-----------------------
Deslea R. Judd can now be reached at deslea@deslea.com and her fic at
http://fiction.deslea.com.  This information replaces all information found
elsewhere in this file.
-----------------------

From: Deslea R. Judd <drjudd@primus.com.au>
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 02:30:24 +1000
Subject: NEW WIP Not My Lover Introduction *NC17* (Krycek/Marita mytharc) 

NEW WIP Not My Lover Introduction
Deslea R. Judd
drjudd@primus.com.au drjudd@catholic.org
Copyright 2000

Cover Graphic is currently available at:
http://home.primus.com.au/drjudd/notmy2.jpg

Disclaimer:  I don't own the characters, but I own this interpretation of
them.  I also own lots of more detailed disclaimers - write if you want 'em,
because the readers don't.

Archive: Yes, without alteration.
Spoilers/Timeframe: Mytharc Ascension to Requiem.
Category/Keywords: romance, angst, mytharc, Krycek/Covarrubias.
Rating: NC17 for sex.
Summary: In a world of changing allegiances, only Alex and Marita will have
the strength and permanence with which to lead the Russian project.  But
will they have strength to survive the American agenda?  Tells the mytharc
from Alex and Marita's perspective.

More stories: http://home.primus.com.au/drjudd/fun.html (soon to be
http://www.deslea.com) - Scully/Skinner/mytharc, a little MSR, humour, and
angst.  Cover graphics at this page for several of my stories including this
one.  Subscribe to my update list: drjuddfiction-subscribe@egroups.com

A Little Gratuitous Author's Note: This story veers radically away from my
usual style.  It deals with murky characters with very flawed motives.
Nonetheless, it echoes my earlier work with Scully and Skinner in that, in
this interpretation of the X Files canon, Alex and Marita are people who
share a great love, and live that out in partnership while seeking that
which is right as they understand it.  You won't find dark-and-dirty Ratboy
and Blondie here - rather, you will find radically flawed yet deeply
convicted people who understand their own particular shade of grey as a kind
of good.  It is, in part, an exploration of what good and evil might really
mean in the context of the colonisation threat.  Is good, absolute good?  Is
it the greatest good for the greatest number?  And is the only real evil
that of doing nothing?  I have not altered the canon in any way, and have
endeavoured to stay in character; and I hope that you, Gentle Reader, will
see the richness and complexity of Alex, in particular, that I have come to
embrace in the course of writing this protracted little morality tale.

Rough Outline/Release Timetable:
1. ALEX Anasazi to Apocrypha (25 August)
2. MARITA Apocrypha to Herrenvolk (25 August)
3. ALEX Herrenvolk to Terma (End August)
4. MARITA Terma to Patient X (End August)
5. ALEX Patient X to Fight The Future (End August)
6. MARITA Fight The Future to One Son (September)
7. ALEX SR819 to Amor Fati (September)
8. MARITA Biogenesis to Requiem (September)
9. ALEX Requiem to coda (September)

NEW WIP Not My Lover *NC17* 1/?
Deslea R. Judd
drjudd@catholic.org
Copyright 2000

     Not my lover.
     Marita was not my lover.
     A colleague, a fellow conspirator, a foil.  And, yes, an enjoyable
companion, whether bantering at my side or sighing beneath me, or in the
company of decadently naked friends.
    But not my lover.
    The dark man introduced us.  He was playing both sides against each
other - feeding information to one side, preserving the lies of the other.
He was grooming Marita to be his successor when his deception became known,
as deception always does.  For the dark man, ideology was delineated by
truth and lies, good and evil - black and white, if you will.  He didn't
know that Mare's ideology was more concrete - vaccines and deals.  Where the
dark man hoped fruitlessly to prevent colonisation, Mare hoped to survive
it.
     For my part, I was a lackey of the team he had neatly designated
"lies".  As such, he made himself known to me, and delegated me to his
would-be successor.  Mare was to keep an eye on me, and so she did.  I
didn't mind.  I was young and naive, but I understood one rule of the game
already: watch, listen, and be prepared to switch sides to live.  It was the
one rule which Mare and I considered sacrosanct.  Trust was necessarily
fluid, disclosure never total.
     And so she was not my lover.
    She would become my beloved, my heart, my soul.
    But not my lover.

    "Alexi?"
    I turned, closing the flip of my cell phone with a snap.  "There you
are.  I've been looking for you."
    "And I've been looking for you," she said playfully, threading hands
through my pockets.  She pulled my hips to hers, her touch maddeningly close
to my groin.  "I was hoping to whisk you away-"
    Something in my face must have communicated my distress, because she
suddenly let go, withdrawing her hands, and used them to take my own.
"Alexi?" she asked quietly.  "What is it?"
    I gently extricated one hand, holding up my cell.  "That was Spender."
Then, tentatively, I explained, "He wants me to take care of Bill Mulder and
Dana Scully."  That I was reluctant to carry out my orders was a concession
in itself - one I didn't like to share - but I intuited that it was safe to
share this with her.
    Her voice was gentle - uncharacteristically so.  "Alexi, I'm sorry.  Are
you all right?"  My fleeting fear that she would not understand dissipated,
forgotten.
    I shook my head; said at last, "Bill Mulder is one thing - he's up to
his neck in this - but Scully's an innocent."  Then, my voice hoarse, I
rasped, "I never wanted to kill anyone I knew, Mare."  A flicker of
compassion lighted on her features, and she wound her arms around me.
    "I know," she said, her voice muffled against my neck.  I felt so cold.
I could feel her hot breath on me, and it seared through me, comfortingly.
I heard her whisper at last, "I hope that's not something ever asked of me."
    I pulled back roughly.  "If it is," I demanded, taking her by the
shoulders, "you tell me.  I'll do it for you."  Her eyes widened; her lips
parted, but no sound came out.  My hold on her arms tightened.  "Promise me
you'll never kill, Mare.  Only in self-defense."
    She stared at me for a long moment, as though puzzled by the strength of
my reaction, or perhaps deliberating my words.  At last, though, she nodded.
"I promise."  She slid arms around my neck once more.  "You're so cold.  Let
me make you warm."
    I nodded, burying my face in her hair.  "Mare," I breathed, smelling it.
"Oh, God, Mare, please."
    She turned her face to mine then, and kissed me; first my cheek, then my
mouth; her lips warm, her mouth warm, and she made me live once more.  My
throat constricted as she cradled my neck with her hands, adoring me, and I
remember a flash of something more, some empathic passion, something to do
with her, her face, her heart; but it was gone before I could grasp what it
might be.
    There were no preliminaries.  No long, languid strokes; no massages or
kisses in all those strange and beautiful places a woman has - the point
where her ribs end, the inside of the elbow.  Shirts were pulled over heads;
jeans were tossed heedlessly in both directions.  We clasped one another,
naked, falling onto the bed, our mouths at war, tongues dancing against one
another, each seeking possession of the other.  She started to pull away at
one point - perhaps to take me into her mouth, I don't know - but I pulled
her back, holding the length of her body against mine.  "Don't go," I said
mindlessly; and again, she understood, content to kiss, to hold and be held.
No preliminaries, but we stayed there, touching faces, holding one another's
gazes, exposed and raw.  I explored her face with my fingertips in wonder,
wonder that she would let my bloodied hands touch her.
    At last, I kissed her forehead, and started to move towards the
nightstand.  She stilled me with a touch.
    "I want you bare," she whispered.
    My eyes flew open.  In an instant I understood what she really was
asking.  Monogamy, if not actual, then symbolic; for neither of us would
risk the other by doing this unprotected with anyone else.  I understood,
too, the gift she was offering.  Acceptance...belonging.  She was prepared
to own me, and allow me to own her, despite the things I had done...the
things I would do.  I stared at her in shock; took in the guarded, hunted
look she gave me.
    "You're sure?" I asked, at last.
    She nodded, her lips drawn tight, seeming not to trust herself to speak.
    So I entered her, bare, as she had asked; and as we moved in rhythm, I
stared into her eyes, searching for answers; because my own held none.  I
knew only that her gift made me need her even more.  That, and that the
intoxicating shudders radiating through my body were but a fragment of what
I felt for her.  And when I came, it was not an expletive or a deity or a
mindless sound on my lips, but her name; and I kept saying it, kissing her,
until she was asleep in my arms.
    I was preparing to leave her when she stirred.  "Alexi?" she said
softly, peering out beneath half-closed eyelids.
    "Hush, Mare," I said quietly, tying my shoes.  "Sleep."
    "You don't have to do it," she whispered earnestly.
    I stared at her.  "I don't understand."
    "Something could go wrong.  She could outsmart you.  You could get the
wrong person."  As I watched her with sudden understanding, she whispered,
"You don't have to get it right, Alex.  This is not your fight."
    I frowned; then, rising, I said evenly, "I have to go.  I'm meeting
Cardinale in an hour."
    She opened her mouth to speak again, but then she closed it.  She
nodded.  I went to her, and kissed her forehead.  "I'll be okay."
    She nodded again.  "If anything does go wrong-"
    "It won't," I said, with more surety than I felt.  I smiled at her
fondly, and went to the door.  She called my name, and I turned.
    "Don't let Cardinale leave you alone."
    Frowning, I nodded, and I left her.

    Not my lover.
    Not my lover, but I remembered her words when I shot high over Scully's
head at Mulder's.  I remembered them when my surveillance indicated that
Melissa Scully would arrive at Scully's home when her sister was out.  I
remembered her words when I stood over the woman, also an innocent, and
couldn't stifle a sound of remorse.  It wasn't my fight...none of it was.
    I remembered her words when Cardinale left me alone in the car, and when
the clock flashed zero.  I remembered them when, after making it clear of
the blast, I felt in my pocket and discovered I still had the digital tape
containing the MJ-12 documents.  I remembered them when I fled, an outlaw.
And when I had nowhere else to go, it was Mare I trusted.
    She sheltered me in Baltimore.  She took leave from the United Nations.
For weeks, we poured over the data on the tape, consulting computer and
Navajo experts alike.  We worked all day; we loved, newly tender by night.
She worked hard.
    And she haunted me.

     Then came the day when I watched her from across the room.
     She wasn't doing anything special.  Flipping through CDs, her
straw-coloured hair falling across her profile.  She tucked it back behind
her ear absently, and looked up, her fingers marking a Phil Collins case.
Her lips parted as though to speak, but then she stopped, her eyes meeting
mine, marking me.
     "Alexi?" she asked in a whisper.
God only knew what she saw on my face.  I was aware of nothing there - no
love, no scrutiny.  I was just watching.  And yet her voice and her gaze
freed in me some awe, some enthralled fascination; and I crossed the room in
three strides, capturing her face between my hands.  "I *want* you," I
declared, and I knew it was the wrong word, both diplomatically and
descriptively; but I said it with such surprised wonder, such cherishing awe
that she knew, had to know, that it was love that I meant.
    "I want you, too," she whispered earnestly, her smile gentle.  "So
much."
    I leaned down and kissed her, tenderly, as though for the first time.
After a long moment, she pulled away, and smoothed back my hair lovingly.
    "Let's get back to work."

    At last, we decoded it.  The knowledge we gained from that tape left us,
in the extremity of it, cradled together, spooned around one another as we
puzzled over what it all meant.  For two days, we stayed in bed, drinking,
talking, arguing about what to do with what we had learned.
    It had not been my fight, but now...it was our fight now.
     She milked the information for her own uses; I knew that.  Equally, she
assisted me, connecting me with Jeraldine Kallenchuk, whose ability to sell
information was rivaled only by her preparedness to engage in treason.  For
some months I sold useful information from the MJ-12 files to interests all
around the world.
     But we kept the real secrets for ourselves.
     I'm still an American, dammit.
     Jeraldine's death was the purest of bad luck.  Selling the location of
the American submarine, the Zeus Faber, had seemed like easy money.  I had
been impressed that she'd found a buyer for it, in fact.  I knew of the
unusual occurrences on board the Faber, of course; but it had never occurred
to me that the lifeform on board could stay alive for forty years.
     Much less escape.
     The first I knew of the catastrophe was when Jeraldine turned up at our
Hong Kong rendezvous handcuffed to Mulder.  As I ran off, leaving Jeraldine
dead and Mulder to an uncertain fate at the hands of the Consortium lackeys,
I quickly made all the necessary connections and understood that something
had gone very wrong on the Zeus Faber.  I did not fully understand the
significance of Mulder's presence until he caught up with me at the airport.
Predictably, he wanted to kill me over his father; less predictably, he let
me live because he wanted the digital tape.   That meant he was becoming
more aware of the nature of the Consortium and its involvement in his
investigations.  Mulder was finally becoming a player.
     He threw me a few punches, of course; no escaping that.  I took them
and didn't fight back.  I guess he'd earned a few free blows.  When he was
done, I went to the bathroom to clean myself up, and that was when I was
infected.
     Being infected with the alien pathogen was an interesting experience
from a scientific perspective, though I wouldn't recommend it as recreation.
I was conscious throughout the alien's possession of my body.  It gained my
knowledge in an instant, and while there was no telepathy, I somehow knew
Its will and was compelled to obey.  I saw, though my sight was dark and
filmy. I saw, I think, through the lens of the alien organism, rather than
my own; but it's hard to be certain.  My voice was my own, but I had no
control over my speech.  I was Its voice.  Despite this, I retained my own
will throughout the ordeal.  It was as though the connections between the
will and the body were irrevocably severed.  I gained a unique insight into
what it was to be a drone; and it terrified me.  I had seen the collapse of
the woman who had infected me after it was done, and I was certain I would
die in the same way when I was no longer of use.  That she lived was
something I would learn only much later.
     Fortunately for me, I was of considerable use to It.  I obtained the
digital tape and took it to the Smoker.  It wanted to return to Its ship,
and Spender was happy to oblige by way of trade for the tape.  The deal was
done, and I was thrown into the missile silo with the salvaged UFO.  My fear
turned to cold, flint-like terror.  I knew that the UFO was radioactive, and
I also knew that once I was no longer infected, my protection from the
radiation would disappear.  Once that occurred, I had about a two-minute
time window in which to escape without becoming burnt or seriously ill.
During that time, the alien enzymes that interrupted the abnormal cell
reactions associated with gamma radiation would be slowly absorbed by my
T-lymphocytes, leaving me defenceless.  Even if I got out during that time
window, I had a fifty-fifty chance of contracting multiple cancers.  I was
used to living on the edge of death, but cancer isn't a pretty way to go.
Neither is radiation sickness.
     Knowledge is not always a good thing.
     As I coughed and sputtered, as the black evil thing left me, I tried to
make some sort of sense of my life and my death.  Mulder and Scully's voices
drifted in to me, maddeningly close, and then other voices spirited them
away.  Scully screaming out that there were men in there with radiation
burns.  It occurred to me that if this was what colonisation would be like,
if this was what it was to be a drone, perhaps I had been spared.
     At last, it was over.  I was myself again.  If my eyes and mouth and
lungs hurt, that was insignificant, because I had only minutes to live.  At
least I would die in my right mind and in control of my body.  I stared at
my watch in the dark.  Its performance was affected by the alien craft, but
it was still possible to use the seconds' needle to mark the passage of
time. One hundred seconds...ninety...eighty...seventy.
     At sixty seconds, I heard what sounded like a clattering sound.  It
became louder through fifty.  At forty, I heard a series of gunshots.  At
twenty-five, I heard her voice.
     "Alexi!" she screamed.  "Alexi!"
     I ran to the door and banged.  "Mare! Silo ten-thirteen!  I'm with the
UFO!"
 She came flying down the corridor and wrestled with the door.  "How long
have you got?" she cried through the thick window.
     "About fifteen seconds to nil protection.  Sixty seconds off lethal
levels.  Hurry, goddamn it!"
     She stared at me in horror for a precious second, then worked the bolt
with renewed fervour.  I stopped watching my watch, not wanting to know how
close to death I was anymore.  Finally, she wrenched the heavy door open.  I
grabbed her face between my hands and kissed her.  "Am I glad to see you," I
cried.
    So saying, I grabbed her hand, and we ran.

     We made it.
     I collapsed outside the base, writhing with pain.  Marita struggled to
take care of me, fighting back the hysteria that threatened to overwhelm
her.  In a moment of clarity, I felt empathy as I perceived her fearful
panic, before my pain overtook me once more.  She manhandled me into a car I
didn't recognise, and we sped off.
     "I heard gunshots," I said weakly.
     "There were men with radiation burns," she said softly.  "Two were
still alive.  They were in agony," she added haltingly.  "I know what we
said about killing-"
     "That's not killing, it's euthanasia," I said thickly.  "You did the
right thing."  I doubled over in spasms of coughing, wiping bitter black oil
from my mouth.  "Where are we going?"
     She started to answer; but I passed out.

    The next few hours passed in a blur.
    I came to in a motel room, eyes hurting, sinuses agonising.  Marita was
there, pushing and pulling me into the shower, both of us still dressed.
She pulled my ruined clothes off me and washed me, tenderly flushing my eyes
with saline over and over.  She made me blow my nose, again and again until
the stringy trails of black oil stopped coming.  She dried me off and tucked
me into bed with the tenderness of a mother.  I drifted in and out of sleep
fitfully.
    She was still crouching at my side when I woke an hour later, when I
looked at her and really saw her for the first time that day.  Her white
suit was wet and stained with oil.  Her hair was damp and straggling.  Her
makeup was ruined with water and tears.  And in that silent way she had, she
was weeping.
     I sat up.  "Mare - God, get those clothes off," I said vaguely, knowing
I was attacking the wrong problem, but wanting to do something for her -
anything.  I stripped her off and wiped her face, and realised she was
shaking - from cold or shock, I couldn't have said.  I pulled her into the
bed, both of us naked, and guided her down next to me.  I held her, trying
to warm her and calm her down.  She wasn't crying anymore, but she was still
trembling.  She clung to me silently.  I buried my face in her hair,
troubled by her distress.
     We stayed that way for a long time. "What's wrong?"
     She gave a short, dull laugh.  "Just where would you like me to begin?"
she asked bitterly.
     "You know what I mean," I said evenly, smoothing her hair back off her
face.  I cradled it, making her face me, moving my thumb back and forth
across her cheek.  "Talk to me."
     She was very still for a moment, the twitching muscle in her cheek the
only hint of the tears she held at bay.  At last, though, she spoke, in a
more even voice than I had expected.  "I just can't do this anymore, Alex.
I can't lurch from crisis to crisis as though it's just us playing strategy
games with the Consortium.  What we know makes demands of us. We have a duty
to do what we can.  Otherwise what happened to you today will happen to us
all."  Her voice was fearful, tentative; yet paradoxically strong and
resolute.
     "I know."  I kissed her hair pensively.  "I got a birds-eye view of the
life of a drone today.  Profiteering doesn't seem so important right now."
I felt her sigh gratefully, and I knew she had feared I would object.
Rightly, perhaps.  But that was before today.
     "We have money, thanks to Jeraldine," she pointed out.  "We could use
it to find a vaccine.  The Americans will never find one - they're too busy
holding up their part of the hybridisation deal.  That's not our problem.
We could go to Russia and set up operations there.  It's cheap, and there's
the old UFO crash site near Norylsk that could be a good source of the
pathogen for testing."
     "Tunguska.  Yes, it's possible," I said.  Then, at last, "It's risky."
     "We'd probably both get the death penalty for treason if we were
caught," she agreed, but her objection was without conviction.  We were
going through the motions - playing devil's advocate.
     I shrugged.  "The Consortium would never let us get to trial.  I think
we'd probably both get a nice painless injection myself."
     She shot me a filthy look.  "That consoles me no end," she said grimly.
     "The risk is more to you than I," I said in a low voice.  "I'm already
wanted for murder, and I've no doubt Mulder will add treason to the charges
when he makes it back to Washington.  I have comparatively little to lose,
besides the money.  But you-" I broke off.  "Right now, you're safe."
     "I don't want to be safe," she protested.  "I want to do what's right."
Then, softly, "I want to be with you."
     I drew her close then, my arms around her, and kissed her hair.  "Are
you sure?"
     She nodded.
     I pulled back and held her face between my hands once more.  "Then
marry me."  She stared at me in shock.  "What's the matter, Mare? You think
a guy like me can't make an honest woman of you?"  But I spoke teasingly,
because I knew that wasn't it at all.
     She stroked my cheek.  "Marriage sounds so *normal*.  It's one of those
things like having babies or going on camping trips - things that happen to
normal people.  They don't happen for people like us."
     "They can," I told her.  "We can make them happen."
     "Do you really think so?"
     "Maybe not the camping," I teased.
     She smiled faintly.  "You really want me to be your wife?"
     "Mare, you're my wife already.  I just want to make this one part of my
life right.  Will you?"
     She looked at me in bewilderment, as though not quite understanding
that an answer was called for.  I felt bubbling mirth at her expression.
"Of course, I'll *marry* you," she said in astonishment, as though that was
already settled.  I did laugh then, and after watching me quizzically for a
moment, she laughed, too.  And then I was kissing her, and we were making
love, and I felt as though there was hope for us both after all.

     We were married in Russian Georgia.
     We found a little Russian Orthodox chapel in Ateni dating back to
Byzantine times.  The church was in communion with the Roman church, so we
were able to be married there in a Catholic ceremony concelebrated by
Catholic and Orthodox clerics.  Marita had been raised Catholic, and I
Russian Orthodox, so it suited us well.  She spoke only halting Russian, but
the Roman priest spoke fluent English, and he assisted the Orthodox cleric,
who spoke none.  We were able to take advantage of a provision in Catholic
law for secret marriage where danger existed.  That meant that the marriage
was binding, but record of it was retained in the Bishop's secret archive at
the Curia.  That extra protection gave us peace of mind, for our marriage
must be kept from the Americans at all cost, lest we be used as leverage
against one another.
     That secrecy was painful for us both; so, in the comparative safety of
Georgia, we flaunted our marriage.  Marita signed her name beneath mine on
the marriage register, **Marita Krycek**, embracing my name in a way she
could never do in life.  We used our own names at the hotel, and we wore
ostentatious matching wedding rings.  I even had our marriage certificate
framed, if you can believe that, relishing the look of our names, Alexei
Nicolai Krycek and Marita Elena Covarrubias, entwined in Cyrillic lettering.
Who'd have thought sleazy old Alex Krycek would turn out to be a sensitive
new age guy, hopelessly in love with his wife?
     I guess there's a little hope for everyone.
     We travelled to Kazakhstan and met with the highest comrades of our
opposing numbers.  I had assumed that we would have to bargain for power,
that we would be taken in by a larger force with similar aims to our own;
but we found the former Russian operation in the same disarray that
characterised the rest of the region.  Worse, it was in the same abject
poverty.  They were happy to give us whatever people and information we
needed to run the project, and I could have total control - but we would
have to fund it ourselves.
    That made for some major changes to our planning.  Our capital would
establish the project, but to a large extent its ongoing costs would be
funded by Marita's income from the Consortium and whatever money I could
obtain myself, by fair means or foul.  Fortunately, labour and supplies were
relatively cheap, and there was no shortage of weaponry left over from the
old regime in old warehouses and storage facilities, just waiting to be
smuggled overseas and sold.  The Russians gave me diplomatic immunity with a
tacit approval for these activities, with the proviso that the weapons were
not to be sold to political forces or terrorists who might target the
region.
     Marita stayed in our homeland with me for a month, helping me to
establish the operations in Tunguska, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan
before returning home.  She hoped to align herself with the Englishman,
Donovan, who was working half-heartedly on the vaccine in America.  When she
left me, I felt as though I was ripped in two; for who knew when we would be
as man and wife again?
     She was not my lover.
     My sorrow, my joy, my life, my wife.
    But not my lover.

COMING IN PART II: MARITA AND THE DARK MAN - BETRAYAL AND IDEOLOGY
(IMMEDIATELY TO FOLLOW)

NEW WIP Not My Lover *NC17* 2/?
Deslea R. Judd
drjudd@catholic.org
Copyright 2000

     Not my lover.
     That's what he said of me in Kazakhstan as I prepared to leave him.
"Fare thee well, Lover," I had teased; then, more seriously, the back of my
hand stroking his cheek, "'til next we meet."
     "Not my lover," he said softly.  "My life, my wife."
     He meant it as homage, I know; but I felt some twinge of pain. Our
joining could never be total as long as we lived the life we lived.  I
craved the simple pleasure of sharing our joy with others, of consummating
our marriage in a shared life.  It was the one thing I feared I would never
have.  These last few weeks, living openly as man and wife with the Russians
had not assuaged my unhappiness, but rather refined it.
     He must have seen my pain, my dilemma, because he brushed my eyelashes
with his fingertips, wiping away tears not even shed.  "Survival first,
perfection later," he counselled wistfully.
     I nodded resignedly; and I straightened, resolute.  I turned from him
to the wind, and climbed the steps into the little seven-seater.  I looked
over my shoulder at him, and our eyes met for just a second.  I thought of
this gloomy land, and how I loved it for what it had given me.
     The pilot began to close the door; but I stayed his hand, sensing
before I saw that he was running towards the craft.  "Alexi!" I cried into
the howling wind.
     "Mare!"  He raced up the steps, and I started down them to meet him.
He clasped me in his arms.  "I don't want you to go!" he exclaimed, wryly,
as though amused by his weakness.
    He pulled back, and I was laughing even through my tears.  I held him,
my hands at his neck.  "God, Alex, I don't want to go," I said ruefully.
    "I've got to find that vaccine," he said urgently.  "Being away from you
is killing me, and you're not even gone yet."
    "You'll find one," I told him firmly.  "I have faith in you."
    He said softly, "You're the only one who ever has."  He stroked my hair,
tucking it back behind my ear, and rested his forehead against mine.  "I
love you, Marita Krycek."
    I held his face between my palms, our foreheads and noses touching, his
mahogany eyes inches from mine.  The air between us was hot with our
breaths, his closeness suffocating; but I couldn't bear to pull away.  "I
love you," I whispered.  My lips found his, cherishing him, my first love
and my last.
    We stayed that way for a long moment, before the pilot cleared his
throat.  "Comrades Arntzen," he said in Russian, using our diplomatic names,
"we have to leave if we're to reach St Petersburg by nightfall."  We turned,
two identical stricken faces.  He said to Alex sympathetically, "You could
accompany us and return in the morning if you like - there is room."
    We looked at each other longingly, but reluctantly, we both shook our
heads.  "You're needed here," I said softly.  He kissed my forehead, and I
wrenched myself from his arms.  His smile was bittersweet, and I felt it
reflected in my own.  "Be well, Alexi."
    "And you."
    So saying, he backed down the steps, and I moved back into the craft,
allowing the pilot to shut the door.  The older man motioned towards the
seat at the window, his expression kind.  I thanked him in halting Russian,
but sat towards the aisle.  To watch him recede into the distance as we took
off was more than I could bear just then.
    Never had I felt so acutely the cost of our sacrifice as I did then.

     Not my lover.
     The words haunted me as I stared at my wedding ring in the middle of
the night - a ring I could never wear publicly.  I replayed in my mind over
and over again our marriage, the pictures and tapes of which I could see
only when I dared venture to my safety deposit box in a bank vault in
Manhattan.  I replayed making love and other tender moments, too, the way a
woman does when she loves a man; but our marriage had become talismanic in
my mind, symbolic of all that we shared and all that we had sacrificed.
     We wrote often by e-mail, and sometimes in conventional letters, too.
The longer he spent there, the more flamboyantly Cyrillic his handwriting
became.  They were sometimes cryptic, always detailed - not only for the
exchange of information for the work, but because we found they helped us to
live with our separation.  Phone calls were a rare and risky exercise, and
while we occasionally used them for light-hearted banter or phone sex, we
more often reserved them for bonding.  Love talk, be it silly or
sentimental, dominated those.
    It was funny, really: Alex had killed Bill Mulder half a year earlier,
only to become him, sole advocate for the development of a vaccine.
Meanwhile, I continued in my work at the United Nations for Spender and the
dark man, gradually aligning myself with the Englishman, Donovan.  I hoped
to attach myself to Donovan when the dark man's time was over, little
dreaming at that point the part I would play in his demise.
    I searched for the definitive expert in the variola virus, the most
biochemically similar pathogen to the alien organism, and found one in
Benita Charne-Sayrre.  I recruited her and converted her to our cause; and
she pursued it with fervour.  We made a formidable team, maintaining low
concentrations of the alien organism in delicate balance in human subjects,
patients in Benita's nursing homes. Benita tested the vaccines on her
patients; then Alex did more thorough testing on an array of unlucky
subjects in Tunguska and Norylsk, subjects infected with the organism at
full strength.  I risked introducing her to Donovan, and Donovan did the
rest, recruiting her into his work, as well.  Benita got double the pay, and
we got double the information.  It was a win-win situation.  It wasn't until
later that I found out that Donovan was getting a piece of the action,
too...in more ways than one.
    I look back on it all with anger and dismay.  I trusted all the wrong
people.  I should have trusted the dark man.  Instead, I trusted Benita,
believing that her scientific ideology would lead her to give us her
allegiance.  But that was not my worst mistake, for that one still reaped
considerable reward.
    My worst mistake was trusting my mother.

     I watched her, smoking.
     "I wish you'd tell me what's troubling you," my mother said pensively.
She pointed to the delicate silver cigarette case on the table, the
intricate bronze lighter, both new.  "Those things aren't going to solve the
problem.  Neither are the joints I found in the bedroom."
     "Oh, Mother, honestly," I said in exasperation.  "Everyone does a
little weed now and then.  What's the big deal?"
     My mother had little time for bullshit and even less for misdirection,
and now was no exception.  "Everyone does it?  What is this, high school?  I
don't care about the weed.  I care that you're doing dumb stuff you haven't
done in years.  I'm not a fool, Marita.  Something's wrong."
     I sighed heavily.  "Mother, believe me, you don't want to know.  It
could compromise you."
     She shot me a look.  "I can look after myself, thank you very much.
I've been tangoing with Spender and his friends since before you were born.
You think an ex-KGB girl can't handle those assholes?"
     My anger flared.  "Is that why you pushed me into working for them too?
What kind of a mother does that?" I demanded in a low voice.
     She laughed at that.  "Honestly, Marita, you'd think I sold you into
prostitution to hear you talk.  And for the record, no one forced you into
anything.  You went to nice schools, and you could have had a perfectly
respectable life on the outside.  You took one look at the eighty grand a
year you would have made on the outside and decided that a quarter million
with the group was preferable."  Shamefaced, I made a gesture of concession,
and she went on, "Now, I'm sure old grudges aren't what's worrying you, so
what about you filling me in?"
     I put out my cigarette and held another to my lips.  I picked up the
lighter, but reconsidered under my mother's withering gaze.  I pushed it
away irritably, and it slid across the table with a clatter.  She caught it
neatly and set it down.  With a look of defeat, I put the virgin cigarette
in the ashtray.  She shot me a satisfied look, not unkindly.  She waited.
     "Have you heard of a man named Krycek?  Alexei Nicolai Krycek?" I said
at last.
     My mother nodded.  "Sure.  He's a Russian-born child of Cold War
immigrants.  They came out here when he was three.  He showed promise in
criminology and political theory at college, but he wasn't given a lot of
opportunity to shine at the FBI.  He was pretty dissatisfied, so when
Spender approached him he came over to the Group.  They used him as a hired
gun for a while, but the general consensus was that he made a bad hitman -
they should be dumb, unprincipled and obedient, and that's not Krycek.  He
caused a lot of trouble last year when he got away with a digital tape of
the MJ-12 documents.  He was indirectly responsible for a French salvage
attempt of a UFO a couple of months back - sold the location of the downed
escort submarine, I believe."
     "That's right," I said nervously.
     "You were monitoring him at one time for the black man, weren't you?"
     "I wish you'd use his name," I said, diverted by an old argument.
"'The black man' sounds really racist."
     "Rubbish," my mother dismissed.  "The man's black, isn't he?  Should I
deny what I see?  You call him 'the dark man' yourself.  And I've never been
able to pronounce his name."
     "This, from the woman who has fired people for mispronouncing
Covarrubias," I snorted.  "'Dark man' is not the same at all - it's about
his personality, not his skin.  He's been very good to me.  It wouldn't kill
you to play nice."
     "Fine, Marita, consider it done," she said, irritably, and utterly
without conviction.  "Now, what's this about Alex Krycek?"
     I cast my eyes heavenward for a long moment.  This was the only person
I had to confide in?  I experienced a moment of doubt, but dismissed it.
She was my mother, after all.  If I couldn't trust her, who could I trust?
Our bickering was mother-daughter malaise, a phenomenon as old as time,
nothing more.
     I watched her for a long moment, but at last, I reached into my shirt,
and withdrew my gold chain.  I unfastened the clasp and detached my wedding
ring from it, handing it to her.  I watched her turn it over in her hands,
and hold it up to the light, looking at the inscription inside.  She handed
it back at last.  "Those are yellow sapphires embedded into it, aren't
they?" she said, bemused.  I nodded.  "One thing about Krycek," she
reflected, "he doesn't do anything by halves."
     I laughed ruefully.  "No, you're right about that."
     "How long have you been married?" she asked curiously.  "It was this
year, I can see that.  Was it when you went to Europe?"
     I nodded.  "It was, but we didn't go to Europe.  The photos I sent were
done by one of my men.  We were married in Russian Georgia, near where you
and Papa lived before you defected."  More quietly, I added, "Papa died two
years ago.  I saw his grave."
     She betrayed no reaction to this news.  Instead, she demanded, "Jesus,
Marita.  Why Russia, of all places?  You're a Covarrubias.  You could have
been in danger."
     I shook my head.  "I'm not a Covarrubias anymore," I said, not
unkindly, "and Russia isn't the same place now.  Those old grudges don't
matter anymore."
     "They will always matter," my mother said darkly.  I sighed, ready to
argue the point, but she held up a hand, forestalling me.  "Where is he
now?"
     "He's still there," I said.  Then, cautiously, "I don't know exactly
where at the moment."
     She looked at me piercingly.  "You're holding out on me," she accused.
"Being separated because your husband is in hiding is unfortunate, but it's
not enough to do this to you," she said, touching the lighter.  "You're made
of stronger stuff than that."  A new thought occurred to her.  "You're not
pregnant, are you?"
     I felt a sudden pang of sadness, because that was one dream that would
be out of reach for years to come.  I said nothing of this - my mother,
singularly unsentimental about parenthood, would not have understood - and
said only, "No, Mother, I'm not pregnant."
     "That's a small mercy," she said wryly.  "What, then?"
     I hesitated, but under her gaze, my resolve faltered.  Haltingly, I
admitted, "We're working on a vaccine."
     "With the Russians?" she demanded, horrified.
     "Minor co-operation, but it's mostly our own operation."
     My mother gave a sharp, cynical laugh.  "You silly girl.  Silly, stupid
girl!  If by some miracle you manage to make one, they'll take it.  They'll
keep us all hostage."
     "It's not like that anymore.  We're working in the Republics - we're
protected by their disorganisation and disunity."  Then, anger flaring once
more, I railed, "What should we have done, Mother?  Left it to the goddamn
Americans?  They made the hybridisation deal with the alien race to get the
alien genetic code, and what are they doing with it?  Nothing!  Only Donovan
is working on a vaccine, now that Bill Mulder's gone!  They're chasing their
tails hybridising everything that moves, taking ova from women like Dana
Scully and making doomed children in a fruitless bid to save their own
lives!  Our only protection is a vaccine, and the Americans aren't *doing*
anything!"
     She stood then, furious.  "This country gave us shelter from the
regime!  I don't care what you think of their efforts, you have no right to
deal with the Russians!  No right!  This Krycek, is he a Communist?" she
demanded.
     "Alexi loves this country!" I shouted, rising.  "We *both* do!"
     My mother paced.  "You could be charged with treason.  And that's
nothing to what the Consortium will do to you if they find out you're
playing double agent.  God, Marita, what a mess."  There was genuine
sympathy in her voice, and I felt my anger dissipating.
     We stood that way for a long moment, a silent standoff, but suddenly,
my mother slumped, her fury gone.  "Marita, Marita, Marita," she said in
exasperation.  I was suddenly overtaken with real mirth - whether rooted in
anxiety or relief, I couldn't have said.  I collapsed in my chair in floods
of hysterical laughter, and my mother, not unreasonably, looked as though
I'd lost my mind.  "What the hell's the matter with you?"
     "Nothing," I sputtered.  "It's just -" I broke off, choking back even
more laughter, tears streaming down my face.  She watched me, looking even
more perplexed.  Finally, I blurted, "You just look like you really need a
cigarette."
     She gave a short bark of laughter, and came back to the table.  She sat
down, calm now, and opened the cigarette case.  She got out two.
     "I think we both do."

     When my mother finally left late that night, I felt easier in mind than
I had in months.  She had even, wonder of wonders, hugged me when she'd said
goodbye.  "I love you, Marita," she had told me, and I had heard that from
her only a handful of times in my life.
     My relief was short-lived.  Two hours later, a series of loud knocks at
my door woke me.  When I opened it, there was my mentor, the dark man,
dishevelled and visibly upset.  I let him in, a dull ache in the pit of my
stomach.  "Sir?" I said, confused.  He was wet - it had been raining
outside.  And clearly, he had walked here - probably from the group's
offices in Upper Manhattan.  That was miles away.  My panic levels rose a
notch.
     "Marita, do you have some suicidal tendencies that didn't show up in
your psych evaluation?" he demanded furiously.  "Larissa Covarrubias has
always been one of the key campaigners against dealing with the Russians.
Whatever made you think you could trust her?"
     My breath caught in my chest.  "She's my moth-" I broke off.  "Wait," I
said suddenly, "You - knew?"
     "Of course I knew.  I brought you and Alex together in the first place,
and I was, thank God, one of the few people who ever saw you together.
Anyone could see you were committed to one another," he added, and it
occurred to me fleetingly that it was odd phrasing - very deliberate and
specific.  "I didn't know the specifics, of course, but I knew.  Who do you
think leaked the location of the missile silo to you when Alex was trapped?"
he demanded.
     I put my hand to my mouth.  "That was you?" I whispered.  I went to
him, and embraced him.  I kissed his dark cheek tenderly.  "Thank you," I
said gently.  "Thank you so much."
     Taken aback, he pushed me just far enough away to look at me curiously.
"I can't believe you two got married," he said incredulously.  "Alex Krycek,
family man.  Who'd have thought it?"
     I smiled broadly.  "How about that?" I laughed.  Suddenly, my laughter
became tears, and I sat down miserably.  "My own mother.  Fucking hell!" I
blurted in frustration.  "Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!"
     The dark man took off his coat and hung it up.  He sat down before me
uninvited.  "Does your mother let you use language like that, Marita?" he
chided gently.
     I looked up at him through my tears in disbelief.  "The dark man cracks
a joke.  The Apocalypse is near."
     "Something like that."  His expression darkened.  "Marita, your
position is severely compromised here.  You need to go back to Russia."
     I shook my head.  "I need to stay in the American loop," I said in
frustration.  He looked unhappy, but didn't argue the point.  "Who did she
tell?" I demanded.
     "Just me for now, but that won't keep," he warned.  "You have no more
than a week before Teena Mulder either recovers from her stroke or dies, and
Spender is back on deck.  And when your mother does tell him, it will come
out that I shielded you."  I started to speak, but he held up a hand.  "Now,
I can take care of myself.  All I'm saying is, your protection won't last.
You'll be in custody for treason within the week, and probably dead in your
cell a few days after that, unless you strike pre-emptively."  He shot me a
smile, dead white and chilling against his dark skin, which I knew was meant
to be affectionate.  "For what it's worth, I'm proud of you, Marita.  You've
become a player - and in the best of possible ways."
     "That means a lot to me," I said fondly, a bittersweet lump in my
throat.  I loved this strange man, this mentor who had guided and sheltered
me; but why could I not have heard those words from my mother?  I shook my
head to clear it of these useless thoughts.  "If I talk to her - maybe I can
convince her not to talk," I said; but my voice was without conviction.
     "The only way you'll stop her from talking is with terminal force," the
dark man said quietly.  "I know that's hard to hear, but true just the
same."
     Drawing my breath in sharply, I shook my head.  "No, I can't.  Not my
mother."  I looked at him, stricken.  "Could you?"
     He conceded, "Probably not."
     "Besides, I promised Alexi I would never kill," I said softly.  "He
said he would do it for me if it was ever necessary - but I can't ask him to
kill my mother."  The dark man gave a wry sound.  "What?" I asked.
     He shook his head.  "Nothing.  I just - Alex surprises me sometimes.
So much evil and so much good wrapped up in the one man."  He misread my
startled look as anger, and said, "I'm sorry.  We're discussing your
husband."
     "No, actually, I think that's true," I agreed.
     He watched me for a long moment.  "Let me make a proposal," he said at
last.  I nodded.  He continued, "Let me decide what force is required.  It
will be my decision and my responsibility to carry out."  I had been bracing
myself for the word 'execute' there, and I was glad he didn't use it.
     "In other words, I don't have to get my hands dirty," I said bitterly.
     His look was kind.  "I wouldn't put it like that.  This is a difficult
decision.  It must be made and enacted by someone objective.  That's what a
mentor is for."  At my doubtful look, he said, "I have to go to Washington
tomorrow.  You can reach me on the cell phone.  Please just think about it."
     "All right," I said reluctantly.  "I'll think about it."

     In the end, my decision counted for nothing.
     Ideology, my mother explained when I confronted her the following day.
Ideology that could see her only child put to death for treason.  "You know
nothing of ideology!" I yelled at her furiously.  "Ideology is saving the
world at the expense of political boundaries!  Don't you understand that in
the face of this threat we are one world?"  She was weeping but unrepentant
when I left her, disowning her in my heart.
    I spent two long torturous hours sitting in the rain on the shore at
Staten Island, not far from my mother's home.  In the end, it came down to a
choice between my mother and Alexi.  I could frame it as self-preservation,
or as protecting the dark man, and there was some truth to those pictures;
but I knew in my heart of hearts that I would never have killed my mother to
save myself, or even my mentor.  It went against my every instinct.  But I
understood in an instant the truth of the rite of marriage: the act of
forsaking all others, of leaving my family to form a family of my own - a
family that had been far more true than the one from which I had come.  If I
let my mother live, Alexi would see his wife in the gas chamber for the
crimes we had committed together, if only in the narrow boundaries of the
law.  It would destroy him, and it would be the end of the life and the work
we had shared, and sacrificed so much to make happen.  Our work could save
the world - it wasn't as simple as preserving our marriage or my life - but
they were so bound up together that in another way, our marriage was what it
really came down to.
    I knew then, amid anguish and betrayal, what torment it is to want to
die but to seek desperately to live for the love of another.  I loved and
hated and loved him, thousands of miles away, for a dilemma of which he knew
nothing.  I thought of the feminist mantra, that I was a woman with my own
heritage and that that heritage was something I owed a loyalty to; but again
and again I came face to face with its falsehood.  I had made this life with
this man, given myself over and accepted his gift of himself, chosen of my
own free will to surrender my understanding of myself as a Covarrubias,
separate from him.  It was not a surrender he had ever asked of me; it was
one I had made in the silence of my heart, a linear outcome of the truth
that we were one.  And finally, I understood that I had chosen him in my
heart long ago.
    At last, I made the call to the dark man, in Washington passing
information to Mulder, and told him to do as he chose.  Then I went back to
the beach, knelt there in the sand, and wept.

    When I woke, it was early morning.  I was wet and cold, having slept
straight through the assault of the rain on my body.  Shuddering, I made my
way to the car and drove back to Manhattan.  By the time most people were
arriving at their places of work, I was immaculately dressed and ready to
face the day, my appearance giving no hint of my ordeal.  Certainly, it gave
no hint that I expected to receive word of my mother's death.  But the
bearer of that news was not whom I expected.
    The first hint that things had gone terribly wrong came at nine that
morning.  Spender arrived at my office at the United Nations - something he
had never done before.  That fact alone was enough to frighten me.  That he
had dragged himself from Teena Mulder's bedside to do it was enough to fill
me with utter terror.  I steered him into an anteroom, and sat before him,
my heart beating with painful force.  I seated myself closest to the door,
and I was very aware of my firearm at my side.
    "I must apologise for my inhospitable behaviour when you arrived, Sir,"
I said evenly.  My throat felt very dry.  "I felt it best to move you
somewhere more discreet."
    He waved this aside.  "Not at all, Ms Krycek."
    I felt very cold.  "My name is Ms Covarrubias."
    He wasn't perturbed.  He said easily, "I was under the impression that
you weren't a Covarrubias any more.  At least that's what your mother says.
She's very upset."
    "There's no reason for her to be," I said coolly.  Damn my indecision!
I'd been too late, and now both my mentor and I would pay.
    Spender lit a cigarette.  "Well, strictly speaking, she isn't - now."  I
closed my eyes painfully.  He went on, "It may not console you, but it will
at least relieve your mind to know that she died of a cerebral haemorrhage
last night at my hotel in Providence - not long after we spoke, in fact."
My eyes flew open as I realised that she had fallen victim, not to the dark
man, but to the man before me.  At my horrified gasp, he added with some
gentleness, "There was no pain."
    I bowed my head for a long moment in silent agony.  I made no sound, and
he let me be, sitting back, watching me, smoking.
    After perhaps ten seconds, I took several deep breaths, and composed
myself.  I sat upright, and I faced him, head held high, resolute.  He sat
there, impassive, until I was quite ready.  At last, I said with deceptive
calm, "What now?"
    He shrugged.  "I have great respect for the institution of marriage, Ms
Krycek - or do you prefer Ms Covarrubias? I can't keep up with you young
women."  His voice was mildly disapproving.
        "I prefer Ms Krycek, but Ms Covarrubias is more appropriate," I said
in a level voice, determined not to be goaded.
    "Very well, Ms Covarrubias.  As I was saying, I have great respect for
the institution of marriage.  I'm married myself," he added, and I had to
bite my tongue to prevent myself from pointing out that he'd taken not only
a wife of his own, but a few other men's, as well.  "I don't have to ask you
to give your husband to me, and I'm not going to.  Just keep walking the
line, and no-one gets hurt."
    I watched him coolly.  "I presume there is to be a loyalty test?" I
said; deathly quiet, because I already had an idea of what it would be.  I
had already heard about the photos of Spender and Teena at Quonochontaug,
and the Elder's opinion that the leak was from within.  The dark man's
deception was not far from being exposed, if it had not been exposed
already.
    Spender held up his hands in a what-can-I-do gesture.  "Well, you know,
Ms Covarrubias, I know that you're loyal to your husband and the Russian
project.  I need to know that you're also capable of being loyal to me."
    I nodded slowly, unsurprised.  I knew how the game worked.  "All right,"
I said resignedly.  "I'll bite.  What's the test?"
    Spender lit a cigarette.  "Would you like one?" he offered.  "I'm told
you're smoking again."
    "I quit," I said in a tightly controlled voice.
    He gave a slight, deferential nod.  "Good for you."  He dropped a sliver
of ash on the table, right in front of a No Smoking plaque.  "Your mentor
has been busy in Washington," he said idly.  "I hear he's been feeding
information to Mulder.  Do you know anything about that?"
    "Not at all, Sir," I lied.  "Could he be playing Mulder for his own
purposes?  Serving the interests of the group?"
    "That's quite likely, of course," Spender allowed, "but some of the
information is quite removed from the interests of the group.  Your mentor a
pparently has other loyalties."
    "So do I," I pointed out.
    "Yours can be used."  I was silent, and Spender continued after a
moment, "I have suspected your mentor for some time, and to some extent I
have been using him; but now the group has become aware of his activities.
I am under some pressure to eliminate him."  His brow flickered for a
moment, and he didn't need to tell me that he needed to reconsolidate his
position after losing the digital tape and concealing the fact.
    "And I'm the lucky winner," I said coldly.
    Spender raised an eyebrow at that.  "Yes, you are.  You get to live.
And so does your husband."
    "For now," I retorted.
    He shrugged.  "I could kill you both now," he pointed out.  "You think I
don't have men in Russia?  You started your work after you got the
information off the tape.  Obviously your base of operations is Tunguska.  I
could have Alex with a phone call."  I kept my expression neutral, but I
knew I was unnaturally pale.  "And for what?  Your mentor still dies.
Martyrdom is honourable.  Futile martyrdom is just stupid."
    "You know nothing of honour," I said in a low voice.
    "Be that as it may, there is an offer on the table.  Do you accept?"
     The dark man's face swam before me.  I blinked twice to clear it.
     "Yes, Sir."

     I will never forget his face.
    The elevator doors slid open, and he saw me, my gun trained on his
chest.  A fleeting look of disappointment crossed his features, followed by
resignation.  We stood there for agonising seconds, staring at one another,
frozen.  I stood firm, but there were tears streaming down my cheeks.
    I heard footsteps.  I flinched; half hoping it might be some other
henchman of Spender's, here to finish us both; but then I knew who it was.
    "Mare."
    I felt waves of relief that he was here, of shame at what I had almost
done...at what he would do for me.  And then he was at my side, and his
hands were pressing mine, easing them down, gently coaxing the weapon from
my fingers.  I relinquished it gratefully.
    **I'll do it for you.  Promise me you'll never kill, Mare.**
    His left arm slid around my shoulders, drawing me close.  His right rose
the weapon abruptly, and fired it.  My heart breaking, I saw the dark man's
chest explode with blood; saw him stagger back, his expression one of
supreme surprise.  And then, I broke away, and ran to his side.
    "Forgive me," I begged.  I could hear Alexi tapping his foot anxiously,
and I could sense him darting his eyes back and forth, wondering who might
have heard, who might be calling the police.  "Forgive me, please."
    The dark man stared at me a moment; then, laboriously, he gave a slight
movement that might have been a nod.  He tried to speak.  I leaned closer.
"Benita...Donovan...compromised."  I turned my head, meeting Alexi's gaze.
"He's...playing you.  Same goals," he managed, blood starting to bubble from
his mouth, "different allegiance."  With painstaking effort, he croaked out,
"Go."  My tears were flowing freely now; and I shook my head, determined to
be with him until it was over.  He looked imploringly at my husband.
    Alex came, and, gently yet firmly, he led me away.

    We didn't speak for several hours.
    Wordlessly, we returned to my hotel, and I sat numbly in a chair while
Alex destroyed the clothing we had worn at Mulder's.  When he returned, we
went to bed in our clothes, settling in one another's arms.  Silently, he
cradled me, kissing my hair, until I was ready to talk.  It was the early
hours of the morning when, finally, I spoke.
    "How did you know?"
    "Benita Charne-Sayrre," he murmured into my hair.  "I've been back in
the country for nearly a day now, and when I couldn't reach you in New York,
I contacted her."
    "She knew I was to kill him?" I demanded angrily.  That anyone knew of
this shameful thing was intolerable.
    "Not exactly.  Donovan heard of your mother's death - the group had a
minute's silence for her, if you can believe that.  When he got word that
your mentor was also to die, he thought that was a shade too convenient.  He
expressed his suspicions of you to Benita."  His voice was gentle.  "I
thought Spender might have found out about our work somehow, and killed them
to protect you."
    I nodded.  "That's about right."  My voice was thick with pain.
    "I was certain there would be a price, a loyalty test," he continued.
"I knew from Benita that Mulder was with Jeremiah Smith.  When I saw the X
on Mulder's window, I was sure you were there, waiting."  He stroked back my
hair from my face.  "Why didn't you tell me, Mare?" he demanded, his voice
incredibly gentle.  "Why didn't you tell me you were in trouble?"
    "My mother," I said brokenly.  "She was going to hand me over for
treason.  If you'd come home, you might have been tried too.  There was no
time to call you - I didn't know you were in America.  Spender offered me a
way out, and I took it."  My voice lowered.  "Thank God you're here, Alexi."
    He held me close, then, his head resting against my own.  "I'm always
here," he soothed.  I felt my face grow hot with shame at the horror I had
brought down on us - all for trusting the wrong people.  I clung to him,
craving his warmth.  I felt so cold.
    "My own mother," I said at last, my voice muffled by the wool of his
sweater.  "She would have seen me dead, all in the name of the goddamn
Project."
    "I believe they call it patriotism," he said dryly, cradling me.  "They
didn't make you kill her, did they?" he asked without reproach, pulling back
to look at me.
    "No, he spared me that, at least.  I only found out this morning."  My
voice was bitter.  "He knows about you and I, and about the vaccine, and
he's guessed we're using Tunguska.  He'll shield us...as long as I stay
loyal."
    "You mean as long as it's expedient," he retorted, smoothing back my
hair.  I touched his lips, my nod a concession.  I waited for his anger -
anger I'd have felt if he had compromised us this thoroughly - but none
came.  Instead, he kissed my forehead, as though sensing my guilt and pain.
"You're cold," he said presently.  He drew me closer.
    I feared I would never be warm again.

    I wept when I saw the photographs of the crime scene.  So much blood.
How much blood is there in the human body?  It never seems so much until
it's yours.
    Or until you're the one that spilled it.
    The dark man had scrawled a legend in his own blood at Mulder's door.
**SRSG**, the letters read accusingly - letters which led Mulder to me.  At
first I thought the letters were intended to implicate me; but as the full
extent of Benita Charne-Sayrre's betrayal became clear, we understood it to
be an aid.  The dark man knew before we did that Mulder's help would be
essential - so essential that he delivered Mulder into the hands of the
Consortium through me.
     I thought of him a lot in those days.  He knew, obviously, far more of
my work with Alexi than my mother or I had told him.  If he had gleaned such
information in his final days, he clearly had used his time well.
     And he had never told a soul.
     Instead, he had passed his information to we, his killers, and allowed
us to do with it what we chose.
     Of all of us, I think now, only the dark man knew what ideology really
meant.
    Not I, and not my lover.

COMING IN PART 3: THE COLD WAR ISN'T OVER (DUE END AUGUST)

NEW WIP Not My Lover *NC17* 3/?
Deslea R. Judd
drjudd@catholic.org
Copyright 2000

     I don't think she knows just how much I
love her as she is now.
     This is my favourite Marita - strong,
principled, truthful.  I hate that she hurts, but
I love why she hurts.  She hurts because we
killed a man, a man she had loved, and it is not
in her to shy away from that truth as I do with
my numbness and my silence.  She faces it and
lives it, carrying its weight in the lines of her
face like a mark of Cain.
     The irony of it is that she considers
herself weak.  She speaks of the dark man's
death, and our part in it, as though she had the
power to prevent it.  She speaks of it with
bitter self-loathing, and the fact that she was
exploited by everyone - by her mother, by Spender
- means nothing to her.  She sees not the
powerlessness of her situation, but her own,
personal powerlessness to act; and she condemns
herself for it.  And though I took the gun from
her trembling hands, and killed him in her stead
as I swore I would do, still she looks on what
she did as murder.
     Killing is never easy.  It is not, as those
who have not killed suppose, a bridge you cross
once, never to return.  You don't become a
monster on your first kill, or your second, or
your third.
     But you lose a little of your soul each
time...never doubt that.
     Killing the dark man was no easier than my
first kill, that of an innocent lift operator on
Skyland Mountain.  I was more technically
experienced, that's all.  But this time, perhaps,
there was a glimmer of redemption; for I killed
him that my wife would never know the coldness
that I know, that I carry with me like an ache.
     The coldness of the dead.
     Thankfully, that cold was tempered on this
occasion.  Whatever judgement the dark man may
have had for Mare, he either forgave or pretended
to forgive her, to give her some measure of
peace.  And whatever he thought of me, he chose
in the extremity of death to tell us what he
knew, that we might continue the work.
     The damned work.

     Six months.
     It had been six months apart, and I had
felt every day of them.  I ached for Mare, as
though for some missing part of myself.  I look
back on those freshly-written words with
considerable amusement, because even a year
before, when I was beginning to love her, I would
have dismissed them as nonsense...the stuff of
fairy tales written by middle-aged women wistful
for lives which weren't their own.
     You know what?  They were right on the
money all along.
     I hadn't had a lot of time to think of her,
though; that was a blessing.  I carried her in my
heart like a talisman, but I was spared the
torture of dreaming of her and remembering her:
there was no time.  Even the coldness and
emptiness of my bunk in Norylsk was only a
fleeting pang, because I slept, exhausted, almost
at once.  Managing the Russian operation was a
full-time job, and I had the task of raising its
ongoing costs, as well.
     I wonder if you can imagine the magnitude
of that responsibility.  You can't support a
testing regime on a hundred prisoners on Marita's
income, even in Russia.  We were paying Benita
Charne-Sayrre fifteen thousand a month, and that
was about what Mare made from the Consortium.
Most of her modest United Nations income
supported the Tunguska compound.  That left me
with the task of supporting Norylsk, Georgia,
Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.  I made a dozen trips
to Morocco, selling Russian weaponry.  We were
only just breaking even.
     In the end, I decided to risk a trip to
America.  I was wanted there, but the market
price for weaponry was much higher.  I escorted a
container of merchandise to Saskatchewan.  A neo-
Nazi group just over the Canadian border had
promised a dazzling figure that could support all
five of the gulags for six months.  The deal was
made, funds were exchanged, and I made my way to
New York and put the money in Mare's safety
deposit box in Manhattan.  Marita would put the
money in and out of casino chips over several
months, then wire it to me.  This served a dual
purpose: it legitimised the money as gambling
wins, and it supported a rumour we had carefully
orchestrated of a significant gambling habit.
Some months Mare lived on less than a thousand
dollars, and on her income, she needed a
plausible reason why.
     The money was not the only thing I left in
the safe deposit box.  I left a vial - a
precious, precious vial.  A vial with a miracle
inside - a secret miracle, only a few weeks old.
     A weak vaccine.
     I went to her apartment, eager to surprise
her.  It was empty, and a phone call to her
office revealed she was away for several days.
No forwarding number.  Her cell was turned off.
Suppressing my alarm, I telephoned Benita
Charne-Sayrre.  I intended to tell her of the
vaccine, but she pre-empted me with news of a new
wealth of information: hard drives containing the
US government's smallpox identification data,
recovered by Scully while investigating the
Jeremiah Smiths.  She had already sourced copies,
and they were en route to Norylsk.
My jubilation at this admittedly fantastic
find was muted; I knew Benita, and she was using
her Worried Voice.  It was then that I learned of
the death of Larissa Covarrubias, and of the
planned hit on the dark man.
     "What do you make of this?" I asked
cautiously.
     "Maxwell thinks it's awfully coincidental
that Marita's two closest affiliations will have
died in twenty four hours.  He thinks Larissa was
sanctioned.  That's my feeling as well."
     Filing away her easy use of the
Englishman's name for future reference, I said
only, "I'm inclined to agree."
     "Do you think she could be in danger of
being exposed?" Benita asked.  "Could someone be
protecting her?"
     "If so, there will be loyalty test," I
mused.  "I wonder what-" I broke off with a gasp.
"Oh, hell.  Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
     "The mentor," Benita said firmly.  "No
doubt about it."
     "Can you find out where she went?" I
demanded harshly.
     Benita's voice was dubious.  "I can try,
but you can't stop it, Alex.  If she doesn't do
it, they'll kill her."
     "No," I agreed gravely.
     "But I can do it for her."

     I was in time - just.
     I found her at Mulder's, about to put a
bullet into the dark man.  I coaxed the gun
from her trembling fingers and drew her against
me, shooting him myself.  She gave in without
a fight, leant against me with a sound of agony.
And then we had left him - but not before hearing
his final words.
     "Alexi?" Mare said softly the following
morning.  The timbre of her voice was still
bruised, still more husky than usual; but she was
more like the Mare I knew.  I felt my worry for
her ease a little.  It would be a long time
before the scars of the last forty-eight hours
faded, but she would come through.  We both
would.
     I said nothing of this, but only looked up
at her questioningly.  She was brushing her hair
vigorously.  She went on, "Do you really think
Benita is compromised?" I don't think she truly
doubted her mentor.  She was sounding me out.
     I looked back to the mirror and shrugged.
"It's possible.  She knows a hell of a lot about
the American project," I pointed out, rinsing my
razor.  "Why would Donovan give a scientist the
Jeremiah Smith hard drives?  I know it's variola
related, but that's hybridisation material, not
vaccination material.  It's not need-to-know if
she's really doing the work for him she says
she's doing."
     Mare nodded slowly.  "Okay.  But why side
with him?  He's probably paying more, but she's
independently wealthy.  We have the best data and
the least compromised operation."  She put the
finishing touches on her coif, or whatever the
hell women call it.  Severe-looking bun thing,
lots of pins.  "She's always said that's why she
wanted to work with us."
     "I think they might be lovers," I said in a
low voice.  "There was an intimacy about how she
said his name - I'm almost sure of it."  She
opened her mouth, about to play devils' advocate,
but I forestalled her.  "It could just be a fling
- or she could have done it to get
information..." I trailed off.
     "But funny things happen to loyalties
sometimes when people make love," she supplied,
frowning.  At my nod, she went on softly, "You
and I know that, of all people."  Her voice was
suddenly husky, and my gaze locked on hers.  She
flushed.  Then, in a whisper, "Alexi."
     I hadn't been aware of the desire - the
longing for her, always simmering just below the
surface - but suddenly I was crossing the room to
her, grasping her arms, lowering my mouth to
hers.  "God, Mare, it's been too long," I
whispered urgently, my lips brushing hers as I
spoke.  Her warm breath on me was intoxicating.
"Too damn long."
     "Alex," she breathed.  "Every day I wish-"
     There was more, but it was lost as her
mouth opened beneath mine, as she wound her arms
around my neck, pulling me closer.  I slid my
hands down over her arms, the fabric of her dress
catching, and I felt her breath against me
quicken.  I held her, one hand in the small of
her back and the other higher up, pressing her
torso to mine; and still it wasn't close enough.
I could still breathe air that wasn't hers, could
still see and hear things that weren't
her...still my senses were assaulted by that
which wasn't her, and so it could never be
enough.
     She kissed me, hard, backing up to the
dressing table.  I followed her, stumbling.  I
lifted her onto it, dragging up her demure dress
to the waist, finding her bare beneath.  A
teasing line of fire shot through my veins, from
my hand straight to my groin, and I gave a low
sound against her mouth.  "Going commando today?"
I said thickly.
     She gave a low, indulgent laugh.  It was
throaty, delicious.  "I haven't finished getting
dressed yet, you idiot."  I laughed too, but my
laugh became a sharp gasp as her mouth found mine
once more.  I'd been lifting my hands to touch
her somewhere - breast, neck, between her legs,
it didn't matter - but I let them fall again,
realising the uselessness of it.  I couldn't
remember the last time I'd caressed her, or given
to her with my mouth, or she to me...the fire
between us was just too strong for that.  We
kissed, we held, and we had to have each other,
right now; because the point wasn't the thrill of
technique, or the languid teasing, as much as I
loved those things.  The point was her - her
scent, her taste, her touch; and everything else
was both too much and not enough.
     She rocked against me, a single cry of need
escaping her in a hiss; and that sound undid me.
Urgently, I picked her up and carried her to the
bed, holding the length of her body against mine,
my mouth finding hers once more.  I laid her out
on the bed, and she made only the mildest, most
teasing of protests:
     "You're going to *ruin* my hair."
     "Yes," I growled.  "I am."

     I stayed in America.
     My reasons were many, chief among them an
urgent need to be with my wife; but undeniably
the most pressing one was the need to monitor
Benita Charne-Sayrre.  I commuted between
Washington, Florida, and a half-dozen other
hotspots in her work, along with fortnightly
trips to Tunguska.  I was still wanted for
multiple counts of murder and treason, so it
stood to reason that I should shelter with others
in a similar predicament - in this case, a couple
of my Canadian gun buyers.  I did not dare live
with Mare; but I based myself in New York, close
enough to see her, close enough to touch her, and
close enough that if she ever had to flee from
Spender, we could run together.
     "I think we need a safe house," I said
abruptly one day.
     "A safe house," Mare echoed, standing a
plate in the rack.  She didn't question me, but
simply waited.  I turned and watched her in
mischievous silence for some seconds.  It doesn't
pay to be that predictable.  At last, she said
fondly, "Being elliptical doesn't work with me;
you know that."
     Dammit, she was laughing at me.
     I shot her a mildly reproachful look, but
gave in good-naturedly.  "Somewhere we can run
to," I explained, turning back to the basin.
"Somewhere each of us can go if we're ever
separated to wait for the other."
     She was nodding.  "Good idea.  Any thoughts
on places?"
     "Maybe Morocco," I suggested, handing her a
bowl.  "Lots of points of entry.  It's pretty
neutral as far as the alien agenda is concerned.
Who knows what could change down the track - we
could have the Russians or the Americans after
us, or both," I pointed out.
     She looked alarmed.  "You're not planning a
double-cross, are you?  The Russians have been
good to us, and we're well established there."
She stopped wiping to look at me.
     I shook my head.  "Not at all.  But they
might sell us out, too."  A look of pained
surprise crossed her features. I understood her
reluctance to consider this possibility, but it
had to be said.  "Aside from our problems with
Spender, I have some concerns about Mikhail.  I'm
just being cautious."
     She nodded slowly, reluctantly.  "Fair
enough.  What about Tangier?  That's accessible
by sea from Spain if necessary, and it's not as
busy as Casablanca," she pointed out.  "It's
supposed to be beautiful," she added, her voice
suddenly wistful.
     "It is," I said, brushing a stray soap
bubble from her nose.  She shot me a gorgeous
smile that made me almost forget about safe
houses.  I had planned something utilitarian, but
I suddenly decided to get something nice -
something we could live in together when all this
was over, if it ever was.  Somewhere we could
wash dishes together for all eternity if we
wanted.
     Jeez, Alex, you've got it bad.
     I said nothing of this; only, "Okay.
Remember - if we get separated, we wait in
Tangier for the other to appear.  No matter how
long it takes."
     "As long as it takes," she agreed softly.
The lines of her face were suddenly softer, as
though I had addressed some fear she had not
expressed.  I thought I knew what it was, too:
the thought that we might one day have to run and
lose track of one another haunted me.
     We washed in silence for a while.  I
studied her thoughtfully from the corner of my
eye.  She wore domestic day garb - faded jeans,
paint-spattered shirt, hair pulled back in two
braids.  Braids, for God's sake.  I'd married a
schoolgirl, I reflected; and yet she was so
right, so *Mare*.  So removed from the cool,
manufactured Marita who was called upon more and
more these days, largely because of me.  I had a
sudden, mental flash of lifting her onto the
bench, of sliding into her in an instant.  It was
a crude image, but it disguised a deeper truth:
that *this* was the Mare I loved, that I craved,
that I belonged to; and I longed to give her the
kind of life where she could be that Mare all the
time.
     "Are you going back to Flushing tonight?"
she asked at last, arranging her dish cloth
neatly on the rack.
     I nodded; said with distaste, "Neo-nazi
scum meet tonight."
     "You're going to slip up and call them that
to their faces one day," she warned, opening a
cupboard.  She began to put cups away, her voice
grave.  "I know they've been a source of
protection, but there have got to be other ways."
     "It's not going to be for too much longer,"
I revealed.  "They're planning a major bombing
next month, and I'm not going to let it happen."
     "And how do you plan to prevent it?" she
demanded, whirling to face me, aghast.  "It's not
like you can turn State's evidence against them."
     "I'm going to give them to Mulder."  The
cup she was lifting stopped, mid-air. "Goodwill
gesture.  We're going to need him sometime down
the track."  She put the cup up, more slowly than
before.
     "That's not bad," she said with some
admiration.  "Not bad at all."
     But as it turned out, we needed him sooner
than we thought.

     Benita was, indeed, compromised.
     Donovan was receiving as much information
about our work as we were about his.  He was
playing us, anxious for us to find a vaccine that
he could copy and present to the Consortium in
order to halt the hybridisation deal.  That would
be fine - as much as I owed the Russians some
fealty, my interest was salvation, not politics -
but if the Consortium got the vaccine before it
was in general circulation, there was a
significant risk that the alien race would find
out, and speed up the colonisation timetable.
Mare and I would receive nothing for it - neither
power nor money - and would probably wind up
where we'd been not so long before.
     Facing the death penalty.
     There aren't too many geniuses out there,
though, so we continued to use Benita.  Marita
misreported results in the nursing homes,
directing her towards another, similar formula,
hoping for clues on how to refine the formula
that worked.  Benita continued, following the
same biomedical trail, unaware that she had
already passed the biggest hurdle.  Vaccine and
alien samples were trafficked merrily between us.
Everything was going well.
     Until someone spilled it.
     Our couriers had been trained,
hypothetically, about what to do if ever such a
thing were to happen; but none of them thought it
would. For his part, our man was a perfect
courier - polite, inoffensive, and totally
forgettable.     But not, perhaps, a man
equipped for an emergency.
     It happened in Honolulu.  Our man flew in
from the Republic of Georgia, en route to make a
sample delivery to Benita.  For reasons known
only to Customs, he was subjected to a search in
spite of his diplomatic passport.  Our courier
panicked.  The canister containing the alien
pathogen was opened, and an officer died.  Our
courier was taken into custody and, we presume,
passed on his limited information before being
killed.  He could give them little - places and a
few names - but it was enough to bring us to the
attention of the group.  And while Donovan and
Spender had each quietly allowed our work to
continue for their own purposes, once we came to
the attention of the others, they were forced to
act.
     I was on one of my jaunts to Tunguska, and
the first I knew of what had happened in Honolulu
was when I received a coded message from Mare.
It was brief - one of our agents had fallen.  A
lowly one at that.  Nonetheless, I knew our work
had been irrevocably compromised, and I flew back
to America at once.
     Within thirty-six hours of her message,
Mikhail, my second-in-command in Tunguska,
contacted me with the news that an American
intruder had stolen a piece of Tunguska rock.
Mare and I had an emergency meeting, and she
agreed more emphatically than I had expected when
I broached the subject of terminating Benita and
her work.  But her expression darkened when I
spoke of the dark man and his dying words.
     "He knew something like this was going to
happen," she said softly.
     I nodded slowly.  "I think he understood a
lot more about this than either of us gave him
credit for."
     "I should have brought him over to our
side," she said bitterly.
     "Don't do this to yourself," I reproached.
"You didn't do this.  Your actions were forced by
Larissa and by Spender.  You were used, Mare."
     She nodded.  "Yes, I was used.  And a man
died."  She looked away for a moment, then faced
me once more.  "Do you think he knew we would
need Mulder?  Do you think that's why he led him
to me?"
     I thought on this; said at last, "I think
so.  Mulder can be manipulated.  If we play him
right, we can use him to get back that rock."
     Marita looked nervous.  "We'd better.  The
difference between our operation and theirs has
always been the availability of the alien
pathogen in dormant form.  All the samples
they've had have been sentient and capable of
generating radiation - they haven't dared use
them for vaccine testing.  They're at a
disadvantage, and it's crucial that they stay
that way."
     I made a sound of exasperation.  "Damn it,
if the group gets a vaccine before we refine
ours, we can kiss our lives goodbye.  That's the
only reason Spender and Donovan haven't done it -
we're their insurance."
     She was shaking her head.  "I just don't
understand why it leaves the subjects so weak.
What the hell does it *do* to them?"
     "Benita would know," I said sardonically.
"Pity we can't ask her."
     "It's infuriating!  Without the vaccine,
we're strong enough to beat the alien race with
numbers and brute strength, but we're defenceless
against the pathogen.  With the vaccine, we can
beat the pathogen but we're too weak to fight
them.  Oh, hell, why do I keep rehashing this?"
she demanded, upset.
     "Easy, Mare," I said softly, though I
shared her frustration.  "We'll work it out.  We
have a vaccine - that's the main thing.  The rest
of it will work itself out, as long as we can
keep the group at bay."
     "All right."  She bowed her head for a
minute, breathing deeply, then looked up once
more, calm.  "Do you have someone in mind for
Benita and the rest of the cleanup?" she asked.
"My position is risky right now.  I can't be
involved in that."
     "I have a man in St Petersburg.  Why is
your position risky?" I demanded, worried.
"There are a lot of questions being asked
about my lifestyle - or rather, why I don't have
one.  People are starting to ask why.  The
rumours about gambling debts are wearing thin."
I nodded slowly.  I'd been expecting this.
     "We can't have that.  Pull a hundred grand from
Switzerland.  Get this place redecorated - really
rich lavish stuff, antiques; the whole deal.  Get
a car and a new wardrobe and an expensive watch.
We need you in the American loop."
     She protested, "Alexi, that only leaves
four hundred thousand for the Russian operation
aggregate total.  You can't fund medical research
on that, even in Russia.  How much are you going
to pay your man in St Petersburg?" she demanded.
     I shrugged.  "Multiple crimes in multiple
jurisdictions...risking execution for
treason...maybe a hundred grand," I hazarded.
     "Leaving three hundred thousand in Austria.
And the Austrian currency is low.  It could stay
low for six months.  We don't have Jeraldine to
sell secrets for us anymore, Alex."
     "Let me worry about the money, Mare.  You
worry about staying alive and in the loop.  Use
whatever you have to.  We can cut corners on the
Russian operation."  At her querying look, I
elaborated, "We can trim Norylsk, Georgia and
Azerbaijan back to admin and pathology research -
get rid of the prisoners and the guards.  I'd
shut them altogether, but having them makes the
governments feel like they have a stake in us so
they leave us alone.  But I'm not cutting corners
on you."
     She sighed.  "All right."  A new thought
occurred to her, and she said suddenly, "Mulder
would know about the UFO crash in Tunguska.  Once
he finds out where the rock is from, there's at
least a fifty-fifty chance he'll decide to go
there - you do realise that, don't you?"
     I met her gaze thoughtfully, wondering
where she was heading.  "Actually, I hadn't given
it any thought, but you're right," I agreed.
     "Why?"
     "Just an idea I had," she said softly.
"He's going to be useful - especially if we can't
prevent colonisation.  He'll probably be a major
player in the American resistance, if he doesn't
self-destruct first."
     "Most likely," I agreed.  I looked at her
with sudden awe.  "You think we should try to
make him immune?" I demanded admiringly.
     "It's worth a shot.  It would only take one
test series to be sure of his immunity, and you
could fast track that - say a week at the
Tunguska compound.  He'll be sick for a while,
but I don't think the Consortium has anything
planned that would require him to be on duty,
from our perspective."
     I nodded, my mind rapidly ticking over the
possibilities.  "All right.  We'll play that one
by ear - see if we can play him in that
direction.  That will be your job - if I do more
than direct him to the rock, it will look too
much like a put-up job.  I want him to think I'm
a pawn, too."  It felt good to be conspiring with
her again.  I felt the lethargy of helplessness
lifting, my sense of control over our situation
returning.  My blood was pumping with it.
     She nodded her agreement.  "There's
something else.  Mulder may have some immunity to
the retrovirus carried by the morphs, thanks to
his adventure in Alaska a couple of years back.
Might be worth taking some blood, seeing if we
can synthesise a vaccine.  If the alien race
can't control us with the pathogen, eliminating
us with the retrovirus could be the next prong of
attack."
     "Will do.  I'll have someone standing by to
work on that in Tunguska."  I shook my head.
"Damn it, if only we didn't have to lose Benita.
The woman's a genius."
     "We'll find another genius, Alexi.  Just
get Mulder in and out of the compound alive.
Everything else will fall into place."
     We made these plans, and we parted
reluctantly, the need to touch white-hot after
weeks apart.  Our fingers brushed as we said our
farewells, and it galvanised us into action.  We
found one another instantly, held one another's
faces between our palms, mirroring each other;
kissed with a strange, urgent tenderness.  We
broke apart reluctantly, for there was no time.
I felt her cheeks beneath my palms, felt how
perfectly they fit there, and captured forever in
my mind how she looked when I held her that way.
     It was the last time that I touched her
with both hands.

     I returned to my fascist friends easier in
mind.
     I e-mailed Mulder his final tip-off,
alerting him to the location of the Canadians.
Meanwhile, I played up to my role as the
psychotic genius, spouting at length about the
Black Cancer.  When they got that glazed-over
facial expression, I knew I'd had the desired
effect.  After the bust, I expected, they would
give Mulder anything he wanted to hear about
their traitor.  Hopefully, he would start to put
things together from that, and come up with as
much of the picture as I wanted him to know.
     When the time came, I handed them over to
Mulder.  Once that goodwill gesture had been
accepted and I'd taken the obligatory punch, he
and Scully and I settled down to talk.
     I told them about the incoming courier from
Russia with a diplomatic pouch, and waited
patiently as they took off after the American
thief.  When they returned, diplomatic pouch in
hand, I was relieved to find that it indeed
contained the Tunguska rock.  With little choice,
I submitted to custody, knowing Mulder wouldn't
leave me in the county lockup.  The rock would go
somewhere secure and comparatively independent
with Scully, and I would get a safe house.
     A relatively safe house.
     Mulder and Scully left me with Skinner, who
threw a punch of his own - a real one, not the
pissy ones Mulder does - and left me to freeze,
handcuffed to the railing on his balcony.  The
next morning, he threw some toast at me,
glowering, before storming off to work.  I
thought Skinner's reaction was a little extreme,
given that I'd really only punched him a couple
of times.
     But then I remembered Duane Barry's death
and the heat he took for that, not to mention
Scully's sister and Scully's abduction - he'd
always had a soft spot for her - and that asshole
Cardinale had shot him, too; maybe he thought I
was part of that.  I had a bit more understanding
of his attitude then, and chalked one up to bad
karma.  God knew, I'd earned a bit of that.
     I was still cold, though, dammit.
     The American thief broke into Skinner's
apartment later that day.  As Mare explained to
me later, conflict had broken out in the group
about the vaccine in the wake of the rock
incident.  The courier had wisely not given
himself into custody; but instead hoped to
recover the rock and save his own hide.  I was
more worried about my own: caught between a rock
and a high place, I threw myself over the
seventeenth storey balcony and prayed the cuffs -
and my wrist - would hold.  When the courier
found me, I wrestled with him and pulled him over
the side - the longest ten seconds of my life.
No guilt on that kill - it was the only defense I
had.
     I was still there, dangling between life
and death when Mulder retrieved me a half-hour
later.  "Stupid-ass haircut", he says with a
punch, when I just damn near got killed in the
so-called safe house he'd set up.
     One of these days I'm gonna quit playing
penitent for his father and slug him back, I
really am.

     When I woke, I was alone.
     I was still handcuffed to the steering
wheel, my shoulder aching, my wrist abraded and
bruised.  We were parked outside Mare's, and
Mulder was gone.  I was refreshed in mind, if not
in body.
     I watched the lights and shadows of the
windows, trying to work out what was going on.
Mare was moving back and forth - I could tell
from the shape of the head - but there was no
sign of Mulder.  His cell phone was on the dash,
plugged into the car charger; and after an hour
had passed, I decided to risk using it.  I phoned
Mare, and after several busy signals, I got
through.
     "Where are you?" she asked urgently.
     "Right under your nose.  Mulder has me
handcuffed to the steering wheel of his car
downstairs."  The curtain flickered as she peered
down at me.  "Can you speak freely?"
     "Yes - he's asleep.  I'm just about to wake
him and feed him the pouch information.  I'm not
going to give him Tunguska - just the entry point
in Norylsk.  I think it's better if he works it
out for himself.  You know what he's like."
     I nodded slowly.  "Good.  It's all arranged
with Mikhail - they're expecting us."  Then, "Did
you hear about the courier?"
     "Yes," she said grimly.  "What happened?"
At my explanation, she said furiously, "Damn it!
They had no right to put you at risk like that!"
     I laughed at that.  "You're like a mother
hen sometimes, Mare."  It felt good, that someone
got that angry on my behalf.
     "You're my husband," she said simply.
     "It wasn't a criticism," I said gently.  "I
like it when you get protective."
     She smiled indulgently - I could hear it in
her voice.  "There have been some Consortium
developments," she said.  "Donovan's buddy
Senator Sorenson is calling a congressional
enquiry into the American courier's death.  Total
smokescreen leading to nothing, but Donovan wants
to publicly distance the group from the rock
theft.  Seems some of our Russian comrades aren't
too happy with Camp Spender right now," she added
sardonically.
     I smiled faintly.  "The enquiry doesn't
really affect our position, and the more
preoccupied Donovan is, the more exposed that
leaves Benita.  I'd say let it be." Then, as an
afterthought, "It could even be to our advantage,
if it buys Mulder's work some protection."
     "That remains to be seen."
     "Let's worry about what we can change," I
counselled.  "Speaking of which, can you have the
billing entry for this call wiped from Mulder's
phone bill?"
     "Piece of cake.  You should see my newest
hack program," she added gleefully.  "You could
co-opt the government of a small country with
it."  I had to laugh - she was such a computer
nerd.  "I'll go wake him now - get him moving.
You must be cold down there."  Her tone was
solicitous.  I could imagine her serving me
chicken soup in my sickbed with that voice.  The
image amused me very much.  What had Mare said
once?  Something about things that happen to
normal people, and not people like us?
     She was waiting for a response.  "More like
profoundly relieved," I snorted.  "I swear, if he
hits me one more time-"
     "You two always did like a bit of B&D," she
laughed.
     "That was a long time ago," I said
irritably.  "I'm serious, Mare, he's driving me
nuts."
     "Mulder drives everyone nuts.  Even Scully
shot him."  We laughed, but then she sobered.
She cautioned, only half-joking:
     "Don't kill him.  We need him."

     He did hit me again, and I didn't kill him.
How much of that was self-control and how much
the handcuffs, I don't know.
     My little display at the airport was
fortunate, but totally unplanned.  I was pissed
off and humiliated.  Twenty-four hours with
Mulder and I'd been punched on at least four
separate occasions and left to dangle in the cold
over the side of a seventeenth-storey balcony.
Pissing in the wind, you might say.  His snide
remarks were not much more than schoolyard
bullying, and that was about how they made me
feel.  I cursed him in English, and then my
English left me as it sometimes did when I was
very worked up, and I cursed him in Russian.
     That was when he decided to bring me to
Tunguska with him.
     I suspect, though, that he intended to
bring me all along.  I think in retrospect that
the whole thing was just one more bit of
bullying.  I wondered if Scully ever saw this
side of him.  I doubted it.
     We arrived in Tunguska without incident.
Mulder backed off a bit, perhaps realising he had
pushed me too far; or perhaps just concerned
about alienating his only interpreter.
Regardless, we were imprisoned, and I was
immediately taken to Mikhail.  I directed him on
Mulder's vaccination program, and had them throw
me back in with Mulder once more.  I convinced
him that I had been interrogated, and he
responded by shoving me against the wall.
     Like you couldn't have predicted that.
     "What did you tell them?" he demanded.
"That we were stupid Americans lost in the
woods," I snapped.  His breath was hot on me, and
I had a fleeting memory of another time; but I
dismissed it.  I shoved him away, sick of being
his punching bag.  "Don't touch me again."
     Mulder stared at me as though I had lost my
mind.  "Don't *touch* you?" he demanded,
misinterpreting my words.  Maybe I wasn't the
only one with a memory of other times.  "What are
you, married or something?"  I turned and
glowered at him, and he scoffed incredulously,
"You're kidding!  Who?  La Femme Nikita?"
     "Fuck you," I snapped, turning back to look
out the barred window.  "You're such an asshole,
Mulder."
     We each paced for a bit, avoiding one
another as well as we could in such close
quarters.  Subjected to the cold and the filth
and the stench, far worse than the already-awful
conditions I lived in myself in Norylsk, I felt
pity for my prisoners; but it was only fleeting.
They were all violent criminals, otherwise
destined for the death penalty.  They had all
accepted this arrangement in exchange for parcels
of land and money for their families.  In the
circumstances, their consent wasn't exactly free
and heartfelt, but whose is to anything in life?
Mine sure as hell wasn't.  And it wasn't as
though Marita and I were living in the lap of
luxury - we worked our asses off to feed and
shelter them.  That creepy geologist in the next
cell was the worst - he'd taken a rock with the
alien pathogen and used it to wipe out his wife,
her lover, and her family.  Only the wife got the
vaccine in time, but she came out catatonic.
     At last - partly to make peace and partly
to pass the time - I said quietly, "You know,
Mulder, sooner or later you're going to have to
come to terms with the fact that if it hadn't
been me that night at your father's house, it
would have been someone else."
     "Yeah," he grunted by way of concession.
His voice was not that of fresh anger, but dull
with bitterness.  "But it *was* you."  He leaned
against the wall, his arms folded, watching me.
     I nodded with some understanding, but said
only, "If I had said no, Mulder, they would have
killed me or mine."
     "You mean your wife."
     "We weren't married at that stage," I said,
looking up at him from my stance on the floor,
"but yeah."
     He thought on this.  "Does she know you
swing both ways?" he asked curiously.  Then,
before I could answer, "Does she know what you
*do*?  I mean she doesn't think you're a
travelling encyclopedia salesman, does she?"
     "She knows everything," I said darkly.
"Everything."
     He looked at me quizzically.  "But doesn't
she - well, mind?"
     "Of course she minds," I snapped.  "We both
do.  You think this is the life I grew up
wanting?" I demanded bitterly.
     He frowned, but didn't reply; and after
that we spoke no more.

     Next time I decide to take Mulder prisoner,
remind me to take a straightjacket.
     After I was removed from the cell, we ran
the treatment on Mulder.  We drew some blood and
sent it to Norylsk to attempt to isolate the
alien retrovirus.  We gave him the vaccine.  We
gave him the pathogen.  We continued this way,
vaccine and oil in turn, for much of the night.
We had been trialling it this way, incrementally,
attempting to overcome the terrible malaise that
struck the subjects in the aftermath of the
treatment, but to no avail.
     Every rule has an exception, though.
     We weren't expecting any trouble from
Mulder the following day.  Usually, the newly-
tested prisoners were only semi-conscious,
stumbling blindly to keep up with their comrades.
Exchanging small-talk with Mikhail, I didn't even
look for him, expecting that he was passed out in
his cell.  He was almost on top of me before my
guards and I realised what was happening; and by
the time I came to myself, he had me in the back
of a hurtling truck, several miles from the
compound.  I knew of the sometimes-erratic effect
of the vaccine on the psyche, and Mulder struck
me as someone predisposed to that outcome.  The
danger was real.
     So I jumped.
     I fell on my left arm - the same one that
was hurt from the balcony episode and the cuffs.
Hopelessly lost, I ran in the unfamiliar
territory of the woods, clutching it, little
dreaming that I would soon crave the feeling of
pain it sent through me.  At that point, I
thought I would be quite happy for the damn thing
to fall off and be done with it.
     God and irony conspire in their little
jokes sometimes.
     When I encountered the boys, I was
relieved.  Naturally, I knew of them, local boys
and men who had cut off their left arms in a bid
to avoid being tested.  It was a pointless
exercise - we only ever tested convicts, and some
of the boys were too young to have ever received
the smallpox inoculation anyway.  But one loose-
lipped guard had spread the word of a one-armed
prisoner we had refused, and then suddenly
Tunguska was filled with amputees.  I thought the
whole thing was darkly funny - it appealed to my
sense of the macabre.  I still do, actually;
though it's taken me a while to reach that point.
     I convinced the boys that I was an escapee,
my main concern.  They would have killed me if I
hadn't.  Laughable.  I was their enemy, in their
eyes; but I would no more have harmed them than a
butterfly.  Like I said...God and irony.
     I will draw a curtain over what happened
next.  I have never spoken of it, not even to
Mare; and in that uncanny way she has, she has
known not to ask.  I will put it baldly for
posterity; but details are something I cannot
give, even now.
     They waited until I was asleep, and then
they cut off my arm.
     Deliberate choice of words.  Amputation
just doesn't fit, you see.  There was nothing
clean and efficient about it.  They took a hot
knife and sawed at my arm until it was gone, and
by then I was hysterical, screaming incoherently
with pain.
     When it was over, I found myself locked in
terror, paralysed by a chilling fear that they
would maim me in some other way.  I knew it
wasn't true - that their violence was not
malicious and their interest was in my protection
- but I was beyond all reason.  I flinched when
they came near me to feed me or bandage my arm;
and I refused to go with them when they decided
to move deeper into the woods.  I couldn't have:
I could barely move.  The shock and the cold were
slowly overtaking me.
     It was a relief.

     Mare found me.
     As she explained later, she had arrived in
Norylsk just hours after Mulder's escape from the
camp in Tunguska.  She had taken advantage of
Spender's absence, as required by the enquiry,
and followed us, aware that her own position
might be tenuous in the aftermath of Benita's
death.  Upon learning of Mulder's escape and my
disappearance in his wake, she had taken a crew
and followed the near-perfect tracks in the
frozen ground.  They knew where I fell from the
truck: I lost a shirt button.  Yeah, you read it
right.  I laughed when they told me that.
     A fucking button.  Who but a wife would
know me by my button?
     They searched the area - the whole crew by
day; just her and a dedicated guard by night.
That information washed over me when I heard it -
I had expected nothing else of her - but later,
when I really thought about it, it was so damn
comforting.  She did that for three days.  By
now, given the sub-zero temperatures, she was too
worried to bother with subterfuge.
     "Alexi!" she screamed.  "Alexi!"
     I heard her crying out that way for hours;
but, hoarsely paralysed by hypothermia, shock and
blood loss, I couldn't respond.  I fought for
consciousness, and in the extremity of hunger, I
gnawed on the remains of my own limb, discarded
by my misguided saviours.  I toyed with my
wedding band, now on my right hand, and waited
patiently, knowing that she would never give up.
And she never did.
     At last, her hoarse cries drew near, and I
cried out as best that I could.  I heard her
footsteps grow nearer, heard her break into a
run.  I hid my arm under leaves and, pulling
myself into a sitting position, I pulled my
jacket around me, wanting to spare her the shock.
I would tell her - warn her.
     She ran into the clearing, gasping for
breath, and she slumped with exhausted relief at
the sight of me.  She came to me, dropped to her
knees in front of me.  Wordlessly, she threw her
arms around me, silent tears streaming from
crystal-clear eyes.  I held her with my one arm,
and I felt her stiffen as she registered the
absence of the second.  I felt her right arm,
which embraced my left side, tighten,
instinctively looking for that which should be
there but was not.
     She pulled back, her face querying, the
suspicion not yet fully formed, not yet
articulate.  She knew that something was wrong,
but not what it was.  She cried out in Russian
for her crew to stay back, and I knew I should
tell her before she worked it out, but I couldn't
speak.
     I remember the exact moment when she
realised; when the pieces of the puzzle came
together.  Her querying look was flooded with
horror, as though she had been slapped, when she
remembered the rebel amputees.  She pulled my
jacket aside, but did not look, still staring up
into my eyes.  I stared back, afraid of her
grief, her disappointment, her rage; for then I
must feel my own.
     She felt her way, her hands tentatively
finding my shoulder.  They moved down my stump,
and when she found the sudden absence mid-bicep,
I saw her breath catch in her chest.  Her
fingertips moved fearfully over the sodden
bandage, and it hurt so much, teasing over the
deep wound, even as my phantom itches clamoured
for her touch.  But somehow I couldn't ask her to
stop: I needed to confront her with it, to see
her pull her bloodied hand away and accept it
anyway.
     Maybe then I could accept it, too.
     "Oh, Alexi," she whispered, and pressed her
mouth to mine.
     We stayed there for a long moment, but
finally, she pulled away, her silent tears dried
to powdery ice on her cheeks.  She said softly,
"Where is it?  This cold - even after this time,
perhaps it can be saved -" but I shook my head
before she could finish.
     "They took it?" she demanded.
     I shook my head, and motioned with my head
to the pile of leaves, reluctantly.  It was a
direct question, and I had never lied to her.  I
waited while she uncovered it, seeing it as
though in slow motion.  Her movements slowed as
she saw the teeth marks and the desecration, and
she stared up at me in horror as she realised
what I had done.  I averted my head, ashamed; but
she said sharply, "Look at me."  I shook my head,
and she said with fresh tears, "Look at me!"
     At last, I complied; and she said softly,
"If this is how you stayed alive for me, I'm
glad, Alex.  Don't you ever be ashamed of this."
     I shook my head again, my face twisted with
pain.  The gulf I had perceived between us, when
I had killed and she had not - the unworthy
bloodiness I felt - it was nothing compared to
this.  I felt an essential, unnavigable wall rise
between us, and I was sure it could never be
breached.  I heard her saying, dimly, "Don't do
this, Alex; don't leave me," but I retreated into
myself, staring off into the distance, far from
her.
     She watched me for a long moment; but then,
at last, she came to me, carrying my arm.  She
crouched in front of me and waited patiently for
me to look at her.  At last, I did it, watching
with numb horror as she lifted my arm in front of
me.  "Look at it, Alex.  Look at what you did.
You did it for us.  And so will I."
     I stared at her, bewildered and perplexed,
as she used her fingernails to pull off a few
twisted strands of tissue from the bone.  They
were frozen; little beads of ice crumbled through
them.  She looked at them for a long moment,
steeling herself in a way I understood all too
well, and then put them into her mouth, closing
her eyes briefly as she swallowed hard.
     When she opened them, I was still staring,
unaware of my tears until she brushed them away.
"We all do what we have to do to survive, Alexi,"
she said gently.  "You don't have to punish
yourself - or me."  She looked down at my arm.
"We are man and wife.  Your sins are my sins.
There is no room for punishment between us."
     And then, at last, I gave way; and she held
me; and I was comforted.

     She took me to St Petersburg.
     We slept fitfully on the plane, and the
hospital was a whirlwind of doctors and
specialists, who proclaimed me to be in
surprisingly good condition for my ordeal.  The
prosthetic specialist was optimistic about my
prospects for rehabilitation.  I would be able to
drive a car and button my clothes and all of
that.  I wondered aloud if I would be able to
knit, but Mare said she thought I would only be
able to knit as well as I did now.  I told her
that didn't bode very well.  She just laughed, a
little wanly, but a laugh just the same.
     My stump itched and it would take time to
heal - certainly I would not be able to use a
prosthetic for a while - but I was able to try
one on.  "I look like a Thunderbird," I said
disgustedly.
     "Thunderbird?" she echoed, bewildered.
     "Sixties British kids' show.  The parts
were played by marionettes."  I started humming
the theme and did a little impression, tip-toeing
across the room, bobbing the prosthesis up and
down.  She really laughed then, and it made me
feel that I might be able to laugh again too.
     Back at the hotel, when at last we went to
bed, she spooned against me as usual; and I felt
more potently than ever my loss.  We lay there
against one another, and I couldn't hold her.
That hurt in a way that all the little
irritations had not.  I tried to compensate by
nuzzling her neck; but at last, I pulled away in
distress.  She rolled over, trying to get close,
but I turned away.
     She watched me for some time, but finally,
she rose.  I heard her moving behind me, before
she came around the bed into view.  She knelt
before me, saying diffidently, "Alexi, make love
to me."
     "Mare," I protested weakly, but she cut me
off.
     "Do it, Alex.  Show me that you love me.
Show me that you want me.  Make me know."
     I sat up on the side of the bed, cradling
her cheek with my hand, and leaned against her,
my head on her shoulder.  I didn't intend to do
as she asked; but I inhaled her scent, and it was
intoxicating.  It was sex and heat and lust; it
was the gentle warmth of comfort and compassion;
it was adoration.  She was my lover, my mother,
my wife.  Everything I'd ever craved in another
person.  In the depth of my loss, I felt every
part of me reach for her, needing her close; and
then I was cradling her with my arm, holding her
to me as I kissed her urgently, needing her
comfort and her warmth.
     She touched my face wondrously with her
fingertips.  "Alexi," she whispered.  Her arms
wound around me, not at my shoulders or my waist
as usual, but one arm at each, bridging the gap
where I would normally have held her.  She was
compensating for me, freeing me to touch her with
my hand.  She moved closer to me between my legs,
pressing herself against me, moving with me as my
lips found hers, as I sought her taste and her
scent hungrily.  I touched her, craving the feel
of her under my palm, missing its mate but not
minding as much as I'd expected.
     I opened my eyes, and hers opened at the
same instant, our gazes locked in breathtaking
union.  Her eyes were like quartz, her irises
such an elusively pale green that they were
almost clear, trailing delicately around blue-
black pupils, bottomless and unfathomable.  They
spoke of great pain and great love, and it made
me ache to know that I was responsible for both.
I rested my head against hers for a long moment,
breathing her name in an erratic melody.  Her
hands were at my neck, cradling me like something
precious.  I felt loved.
     I touched her.
     Cautiously, tentatively, I moved my hand
over her skin - skin I had touched a thousand
times before.  I touched her with wonder, the
feel of her beneath my hand a revelation.  I
trailed curious fingertips down over her flesh,
over the thin silk of her nightshirt.  I found
her nipple with the back of my hand, and I teased
it, relishing the feel of it moving across my
hand, catching at each knuckle; the feel of the
silk rustling over it, a mere sliver of a barrier
between us.  I slid my hand beneath her shirt and
took her breast in my hand, explored it
curiously, and found out what she liked all over
again.  I toyed with it, gentle yet childlike,
treasuring as though for the first time that
simplest of pleasures: that of touching my wife.
I was oblivious to her need and my own,
fascinated by the feel of her beneath my palm.  I
explored further, my hand drifting over her
belly, and felt her shudder against me.  It was
only then that I saw her predicament, or was
conscious of my own.  She was watching me, her
skin flushed, her eyes bright; and my need was
white-hot.
     I kissed her fiercely; whispered, "I'm
sorry - I just-"
     She stopped me.  "I know."  She took my
hand in hers and guided it back to her belly, and
kissed me, hard.  "Do it, Alex," she gasped
between breathless kisses, her harsh whisper
scraping across my desire like a knife.  "Touch
me.  Anywhere you want."
     "I want you everywhere."
     And then we were kissing once again,
ravenous for one another.  I pushed at her with
my head, chased her with my mouth, devouring her,
unable to get enough.  She stood, pulling me up,
moving backwards, letting me push her.  The solid
wall behind her, she pressed herself into me,
flinging her head to one side.  Roughly, I pulled
aside the shirt and nuzzled the soft hollows of
her neck like a man possessed.  She leaned
against me weakly, making soft sounds of longing.
"God! Alex," she cried out, her breasts pushing
into me, her body swaying in agonising need.  "I
want you so bad."
     "I can't wait," I breathed, grabbing the
silk of her shirt in my hand.  "I want you, I
need you."  I lifted the shirt over her head,
awkwardly, and she made a low sound as the fabric
dragged on her nipples, teasing them.  I dropped
the shirt, heedless of where it landed.
     She drew me close.  Her fingertips dragged
across my shoulder, the top of my dressing, her
smooth skin skittering across the raw nerves
there.  I felt the ruthless twinges of new flesh
forming, and they sent ripples of pleasure
through my veins, right on the knife-edge of
pain.  I sank to my knees before her, my head
pressed against her, moaning with the exquisite
pain/pleasure of it.  She cradled my head against
her stomach, bending to kiss me with sudden
tenderness.
     I held up my hand to her, and when she took
it, I pulled her down to straddle me.  The
floorboards were hard and cold against my back,
but I was heedless, drunk on her, craving her
like an addict.  I wanted to fill her in every
way, to make her forever mine, because I was
hers.  We rolled around the floor like animals on
heat, knocking furnishings and our belongings
about carelessly; yet what I felt for her then
was not primal, but spiritual.  It was that gift
of God, of soul meeting soul.  I cradled her head
with my arm - the only time I truly grieved the
absence of its mate - and I worshipped her.
     At last, we staggered up, and I laid her
face down on the bed, stripping her silk trousers
and my own.  I parted her thighs, laying her open
for me, and knelt between her slightly bent
knees, moulding my body to hers.  I kissed the
back of her neck, pushing her hair up and away,
breaths heavy with aching desire.  She took my
hand in her own and drew it under her shoulders
so that my arm cradled her.  She laid her cheek
against my palm, waiting a moment for me; but
then she realised my dilemma, and reached beneath
her to guide me inside her.  I laid my head
against her shoulder, pushing into her, felt her
body part willingly to make room for me.  She was
slick and ready, and she gave a shocked gasp as I
filled her, thrusting back at me stroke for
stroke, pushed to the hilt at last yet seeking
more.  Her face deep in the bed, I heard her
crying out in breathless need as she came, felt
her grow hard and tense, then relax, shuddering,
in the cradle of my arm.  And when at last I
emptied myself into her, and we fell apart, she
was weeping; but her tears were of blissful
exhaustion; and she turned over, laughing
joyfully through them, and pulled me down to her.
I was alive, we were man and wife, and we had
made love.  My arm was gone; but the world was
back more or less the way it should be.
     And I felt whole once more.

COMING IN PART 4: MARITA FACES GROUND ZERO
(IMMEDIATELY TO FOLLOW)