would be a good place to
start."

Silence descended on the room.  Mulder chewed his lip, trying to make the
pieces fall into place.  

"You're holding something back," he said finally, giving Krycek his most
piercing stare.  "This isn't just about opposing Marita, and getting the
military on board.  You have something else in mind."  

"Of course I do."  His face was closed, giving nothing away.  

"I want to know what."  

Krycek looked at him for a moment, and Mulder began to think he wasn't going to 
answer.  Then, finally, he spoke.  

"A resistance cell," Krycek said evenly.  "Something that would be active
post-colonization.  Something completely separate from the military."  

"And who's going to run something like that, Krycek?"  Skinner asked, "You?" 
He shook his head.  "Leave it to the boys at the DOD.  They're good at what
they do."  

"I don't trust the military."  

"And you think YOU could do a better job?  No one will join you, Krycek.  Not
because you're not competent, but because you're not trustworthy."  Skinner
shook his head.  "No one will ever follow you into battle, and no one will ever 
obey your orders without question for fear that you might stab him in the
back."  

Krycek's eyes blazed, and when he spoke, it was a low hiss.

"Let he who is without sin cast the first fucking stone."  

He spun gracefully and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. 

Mulder gave Skinner a pointed look.  

"Mulder-"

"No."  Mulder cut him off.  "He's right.  None of us are in a position to point 
fingers.  He's done things."  Mulder closed his eyes.  "Terrible things, but we 
all have."  

"But you-"

"We all have."  

With that, Mulder stood, checked his weapon, strapped on his ankle holster, and 
left the room, leaving Skinner behind in the golden glow of the lamp.     

He left the door open behind him, but soon the light from what he assumed was
the guest bedroom faded.  He edged through the dark, trying to get a feel for
the layout of the house.  He shivered slightly as the warmth seeped out of him
and into the cold hallway.  

Finally, turning a corner, he saw the outline of a closed door, lit in a bright 
yellow.  He had lifted his hand to knock when he felt the unmistakable cold
pressure of a gun pressed to the back of his neck.  

"Please tell me that's you, Krycek."  

"It's me."  The pressure didn't let up.  "But how do I know it's you?"  He
thought he could hear a smile in Krycek's voice, but he wasn't sure.  

"Um," Mulder said, unhelpfully, wracking his brain for something he knew about
Krycek that a shapeshifter would be unlikely to know.  

"I really don't know that much about you."    

"That's not very convincing."

"You still have a stupid-ass haircut."  

"I was impersonating a Bureau agent.  This is regulation-length hair, I'll have 
you know."  As Krycek spoke, Mulder felt the cold metal of the gun leave his
neck, and heard the other man replace his gun in its holster.  

Mulder reached forward and opened the door, flooding them both with light. 
Squinting, they walked into the kitchen.  

"I have cheap Vodka and frozen-" Krycek broke off, fishing around in the
freezer, "frozen lemonade concentrate.  And that's about it."  

"Bring it on," Mulder said, setting to work at prying up the lid of the
concentrate.  They were quiet for a few moments, while Krycek found glasses and 
spoons.  

"Krycek," Mulder began, eyes fixed resolutely on the resistant lid of the can,
"I-"

"Save it, Mulder.  Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it."  

"Too bad."  He pinned Krycek with his eyes, lemonade concentrate forgotten.  "I 
think Skinner is wrong."

Krycek froze.  "About what?" he asked finally.

"I think that we do need something like what you described."  He paused,
briefly, before going on.  "And I think that people would follow you."  He
looked back at the can of lemonade, and traced patterns idly in the frost,
letting the heat of his fingertips brush away the ice.

"I would follow you."  He hadn't been planning to say it, but as soon as it
came out, he knew it was true.  He looked up again, as Krycek turned away,
saying nothing.

"Why would you ever do something that stupid?"  Krycek said, and Mulder thought 
his voice sounded strange.  Muted, and slightly thick.    

"I do stupid things all the time."  

"True."  

Mulder watched the other man's shoulder's rise and fall as he took a deep
breath.  Krycek turned back to face him.  "Skinner's right.  You know he is. 
He could never accept my authority.  Nor could Scully or Doggett."  

"You want them on board?"  Mulder raised his eyebrows.

"Well," Krycek said, "I could live without Doggett."  Mulder gave him a wan
smile.  They were quiet for a few seconds.  

"You must have thought of this before," Mulder said softly.  Krycek nodded.  

"I never intended anyone to follow ME at all," Krycek said.  

"I don't understand," Mulder lied.

"I think you do."

Mulder shut his eyes against the implications behind the other man's
inflection.  

"You want me to lead this resistance cell."  His voice was flat.  

"It's the only thing that makes sense.  Look at what you've managed to do with
the ISU.  People respond to you.  People respect you."

"I don't want any more blood on my hands."  He shut his eyes, thinking of the
agonizing ends of his informants, of Scully's sister, of more innocents than he 
could count because of his quest, his failings.  

"You'd sacrifice lives so you can sleep easier at night?  Don't be so fucking
selfish."  

Mulder jerked as the muscles in his shoulder and back tightened involuntarily.

"And what's your role in all of this?"  Mulder went back to the can of frozen
lemonade, furiously digging his nails under the rim of the lid, trying to get
some leverage.  

"I," Krycek said, pulling the can away from Mulder, "Watch your back.  I stop
you from heroically banging your head against a brick wall, when other options
are available."  He flipped the can over and gently teased back the red ribbon
with a thumbnail before using his teeth to pull it away from the cardboard. 
The lid came off easily in his hand.  

Mulder felt a sickly smile rise to his lips.  

"We head this thing together, or no deal."

"I can live with that."  Krycek shrugged, his wan smile matching Mulder's.  

Carefully, Mulder poured the frozen concentrate into the glasses, and Krycek
added the Vodka.  Mulder shook his head as Krycek pushed a spoon toward him. 
Instead, he sealed his palm over the top of the glass, and shook it vigorously, 
while Krycek stirred his sedately with a spoon.  

Experimentally, Mulder licked his palm.  

"Ugh."  He made a face and got up to wash the rest of it off beneath the
faucet.  

"That good, huh?"  Krycek asked him, eyeing his own drink skeptically.  

Mulder watched as Krycek took a long, slow sip.  The other man's expression
didn't change a hair.  

"Needs more Vodka," Krycek said, twisting the top off the bottle with one hand. 
Mulder shook his head incredulously, leaning against the counter.  The cold
seemed to sink into him, settling into his bones from out of the air.  He
shivered slightly.   

"I can't believe you're actually going to drink that."  Something in his tone
must have given him away.  

"Are you cold?"  

"Not really, no."  

Krycek frowned.

"Well, maybe a little."  

The other man looked as if he were about to step forward and close the distance 
between them.  But he stayed where he was.

"You should go back to bed.  We'll talk more in the morning."  

"Krycek-"  He found himself wanting to apologize, but lacking the words,
lacking even a clear conception of what he had done wrong.  In the back of his
mind, like a shadow that he would always carry with him was the maddening
memory of Krycek's lips in the dark.

"Get out of my kitchen, Mulder."  Krycek smiled as he said it, and gave Mulder
a gentle shove in the direction of the door.  Mulder looked back at him,
nodding, and made his way through the black of the hallway.  

6:02 AM
29 December 2000
Easthampton, Vermont

Skinner left at dawn.  By tacit agreement, neither of them woke Mulder, and he
slept on, oblivious, as Krycek gripped the AD's hand, wishing him good luck. 
Skinner gave him a surprised glance, and Krycek wondered if he had slipped into 
Russian.  But after a moment, Skinner nodded, and jogged down the steps. 
Krycek leaned against the doorway, watching his car vanish in the direction of
Virginia.   

He sat on the porch, watching the new snow glitter as the sun rose out of the
east.  After twenty minutes, he went inside, bolting the door behind him.  He
reset the perimeter alarms, and went to check on Mulder.  

The agent was face down, tangled in a mass of too many pillows and more
blankets than were strictly necessary.  He watched the regular rise and fall of 
Mulder's chest for a few moments before silently withdrawing.  

He went down into the cold dampness of the unfinished cement basement and
stripped off his shirt, draping the green cotton folds over the back of a
chair.  He released the straps of his prosthetic and laid it on the ground.  

He spent five minutes stretching fatigued muscles, focusing on his balance,
eyes closed.  Then, as if responding to some hidden signal, he dropped and
began doing pushups.  Setting a fast rhythm, he counted off sets of twenty in
Japanese under his breath.

"Ichi, ni, san-"  The breath burned in his throat as he flipped onto his back
without a break to do crunches, and finally full sit-ups.  He did suicide
drills down the length of the basement, sprinting five steps, stopping to let
his fingers graze the cement floor, then sprinting five steps back, touching
the floor, sprinting six steps out, and so on until he ran out of floor space.  
He practiced shoulder rolls, hand techniques, and knife defenses before finally 
settling into the balancing exercises he ran though every day, no matter how
tired he was.  

He began slowly, forcing himself to hold one precarious position after another. 
He gradually moved faster, until finally he moved seamlessly into a full speed
Okinawan kata.  His graceful transitions from stance to stance were punctuated
by exactly fifty-five seconds of snap-punches and kicks.  

After he was finished, he strapped the prosthetic back on, and did it all
again.  

One shower and two cups of coffee later, he had logged on to cnn.com, and
settled down to scan the headlines for anything useful.  He skipped over the
latest example of incompetence from the current administration, the news of
perpetual unrest in the Middle East, and the threats of litigation against
fast-food corporations.  Finally his eyes settled on a story that had broken
eight hours ago, in Tunisia. 

As he read, the bright morning light that streamed through the kitchen faded,
replaced by the gray tint that came with an overcast sky.  The change in
weather barely registered as Krycek's eyes devoured the page, the silence of
the room broken only by the soft clicks of the mouse under his right index
finger.  

Though the real events were shrouded beneath an official lie, he recognized the 
names of three of his contacts among the dead.  He frowned, looking at his
watch, correcting for time zone differences, did some simple subtraction.  

He felt a chill race up his spine and down his arm.  His fingers clenched
involuntarily.  His contacts in Tunisia, all research scientists, had been
killed at roughly the same time that the colonists had arrived at Mulder's
apartment.  

He hunted for more deaths with a feverish intensity.  And he found them.  In
California, in Russia, in the Ukraine, in Japan.  Seemingly isolated incidents
all stamped with an official seal, and the plausible deniability he recognized
so well.  

He wished now that he hadn't let Skinner go.  He had pulled his cell out to
call Skinner, when, unexpectedly, it rang in his hand.  He looked at the
display, recognizing the number instantly.  He looked at his watch, then
pressed the green button.

"How did you get this number?" He snarled into the receiver.

"Alex."  Her voice, as always, was smooth, cutting.  But she didn't say
anything else.  Krycek wasn't willing to wait.

"What do you want, Covarrubias?"  

"I called to give you a warning."  He squeezed his eyes shut briefly.

"Concerning what?"  

"They're about to make their move.  They've infiltrated the Department of
Defense, Alex."

"You're full of it, Marita."  He paused briefly, reading the meaning under her
words.  "I'm not coming back." 

"I can protect you."

"You can use me, you mean."  

"You don't see what's happening."  At her words, that snake of fear was back,
slithering up and down his spine in ever tightening rings.  

"Why don't you enlighten me then," he snapped, trying not to let his voice give 
anything away.  

"Your actions yesterday convinced them that immediate and decisive action is
necessary in order to ensure that their plans succeed."  She was quiet,
unwilling to provide details.    

"I have to go."  

"They know it was you, Alex.  They know you got him out."  She sounded almost
desperate.  

"What do you care?"  His voice was a savage whisper.  

"You must know that I never intended for any of those assassination attempts to 
succeed."  

He laughed.  

"You expect me to believe that?  I don't make the same mistakes twice, Marita." 

"Alex-"

He ended the call after thirty-eight seconds.    

Wasting no time, he dialed a number from memory.

"Skinner."  

"Don't show for your meeting."  

"We've been over this."  Skinner sounded irritated.

"Something big is going down."  There was a brief pause.  

"You have new information?"

"Yes."  There was another pause.

"Krycek, I have to do this.  There's something," Skinner paused.  "Something I
need to know."  Pieces fell into place in the back of Krycek's mind.

"This isn't about Doggett or his information at all," Krycek said.  "It's about 
Scully. Isn't it?"  

No answer, which, of course, was answer enough.

"Be careful."  Krycek said shortly.  "Watch your back."  

"I will."  Another pause.  "About last night-"

"Forget it."  

"Krycek-"

"I said, forget it." 

"I'll call you when I'm done with the meeting."  

Krycek looked up at the green numbers on the digital clock above the microwave. 

"You won't be able to reach me at this number anymore.  I'll contact you in
five hours."

(Continued in part 2)

Part 2
See part 0 for story information.


"Understood." 

Krycek ended the call.  

"You'll contact who in five hours?"  Mulder asked dryly from behind him.  He
suppressed a reflexive jump.

"It's 'whom,' not 'who,'" Krycek said, not turning around.  "Didn't you go to
Oxford?"

"Don't evade the question."

"I'm not." He smiled slightly before turning around.  

"Well?"  Mulder was standing in the doorway, left hand braced against the
frame, Sig held loosely in his right.  He was giving Krycek a challenging
stare, green eyes full of fire.  

//Remember that you asked for this when he starts to drive you insane.//  

Krycek shifted in his seat, and cocked his head slightly.  

"You'd look much more intimidating if your hair wasn't sticking up on one
side," he said, trying to separate himself from any whisper of desire.  

He watched in surprise as Mulder walked over to the table and dropped into a
chair.  

"I would threaten to kick your ass," Mulder said, yawning, "But I just don't
think it would be as satisfying without shoes."  

"Satisfying for who?"  Krycek asked.

"For 'whom'." Mulder said primly.  "Give it up, Krycek."

"Skinner."  Krycek said, relenting.

"He left?"  Mulder frowned.  "You didn't wake me up?"  

"Obviously not."

"Damn it, Krycek, he could be walking into a trap!"  The last word was mostly
lost amidst a cascade of coughing.  Krycek grabbed him a glass of water, and
set it on the table.  

"He knows that," Krycek said when Mulder's coughing spell had subsided.  "He
wants to go anyway." 

"Why?"  

"You haven't figured it out?"

Mulder looked away quickly, toying with the cuff of his sweatshirt.  Krycek
watched him chew his bottom lip for a split second before turning quickly and
leaving the kitchen.  He made his way back to the guest bedroom to retrieve
Mulder's antibiotics.  

He pushed the bottle toward the agent, who dutifully twisted the lid off, and
downed a pill.  

"I got a call from Covarrubias this morning," Krycek told him.  Mulder raised
his eyebrows.  "She told me that something big is going down.  That I should
watch my back."  

"That's it?"

"She claims she never wanted me dead."  Krycek shrugged.  

"Do you buy it?"

"No," Krycek said, opening a cupboard and scanning the contents.  After a few
seconds he added, "But I can't see why she would call to tell me that."  

"Do you think we're safe here?"  Mulder asked.

He glanced over at the other man.  The agent was delicately tracing the lines
of his Sig Sauer, running his fingers over the gleaming metal.  

Krycek wanted to say no.  His instincts told him to hit the road, the sooner
the better.  But he knew what being on the run did to a person.  There would be 
no money.  No regular food.  There would be a long string of boosted cars, and
nights at cheap motels on stolen credit cards.  

He's spent half his life that way.  He didn't like it, but he didn't have any
compunction about leaving society behind.  He stole another glance at Mulder. 
He had no doubt that the agent was more than capable of meeting the ascetic
standards that would come with living under cover; hell, he already lived like
a monk.  

Mulder was sitting in the sun, still dressed in gray and navy sweats.  The
other man looked straight back at him, and in the loose clothing and forgiving
morning light he was almost tempted to find the other man a pair of jeans and a 
spare leather jacket and hit the road within the next hour.     

//He looks OK.  He looks good, actually.//

Then Mulder coughed, bracing himself against the edge of the table.  

//And after he's spent two days without food?  A night soaked to his skin in
some anonymous back alley?// 

Mulder raised both eyebrows, prompting Krycek for an answer.  

"Safe enough," Krycek said.

Mulder nodded, satisfied.  "I'm going to take a shower," he said.  "Do you,
have something I can borrow?  To wear?"  

"In the bedroom, down the hall and to the right.  You should fit my stuff, I
think."  

By the time Mulder wandered back into the kitchen, dressed in faded jeans and a 
black sweater, Krycek had coaxed something edible out of the previously frozen
package of Green Giant Chicken Stir Fry.  

"I borrowed some shoes too," Mulder said.  

Krycek just nodded as he tipped the skillet, neatly splitting the stir-fry
between two plates.  He slid a plate down the counter towards Mulder, who
looked at it like he had never encountered chicken and vegetables before.  

"Forks are in the drawer," Krycek said, setting his own plate on the table. 
Mulder found the utensils with a clatter of misplaced flatware, and sat down
opposite Krycek.  

They ate silently.  Well, Krycek ate, crunching idly on surprisingly crisp
vegetables while he watched Mulder push the cooling conglomeration of peas,
chicken, and water chestnuts around his plate.  

"You should eat," Krycek said.

"I'm not hungry."

"Doesn't matter."  

Krycek's expression didn't change a hair as Mulder fixed him with an irritated
look.  Perhaps because Mulder didn't like what he saw in Krycek's face, or
perhaps because he couldn't see anything at all except for an unreadable mask,
he looked down, angrily stabbing a water chestnut with his fork.  

"Why didn't you wake me up when Skinner left?"  Mulder's eyes were bright, and
he was obviously cruising for trouble.    

"You already asked me that." 

"You didn't really give me answer.  Why didn't you wake me?"

"What am I, your alarm clock?" he snapped.

"I don't know.  You tell me.  What are you, Krycek?" Mulder asked, exasperation 
making his voice unnaturally loud in the confines of the kitchen.

"I don't know what you mean."

Mulder's fork hit the table with a clatter at his words, and a few drops of
sauce sparkled in the sun as they flew off the metal tines.  

"I don't know anything about you, Krycek."    

"What the hell is your problem, Mulder?  I let you read my mind!  What more do
you want?"

"I want to know who you are."

Mulder's voice rasped with controlled anger, but there was a desperation behind 
his eyes that made Krycek ache to tell him the truth.  It was a familiar
sensation, this tightness across the chest.  He'd felt it before; in government 
buildings, in foreign streets, in bad suits and in expensive leather, in the
sterile glow of fluorescent lights, and always, always in the dark, but never
quite so strongly as he did right now in the obscene sunlight that reflected
off the snow and poured into his kitchen.  He didn't trust himself to speak, so 
the silence between them lengthened.

"Even I don't know that, Mulder.  Not anymore."  His voice was soft.  It was
the only true answer he could give.  

"Hell, Krycek.  I'm not asking for that much."  Mulder's voice matched his but, 
from the words, he could tell that the other man didn't understand.  The spell
was broken; he felt the moment of guilt and longing pass and then he was Alex
Krycek again, his voice temporarily back under his control.  

"You have no idea what you're asking, Mulder," he snapped.

"You probably know everything about me right down to my fucking SAT scores." 
The anger was back in Mulder's voice as well.  "I don't know anything about
you, Krycek.  Fuck.  That's not even your real name, is it?"

"What is it that you're so insistent on knowing?"  

"Everything.  Anything.  I want to know why you've done the things you've done. 
Why you've spent your life the way you have."

The words were sharp and the delivery flawless but he could still see the
desperation that Mulder couldn't completely hide.  He could still feel the
unsteadiness in his own voice.  He knew they stood on the thinning ice of their 
past anger and, as more and more cracks split the surface they shared, he
wondered what it was going to feel like when they both inevitably plunged
through into whatever waited beneath.  

"It's complicated."  

"Well no shit, Krycek."  

"Look.  America, Russia, Tunisia, the FBI, the KGB, the UN, the
consortium--I've been all over the board, Mulder.  I've spent my whole life
trying to balance my personal sympathies, my personal loyalties, and my
personal need for food and shelter with the job that had to be done.  That
still has to be done."

"Why you?  Who died and made you the whipping boy of the cosmos?"  

"How the fuck should I know?"

His eyes never gave anything away unless he allowed them to, but his voice, his 
fucking vocal chords, seemed willing to pour his pain straight into the air, or 
were at least willing to let Mulder reach in and rip that tone right out of
him.  The other man didn't say anything in response and Krycek managed to
regain his control.  Managed to finally offer the only insight he could give.   

"There's something you have to understand.  Your search for the truth protected 
you, in a way."  He held up a hand as Mulder gave him a skeptical look.  "Just
hear me out.  They never gave you a goddamn thing.  They used you.  WE," he
said, affirming his own culpability, "used you.  But because you never saw the
whole thing spread out in front of you like some kind of bad acid trip, you
never had to make the choice that I did.  I never had to search for the truth.  
I had the truth handed to me on a fucking silver platter, and I had to decide
what to do with it."  

Krycek waited for the inevitable nasty remark, looking down at his half-eaten
stir-fry.  For some reason, he wasn't hungry either.  

"And now?" Mulder asked.  

Krycek glanced up quickly, surprised at the lack of venom in the other man's
question.  He found himself on the receiving end of an appraising green stare.  

"I'm where I need to be."

He looked back to his stir-fry, using his fork to rearrange peas and carrots,
chicken and broccoli.

"What does that mean, Krycek?"

They both knew what Mulder was really asking and Krycek's mind filled with
remembered shadows from a nearly lightless apartment.  He couldn't feel the
fork between his fingers; instead it was feather-soft tangles of hair that
trapped his hand and, even as he tried to clear his mind, the taste of stir-fry 
was obliterated by the memory of Mulder's mouth.  Then, because he couldn't
take it anymore, the air above the table shimmered when the light caught
droplets of oil and water as his fork, too, was slammed down, the tines digging 
into the wood next to his plate. He left it there, picked up the remains of his 
lunch, and walked to the sink.   

"If we're going to work together, we have to talk about this."  Mulder's voice
was sickeningly reasonable.  

"Put it behind us, you mean."  Krycek turned on the water, and started
scrubbing dishes with more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary. The last few 
days, action-filled and breathtaking as they had been, had led inevitably to
this point, when nothing was immediately trying to kill either one of them, and 
finally, he had to hear Mulder explain to him, in an impressive array of
rationalization and psychological jargon, why it was a very bad idea for them
to become involved.  

"Hey," Mulder said, touching his shoulder.  

Krycek jerked away.  "Spare me the psych study," Krycek said, going back to his 
dishes.  "I don't want to hear it."  

"What are you talking about?" 

"I get it Mulder.  I do.  I know what you saw in my head.  I felt your
reaction.  You wanted out.  That's fine.  Just spare me the ten minutes of
talking it's going to take for you to intellectualize it and move on, to sweep
it under the rug of your fucking New England propriety so effectively that not
only will we never have to mention it again, but it will be like it never
happened at all." His voice had gotten too loud.     

Only Mulder could bring him this close to losing it.  

"You don't get it, Krycek."

He didn't answer.

//You won't make me deny that it happened.  You won't make me surrender the one 
memory I have of being given something I didn't have to take.//

"I don't hate you, Krycek."  

"Well that's great." He nearly choked on the thick flow of sarcasm that filled
his mouth.  "I only had to save your life four times and let you read my mind." 

"Krycek-"

//I'm going to kill him.//

"You won't get me to agree that it's a bad idea!" he yelled, finally giving
into his temper and vindictively slamming the pan he was scrubbing down into
the sink.  

//I've wanted you for too long, you blind son of a bitch.//

Mulder's fingers dug into his arm as he yanked Krycek around to face him.  

"I don't want you to agree, you idiot!"

Mulder pushed him back and Krycek gasped as his lower back dug into the edge of 
the sink.

"Listen to me, OK?  Just listen."  Mulder gave him a slight shake for emphasis, 
and as he spoke, his voice was strained, close to breaking.  "You make me want
to fight this war.  You make me feel like myself, like the person I thought I
was before everything went to shit and I became some kind of glorified lab
rat."

His mind was a total blank as he stared at Mulder.  

"You've kept me going.  You sold your soul so I didn't have to."  The other man 
leaned in and their foreheads touched.  Mulder's left hand came around the back 
of Krycek's neck.  "You didn't forget me," he whispered.  "You brought me
back."  

Something broke loose inside his chest, and he had to stop breathing in order
to keep the silent scream inside him, where it belonged.  He shut his eyes as
he pulled Mulder in and felt the other man's arms wrap around his shoulders. 
They stood together like that for a moment, not nearly long enough, before
Mulder pulled back slightly, putting his mouth next to Krycek's ear.

"Krycek," Mulder whispered.  "You should keep breathing.  They tell me it
helps."  

He felt himself smile shakily.  "Helps what?" 

"Everything."  He glanced quickly at Mulder then, who looked as off balance as
he felt.  

"I'll keep that in mind."  Krycek stepped back a few inches feeling his
defenses slip back into place, feeling the control he'd almost lost return in
all its ironclad glory.  "So now what?"

But Mulder seemed determined to break him down completely because he stepped
back in, saying "I'd kiss you, but I'm worried we might end up in one another's 
heads."  Mulder leaned against him, murmured into his shoulder, "We're both
pretty keyed up."

"When are we not?" Krycek asked, trying and failing to control the slight
tremor in his voice.

"You raise a good point."  Krycek felt the fabric of his shirt pulled aside, as 
Mulder delicately ran his tongue along his clavicle in a blazing line.  Krycek
felt the sensation all the way to his groin.

//Do you have any idea how long I've wanted to fuck you?//

"Hmm," Mulder said, working his way over to the base of Krycek's neck.  "Since
that time I 'ditched you like a bad date?'"

//You're in my head.//

"Yeah," Mulder said, scraping his teeth gently over Krycek's earlobe.  "Not
much I can do about it, so-" he broke off to look at Krycek, and then
whispered, "think nice thoughts."

//This isn't hurting you?// Even as he bit off a low moan, he couldn't help
thinking of the agonized expression on Mulder's face when he'd found him in
that stairwell at American University.  

"Nice thoughts, Krycek."  Mulder said, before he kissed him tentatively on the
mouth.  "Nice thoughts."

//I don't want to hurt you.//

"I know.  It doesn't hurt as much with you as with other people.  And I'm not-" 
Mulder broke off to kiss him again.  "All the way in your head. I'm just
hearing-"

Krycek cut him off by pulling him forward and sliding his tongue between
Mulder's lips.

//Too bad you can't make me be quiet by doing the same thing.//

He could feel Mulder's lips curl against his.

//I just threw down some kind of gauntlet, didn't I?//

The other man moved in slightly, lazily tracing small circles with his thumb on 
the back of Krycek's neck as he proceeded to use his tongue and teeth to
completely demolish any rational thought that tried to get a foothold in his
mind.  After a few minutes, Mulder pulled back to examine his handiwork.  

"Totally incoherent," Mulder said, "is a very good look on you." 

"You have an unfair advantage," Krycek breathed.  

//Sex with a mind reader.  This could only happen to me.//

"Well, we haven't quite gotten that far, yet," Mulder said, "but-"

Mulder's response was cut off by a shrill wail that shattered the stillness
like a banshee, making them both jump.  Krycek's hand tightened convulsively on 
Mulder's bicep for a split second, trying to hold onto the smallest fragment of 
the moment. 

Too soon, he had to let it go.   

"Get your gun," he said, shoving the agent toward the table.  "That's the
perimeter alarm."  

Silencer out, he was halfway to the living room, with Mulder right behind him
when the front door burst open and a tide of men in green fatigues flowed in. 
Krycek could see the red light of targeting lasers catch the dust that floated
in the air, crossing the room in a bloody spider web.  

//Are you still hearing me?// he thought at Mulder.  The agent gave no
indication that he was.  

The soldiers stopped just inside the doorway, weapons at the ready.  Krycek
waited, gun outstretched, pointed at the nearest soldier.  

"He wouldn't be worth the bullet," Mulder said quietly from his left.  "None of 
them would."  

Krycek understood.  The troops in front of them were human.  The ranks of green 
parted, and three figures dressed in civilian clothes slipped through.  

"Well this certainly feels familiar," Doggett drawled.  

Rage tore through him, ripping all other emotions to pieces.  His gun trained
directly on Doggett's right eye, he asked Mulder, "And these three?"

"Nope."  Mulder said softly, but his gun didn't come down.  

"We need you to come with us," Skinner said.  

"Over my dead body," Krycek snapped.

"That can be arranged," Doggett snapped right back. 

"I don't think so."  Mulder spoke, and his voice changed everything, for all of 
them.  Suddenly, the threat of violence hung, very real, in the air above their 
heads.  Guns, Krycek had come to learn, didn't mean much with this crowd.  They 
were a communication tool, a signal of seriousness.  Mulder, however, had just
sliced the air with the steel in his voice, sending an unambiguous message.  

//I know that tone.//

If Mulder's eyes were his weak point, the places where his soul, trapped in the 
iron walls of his body, seemed to always overflow and give him away, then his
voice was his best weapon, honed by years of practice into something that could 
transform from deceptively mellow and harmlessly intellectual into something
cutting, a blade capable of the most efficient evisceration.  Krycek heard the
ice beneath the honeyed faade, the effect all the more potent from the slight
rasp that marked the abuse the other man's throat and lungs had taken.  The
three in front of them backed off slightly, and Krycek wondered what they saw
in Mulder's expression.  He didn't allow himself to look.

"Let me explain," Skinner said, trying to salvage the situation.  "Scully and
Agent Doggett were contacted by the military a few days ago while they were
back out in California.  They've spent the last forty-eight hours at a base in
Virginia."  

"Doing what, exactly?" Mulder asked.

"Coordinating, Mulder."  Scully stepped forward, small hands outstretched. 
"We've been helping to formulate a plan for resistance when Memorial Day
arrives."  

"This is a rather sudden change of heart," Krycek snarled at her, his suspicion 
on full display.  "The last time we saw you two," he glanced over at Doggett,
"was when you dismissed us as a liar and a lunatic."

"Mulder, I'm sorry," Scully said, ignoring Krycek, her voice taut with
suppressed emotion.  "You were right.  You were both right.  Agent Doggett and
I discovered evidence of colonist sleeper cells spread throughout the country." 

"Sleeper cells?"  Mulder asked.  

"Shapeshifters.  Supersoldiers.  Units designed to be activated when
colonization begins.  We had to see it for ourselves," Scully said, looking at
Mulder, eyes asking for forgiveness.  "Mulder, I'm sorry.  I just had to see
it.  I had to make sure--before I gave up everything."  

Mulder didn't say anything.

"None of this explains why your rifle-toting friends just broke my front door
down," Krycek snapped.

"This wasn't our idea," Skinner said, jumping in.  "The military insisted on
sending an escort.  They choppered us up here to get you as quickly as
possible."  Skinner looked irritated as he took in the array of rifles trained
on Mulder and Krycek.  "We need you to come with us."  

"Where?"  Mulder asked, his voice guarded.    

"A military base in West Virginia, the center of operations for the military's
preparations for colonization." Scully stepped forward, her eyes fixed on
Mulder.  "They want to talk to you.  To you and Krycek."   

"About what?" Krycek asked.

"They want your help," she replied.  "They could use your expertise."

"And if we refuse to offer that willingly?" Krycek already knew the answer to
his own question. 

"But this is what you wanted," Skinner said uncertainly.  "It's why I agreed to 
give the military your location so they could bring you in."  

"Not as prisoners!" Krycek said, his voice incredulous.  "How could you
possibly think that this would be acceptable?"

"This is just a precaution-" Scully began.

"Against what?" Krycek cut her off smoothly.  "Against what, Scully?  Did you
ever bother to ask yourself that question?  Or did you just swallow whatever
prepackaged lie they handed to you because it was stamped with an official
seal?"

Scully stiffened, her blue eyes like flint.  She turned back to Mulder.  

"Mulder, we were there.  We were at the base.  We saw all of it; we saw the
military's plans and stockpiles.  This is legitimate.  It must be."  She
paused, looking at her former partner.  "Please, Mulder.  We need your
help."

//He's going to cave.//

"What do you think?" Mulder's voice was quiet.  No one spoke.  

//Is he talking to ME?//

"Krycek?" Mulder prompted.  

"It's a trap," Krycek said, eyes still fixed on the men in front of them, voice 
low enough to be inaudible to anyone but Mulder.  

"Are you positive?" There was something hard and tormented in Mulder's voice,
reminding Krycek of the way the other man had sounded when he confronted the
shapeshifter in his office.  The way he'd sounded as he'd put his gun to his
own temple.  

"No," Krycek said quickly, backing down from the hard line he wanted to take. 
"No, I'm not."  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mulder look at him,
just briefly.  "If it is a trap," Krycek said, "They've already got our
location.  They'll drag us in if we don't go willingly."

Mulder gave an almost imperceptible nod.  

"All right." Mulder's voice was louder again, directed at Scully.  "We'll come
with you, though I don't really see that you've offered us a choice." The other 
man sounded irritated, but at his words, the guns were slowly lowered.

Krycek's was the last to go down.

"I'm sorry, Mulder," Scully said, managing to look relieved and contrite
simultaneously.  "The resistance is being run primarily out of the DOD. 
They're the ones that wanted us to bring you in.  They insisted on sending the
troops."

Krycek couldn't suppress the shiver that ran through him at her words.  As he
and Mulder followed Scully out to the waiting car, their path lined with black
automatic rifles, he remembered the way Marita's voice had sounded on the phone 
just a few hours ago.

//They've infiltrated the Department of Defense, Alex.//  

Continued in part 6

Title: Approaching Concinnity (6/6) 
Author: Verily 

Part 1
Please see part 0 (template) for story information.

APPROACHING CONCINNITY (Part 6)
By Verily

See part 1 for disclaimers etc.

***

5:17 PM
29 December 2000
Redcorps Military Base, West Virginia 

Mulder fought to keep from rubbing at his temples as they finally drove through 
the gates of the Redcorps military base.  The trip to West Virginia had been
shortened significantly by a chopper ride that had brought them to the edge of
the no-fly zone surrounding the base.  

He couldn't seem to shake the headache that had been plaguing him since he'd
used his ability to find Stewart five days ago.  He shut his eyes against the
sudden rush of worry that thought ushered in.  The ISU was probably looking for 
him by now.  Michaelson would have called to check up on him last night.  And
if he hadn't been able to reach Mulder, he would have gone to the agent's
apartment.  And there he would have almost certainly found signs that pointed
to foul play.  

"Sir, have you checked in with the Bureau recently?" Mulder said, turning to
his right.

"No," The AD said.  "I wasn't sure if it was safe."  

"They could have a man-hunt going on," Mulder said tiredly.  "The ISU wouldn't
have wasted any time in opening a case-file on me.  Not if they've found the
signs of a break in at my apartment."

"Shit," Skinner said softly.  "That could really complicate things."  

"Yeah," Mulder said dully, "it could."

He fought to keep his face impassive as he felt the persistent ache intensify
on both sides of his head, cruelly reminding him of the twelve months he had
spent fighting the illness that his father had inflicted on him when he cut
away part of his brain.  The telepathy and the headaches were back, and he
didn't know what that meant.   

//I guess the colonists somehow reactivated whatever dear old dad tried to hack 
away.  Or they put something else in.//

He lost the battle then, and lifted his fingers to press against his head, as
if reaffirming ownership for a brief moment before pulling them away.  His
ability, talent, curse, whatever he wanted to call it, was getting stronger as
he exercised it.  More difficult to hold at bay.  He hadn't been able to keep
himself from hearing Krycek's thoughts in the kitchen; he wasn't sure if it was 
the physical closeness or the emotional closeness that had set him off.  At
least Krycek hadn't ended up in HIS head again.  Mulder had no idea what had
caused that nexus, the first time they had kissed.    

//That topic is going to require a great deal of empirical research.  Choose a
hypothesis, test it rigorously under varying conditions-//

His thoughts were interrupted by the ominous clang of metal on metal.  Beside
him, Krycek jerked almost imperceptibly as heavy gates slammed shut behind the
car.  Mulder caught his eye.

"I don't like this."  Krycek's voice was smoky, barely audible.  Mulder could
only see his eyes clearly.  The rest of him was shrouded in shadow and, in the
dim light that trickled slantwise into the truck from a gray sky, he looked
intangible.  Mulder leaned into him, just the slightest bit, causing their
shoulders to brush, needing the touch to reassure himself that beneath the
grays and blacks of denim and leather, Krycek was still present in the truck,
not just a figment of Mulder's warped mind.    

"Well, what would you like, Krycek?" Doggett drawled.  "This is what you
wanted, a chance to lay out what you know for the military, a chance to finally 
do the right thing."  

"Doesn't this seem odd to you?" Krycek hissed at Doggett, who sat directly
across from him in the back of the truck.  "They're treating us like
prisoners."

"I guess you would know what that feels like, huh?" Doggett raised his eyebrows.

"Enough," Mulder said, unleashing the glare he'd perfected in interrogation
rooms across the country.  

He glanced away from Doggett to find Scully looking at him from where she sat
beside her current partner.  Her face was pale, and her hair somehow longer
than it should have been, but it was her, beneath that uncertain gaze.  He gave 
her a small smile.  She smiled back.    

He wasn't certain what had caused the rift between them.  Nothing had been the
same since he'd made his Lazarus-like return from the dead.  So much had
changed for her, so much had happened in her life that he had missed.  The
concealment of his illness, the inexplicable three months that he'd spent in a
coffin, the bond with her new partner that she could not deny, combined and,
like a torque applied to wet wood, warped their relationship into something
new, something less solid.  

He had missed her.

The car came to a stop outside a massive building, a great deal of which was
probably underground.  Mulder stepped out of the vehicle, stretching his legs,
enjoying the feel of gravel crunching beneath the boots he'd borrowed from
Krycek.  The west wind toyed gently with his hair, and carried with it the
scent of snow.  

As the other four emerged from the truck, something echoed softly in the back
of his mind, coming from deep within the building.  He looked ahead toward the
mass of brick and concrete, hesitating.  

"Mulder?"  Scully questioned, already a few steps ahead of him down the gravel
drive that lead to a security checkpoint.  He narrowed his eyes, focusing on
the interior of the building.  

Nothing.  He sensed absolutely nothing.  

"Coming," he said.  He could feel Krycek looking at him, and he glanced over to 
meet the other man's inquisitive gaze, shrugging in response. 

Before they reached the security checkpoint, an energetic man in his late
fifties strode out to meet them, accompanied by four armed officers.  

"Agent Mulder," he said, grabbing Mulder's hand in a strong, warm grip. 
"Pleased to meet you, finally."  He turned to Krycek. "Comrade Krycek."  

"Who the hell are you?" Krycek asked, ignoring the proffered hand.  

"General David McCaddy," The general said, not missing a beat as he moved on to 
shake Skinner's hand.  "It's nice to have you all on board."  There were
reserved nods all around. 

"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave your weapons with my escort here at
Checkpoint One.  They'll be returned to you of course, when you leave the
compound."  Mulder frowned, far from thrilled with the idea of giving up his
gun.  

"Why is that necessary?" Krycek asked, suspiciously.  

"Regulations, Comrade Krycek," McCaddy said.  "You understand."  

Krycek certainly didn't look like he understood.  In fact, Mulder thought the
other man might be trying to kill the general with the sheer intensity of the
glare leveled at him.  McCaddy took no notice.  

Mulder handed over his Sig reluctantly, hoping the guards wouldn't check for an 
ankle holster.  To his annoyance, the men insisted on frisking all of them. 
One of the guards stripped Krycek of both his guns and moved on to Mulder.    

"Is this really necessary?" he asked as the expressionless guard started to pat 
him down.

"Yessir."  Impersonal hands brushed over the loose sweater he was wearing.  

Mulder closed his eyes against the inevitable as hands ran professionally down
his left leg.  Not only was the guard definitely going to find the gun, Mulder
might end up in a significant amount of trouble for trying to get it into the
compound.  The guard's hands moved to his right leg.    

Mulder stared fixedly into space, feeling hands move closer to the concealed
weapon.  Suddenly, the hands were gone, and he heard a startled intake of
breath, and the clatter of metal on rock.  Mulder looked down to see Krycek's
open switchblade lying inches from the guard's foot.  

"Oops," Krycek said.  "Do knives count as weapons?"

Krycek got searched again for his trouble, but Mulder continued past the
checkpoint with his ankle holster strapped reassuringly to his foot.  

"This is the south gate of the main complex, or building A, as it's
imaginatively called," McCaddy said, giving them a running commentary as they
approached the facility.  As they got closer, Mulder noticed a strange reddish
cast to the cement around the doorway.  

"What's with the cement?" he asked, breaking into the general's monologue.  He
reached out to touch it, but pulled his fingers back when he felt a strange
tingle run up his arm.  

"Glad you asked, young man," McCaddy said, fixing sharp blue eyes on Mulder. 
"It's normal cement mixed with magnetite.  We're fairly certain it would keep
any supersoldier that tried to infiltrate the compound out of the premises."  

"Fairly certain?" Krycek said incredulously.

"Of course, we've never had an opportunity to test that theory, but it seemed
like a sensible idea during construction."  

"Shouldn't you be more worried about shapeshifters?" Krycek asked.  

Mulder looked up as McCaddy turned a sober gaze on all of them, dropping the
loquacious front.  

"Do you know how a supersoldier is made, son?" McCaddy asked Krycek.  

Krycek nodded shortly.

"How?"  McCaddy prompted.

"Transfection of human cells with alien DNA using a viral vector causes new
genes to be introduced for things like increased strength, stamina, rapid
healing."  Mulder watched Scully raise both eyebrows at Krycek's words.

"True," McCaddy said softly, "But that doesn't change a person, Comrade Krycek. 
That just gives a man super strength, it doesn't make him a mindless
automaton."

"There are other modifications," Krycek went on.  "Changes in the biochemistry
of neurons that make the mind more susceptible to control, to suggestion, to
telepathic orders of alien origin."

//He's like Scully on LSD.//

"And what does that tell you?" McCaddy asked Krycek.  

"Access."  Mulder said, suddenly, before Krycek could answer.  "The information 
goes both ways.  If telepathic suggestion can be imposed, then information can
also be passed back along the connection between the alien and human mind."  He 
looked at Krycek, and they shared a moment of uneasy resonance, thinking about
the connection that had been opened between them in the dark of Mulder's
apartment.  

Mulder turned back to McCaddy.  "You're worried about spies."

"Precisely," the general said, then turned to continue into the building.  To
his right, he saw Scully hesitate, her face closed, then briefly touch Krycek's 
arm, looking up at him to ask a follow-up question about the biology, unable to 
resist the chance to finally get some answers about the hard science behind the 
intangible layers of conspiracy that had been pulled across her eyes for so
long.  

"Krycek?" Mulder heard her say.

"Yeah?"

"Do you know how the virus evades the host's immune system?"

//That's definitely the most cryptic peace offering I've ever heard in my
life.//

He watched Krycek look down at Scully, and blink rapidly, an incredulous,
guarded look on his face.  Then Krycek nodded shortly, and the two walked on
ahead of Mulder, talking about nucleases and viral defense mechanisms.

Mulder stopped at the edge of the doorway.  

His mind was quiet.  He couldn't hear anything.  He had no indication that
anything was wrong. 

"Agent Mulder?"  General McCaddy looked back at him impatiently.  

With one last glance at the darkening sky above him, Mulder stepped across the
threshold, a strange pressure building in his temples.  Scully and Krycek
stopped talking as General McCaddy began his litany again as the door shut
behind them with a hollow thud.  

He walked forward.  One step became two, two stretched to five, and then,
suddenly, like some kind of mystical radius had been crossed, he could hear
them.  

//This is not happening.  This is NOT happening.//

The pressure in his head exploded into a dull roar.  Color drained from his
field of view as he fought down the tide of alien voices, fought to remain
conscious, fought to remain standing.  

//It must have been the magnetite.  It stopped me from hearing them.  Shielded
them somehow.//

Finally his vision cleared, and he found himself still on his feet, looking at
Krycek.  They stood just a few steps behind the rest of the group.  

"Breathe," Krycek said.  "It will help."  

"Alex," Mulder said, his voice breathy with horror.  

"Don't say it.  I already guessed."  

They fell into step a few paces behind Doggett, Scully and Skinner.  Krycek
released his hold on Mulder's arm.  

"So just to clarify," Krycek said to him in a low conversational tone, "They
were wrong about the cement."  

Mulder nodded.   

"How wrong would you say they were, numerically speaking?"

Krycek wanted to know how the odds were stacked.

"I'd say about forty-five, though it's very difficult to be sure.  Very
difficult," Mulder said, feeling his composure return as he acclimated to the
buzz of voices in the back of his head.  

"Hey," Krycek broke in, interrupting McCaddy's comments to Doggett on the
myriad of evils perpetrated by the New York Yankees.  "How many people work in
this place?"

"This is a state of the art DOD facility, Comrade Krycek.  You have to have
level five clearance just to work as a goddamn secretary."

"So not many, then?" Krycek said.  

"We've got about five hundred people all told," the General said.  "The cream
of the crop from the pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI."

"Why is the building so big, then?" Mulder asked.

"We've got our stockpiles here," McCaddy said.  "We've been manufacturing and
storing magnetite weapons for use in the coming war. We've also got stores of
anti-viral medications specifically tailored to fight the effects of the plague 
they're planning to unleash.  It's not as effective as a vaccine, but it's a
start."  

Mulder shut his eyes, the enormity of the disaster penetrating for the first
time.  They had pooled all their resources--personnel, firepower, medicine,
information--into one central location, in the hopes of stopping alien
infiltration.  They had lost that gamble.  The place was crawling with
supersoldiers and shapeshifters who had been gathering information, biding
their time.  They would destroy everything within the facility--the best chance 
that the country had to forestall mass deaths all over the world.  Everything
was going to be purged.  The presence of the five people they'd managed to
bring in today was just icing on the cake.  

"Everything's here?"  Krycek asked, sounding sick.  "You have everything here?" 

McCaddy didn't respond.  He ushered them into a conference room where three men 
were waiting.  Correction.  One man.  Two supersoldiers.  

"Noel!"  Doggett said, clapping one of the things on the back.  It looked at
him, approximating something like a smile. 

"John," it said.   

"Long time no see," Doggett smiled, genuine affection in his voice.  He didn't
know.  There was no way Doggett was in on this.  

//We are so fucked.//

"Let's get down to business, gentlemen," McCaddy said, "and ladies."  He looked 
at Scully, who gave him a small, frozen smile.  

"Now, we all know why we're here, and so I propose we start by laying all our
cards on the table.  I want to know everything you know about the coming
invasion."  McCaddy pulled out a leather-bound notepad from the briefcase he'd
carried into the room with him.  

"Let's begin with Agent Mulder."  The thing masquerading as Noel eyed him
coldly from across the table.  "Agent Doggett tells me that you have some
unusual abilities."  

Next to him, he felt Krycek tense up.  Mulder said nothing, eavesdropping on
the thoughts of both supersoldiers.  Now that he knew what to look for, he
thought he could almost sense the weak remains of humanity beneath the dominant 
alien control.  But he drove that to the back of his mind for later
consideration.  

The things were measuring him up.  They were going to kill the other four and,
depending on what they learned, they'd either kill Mulder as well, or ship him
off to a lab somewhere, where they could use him.  

Outside the conference room, eight more of them waited.    

He had five bullets left in the gun strapped to his foot.  And they never went
down with only one shot.  

"Could you describe these abilities for us?"  

If he could keep them guessing, if he could just get out of the conference room-

"Agent Mulder?"  The thing kept at him.  

It had to be something good, something convincing, something everyone would
buy- 

"Mulder?" Krycek said, looking concerned, "Are you feeling all right?"  

//Alex, you are a fucking GENIUS.//

"I'm fine," he murmured, loud enough for everyone to hear.  He looked back up
at the man who used to be Doggett's friend, giving the supersoldier an earnest, 
pained expression.  It wasn't hard.  He simply dropped the mask, and let the
very real ache in his head mark his face with lines of pain.   "I'd be happy-"  

He broke off, pressing his fingertips against his temple.  

"I'd be happy to explain," his voice was monotone, and vaguely hoarse from the
abuse his lungs had taken over the past few days.  He stopped to draw a breath
just a little too often.  He shut his eyes.  

"Mulder."  Scully's voice was questioning, concerned.  He opened his eyes as
she got up, and began walking quickly around the table.

//Perfect.//

"Scully, I'm fine," He said breathlessly, unsteadily forcing himself out of his 
chair.  "I just-"  

He broke off, as she approached, letting his eyes roll up into his head, and
his knees buckle beneath him.  He hit the floor with a very convincing dull
thud.    

"Oh God!"  Scully sounded frightened, and he felt an intense flash of guilt for 
misleading her.  He felt hands turning him over, heard a mix of voices above
him. 

"What the hell just happened?"  Doggett, sounding concerned.

"Stay back."  Scully, in full doctor mode.  "Give him some room."

"Does this happen to him a lot?"  McCaddy asked quietly.

"He nearly died less than a week ago," Skinner said.  "He hasn't recovered."

"He WHAT?"  Scully practically yelled in his ear, in response to Skinner's
comment.

"He almost drowned in the Pacific," Skinner said.  

"Jesus, Mulder."  It was Scully again, but her voice was lower.  "Can we get a
gurney in here?"

"Right away," McCaddy said, "We have a fully operational on-site hospital
facility."  

Mulder's blood chilled at those words.  He didn't think that strapped down to a 
hospital bed would be an improvement over the situation he'd just gotten
himself out of.  

He heard a whispered conversation at the door, and then the supersoldiers
stationed outside it began to move away.  They'd decided to push back their
timetable until they could question him, which left him with the best
opportunity he was likely to get to use his weapon.  

He let his eyelids flutter open.  

"Mulder?"  Scully was leaning over him.  

"I'm OK, Scully, just give me some space," he said softly.  She moved back.  

He lay on the floor for just a moment, his eyes locking on Krycek.  The other
man gave him a slight nod. 

Every muscle in his body contracted and he curled up, bringing his hand down to 
his ankle and his ankle up to his hand in a blur of motion.  The lines and
angles around him blurred into meaningless streaks as his eyes tried to catch
up with his body.  He fired the first shot point blank into the nearest thing's 
face.  Krycek was up instantly, slamming into the door and locking it, dragging 
a file cabinet in front of it as a barricade.  

//Four bullets left.//

"What the hell?"  Doggett yelled as he was showered with the thing's blood. 
Scully jerked back as the gun went off next to her ear.  Mulder fired again as
it closed in on him, hands reaching to hold him down like something out of a B
horror film.  Grappling with it he managed to flip it over, and fire a shot
into the first thoracic vertebra.  

//Two left.//

Behind him he heard a crash.  His head whipped around in time to see the
remaining supersoldier throw Skinner into a wall.  

"Noel!" Doggett yelled, but his voice was a blend of grief and betrayal as he
realized that the thing in front of him had ceased to be Noel quite some time
ago.  He was knocked back over the conference table and into a file cabinet. 
Mulder fired, putting a bullet through the thing's shoulder before the gun was
kicked savagely out of his hand, sliding across the floor toward where General
McCaddy and Krycek were holding the door shut against the sound of determined
banging.  

Mulder and Scully froze, defenseless on the floor.  All the energy seemed to
have been drained from Mulder as the scream of the thing's frantic thoughts
reverberated in his empty mind.    

Across the room, General McCaddy dived forward, hand extended toward the gun.  

The supersoldier reached down toward Mulder.  

A silent blur of motion, Krycek crashed into it, and the force of his impact
knocked the thing over the conference table.  They fell together, a tangled
mass of limbs.  Krycek struggled to hold it down, brutally trying to cut off
its airway with his prosthetic as McCaddy angled for a clear shot.  A few
seconds later, Krycek hit the wall with a sickening crack and slid down the
smooth white surface, the back of his head leaving a trail of crimson.  

The thing pulled a syringe out of his suit jacket, turning back toward Mulder.  

"Stop him!" Krycek yelled hoarsely from his left, still conscious, trying to
get back on his feet. 

Mulder struggled, trying to pull away as he was jerked upright and thrown down
on the conference table. 

"Stop him, Scully!" Krycek called again.  

Mulder pulled desperately at the remorseless grip the thing had on his neck. 
He shot a heel directly into its kneecap, but the impact reverberated up his
own leg.  He couldn't breathe.  He knew the thing could have easily crushed his 
throat, but it chose not to.  It wanted him alive.  It had to complete its
mission. 

"Scully!" Krycek screamed. 

He watched in horror as the supersoldier raised the needle, and as it caught
the light Mulder noted it was full of a pale brown liquid.  

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the stream of Scully's hair as she moved
forward, smelled the unmistakable scent of her perfume as the thing brought the 
syringe down in a powerful arc, saw the familiar set of fragile shoulders
beneath the navy blue of her jacket as she stepped straight into the path of
the needle.    

She didn't make a sound as the supersoldier involuntarily drove the plunger
home, completing its motion.  Mulder felt her fall against his right side, hair 
spilling over his chest and the table.    

A shot rang out, a fraction of a second too late, and the thing above him
jerked as the vertebra at the back of his neck shattered.  It looked straight
at Mulder in that instant, and as its thoughts drained from Mulder's
consciousness, he felt a wisp of humanity beneath the fading alien control.  

"Help us," Noel whispered desperately.  "You-" the man broke off as his eyes
went blank.  He collapsed on top of Mulder to reveal General McCaddy standing
behind him, holding Mulder's gun.  

"Scully," he said, his voice breaking as he pushed Noel off him.  "Scully,
answer me."  He stood up, heedless of the banging on the door behind general
McCaddy.  

Her eyes were open, and she was looking up at him.  "I'm OK Mulder," she said,
somewhat breathlessly, rubbing her left shoulder.  "At least I think I am. 
Whatever that was doesn't seem to be affecting me."  

"Just," he said helplessly, "stay still."

"Mulder, I'm fine."  She sat up.    

Mulder looked up to see Krycek push himself away from the wall somewhat
unsteadily.  He made it around the conference table in time to catch the other
man as he overbalanced.  

"Concussion," Krycek said, his speech slightly slurred.  "I'll be fine." 
Mulder helped him sit down on the conference table next to Scully.

"Stay there," he told Krycek, and shot Scully an irritated glance as she stood
to go help the other two casualties of the fight.  

"You need to get out of here," McCaddy said from his position against the door. 
"I can't hold them forever."  Mulder nodded, and turned back to the wall. 
Scully had already pulled Skinner to his feet, and the other man had a dazed
look of disbelief as she led him over to sit on the conference table.  Mulder
turned to Doggett, who was pinned underneath an overturned file cabinet.  

The other man was pushing the metal away from his chest, but couldn't seem to
get much leverage.  Mulder knelt down next to him, still feeling the breath
burn in his chest.  His vision was graying in and out at the edges of his field 
of view.  

For a moment, to his right, he caught the image of Skinner and Krycek, standing 
on a conference table, pulling down a grate to reveal a black opening into a
system of air ducts.  Then they vanished into a gray mist again, leaving him a
narrow tunnel of vision that encompassed only Doggett and the file cabinet.  

"My ankle's pinned," Doggett said, his skin pale beneath his tan.  

"I'm going to lift," Mulder said, drawing in a breath, "Try and pull it out."  

He pulled up, muscles still sore from his sprint through Skinner's building
twenty-four hours ago.  His body screamed in protest.

"Shit!"  Doggett moaned, "Stop!"  

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Krycek boost Skinner into the ventilation
duct.  

"Hang on.  We'll try it again."  Mulder moved to the other side of the file
cabinet.  

"Mulder," Doggett said, "Just get out of here.  I think it's broken anyway." 
Mulder looked down at him.  

"Get ready to pull yourself out," he said, and tried lifting again.  This time
Doggett wrenched himself free, and managed to creep backward out from under the 
cabinet.  

"You have to leave me here."  Doggett said.  "I'll slow you down."  

Mulder yanked the other man to his feet.  "Let's go."  

As he maneuvered Doggett onto the conference table, he saw Scully place a
dainty, navy blue shoe in the bridge of Krycek's hands, one plastic and one
flesh, and reach up to take Skinner's arm.  In a split second, she disappeared
from sight.   

Doggett followed suit a few seconds later.  

"McCaddy," Mulder yelled, climbing unsteadily onto the conference table. 
"Let's go!"  The thick metal of the door warped behind the General's head.  

"Nothing doing, son,"  McCaddy said, "I belong here."  

"McCaddy!"  Mulder shouted.  

"I can give you a good three minutes.  Now get your ass in gear!"  The man
grinned at him, blue eyes flashing.

"Let's go, Mulder."  Krycek grabbed his arm, either to emphasize his point, or
stop himself from falling over.  The other man blinked as if he were trying to
clear his head.

//He doesn't look good.//

"OK," he said bridging his hands.  "You first."  

Krycek shook his head stubbornly, then looked like he wished he hadn't.  

"Krycek!" Mulder snapped.  "Come on!"  

Glaring at him, and muttering something in Russian, the other man placed a
booted foot in Mulder's waiting hands.  Mulder jumped up right behind Krycek,
grabbing the edge of the vent and pulling himself into the darkness.  

"This way." He heard Scully's voice echo ahead of him off the metal of the
ducts.  

"Do you really think that we can get out of a heavily guarded military facility 
through the ventilation system?"  Skinner whispered skeptically.

"It's worked before," Krycek said, directly in front of him, somehow managing
to match the speed Scully was setting despite being concussed and forced to
crawl through a dark, disorienting maze of tunnels with only one hand.  

An alarm began to sound through the building.  

//That's probably a bad sign.//

There was a hollow banging noise behind them, the way they had come.  

"Speed up, Scully," Mulder whispered unnecessarily.  

"Here!"  He heard her excited whisper ahead in the darkness.  The noises behind 
them were getting closer, loud enough that they almost masked the impact of
Scully's shoe against the grate.  Finally she broke through, and Mulder felt a
rush of cold air on his face, and smelled the snow again.  

One after another, they slid out of the shaft, and dropped five feet to the
frozen ground.  As they hit the open air, and began running across the yard,
Mulder felt the voices in his mind drawing intolerably close.  The
supersoldiers were right behind them.  

"Go, go!" he yelled, nothing on his mind except putting as much distance as
possible between them and their pursuers. He yanked Krycek forward, fingers
sealed around the other man's wrist as they sprinted away from the building. 
The other man's concussion had shot his balance to hell, and Mulder was having
a difficult time keeping him on his feet.  Suddenly Krycek pulled away from
him, nearly falling over as he reached into his pocket.

"Scully!" Krycek yelled, and as she turned back he tossed her a keyring.  "Head 
for the trucks!"  

//Where the hell did he get those?//

Asking no questions, Scully sprinted full force over the frozen ground to make
it to the vehicles ahead of them.  

//Thank god she's not wearing those ridiculous four inch heels.//

She pulled ahead of them, Skinner and Doggett following relatively close behind 
her, the latter running gamely on his injured ankle with Skinner's help. 
Mulder and Krycek brought up the rear.   

In front of them, Scully unlocked the metal gate that enclosed a small
selection of hummers and jeeps.  

At his back, Mulder heard the first of the supersoldiers drop to the ground
with a dull thud.  He tried to push himself to go faster, but he was almost
completely spent, his lungs burning as he drew in harsh, shallow gasps of air.  
Krycek stumbled against him, pushed past the point of reason, and Mulder could
feel, at the edge of his consciousness, an echo of intense pain.  

"Come on, Alex," he said, breath sobbing in his throat as he threw open the
unlocked gate.  

The nearest Hummer roared to life as Scully found the right key.  Skinner and
Doggett dived into the vehicle a few steps ahead of them.  

He could hear the footsteps of the nearest supersoldier behind him.  He had a
split second of warning, which he used to shove Krycek in the direction of the
open door, before his feet were swept from underneath him with a fast, brutal
jerk.  

He prepared for impact with the cement, but instead he felt himself yanked
backwards into the car as five hands reached out, curling savagely into his
shoulders, his arms, and his hair.  

"Go!" someone screamed to Scully, and she floored the gas as Skinner slammed
the door shut against the outstretched hands of Billy Miles.  

They left the supersoldiers behind them as Scully drove straight through the
gates that enclosed the lot.  

"Where the hell are we going?" Scully yelled from the front seat.

"I don't know," Mulder said, tangled in a heap on top of Krycek.  The other man 
was out cold on the floor of the Hummer, but his fingers were still clutching
the borrowed sweater Mulder was wearing.  Gently, he loosened Krycek's
death-grip on the shirt, and brought his left hand around to feel the back of
Krycek's head.  

It came away stained with blood.    

"Krycek," he said forcefully.

Nothing.

"Alex!" He tried again, yelling this time.  

Doggett and Skinner watched with growing concern and he pinched Krycek's ear,
hard.  

//Wake up, goddamn it.  You idiot.  You're not supposed to jump supersoldiers
with your bare hands.//

Mulder looked at the unconscious man intently, trying to get back into Krycek's 
head, trying to find even a glimmer of the pain he had glimpsed a few seconds
ago.  Searching for anything that would tell him the head injury wasn't as
serious as he feared it to be.  

Nothing.  He found it almost impossible to breathe.  The air had the
consistency of molasses.  

//I can't do this alone, Alex.  Please wake up.//

But the man just lay motionless on the floor of the truck, spectrally pale, his 
breathing becoming sluggish.  Mulder felt like he was staring down through dark 
water as his vision dimmed and the roar in his ears intensified.  

He forced himself to look up, away from Krycek, into Skinner's exhausted,
adrenaline-filled eyes.

"He needs a hospital," he said slowly, distinctly, trying to burn the
importance of his request into the other man.  "You have to get him into a
hospital."  

"Mulder?" Skinner's voice was soft, confused.  

"Do whatever it takes."  Mulder's eyes didn't leave Skinner until the other man 
nodded.  

"Whatever it takes," Mulder said again, as he felt himself pitch forward,
landing beside Krycek on the metal floor of the stolen vehicle.    

10:41 AM
1 January 2001
St. Vincent Memorial Hospital, West Virginia	

The first thing he noticed upon regaining consciousness was the throbbing in
his head that beat in synchrony with his pulse.  

//Wall.  I hit a wall.//

He was lying in a bed and he could tell, even through closed eyelids that there 
was sunlight streaming into the room.  Beside his ear, he could hear faint,
mechanized beeping noises that penetrated the stillness in time with his
heartbeat.  

The truth hit him suddenly, and he had to exert all his self-control to keep
from moving right then, to keep his breathing even and his eyes closed.  

//Hospital.  I'm in a hospital.  This is bad.//

Experimentally, he moved his right hand and found it, surprisingly, to be free. 
He wasn't restrained.  He sat up, opened his eyes, and reached over to expertly 
disable a monitor in one fluid motion before the inevitable dizziness hit him.  
He plowed through it, pulling the pulse-ox sensor from his finger with his
teeth, and then reaching up to remove the tubing carrying oxygen.  As his
vision cleared, he contemplated the IV that was inserted into his right arm. 
It was going to be very difficult to remove the needle without ripping his arm
open in the process.  

He tried to think through another wave of dizziness, but he lost the battle and 
had to lower his head down between his knees.  It was at that point he noticed
he was not alone in the room.  

Mulder was sitting in a chair that he'd pulled quite close to the bed. 
Apparently the agent had been reading him some Dostoevsky before falling
asleep, slumped over the bed near Krycek's left hip.  His head was buried in
his arms, fingers folded between the pages of the book.  He showed no signs of
waking under Krycek's scrutiny.  

//I need to get out of here.  I can't believe I'm not already dead.//

He turned back to the IV, attempting to delicately wrap his teeth around the
plastic tubing.  

"Agent Alexander!" Scully's voice was a whispered hiss as she stared at him,
eyes wide from the open doorway.  She walked over quickly, high heels clicking
on the tile floor.

//What did she just call me?//

"What are you doing?" she asked him softly, forcing him back down to lie flat
on his back, hooking the oxygen tubing back where it belonged.  "Just lie
still," she said.  "Your pressure is still low.  You shouldn't be sitting
up."

(Continued in part 2)

Part 2
See part 0 for story information.


"Scully," he said, confused.  "I can't be here.  None of you should be here. 
They'll trace me.  They'll find him."  Both their eyes flicked to Mulder.  

"They won't." She clipped the pulse oximeter back onto his finger before
turning the monitor back on.  

"There's no real Agent Alexander," he hissed at her.  "Someone will find out. 
They'll realize it's me."  

"They won't," she said again, bracing her hands on the mattress.  "There is a
real Agent Alexander.  He has a personnel file, a list of commendations and
reprimands, and most importantly, a complete medical history.  There won't be
any questions from the staff.  You're totally legit." 

"How is that possible?" he asked her, feeling the dizziness hit him full force. 

"You didn't know?" She said, cocking her head at him.  "Mulder asked Byers to
hack into the FBI mainframe and give you an identity and a history.  You've had 
a personnel file for several days now."  

"I have?"

"It was news to us as well," Scully said.  "Skinner got in touch with the
Gunmen, asking them to set up a file for you on short notice, something quick
and dirty we could use to check you in with.  Frohike had medical records and
identification for you ready to fax, though."

He felt himself begin to calm down.  

"I thought you knew," Scully said.  "I thought you two had set it up together
to cover this sort of eventuality."  

"No," Krycek said again, shaking his head.  "He never told me."

"He never told any of us either," Scully said with a small smile.  "That made
for a pretty tense twelve minutes between the time he passed out and we called
the Gunmen."  

The words took a moment to process completely.

"He WHAT?" Krycek said, wincing as his voice got too loud and seemed to
reverberate in painful echoes against his skull.

He looked over at Mulder, who hadn't moved, even at his outburst.  He
critically watched the agent's chest rise and fall.  Krycek realized with a
start that the blanket draped over Mulder's shoulders had hidden the scrubs
that the agent was wearing.  

"Is he OK?" he asked, looking up at Scully.  She stared down at him with a
strange expression on her face.  

"Yeah.  He's fine, just tired."  Somehow, her eyes had become more guarded, as
if she'd suddenly remembered whom she was talking to.  He shut his eyes against 
the tightness of her mouth, her closed expression. 

He let his mind slip back over the events at Redcorps military base,
remembering his short grappling match with the supersoldier, the impact with
the wall, then screaming something.  There had been something he wanted Scully
to do.  

The memory hit him in a flash, as he remembered seeing Mulder struggling as the 
supersoldier held him down against the conference table, syringe held high in
one hand, remembered screaming for Scully, the last one standing to somehow
succeed in protecting Mulder where three men, all taller and stronger than she
was, had failed.  

And she had.  

"Scully!" He tried to sit up again with the force of the memory, and got a stab 
of pain through the back of his skull and a small hand planted square in the
middle of his chest for his trouble.

"Damn it, Krycek, just lie down!"  She gave him a stern look.  "I swear, you're 
worse than Mulder.  At least he doesn't know how to turn off the heart
monitor-"

"What was in that syringe?" He cut her off.  "You got injected with something."

"Magnetite," she said shortly.  "I got my blood-work back, and it was just a
suspension of magnetite in Freund's adjuvant.  There were no adverse effects,"
she said.  Her expression darkened.  "I don't know what they expected it to do
to Mulder."  

"They might have been trying to turn his abilities off," Krycek speculated,
"but he seemed pretty sure that they couldn't hear him, so I don't know how
they'd determine whether it worked or not-"  He broke off as another wave of
dizziness swept over him.  

"Look, Krycek, you really need to get some rest.  They had to surgically
relieve the pressure on your brain."  She stood for a moment, and he thought
maybe she was struggling with herself, torn between amity and hate, between the 
friend he'd saved and the sister he'd killed, between forgiveness and anger.  

"We weren't sure you were going to make it," she said softly, and he saw no
resolution to the conflict in her eyes.  She turned to go.        

"Hey, Scully."  

She half turned back toward him.  

"Back in the conference room," he said, his voice slightly thick with
exhaustion and intravenously delivered drugs, "that was damn gutsy, stepping in 
front of that needle."  

She looked at him, quirking an eyebrow, giving him an involuntary half-smile.  

"Damn gutsy."     

"Thanks, Krycek."  There was a fierce pride in her eyes, like maybe his
compliment, for some reason, had meant something to her.  And then, pride
changing to wariness, her smile becoming more uncertain, she continued, like
she was holding out an offering.  

"He was very worried, you know."  She tipped her head slightly toward Mulder. 
"I think he might like it if you woke him up."  

"OK," he said, inaudibly, knowing that she'd just given him something that he
didn't come close to deserving.  

"I'll be right outside, if you need anything."  

"Thanks, Scully."  

He turned over, onto his left side, ignoring the complaints from his bandaged
head.  He took the awkward angles and lines of the agent's body.  He was amazed 
that Mulder could sleep so deeply in such an uncomfortable position.  

"Hey, Tovarich," he whispered, running a shaky hand through Mulder's hair. 
"Wake up."  

Mulder didn't even twitch.  

"Mulder," he said a little louder, giving the other man's hair a gentle tug. 
Finally he found himself looking into sleep-dazed eyes.  

"Hey," he said.

"Hey yourself," Mulder replied, lifting his head and giving Krycek a smile that 
was almost shy.  "How are you feeling?"

"All things considered?  Pretty good."  He smiled back at Mulder.  "Shouldn't
you be in bed?"

"Been there, done that, got bored." Mulder sat up, using both hands to shield
his eyes from the sun.  Krycek watched him press his thumbs into his
temples.

"Headache?"

Mulder gave him a sharp look from shaded eyes.  "No, not really.  It's just
bright in here."

"You could always close the curtains," Krycek pointed out.

"You look good in blinding white," Mulder said.

"So that's why you're in here?  To admire the view?"

"Actually," Mulder said, sitting up to massage his neck, "I'm here to collect a 
debt."

"That figures.  What kind of debt?"

"Well," Mulder continued, moving his chair slightly closer, "As you may or may
not know, last night was New Year's Eve.  And with you unconscious, and Agent
Doggett in a bad mood, I ended up with no one to kiss when the ball dropped." 
The agent gave him a stern look.  "I blame you for this."  

"What about Scully?"    

"Neither she nor Skinner were anywhere to be found," Mulder said archly.       

"So how are you planning-" 

Mulder cut him off, leaning over to kiss him gently before pulling back. 
Krycek caught the back of his neck, preventing him from pulling away, deepening 
the kiss.  In the background, he could hear the heart monitor speed up.  

"Easy," Mulder said softly.  "Your pressure is still pretty low, and I really
don't want to have to explain to Scully why you passed out while lying flat on
your back."  

"Good point," Krycek said, shutting his eyes against a wave of dizziness as he
reluctantly let Mulder pull back.  "You should go back to bed," he said.  

"I will," Mulder said, curling his fingers through Krycek's.  "Eventually."  

His eyes slipped shut of their own accord but he pulled them open again, too
many unanswered questions pounding through his head, keeping sleep at bay.

"Where are Skinner and Doggett?"  

"Skinner's here, doing guard duty.  Doggett flew back to DC this morning to try 
and cover our asses.  OPR is pissed--he and Scully were AWOL for six days, and
Skinner and I were gone for four."  

"The ISU must have started looking for you," Krycek said.

"They did," Mulder said.  "They opened a file three days ago."  

"Shit.  They could use a manhunt as an official excuse to bring us all in. 
It's perfect.  No one would ever-"

"The case was closed yesterday." Mulder cut off the slurred slide of Krycek's
words with a shake of his head.  "Michaelson showed up here."  

"Alone?"

"He brought Stewart."  Mulder smiled absently.  

"But how did they know you were here?"  

"They didn't.  They were looking through hospital admissions for my name, which 
was a waste of time, since Scully admitted me as George Hale.  But during their 
search they came across Special Agent Victor Alexander, who had been admitted
at St. Vincent's in Virginia.  They came here to question you about my
whereabouts."

"Michaelson remembered me?"

"He's a good agent."

"What did you tell them, when they found you?"

"Everything, Krycek.  I told them everything."  Mulder looked out the window,
running the fingers of his left hand through his hair like he was trying to
massage away an ache.  

"What did they say?"  

Mulder smiled weakly.  "They're on board," he said, "with a few understandable
reservations.  Scully and Skinner talked with them as well.  I think that
helped convince them that I wasn't-"

"What?"

"Well, crazy."  

"You're not crazy."

"That's sweet of you to say."  Mulder gave him a wry smile.  "Anyway, they're
going back to the Bureau for now.  They, along with Agent Doggett, are going to 
put the official stamp on a lie that's already being arranged by Skinner and
the Gunmen."  

Krycek raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

"I'm going on indefinite medical leave.  Skinner is going to resign
immediately.  Doggett and Scully are going to stick it out at the Bureau for a
few months, get the vaccine we stole manufactured and distributed to as much of 
the population as possible before they drop off the radar as well."

"And after everyone leaves the FBI?  What's the plan?" Krycek asked, watching
Mulder shield his eyes against the suddenly brighter glare of sunlight that
filled the room.  

"Nothing concrete yet," Mulder said, "We were waiting for you to wake up."

He started to sit up.  "I can-"

"I know you can."  Mulder stopped him with a wave of his hand.  "But you don't
have to.  We have a few days."

"Not many," Krycek said, hearing his words blur together.

"Not many," Mulder echoed, "but enough for you to get off that stuff."  He
pointed to the intravenous line in Krycek's arm.  "I think people will take you 
more seriously if you don't sound like you're drunk."

Krycek tried to come up with a smart-ass comment to fire back at the other man, 
but his brain wasn't up to its usual acerbic standards.  So instead, he just
watched Mulder flip through the pages of "Notes From the Underground" until he
found his place.  Krycek listened to the translation, but after a few moments
the English started to split apart.  First he was no longer following
sentences, then the words ceased to hang together, until, finally nothing made
sense anymore, and Dostoevsky ceased to exist.  It was only the sound of
Mulder's voice that penetrated, that stayed with him as the room faded away and 
he slept.    

EPILOGUE

"Why are we here?" he asked me.  

I wasn't sure what he meant by that.  It could have been an expression of
disgust that we were spending our last night of freedom in Salt Lake City, of
all places, which is not exactly known for its nightlife.  It could have been
something a bit more philosophical, a question on the purpose or direction of
humanity, which I was definitely not qualified to answer, even though I had
speculated at length on that topic myself.  More likely, it had to do with
us.

We are an "us" now.  There's no question about that.  To say we're a couple
puts too mundane a spin on what we have.  It's edgier and darker than
that--need and scars and fate combined into a tangle of emotion that I don't
dare call love.  Not even to myself, when I'm alone.  

So many people talk about love like it's something that comes in a heart shaped 
box or can be wrapped in tin foil.  It's not like that for us.  There's almost
as much anger between us as affection, despite those first few days of
forgiveness that started us on this path.  The scars we've given each other in
the past only throb when we're waiting now, bored, in the tense moments between 
operations.  The anger, I think, may eventually fade if we can finally master
the elusive art of absolution.  

Until that point, if it ever comes, we'll continue as we have for the past few
months.  Eating, sleeping, and working together.  Frequently throwing one
another over the nearest horizontal surface and fucking together.  Sometimes,
when we can get past the knee-jerk arguments that trap us, sometimes, we talk
together.  That's been happening more and more recently, and call me
sentimental, but I think that's what I like the most about this arrangement.  

My thoughts are wandering, and he's looking at me.  I can tell, even though I
can't see his face in the darkness that's fallen over the Wasatch Mountains. 
He's waiting for an answer, sitting next to me on the hood of the red
convertible we boosted two hours ago.  We stopped before we left the city to
watch the sun go down behind the mountains in the west.  

Just as he turns away, convinced I'm not going to answer, I catch his chin in
my hand.  

"Beats me," I say, and lean in to kiss him while I can, sure that this luck is
not going to last.    

THE END