Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 10:00:32 +0200
Subject: NEW: Dreams,dreams,dreams by Katrien


Dreams, dreams, dreams
----------------------------------
Disclaimer: Not mine not mine, I wish they were but they
aren't. They're property of Fox and CC.

Dedicated to my best friends in the world Veerle and Saskia and
to my penpals who encourage me to write more.

Author: Katrien De Gusseme
Keywords: dreams
Summary: characters' reflection on their dreams
         Can't write a story without a trace of MS ove, can't help it

Spoilers: hints to season five (season five hasn't started in
          Belgium yet, but I've seen a couple of episodes)such as 
          Emily and Patient X
rating: nothing dramatic what is that? G?
archive: wherever you want (if possible let me know where it is
         going to)
feedback: yes please, that's how I got to know a bunch of
interesting people (by writing and receiving feedback). I
always reply but in the summertime it could take a bit longer
because I have my internet connection at the university
(summervacation : July, august and September, but I'm checking
my mail regularly). Send it all to Katrien.DeGusseme@rug.ac.be

Let's get on to the story

Part one
-----------
Sleep came difficult, as always. He couldn't remember a good
night sleep ever since.... ever since he was 12. Every time he
closed his eyes the light was there. The bright white light; he
just couldn't forget it.
Suddenly, he was 12 again. In horror, he watched her floating
through the sky, to the open window. It was freezing cold
outside and she was only wearing her nightgown. But he hadn't
opened the window, his father had him forbidden to do that. And
he always listened to his father. He wanted his approval so
badly, he didn't even dream of disobeying him.
What was happening to her? Where did the bright light came
from? It made the room vibrate and drained it from all sound.
It was so unreal, even all those years and numerous nightmares
later. And he still hadn't found the answers to the questions
that controlled his life from that day on. He had come close,
he had made a pact with the Devil to find out. And still, the
answers laid beyond his grasp. He'd brushed the surface but
someone had pushed them away before he could close his fingers
around them. Before he could get a firm grip. They made
promises, 'Help us, and we'll help you'. But they never seemed
to meet their end of the bargain. Layers of lies, that's what
he had discovered, and underneath, .... even more lies.
So he willingly started to participate in a campaign of
misinformation. Only to find out what they had done to her. The
more he learned, the more surprised he had been about the size
of the conspiracy, the global impact of the decisions made by a
few men, over the heads of innocent bystanders.
To this day, he didn't know how deep his father's involvement
ran. But surely deep enough to go after his only daughter. To
ensure his silence? His co-operation? To prevent him from
exposing the lies?
Nobody had told him. And now it was too late to ask his dad.
After all those years gone by, they decided he was too big a
thread to stay alive. Or maybe his father - knowing what they
had done to his daughter - had decided to get the truth out. So
he had made a vow on his father's grave that nothing or nobody
would stop him from bringing these men to justice. His search
had started long before, but is was only standing at his
father's coffin that he realized the end did justify the means.
His mother lived in memories, their house becoming a shrine for
her missing baby girl.
The image of his mother sitting in an old rocking chair,
flipping through the pages of a photo album, a candle burning
on the table next to her in front of a picture of an adorable 8
year-old, was burned in his memory. He only had to close his
eyes to see her, to smell her perfume, to watch the reflection
of the little flame in the glass of the picture frame. Sitting
on the floor in a corner of the room, observing his mother
reliving the past.... he'd spent many evenings like that. It
strengthened him more in his believe of what's his goal in life
was.
When he was forced to leave home, a picture of his sister was
all he'd taken with him. From that day on, he carried it close
to his chest, in a locked once belonging to his grandmother.
He remember going up the hill behind their house and looking
back. In time to see them come to the house, kicking the door
in. And in a blink of an eye, he realized he would never return
to his birthgrounds. Never again.....
Nobody had to know the reasons for his actions; none of their
business.
She floated through the window, he tried to scream 'Take me!
Leave her here! Take me! Kathinka..................!!!!!!'


Part two
-----------
When he bolted upright in his bed, his T-shirt drenched with
sweat, he didn't immediately knew where he was. All the sleazy
motels he stayed at looked alike, but for several reasons they
were preferable: lower costs and managers who kept their mouth
shut.
He got out of bed and walked to the bedroom where he splashed a
handful of cold water in his face and neck. It wasn't very easy
with one prosthetic arm, but he'd gotten handy with it, as his
last confrontation with Mulder had proved. Ironical how much
they were alike.... For a brief moment Alex Krycek wondered
what Mulder's reaction would be, if he found out both their
sisters were abducted for what their father's had done. Would
he then understand the course of actions he had taken? The only
reason Mulder was still on the job was because powerful people
protected him. More than he could imagine. He didn't have those
kind of godfathers. Otherwise, he wouldn't be doing the low-to-
the ground things he was pulling off now. He had to ensure his
future himself.
If it wasn't for the men behind him, Mulder would have been
kicked out of the bureau a long time ago; if he hadn't got
himself killed first. Dana Scully was the best thing that ever
happened to Mulder and Krycek just hoped he realized that. He'd
come to respect her over the years, especially during the time
she was taken away. It sounded like a brilliant idea at first,
but it was heartbreaking to see her lying in a much too large
hospital bed. Being injected with all those experimental
substances made her sick as hell. He'd watched her, from behind
a glass window at first; but it was difficult to tell her apart
from the others, all wearing the same white hospital gown, all
having tubes sticking out of their bodies. It always made him
think of guinea-pigs in a laboratory. But to him, Dana Scully
was still a person, loved and missed by family and friends. To
the Project, she was a number, one of many, sacrificed for the
benefit and the continuation of the tests.
After all the time he spent working for them, he didn't have a
lot of information. But he was smart and there were ways to
find things out. He had reached out to every clue that came
within his grasp and he had kept himself alive, even if
sometimes, it had been a close call.
The consortium wasn't too happy about it and it didn't take
them long to suspect him of playing a double game. They were
right of course, but for the wrong reasons. He wasn't in it for
the money. If they had bothered to check the Russian files,
they would have known. Maybe the files had disappeared.
Vanished into thin air, just like his sister. Maybe they didn't
care, or they didn't think there would be another brother with
a quest. Sometimes he thanked Mulder for being such a handful.
It diverted the attention.
He walked back into the room, sat down on the bed and flipped
the switch of the lamp on the nightstand. Carefully retrieving
the locket from under his T-shirt, he opened it and looked at
his sister's face. She smiled at him, her long dark hair in two
French braids, sparkles glowing in her dark brown eyes. People
had always said how much they looked alike. He wondered what
she would look like now. Other than Mulder, he had never been
confronted with any clones. His search had sent him all over
the world, but he hadn't found her, and nobody seemed to
suspect he was actually looking for Kathinka. Ways to sell
stolen information, that was what they were afraid of. And that
had been the easy part. Knowing a few languages, seducing some
women at embassies, killing off men who talked too much,... He
shrugged at the memories; losing his baby sister had made him
hard, careless about those who stood in his way; greedy men and
women who wanted to use him for what he knew, but they never
helped him any further.
He prayed ever night that one day, he would find Kathinka
alive. After he had seen them perform the tests, he added that
he hoped she hadn't been through this, but he feared the
contrary. When he'd realized his sister could easily be lying
there -as one of the many young girls-, he had started taking
care of Dana. Orders from the CSM, he waved when curious lab
technicians started to ask questions. Nobody ever doubted it.
And he was pretty sure he'd seen his face behind the glass
screen, smoke twirling upwards, when he was sitting next to her
bed. It was easy to imagine an approving smile playing around
his lips. He liked her, Alex knew. Her respected her
perseverance, her loyalty to Mulder; and he loved her, because
Mulder did.
So he had sat by her side, watching over her, telling stories
he remembered his mother telling to him and Kathinka. Fairy-
tales of a life long ago. He made sure she lay comfortably in
the pillows, and brushed her hair. Sometimes, she would stare
at him, her eyes wide open, but there was no recognition.
Of course, she'd only seen him a couple of times. He hadn't
felt bad when she had been taken on top of the mountain, nor
about killing Duane Barry. Until he witnessed Mulder falling
apart and realized this kind of horrible testing was done on
all abductees. He recognized Mulder's pain as his own and saw
Kathinka's face in Dana's.
Sometimes, she would blink her eyes to peer through the fog of
her drugged brain as if she had a vague recollection of meeting
him before, before the white light came, but she wouldn't
remember when she was returned. He never doubted that she would
be.
So he cleaned her when she threw up because of the medication
and held her hand when she fell asleep again.
It was a dreadful experience, one that opened his eyes to how
far these men were prepared to go for the Project. Walking
through the hallways he'd seen the babies, growing in some kind
of green liquid. He'd seen them move, as if to convince him off
the reality of the Project. He'd seen their green blood and
what it did to the test rats. He'd overheard conversations
about a colonization, the dawning of a new age, and he wasn't
reassured by it.
Dana got weaker every day and sometimes he wondered how she
kept hanging onto life. Most of the other women were returned
after a couple of hours, days at most. Bur she had been there
for weeks. How much could her body tolerate? How would she
recuperate from all the tests and the drugs in her system?
But if anyone could, she would. And Mulder would be there to
pull her through.
One day, she wasn't there when he entered the room. 'Where is
she?', he had yelled, grabbing a technician by his lab coat and
shaking him violently. Surprised by the outburst of emotions in
the quiet and eerie place, the man stuttered something about a
mindsweep and reprogramming memories. He'd run out of the room
and made his way to the 'memoryshaper' as they called it. He
would miss her, but at least, she was returned, she was going
back to her loved ones. As he burst in, the technician looked
up from his computer and dryly said that she was finished.
He'd helped to put her on a stretcher and walked next to her
when they carried her to the black van. They were taking her,
dumping her in a hospital. Maybe some of them still had a bit
of decency in them. The CSM probably took care of it, putting
her in a hospital close to home. For Mulder to find her.
Before they closed the doors, he said his good-byes, kissed her
lightly on the cheek. He was sure they would meet again an
then, he knew, there would be no sympathetic feelings from her
side.
It didn't matter, he just hoped someone had looked after
Kathinka when she was lying there.
He looked up from the picture and saw the first rays of sun
peek through the window. Time to hit the road again.

Einde-Fin-End

Hope you liked it. Let me know. Please????