From: Rkacat Date: 21 Jul 1998 19:57:17 GMT Subject: NEW: Redemption 11/21 by Christina Ortega Mulder walked tiredly into his dark apartment that night and closed the door before taking off his trenchcoat and dropping it uncaringly on the floor. He walked over to his window by his computer and opened them, taking a moment to look out at the peacefully dark sky. A long time ago, when Krycek had disappeared from the FBI, or even when he and Krycek were in Tunguska, Mulder had always thought that when and if this day finally came he would be the happiest man alive. Why didn't he feel that way now? Krycek was going to die in a little more than a month. Just a few months ago he would have been ecstatic that night, but now...now he felt like a complete loser. He had lost the game. He remembered that night not too long ago when Krycek had come to his apartment and told him about the resistance that, at this moment, Mulder still didn't truly understand. For the first time it seemed like Krycek was actually doing something to help humanity. That was what it had sounded like, at least. Mulder remembered how alive Krycek had seemed that night, and then he thought of his face today as he was being led out of the courtroom. There was only one word needed to describe Krycek now: dead. Krycek was dead. Maybe not physically, but he was emotionally dead. It was obvious. Just as he was about to put the TV on, Mulder heard the sound of someone knocking on his door. Looking down at his gun that was still in its holder around his waist, he walked over to the door and leaned close enough to it that he could hear the person outside. "Who is it?" "I suggest that you open the door." The icy tone was familiar yet didn't ring a bell. Mulder was about to walk back over to the TV when he heard the voice say again, "You should open the door, Mr. Mulder. I don't feel like breaking it down and causing a scene. I've been sent by a man that approached you last night." Eddie. Mulder pulled out his gun and opened the door only to find the `man' that he knew only as the Bounty Hunter who killed all the alien/human hybrids with a metal stiletto. The Bounty Hunter pushed the door all the way open and slapped Mulder's gun away, pushing the smaller man to the floor. Mulder winced at the pain in his back caused by this action before murmuring, "You show up unexpectedly and then treat me like this? I'm not codependent." "If you tell what you know about Alex Krycek's innocence you will regret it, Mr. Mulder," the Bounty Hunter told him coolly. "So, you're working for this Eddie guy," Mulder realized. "You don't seem like the Asian type, I'm sorry to say." The Bounty Hunter shrugged. "Neither did Krycek." "As I told Eddie yesterday, I don't plan to tell anyone what I know but you have to tell me something. I want to know who this Eddie person is." Well, the Bounty Hunter was his only insight into what all this between Krycek and Eddie was all about, and so he might as well find out all he could that night. Sighing, the Bounty Hunter motioned for Mulder to stand and walked with him over to Mulder's leather couch. The two sat down in silence before the Bounty Hunter began to speak again. "Eddie Chang is from Hong Kong, as you know, and he is a very important player in a group there that was extremely upset by Krycek's betrayal of their country." Mulder glanced at him, confused. "That makes no sense. It was my fault that the deal was broken between Krycek and the Hong Kong government. Not that I want a whole bunch of Asian guys getting me into trouble with the courts and letting me be fried to death, but they're having Krycek killed because of a huge misunderstanding." The Bounty Hunter shrugged. "Eddie and his friends don't care about any misunderstanding or what the truth is. As long as Alex Krycek dies they won't care, which is why you have to keep this quiet. If you don't then they will come after you and after those who you value. You would never forgive yourself if Agent Scully came to a horrible end and, as I told you before, your sister is alive...but she may not be any longer if you tell what you know." Mulder shuddered at the coldness in his voice before saying, "Well, I know all this already. Isn't there another reason you are here?" "Yes," the larger man replied. "Eddie Chang may be powerful himself, but without him the rest of his group will crumble. I don't know where he is, but if you get him into custody then you won't have to worry about telling what you know. The Consortium wants Krycek out of prison, and Eddie's friends won't dare come after you." "You came to me to warn me about what Eddie would do to me if I told what I know and now you are telling me how to get justice for Krycek?" Mulder questioned, startled. The Bounty Hunter merely shrugged. He stood and walked to the door, glancing back at Mulder one more time. "Watch your back. I don't want you dead and the Syndicate doesn't want you dead, but there are those who wouldn't mind having your head right now." With that, he left Mulder to think about what he had said. *** Krycek walked slowly into the small prison cell where he would stay for about a month until his sentence could be carried out. There were no windows and the only lights in the room were dim giving the room an eerie feel. He had realized as he had walked through the hallways of the prison that the whole building was silent. It was an eerie sort of quiet that made his skin crawl. Looking at the small cot in front of him he sighed and sat on it, realizing with contempt that this mattress was even worse than the one at the other prison. He glanced around the cell again and noticed that he was not alone. There was another man, sitting on the other cot, watching him with large hazel eyes. "Hey there, Stranger," the man sitting in the cot across from his said in a friendly tone of voice. "I guess this is the time where we exchange the `what are you in for' greetings." Krycek eyed the man warily from head to toe. He was bald with a red beard and mustache. There was a gold hoop in his left ear and a cut over his left eye. The man was tall and burly making Krycek feel slightly uncomfortable. "All right, then, what are you in death row for?" Krycek questioned, doing his best to smile. This man was huge! If he had fur he would look like a bear sitting on that cot! The man returned the grin with a huge one of his own before replying, "Well, I cut a few throats and stole a whole lot of great jewelry. What about you?" Krycek shrugged. "I shot a whole bunch of people, smuggled national secrets out of the country, and gave them to Hong Kong's government." "I think it's safe to say that you're worse than me," the man said with a chuckle. He extended his large hand. "My name is Bob, by the way. Bob Wolf. I guess we're going to be stuck together for, at the most, four weeks." Krycek narrowed his eyes in confusion as he took the extended hand. "Four weeks?" Bob sighed. "Four weeks till my injection day. Are you being injected, um..." "Its Alex. Alex Krycek, and I'll be on the hotseat in a little more than a month," Krycek admitted to him. "Electrocution, huh?" Bob shook his head. "Not as good, I've heard. Most people seem to favor the injection. It's a more peaceful way to die, we speculate. Then again, any method is better than that beheading crap they did back in the medieval days." Krycek nodded in agreement. "I guess you're right." For a moment he felt a sting of jealousy. Death by injection was sounding really good. Bob sighed. "Well, four weeks, then. That will be good. I mean, we don't do anything except go out and clean up trash and other junk once a day, so we'll have some time to get to know each other." Suddenly feeling completely safe with this man who he barely knew, Krycek laughed (something that he hadn't done in a very long time). "This is so great. I don't know, I expected to be with a jail mate with some freaky attitude and a whole bunch of tattoos all over his body." "They told me I was going to be getting a cell mate today, and I was worried that I was either going to get one of those stone cold non-talkative guys or a gay guy." Bob frowned at him suddenly. "You aren't curvy, are you?" "I'm as straight as they come," Krycek informed him with a grin on his face. Bob smiled. "Me too." Leaning closer to him, he beamed. "Just so you know, though, I do have a tattoo, but its in a very personal area." At Krycek's amused laugh Bob rubbed his shoulder. "Well, I guess you had to go through that strip search. Fun?" "Brutal," Krycek groaned. "Getting stripped by a twenty year old male wasn't exactly my idea was fun. Do you think the stripping guys check you out?" Bob shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he was gay. I was stripped by a really hot female. Wowza! I'd let her do it again if I could." Krycek chuckled and smiled at him realizing that it had been a few years since he'd had a good laugh. Then again, hearing the Well-Manicured Man desperate for information over the phone when he was on the Star of Russia with that Dimitri kid had been rather funny. Or so he had thought. *** (The next day) "You really should come with us to the gym, Alex," Bob told him the next day at eleven in the morning. "Believe me, we'll be in there for a couple of hours. You'll be really bored out here all alone." Krycek shrugged. "Yeah, well, what could I do. Everything is pretty much out for me because I only have one fucking arm!" He silently yearned to do things that everyone else could even if it was just playing basketball or being able to dry yourself quickly with a towel! Bob examined the plastic arm of his cell mate again before grinning. "You know what you should do if you live through this? You should get a professional painter to paint something on the top of the hand. It would look really cool. My sister, Megan, is a really great artist. I'm sure she could do something on your palm. Maybe if we have a visitor's day she can come with her art set and paint your hand through the bars." Krycek chuckled, entertained. "Really? Maybe I'll just get it multicolored. You know...a checker board pattern or something like that." "I can see it neon pink or neon green," Bob told him, a flippant expression on his face. "You know...so when you walked by everyone would notice it." "Just as long as I don't put a gang symbol on it by mistake. I'd have all sorts of people beating me up as I walked by," Krycek joked. He smiled at Bob before motioning towards the guard in front of their cell door. "Go." Bob frowned at him. "Are you sure? I could stay if you want me to." Krycek smiled assuringly at him. "I'll be fine, Mother. Go. Believe me, I need the quiet after experiencing that shower room for the first time this morning." Now THAT had been an experience of a life time. Bob nodded and stood, walking towards the cell door which the guard had just opened. "Yeah, I mean, have you ever seem more guys making love at the same time in your entire life? Its disgusting!" With that he left Krycek all alone in the cell. He had only been there in the comforting quiet for about twenty minutes when a short bald guard with nerdy wire glasses came up to his cell and peered in. "You have a visitor, Krycek. Do you wish to see her?" "Her?" Krycek sighed. "Do I have to get up?" "She has special rights, therefore she will be wheeled over here. Do you wish to see her?" the guard questioned again. "Sure, I'll see her." Subject: NEW: Redemption 12/21 by Christina Ortega From down the hallway a woman in all white who Krycek recognized as the nurse who had been with the girl at the courtroom wheeled Cassandra Duncan down the hallway. The little girl's blond hair was hanging in pigtails over her shoulders and she was wearing a yellow flowered shirt and red overalls. The two stopped in front of Krycek's cell, and, at Cassandra's waved had, the nurse left them alone. Krycek offered her his most charming and innocent smile. "Hi, Sweetheart. I must say that I'm a little surprised to see you here." "You aren't guilty!" Cassandra shouted at him, the strength of her voice nearly knocking him against the wall. "Why are you in here? You shouldn't be in here! You didn't kill them!" Krycek opened his mouth to respond, didn't find the words he was looking for, and tried his hardest to find something decent to say. "Well, I, um, I really appreciate what you did for me in the courtroom, Cassandra. That was very brave of you." He smiled again, but by her upset expression he could tell he didn't seem assuring enough. "Don't try to protect me!" Cassandra screamed at him. "You don't deserve to die! You're a good person!" Krycek thought to himself. As this thought struck him, he sighed "I'm not going to try to protect you, Cassandra, but I've done more than go after your parents. Well, you see, I just deserve to be here. That's all." "You didn't go after my parents though," Cassandra argued with a pout. Krycek grinned weakly at her. "You're right. I didn't, Cassandra, but I have hurt other people. That's why I'm here." Cassandra merely regarded him with skepticism before motioning to her nurse. "I'm ready, Nurse Bell." The brown-haired woman nodded and ran over to her, taking the handles of her wheelchair carefully. Cassandra looked back at him again with a tight frown on her features making her look older and wiser. "You are a good man, Mr. Krycek." Glancing once more at Krycek the nurse smiled, her eyes twinkling. "Take care of yourself in here, Sir," she said in a perky British accent. With that, the two left him alone in the terrible silence again. It amazed Krycek how mature that girl seemed. He felt almost as if she could read his mind. How could a girl of only nine years understand him that well? It didn't make any sense! Most people older than him couldn't understand how he thought. Hell, Krycek himself couldn't even understand his own reasoning sometimes. A voice pierced through the quiet making Krycek jump. "These prisons really need a lot more guards. You have no idea how easy it was to get in here." As he noticed Krycek's startled expression, Mulder grinned from his position just outside of Krycek's cell. "What's the matter, Krycek? Is prison life getting to you?" "Shit, Mulder, do you have a schedule of my whole life or what?" How Mulder was able to find him whenever he was totally alone was beginning to frighten him. Mulder shrugged. "I'll leave that up to you to figure out, Krycek." Becoming completely serious, he leaned towards the bars of the cell. "I know you didn't do it." "Do what? There's a lot of accusations on that rap sheet I have," Krycek muttered. "You didn't kill my father. I know that much." It had taken him a long time to come to that conclusion, but there was a reasonable doubt in his mind now, and that was all he needed. Krycek looked at him blankly before saying, "You know, I hear that electrocution is a pretty good way to go because you fry instantly. I like getting things over with quickly. How about you, Mulder? Then again, beheading goes quickly, too, but I don't like that idea. Too gruesome for me. I was never much a horror movie fan." "You know what, Krycek?" The younger man glanced at him, waiting to hear what he was going to say. "I'm really surprised. I'm surprised that you're giving up this quickly. Before this you never seemed to relent and now it seems like defeat is just a way of life for you!" Mulder exclaimed. "Its not defeat, Mulder," Krycek countered. "What I'm doing is deciding not to delay the inevitable. Death will come sooner or later for everyone. I just got to the end of the race before everyone else did. Who knows, Mulder? Maybe you'll be next." Mulder snarled at him. "Can't you see that I'm trying to help you!? Open your eyes, Krycek!" Why was it so hard for him to understand that he was trying to save his life? "Why don't you open yours and see that I don't want to be helped, Mulder!?" Krycek shouted with the same amount of venom in his voice. Calming down, he sighed. "Look, either say something helpful or get out of here before they find you." "Fine, I'm going," Mulder told him, "but I'm not going to give up. You are going to realize that there are other ways to solve this mess you've gotten yourself into if I have to force you to do it." As he walked down the hallway a thought struck him that seemed to clear up a few things for him. *** (Later that afternoon) Bob returned to the cell only to find that Krycek had fallen asleep on his cot with a weird-looking book in his hands. Wiping the shiny perspiration from his brow with his shirt he walked over to Krycek and hit him a few times making the younger man open his eyes, shocked. "W-what happened?" Seeing that it was Bob, he smiled. "Did you have fun?" "It was a blast, Alex. You really should have gone. There was a major fight between this guy that killed his wife and daughter and another guy who shot all these people in an art museum!" Bob told him excitedly. "What about you? Did you have fun reading..." He glanced at the book laying on Krycek's chest, "a psyche book? Why the hell are you reading that crap?" Krycek yawned before rubbing his eyes groggily. "I guess this was why I fell asleep. Actually, there's this guy I used to work with who is a great psychology profiler. Well, lets just say I've always been interested in it." In all honesty, he wasn't reading the book because Mulder had gotten him interested in it. It was more that everything he was feeling...everything that Mulder had said...it didn't make sense and he wanted desperately to understand what was happening to him. "Hey, Buddy, they're your tastes, not mine. Personally, psychology pisses me of," Bob admitted. Krycek chuckled, amused. "Why is that? Bad experiences with a therapist, Bob?" Bob shrugged. "Yeah, I dated one. She was a pain in the ass, I'll tell you that. Well, it's not just that. Therapists have a way of getting inside your head, and that really freaks me out. I mean, how do they do that? Do they just guess? Although, you can always tell who the bad ones are." "How is that?" Krycek asked him, sitting up and cradling his chin with his right palm. "You know, they say the same thing for every client. Like those therapists on Jenny Jones or whatever the hell her name is. That woman kept saying the same thing: `I think you're jealous of her and that's why you are saying this about her'. That's a bunch of crap. You don't make fun of someone because you're jealous of them. Whoever made that up is an idiot. "There's another thing, too. If you break up the word therapists into two words you get the rapists. That doesn't make me feel too comfortable around them. I don't know about you, but that's my opinion." Krycek whistled low. "I never realized that. Therapists equals the rapists. Hmmm...I'll have to talk to Mulder about that sometime. Maybe he does more than just watch those porno tapes." Bob rubbed his chin. "A psychologist who watches porno, eh? Well, that's a problem. I wouldn't let this guy do his psycho brainwashing junk on me. No way." Becoming serious, he put his hand on Krycek's shoulder before saying, "Have you met a guy named John O'Hara?" "No," Krycek said, shaking his head. "Why? Should I have?" "Well, he inhabits the cell across the hall and one to the left of ours with another guy, Sean Ryder. John came to the gym late today because he had to finish eating his...gruel from this morning." Krycek gagged. "I didn't think anyone really ate that stuff." Bob shrugged. "Well, he does get pretty hungry. Anyway, while he was here he heard two people come to your cell. One of them was a little girl and the other one was some guy with brown hair and a really ostentatious tie." "Shit..." Krycek rubbed his forehead, knowing exactly where he was going with this conversation. "So, I suppose he told you what they said to me and what we talked about. Any questions you want to ask?" "Yeah," Bob replied, his voice becoming harsher, "I do have some questions, like why are you getting the death penalty for crimes you didn't commit?" Krycek sighed, having expected this would happen, before saying, "I did commit them." Bob frowned skeptically at him. "If that's true then why are you giving me that `please don't question me any further because I might break' look?" He folded his massive arms over his chest with annoyance at the younger man in front of him. Krycek glanced at him, afraid of what this man would do to him if he didn't answer. Bob continued to glance at him in fury, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose as the younger man turned away from him and put his head back on the flimsy pillow on the bed. Sighing, Bob awkwardly rubbed Krycek's back before saying, "You may not believe me, Alex, but I am a husband and father. Well, I guess that would be `was' since I'm in here and I'm not going back to them. Guess my age, Alex." Krycek glanced up, surprised by his change of attitude, before looking at him and shrugging. "I don't know. thirty-seven...thirty-eight...how old are you?" He tried to follow Bob's fingers with his eyes but, suddenly tired, he decided to let the other man do as he pleased. "I'm forty-five," Bob told him with a chuckle. At Krycek's amazed expression he laughed even harder. "Yep, I know its hard to believe that a hot stud like me is really forty-five, but I am. My boy is eighteen and he's everything a father could hope for. Cory is smart, sensitive towards the ladies, and athletic. He was the star player on his basketball team in high school. I'll be gone before I get the news that he's gone off to college. He'll be finishing up his senior year this June. "Aside from his great personality and looks, which come from me, might I add, he can also be stubborn and sometimes he has a hard time telling the truth, Alex. You know why? Because lying makes him feel powerful. No, he's not a compulsive liar, but there's just something about telling his folks a bold faced fib that just gets him really riled up. Lying is like a drug, Alex. Once you start you can't stop. I know that's true because I've been addicted to lying as I'm sure you are. Its not exactly a bad quality. Usually it is, but sometimes being a charming liar can help you get out of tough situations, but there's no one here to care if you lie or not and if you do lie to me or to anyone who's trying to help you in here than you are just going to get yourself into more trouble. Believe me, Alex, I know how it works. You have to trust me." Seeing that Alex had completely relaxed under the fingers massaging his back comfortingly, Bob continued. "Well, I'm going to go into a psychological thing if you don't mind. Now, I don't mean to butt into your personal business but it seems to me that you, perhaps, did not have a very comfortable childhood. Am I right?" "Yeah," Alex murmured, his eyes closed. "Don't get all therapist-like on me, Bob. That's kinda freaking me out." Bob smiled at him. "Yeah, yeah. Anyway, we're going to be together for four weeks, and just in the day we have been together you've already reminded me greatly of my son and, well, I wouldn't mind adopting for my last four weeks on this Earth. Plus, it seems to me you need someone to trust. Someone like a father." Alex chuckled and glanced at him. "I could never trust my father. He wasn't exactly...kind to me." "That's my point, Alex. Its obvious that you need a good father and I need a son," Bob persisted. "I made a mistake that cost me my life. Please, my biggest wish is to use my last four weeks as a father to make up for my errors." "You want me as a son?" Alex looked up at the older man and laughed besides himself. "You don't understand, Bob. First of all, you're only fourteen years older than me, and, secondly, you don't want me as a son. Believe me, my first father hated me and I guarantee that you will hate me just as much." Bob shot Alex a wounded look. "Age doesn't matter to me, and if your father hated you then he was a rotten father because no father should hate their children. Please, this is my dying wish." Alex rubbed his eyes before flipping over so his head was barely touching Bob's knees. "Do you prefer Father, Daddy, or Dad?" He smiled faintly and closed his eyes, mentally grinning as Bob shifted his legs so that his head could rest on his lap. As Bob stroked his hair, still not believing that he had opened up so much to this man he barely knew, he sighed with contentment. "I like Dad myself, but that's just me." "All right, Dad," Alex said softly, trying out the word. For a moment with his eyes closed he barely remembered that he was saying this to his cell mate whom he had only known for two days. Instead, he pictured himself as a seven year old again sleeping in his father's arms with the idea that no one would ever hurt him and that he was, in some way, immortal. *** Subject: NEW: Redemption 13/21 by Christina Ortega (The next day at ten in the morning) Krycek awoke to the sound of the cell door being opened. He glanced at Bob as he returned to the cell and looked at him. "Hey, you slept in. For a few minutes I thought you were dead. Oh, you missed shower by the way." "Damn," Krycek muttered. "Now I'm going to smell like crap the whole day. Why didn't you wake me up?" Bob shrugged. "I don't know. Yesterday you seemed out of it and today you just looked so peaceful that I couldn't wake you." "I've got to start having more nightmares so I won't look so peaceful," Krycek murmured to himself. The two looked through the bars of their cell door as they heard another man yell, "Hey, Bob, is it true you're playing Daddy for your last few weeks on Earth?" "Yeah, Sean, although I heard that you and John are doing the brothers thing before you both get fried," Bob called back. The man, Sean, turned to John, who looked almost exactly like him except he was an inch shorter, weighed a little more, and had smaller eyes. "Hey, John, do you think they look like father and son?" "You're too young, Bob!" John hollered across the hall. He put a hand through his brown hair before yelling, "What about us? Have people noticed how brotherly we are?" Bob shrugged. "Yeah, I guess, although most of the inmates think you two are just gay." Sean looked at John and sighed. "Damn it. I told you that little routine in the shower room was going a little too far." Ignoring them, Bob looked back at Krycek. "So, Alex, are you going to tell me why you are here if you don't deserve to be?" Krycek shook his head. "It's not a good topic of conversation for me right now. I'm still getting used to the fact that in less than two months I'm going to be dead. Well, to be honest, I guess it seems weird how you and everyone else on death row seems to be able to talk about death like it's a common thing." "It is common, Alex, although from the charges on your rap sheet I'd have guessed that you would know that," Bob responded. Krycek was about to reply when, suddenly, the door to their cell open and a young African American male guard looked at them sternly before questioning, "Which one of you is Krycek?" "That would be me," Krycek responded. "What's up? Did the guy running the shower decide to let me use it?" "No. You've got a visitor who's waiting for you in the visitor's area. Please, follow me," the guard instructed. "Hey, wait a minute, don't I get to choose whether I want to see this person like I did last time?" Krycek had the awful suspicion that it was going to be someone he really didn't want to see like the Well-Manicured Bastard. The guard shook his head. "No. Please, follow me." Reluctantly, Krycek followed the guard out of the cell and walked with him down the long hallway filled with cells housing the other prisoners on death row. They then walked past the gym and walked into a room which was lit only by a small window in the far corner. He sighed as he saw the plastic wall that would separate him from the person who had come to see him. Just then, he noticed the person who had come to visit him and groaned. Of all people, the visitor was Marita. Sitting down across from her hesitantly, he looked at the speaker which he was supposed to talk through before murmuring, "So, do you bring news of the outside world? How's the weather been? You know I can't feel it in here. It's all the same all the time." He offered her a charming grin and waited to see how he would react to his rather poor jokes. Unexpectedly, Marita glared at him, and that was when he noticed that her eyes were red from shedding tears. "How can you sit there and act like nothing is wrong!?" She cried, both sorrowful and frustrated. "You are going to be killed in a month, damn it! How can you act like everything is just perfectly fine!?" It seemed to her that she was the only one upset by the fact that he was going to be killed very soon. Why didn't anyone else see that as a big thing!? "If you cry over it you waste energy because it won't change a thing. You need to live with it, Marita. That's all I can tell you." As soon as he saw the first tear drop from her eye he knew he had said the wrong thing. "You have some nerve," Marita growled angrily. "I don't understand how you can sit there and pretend that everything is just grand. Yes, I'm sure everything is fine. Now I'm the stupid one for wasting my tears on you. Maybe I am an idiot, Alex. I'm a moron. I'm a fucked-up bitch, all right, but you have no idea what it's like to know that someone you've cared about for more than ten years is going to die and you can't do anything to stop it, and the only way I can talk to you is through some plastic crap. I can't even hold your hand or hug you one last time!" By this time, Krycek was feeling, literally, like dirt. "Look, you aren't an idiot, ok? I'm sorry if it seems like I don't care that I'm in here or I don't care that I'm going to die. It just seems like if I try to forget about the fact that I'll never see Autumn or Winter again then it seems easier. You know, I can try to fool myself into thinking that I'm in here because I'm mental or something, like a mental institution. At least then I can convince myself that I'm not going to die. If I think about it too much then I do become morose and afraid, but I'd prefer to live normally my last couple of weeks. Do you get it now?" Marita nodded hesitantly and put her hand up on the window separating them. Krycek watched it for a few moments before putting his own hand on it and pretending that he was really touching her. She slowly removed her hand and smiled, touching her lips and then touching the window. Krycek closed his eyes for a moment and moved his hand over to where hers was, mentally taking the kiss and putting his fingers on his lips to show that it was received. As the guard walked over to Krycek and forced him to stand, Marita leaned closer to the window. "Now, tell me this isn't love," she whispered. He offered her a weak grin before walking with the guard back to his cell. After the guard had closed the door behind him he looked at Bob who stood and put his hands on his shoulders. "What happened, Alex? Who was that?" "That was...my girlfriend..." Krycek muttered softly. He glanced at Bob and quickly lowered his head as he felt tears threatening to spill from his eyes. Taking in a shaky breath, he found the courage to look up at his adopted father. "I'm scared." Bob quickly escorted him over to the cot and sat down with him there, embracing Krycek as if he really were his son. "Why are you scared, Alex?" Krycek tried to pull away as tears started to flow from his eyes but Bob did not allow this. "This will help you free all the stuff that you've been holding in since this all began, I'll bet. Now, what are you afraid of?" Krycek closed his eyes and tightened his grip on Bob who tightened his, as well. He took in a shaky breath as the tears continued steadily down his cheeks. "I...I don't want to die. I'm afraid of dying." He unconsciously recalled telling Mulder, Scully, and even Marita that he wasn't afraid to die...that it would seem like he had won the game at last, but that didn't mean he wasn't afraid. Somehow he was unable to imagine leaving his body. Thinking of his body with no life in it...with him not being there...it scared him beyond belief. Bob rubbed his back soothingly before muttering, "To be honest with you, Alex, I'm scared, too, but when you're gone you no longer have to feel the pain and suffering that come along with life. It will all be over." "My life has been wasted on nothing. The things I fought for...I'll never see them happen. My life has been nothing but junk. At least you had a wife and kid. I had nothing. There was no one for me to love except Marita and, well, we fought all the time." Krycek lifted up his right hand and did his best to wipe his tears before pulling away from Bob. He looked away and tried to hide his shame, but Bob did not allow it. He placed a finger on the younger man's chin and lifted it so that Krycek was forced to look at him. "Listen to me, not just as a cell mate, not just as a friend, but as a father. Your life is not over yet. I have four weeks, and you have longer than that. You have a lot of time to make up for at least some of the things that you did wrong. Like, with Marita. Call her on today's phone privilege and ask her to see you again. Call this Mulder guy and this Scully guy that you talked about." Krycek chuckled lightly. "Actually, Scully is a woman." He was surprised by how often people made that mistake. Krycek was so used to knowing Scully as a woman that thinking of a man with the last name `Scully' seemed utterly hilarious. "Whatever, Alex, just try. Do your best to make ends meet while you're still here. I know it will be hard, but you need to do it. Maybe I do to. I'll have to call my sister and my wife and son...we'll be all right, Alex...Son...we'll be all right," Bob assured him. Smiling, he patted Krycek's shoulder. "Now, when was the last time you cried like that, Alex? A month? Two, maybe?" "I cried in prison when I was being interrogated," Krycek admitted to him. He was slightly amazed at how easy it was to talk to Bob. The older man seemed to understand everything he said and Krycek had no idea how he could. Bob shook his head. "Well, I mean before all this. See, anyone can cry under this much stress, but other times is something else." Krycek shrugged and looked up at the ceiling as he thought. Finally, he sighed. "Um, does crying in pain count, because getting my arm cut off really hurt so obviously I cried then." Bob shook his head. "No, that doesn't count." "Well, uh, no, not then...um...maybe...two years." "Two years!?" Bob exclaimed. "Damn it, how much stuff have you been holding in since then? Why did you cry that one time?" Krycek blushed lightly. "Well, uh, I had been taken over by this alien...never mind...I passed out and when I woke up myself locked in a missile silo with no idea how I had gotten there. I pounded on the door for a long time and, after about a day, I was so tired, upset, and lonely that I just broke down and cried for hours." He could remember that experience as if it was yesterday. The door had been too hard and he couldn't break it. Finally, in complete disgust at his weakness and fatigue, and frightened that those bleak and dirty walls would be the last thing he would ever see, he broke down and sat on top of the alien craft sobbing in a near state of of hysteria. Bob sighed and touched Krycek's good arm. "That must have really sucked, Alex. What had happened? Was it just some kind of nasty prank?" "Actually, it was like a containment facility, I guess you could say. I had been infected by this really deadly virus and so I had be contained in a remote area and monitored to make sure that I recovered without any ill effects." He wasn't exactly sure how to explain the black oil to Bob. Sure, now it seemed so simple to him, but explaining it to someone who had never heard of it and had no idea that there was a government conspiracy? Now, that was something else. "I hate being sick," Bob said with a shudder. "Just the coughing and the sneezing and all of that...it makes me feel helpless." Krycek nodded in agreement. "Exactly, so you can imagine how I felt. I was hacking up all sorts of crap. After a few weeks all I experienced were a few headaches and one or two coughing fits so they let me go. What they never found out, though, is that I relapsed." Bob's eyes widened. "You relapsed, and you were all by yourself on the street? Damn...well, you seem better now." "Yeah, I am better. This virus was unknown at the time, and it is still really rare. I had to go to Russia, actually, to partake in tests there that they were performing on people there to find a vaccine that would actually kill the virus completely. They found one that worked and, long story short, here I am fine and dandy." At that moment, the African American guard who had escorted Krycek to the visitor area before opened the door to their cell. "Its phone privilege time, Gentlemen. Make it snappy." As the two walked down the hallway with the guard John and Sean, who had been listening to the whole conversation, glanced at each other. Sean smiled. "Well, that conversation certainly brought them closer together." "He cried. I wonder if we would become closer if we cried on each other," John thought to himself. Sean shrugged. "Perhaps, John. I'll think about it, and if you wake up wet tomorrow morning you'll know that I agreed with you. Either that, or you dreamed about your old girlfriend and got a little carried away again." *** Subject: NEW: Redemption 14/21 by Christina Ortega (Later that day) Mulder sat in his office gloomily looking at his `I Want to Believe' poster. The poster had always been a source of serenity for him, but now it was proving to be a cause of complete confusion. He realized now that there was a lot that he wanted to believe. It wasn't just about aliens anymore, and for a moment Mulder wished that life was as simple as it had been five years ago when he had been called to the X-Files by the dream that he had of finding his sister alive and well. He looked up, startled, as the door to the office opened, but when he saw that it was only Scully he sighed with relief. "Hey, Scully. Did you have fun celebrating Krycek's sentence yesterday?" "Very funny, Mulder, which reminds me, did you go to see him yesterday?" "Yes, I told you I did. Why?" Mulder narrowed his eyes at her. Was she getting suspicious of what he wasn't telling her? No, she couldn't be. Scully frowned. "Well, your name wasn't on the visitor list nor does anyone remember seeing you in the building." This was really weird. Why would Mulder lie to her? Mulder chuckled lightly and then stopped as he noticed how serious she was. "Look, Scully, I just didn't want to be confined by that stupid window thing. I don't understand why I can't just talk to the man through the bars of his cell. He was alone and wasn't doing anything. What's the big deal? Besides, how do you know that? Were you following me around, Scully?" The idea of Scully following his every move did sound pretty neat. "I went to see him myself, actually, though I didn't talk to him because he was meeting with someone already. It was that Marita Covarrubias woman," Scully told him suggestively. "You know she is not my type at all, Scully," Mulder told her, jokingly stern. "Well, not that you know my type." Scully smiled. "Oh, I do, Mulder. Your type is short brown hair and British, shoulder length brown hair and pouty lips with a strong like of bugs, or blond hair, which I still think was pretty fake." "Scully, you are inhumane." Mulder shuddered, remembering the three witches of his life: Phoebe, Bambi, and Detective White. "Thank you," Scully said with a smirk. She sighed. "So, what did you learn from our ratboy down at the prison?" Mulder looked at her, a laugh escaping his lips. "Ratboy? Where did that come from?" "It suits him. He looks like a boy and he's definitely a sneaky rat," Scully explained. She honestly didn't know how she had come up with the expression. It just seemed to fit him perfectly, and so she had decided to share it with her partner who she had been sure would appreciate it. Mulder didn't disappoint her. "This is the most descriptive I've seen you in awhile, Scully," Mulder told her flippantly. "Anyway, back to what he told me...he literally said that he wasn't giving in, he just wasn't delaying the inevitable. Oh, that's referring to his death, of course." Ratboy? He was really starting to think that Scully was getting a sense of humor. It wasn't much of one, but it was there. Scully grinned. "Yes, well, I assumed that much. You haven't told me if you learned any more about this Eddie person or about why Halloway did what he did." Mulder shrugged. "Well, I haven't told you anything because I don't know anything, Scully. Krycek, or Ratboy as you say, has told me nothing of interest." The smile fell from Scully's face as she regarded him seriously. She frowned at him. "You're lying to me, Mulder." "No, I'm not, Scully!" Mulder exclaimed. "Why would I lie to you?" Scully narrowed her eyes. "I can hear it in your voice, Mulder. You can't lie to me. I know you too well for that. What did Krycek tell you about Eddie?" What could Mulder be hiding? It couldn't be evidence, could it? Mulder sighed. "As I said, Scully, he said nothing of interest." Oh, this hurt. This really hurt. Would he be able to hold out against Scully's infamous `evil eye'? Scully crossed her arms over her stomach, irked. "Stop it, Mulder. I want the truth. What did Krycek tell you?" "Fine. Eddie is with the Hong Kong government. His full name is Eddie Chang." "Why would you hide that from me, Mulder?" Scully glared at him in anger. "What the hell aren't you telling me? I want to know." This wasn't like him. If he was hiding something from her it must be really big. Mulder rubbed the bridge of his nose. "All right. Eddie and Halloway were working together, ok?" Scully's eyes widened in realization. "Eddie and Halloway worked together to deliberately get Krycek killed for crimes they had committed." She turned to Mulder, enraged. "Why the hell did you keep this information secret, Mulder!? If the court knew this Krycek may not be in prison waiting to be fried!" She didn't think that she had ever been more upset with him. Even though his ditching her always hurt he had always tried to be honest with her except when he couldn't, but now...now there was no excuse. There was reasonable doubt concerning Krycek's guilt now. She can't believe that he had held in this information! "Scully, listen to me. It was either Krycek's life or ours. They threatened my life and yours for this information. Eddie knows I know what he did as do Krycek and the Bounty Hunter." "Bounty Hunter!?" Scully looked at him in shock. "What does the Bounty Hunter have to do with anything?" This was way to weird. In her eyes, Krycek's guilt had just gone from black and white to a whole array of colors. So, there really was a big conspiracy behind this thing. Why didn't that surprise her? Mulder shrugged. "For some reason the Bounty Hunter is working with Eddie and his Hong Kong friends. Apparently I pulled Krycek out of the country too quickly when he was taken over by the alien oil. Krycek had been working with them on some kind of project, and his leaving made them fall short of completing it, and so they blame him for their failure, so that leaves Krycek where he is now. Not even the Syndicate seem to know about Eddie and his buddies." Scully shook her head. "We cannot keep this quiet, Mulder. If what you say is true then Krycek needs a retrial before his sentence is carried out." "No, Scully, you don't understand. Eddie knows that I know and he's watching me. I'm afraid that he's going to do something to you or to me if we go public with this." He was unable to shake that night that Eddie had confronted him in the parking lot of the courthouse. So, this was the time when the game heated up. "It's a risk we're going to have to take, Mulder. An innocent man is facing prison time," Scully said. "Look, I know there is a rivalry between you and Krycek and you don't want him walking. I assure you that he won't walk away free from this, but he doesn't deserve to die for crimes he didn't commit." Mulder looked at the completely serious expression on her face before nodding reluctantly in agreement. He really hoped this would work and that Eddie would just back off, but he seriously doubted that this would happen. The next morning after Scully had tried to explain what Mulder had told her the day before Mulder was paying for not telling his very upset AD about the Krycek and Eddie situation. "You may feel a responsibility towards your secrets, Agent Mulder, and I respect that, but this is too far. This is way past the line. Agent Mulder, you cannot keep me in the dark and you cannot keep your partner, Agent Scully, in the dark. Do I make myself perfectly clear!?" Mulder nodded slowly. "Yes, Sir. I'm sorry, Sir." Skinner sighed and looked at Scully. "So, how exactly should we go about dealing with this situation? Should I call the governor and ask for a pardon or should we try to hunt this man down?" "I don't think it will be that easy, Sir. Eddie Chang has been able to hide from us for this long, and he has many resources that might even reach to the Syndicate. In all honesty, I think we need to wait for him to make the first move," Mulder explained. Skinner shook his head in disagreement. "I'm afraid that isn't possible, Mulder. If we wait for Eddie to make a move he may not make one and then it will be too late. Krycek will be dead." Part of him was furious at Mulder for keeping this information secret, and the other part of him was upset that he hadn't seen the relationship between Halloway and an outside force. "I have to see the governor to see if he will grant a pardon." Mulder shook his head. "Krycek is not completely innocent. I didn't say that. If anything, Krycek should just be given an appeal." "I'm going to go down to the prison and tell Krycek that we're doing this. He needs to be alert so that he can watch out for strange activity in the facility," Scully said. Mulder looked at her, somewhat startled. "You're making him sound like an undercover agent and not a prisoner, Scully." As she looked away from him he sighed. "I'll go with you, Scully." "No, Agent Mulder, you will be coming with me to help me work this out with the governor," Skinner told him. "I will not be held accountable for this big mistake." Mulder sighed, knowing already how much trouble he was going to be in. Skinner was completely pissed...not that it was a first. After Mulder and Skinner had left Scully drove over to the prison where Krycek was being held. She walked cautiously through the drab halls and walked into the visitor's room. A young guard walked up to her. "Who do you wish to see today, Miss?" Scully smiled politely at him. "Um, I'd like to visit with Alex Krycek. It should only take five minutes." "Boy, that guy is popular, isn't he?" The guard nodded and, ignoring her questioning gaze, looked towards the guard on the other side of the visitor window. "Alex Krycek." The African American nodded and left the room. Scully took off her black trenchcoat and sat down tentatively in the seat in front of the visitor's window. She glanced at the speaker for a moment before looking up at the door opening on the other side of the room. The African American guard came back in with Krycek walking in front of him. Scully looked him over in his all white prison uniform and grinned in amusement as she remembered him wearing all black before he had been caught by the police. This was certainly a change in style for him. He looked at her, sighed as he realized what she was thinking, and sat down in front of her, a casual smile on his face. "Have you decided to come forward with your true feelings for me, Scully?" "Yes, Krycek. I think you are a slimy rat," Scully retorted coolly. Krycek flashed her a charming smile but did not retort. Knowing that his smile would not be there much longer, Scully sighed. "I've learned some interesting things from my partner about your guilt." As she expected, his flippant mood disappeared leaving his face completely noncommittal. "Such as what?" "Well, such as you are not guilty of the Duncans' murders. They were done by a man named Eddie Chang." She watched him interestedly to see how he would respond to this news. Krycek shrugged as if he didn't know a thing at all about what she spoke of. "I've never heard that name." Understanding what he was doing, Scully shook her head. "Denial may have worked for you before, but it won't work for you now. Assistant Director Skinner and Agent Mulder are going to go to the governor to have your sentence postponed so that you may be granted an appeal which will, hopefully, be fair." "Y-you can't do that, Scully!" Krycek exclaimed, startled by this news. "They can't do that! You can't let them do that!" Shit...shit...shit. This was not good. This was not good at all. Scully frowned at him, surprised by his reaction. "Well, it's too late. They're on their way to see the governor right now." Krycek rubbed his eyes in frustration before glaring at her. "You have to call them. Call them and tell them to turn around and come back. They can't do that, Scully. Tell them to come back." "I'm not going to do that, Krycek," Scully told him. "The truth needs to be known whether you understand that or not." With that, she stood and walked out of the room leaving him to stare in horror after her. Krycek let out a deep sigh and stood as the African American guard grabbed his arm. The two walked slowly back to Krycek's cell in complete silence. *** Subject: NEW: Redemption 15/21 by Christina Ortega (A week later at night) Marita padded around her hotel room in a silk white robe. She walked into the small bathroom and grabbed her black brush from off of the counter and ran it through her soft blond hair a few times before walking back into the living room and sitting down on the couch which had very hard cushions. Leaning back on it, she reached out towards the glass coffee table in front of her and picked up a pile of pictures that were laying there. They were all very old...some of them were more than ten years old, but Marita had still kept them. She would look at them if she needed comfort. The first was of a whole group of people. As she looked at it she realized now that this picture was thirteen years old and it was of a lot of her classmates on the last day of high school. Krycek was in the picture standing next to her with his arm around her shoulders. The second one was of just her and Krycek. He was kissing her cheek as she blushed. In the distance you could see Chris and Mac, Krycek's two best friends back then, making fun of their position. Marita smiled at it realizing how young they both looked. Her hair was longer than it was now as was his, and he was wearing a white shirt which was a far cry from his usual ensemble: all black. If someone didn't know him and saw him walking around on the street Marita supposed that they would think he was a Goth. In the third picture Marita was wearing a pastel pink dress while Krycek was in a tux. She remembered the occasion well as her friend, Jennifer's, wedding. Marita had been one of the bridesmaids along with Laura Sanford, another one of Jennifer's best friends. It had worked out perfectly because the groom was Chris Oslen, who was one of Krycek's best friends so he and Mac Peters were the men of honor. That wedding had taken place nine years ago, still before both Marita and Krycek had gotten involved with the Syndicate. Since then Jennifer and Chris had remained married and, to the best of Marita's knowledge, were living somewhere in Connecticut. Mac had overdosed on pills, and Laura had married a man named Harry Walburg. Marita glanced at the fourth picture, turned away from it, and threw it on the floor with disdain. It showed them both in working attire. She was wearing a deep blue suit while he was wearing a charcoal one with a normal tie on. Marita still had nightmares about that day. It was a picture of the first day Krycek went off to Quantico and she had continued to work at the State Department. Though most people didn't know it, Marita was the first one to become involved with the Syndicate, although she didn't know that Krycek had met up with the CSM in Quantico until he began telling her all these amazing stories about his newest idol at the FBI: Fox Mulder. She recalled how impressed Krycek had been with the older man's work in the paranormal. He had even been lucky enough to go to one of his profiling lectures. Then, he called her one day and told her how excited he was because this man had made it possible for him to actually work with Fox Mulder. It had been his dream. That was when the calls had stopped coming and Marita had known something was wrong. She had gone to see him a few months later only to find that his apartment was completely barren. Concerned, Marita had asked everyone if they knew where he had gone but no one knew. She did find him, however, using the help of a smoking man who promised her all the money and power she could have imagined. Now, looking back on her life, she realized it had all been a waste, and she was losing Alex Krycek anyway. Marita had just put the pictures down when there was a knock at her door. Caught off guard, she walked to the door and opened it as far as the chain lock would allow. In front of her was a large man who she thought was vaguely familiar but she couldn't place a name to the face. "Can I help you?" Before she knew what was happening the man pushed the door open, breaking the chain lock, and grabbed her by the throat, pushing her against the wall. She tried to breathe as she looked at the man, terrified as she realized who he was. "What do you want with me?" "Your friend, Krycek, has made a fatal error. Your fatal error." With that, he threw her across the room and watched contentedly as she writhed in a daze on the floor. Another man walked into the room. He snarled at her with contempt and pulled out his gun. "Don't worry, Darling. I don't have a very good aim." With that, he fired and Marita blacked out. *** (An hour later) "...so, that's why my sister and I haven't really talked in a year," Bob told Krycek. He sighed sadly. "I miss her. She is a really great woman." Krycek nodded, and silently thought that Bob should feel lucky that he has a family at all. His mother was dead and his father...wasn't really someone he liked going to, and, of course, his sister had been dead for a long time. He supposed that his life was meant to turn out like this because of how awful his childhood had been. "Are you going to try to call her during a phone privilege time or something?" Krycek asked. "I really think you should. You told me to try to make amends, and I think you should, as well." Bob sighed. "In all honesty, I'm not sure how she will react. I called my wife today to see if I could talk to my son and she hung up on me. They refuse to talk to me now! It's just that they don't understand. I stole those jewels and killed those people for them. They didn't know that I had been laid off from work and I wanted a way to support them." He glanced at Alex and shook his head. "It all happened so fast, you know? One moment I was a free man doing everything he could to make his family happy, and the next I'm on death row and my wife and kid won't even talk to me. They didn't even come to the trial!" "You don't know that your boy, Cory, won't talk to you," Krycek reasoned. "I mean, you only spoke to your wife. Maybe he wants to see you one more time. I don't know how reasonable the guards are in here, but you could ask one of them to write him a note for you if you know their address." Krycek had a feeling that it wouldn't work, though. Most of the guards did not seem to be the type to write notes to prisoners' homes. At that moment the African American guard who had brought Krycek out to the visitor's area that day entered the cell and looked at the two inmates. Bob glanced at his companion and grinned. "I bet the person is for you, Alex. You're just so popular with the outside world." "Please say I have a choice whether I want to see this person or not," Krycek said with a frown. "Whoever would come to see me this late is not someone I want to visit with." Instead of answering, the African American man shook his head a few times and the two watched in awe as he became taller, paler, and more muscular. After his morph Krycek knew exactly who he was. "Well, it's nice to meet you at last. Our friend, the smoking SOB, used to cry on my shoulder about you." Well, not exactly, but that thought made Krycek feel more powerful. "Quiet, Boy," the Bounty Hunter growled. "I have merely come to give you some information that comes from a friend of yours, Eddie Chang." Krycek laughed heartily at this. "You're working for Eddie Chang!? What, is he a hybrid or something?" Eddie, a hybrid. That would be a riot. The Bounty Hunter's breathing became stronger in anger. "We are working towards the same goals against those like you who would try to stop the colonists from coming." Putting on his most defiant face, Krycek said, "Now why the hell would I want to do that? I just can't wait for you and your buddies to come down here and make me your slave. You could come right now and I'd cheer for joy." "You mock the project." The Bounty Hunter snarled at him. "This is not why I have come, Alex Krycek. We became aware of a certain operation being performed by the FBI to vindicate you and get your sentence lifted. You were warned to keep this information secret, and we have done something to make sure that you will not talk." As Krycek grew pale the Bounty Hunter allowed himself a small grin of glory. "Marita Covarrubias." Krycek gaped at him. "You didn't...she's not..." The Bounty Hunter smirked at his distress. "She's alive, but in more pain than she's ever experienced. Unlike you or I, she had never been shot before, but now she has been." Recalling the pain that had gone through him when he had been shot in the US when running from some of Cancerman's hit men he winced. "That is your warning, Alex Krycek. I will leave you for now. If you tell anyone more about this then more...important people will die." Morphing back into the African American guard, he left the cell and walked down the hallway with an eerie serenity as if nothing had happened. As Krycek took in a shaky breath, Bob glanced at him with worry. "I don't care what that guy says, Alex. You need to come forward." He just didn't get it. Why couldn't anyone understand!? "I can't come forward. That man doesn't kid around. If I tell anyone about this he will kill Marita, Mulder, Scully, and probably me along with anyone else who may know about this. I know Eddie. He will do it, and this man will do it, too." "That...guy...that wasn't a human and you seemed unaffected by that!" Bob exclaimed. "Who the hell was that and how do you know him?" Krycek rubbed the bridge of his nose before shaking his head. "I can't. Its complex. You have to understand that if I could tell you I would, but I can't." Bob frowned at him in frustration. "I don't want to do this to you, Alex, but I need to know. If you don't tell me I will tell the guards what happened." "You wouldn't." Krycek couldn't believe what he was hearing. He thought Bob was supposed to be on his side! "Tell me, Alex." Krycek put his good hand over his fake one and sighed. "It all started when I was 24 and I heard about a man named Fox Mulder..." *** The next morning the FBI trio were all driving to the prison to tell Krycek about what the governor had said. Mulder, who was at the wheel, sighed. "Didn't I tell you that I was right, Scully? I told you that Krycek wouldn't want us telling anyone about his innocence." "He was truly afraid, Mulder, and what I don't understand is what exactly he's afraid of. Either way he dies. There's no way out for him unless this works. If we tell he dies. If we don't he dies. At least this way he has a chance," Scully argued. It was as if Krycek had been blocking himself the other day. He had been trying to be confident in his beliefs, but it was obvious that he wasn't and that he was really scared. From the backseat, Skinner shook his head. "I still think you should have told us earlier, Mulder. You should have told us when you saw a suspicious man threatening Krycek in his cell. That would have been the thing to do. If you would have done that we may have apprehended this Eddie Chang by now." Pulling up into a parking space in front of the prison, Mulder frowned. "You have to see where I was coming from, though. I didn't want Scully or I to suffer for Krycek's mistakes." "I can see where you were coming from, Mulder," Scully told him as she undid her seatbelt, "but I still think that you should have told. There was no evidence that Eddie would have become violent towards us and there still isn't." Subject: NEW: Redemption 16/21 by Christina Ortega The three stepped out of the car and walked into the prison easily finding the visitor's area. The male guard that had been there when Scully had come smiled. "I know. Alex Krycek, right?" Mulder, Scully, and Skinner nodded. Looking across the room, the guard motioned to the African American man standing there. Scully quickly noticed the horrible looking bruise on his face but, not wanting to be rude, she remained quiet. "All three are here for Alex Krycek." Shrugging, the African American man left the room and returned a few minutes later with Krycek whose hair was still wet from his shower that morning. The younger man sighed and sat down in his normal chair. "Welcome one and all. You should have told me that the three of you were coming. I could have gotten some of my pals together so that we could have had a little `going to the grave' party." "The governor has to consider it," Skinner told him, ignoring Krycek's comments, "but it looks like your sentence will be lifted and your case will be reevaluated." Krycek shrugged and forced a smile. "That's just great. I'm so happy. Can I go now?" This same old conversation over and over was driving him insane. Of course, it was their fault that Marita had almost been killed. As Skinner and Scully looked at each other, puzzled, Mulder leaned towards the window. "You seem upset with us. I would expect you to be more appreciative, Krycek." Unsure if he was being serious or was joking, Krycek decided to be straight with them. "You should just leave this alone and let me fry," Krycek whispered harshly. "Events took an expected turn last night that would have never happened if I hadn't broken down in front of you, Mulder, so yeah, I am a little upset." "Expected turn?" Scully questioned. "What expected turn?" Krycek sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Marita was shot in her hotel room last night. She's alive, but I was visited last night and told that it was a warning." Krycek glared at them. "Now, do you see why I want you three to leave it alone." "We can't leave it alone," Skinner growled at him. "Like it or not, we are involved now." Growing calmer, he sighed. "Was it Eddie?" "Of course it was Eddie. Who else would it have been?" Krycek shook his head. "If Eddie feels threatened he is going to strike again to make his point. He may just kill Marita off, or he may kill me. Maybe he'll kill one of you. I don't know what he'll do. Unlike you, Mulder, I'm not good at getting inside people's heads, but I do know that he will strike. The question is when and who he will go after next." Krycek glanced at Mulder and gave him a wily grin. "Did he explain the rules of the game to you?" Mulder groaned and stood up, walking towards the door leading back out to the parking lot. Scully watched him worriedly before looking at Krycek. "We'll keep an eye out for Eddie. Mulder knows what he looks like." Krycek shrugged. "I doubt he'll just pop up, but you can try it that way if you want to." Rubbing his eyes, he stood and walked over to the African American guard. "I'm ready to go." After he had left Scully looked at Skinner. "He's right. We need a location or somewhere to look." "Krycek's not giving us either of those," Skinner muttered. "This is like looking for a needle in a haystack." *** (Five days later in the morning) Bob and Krycek walked together through the noisy halls of the prison with weary expressions on their faces. Krycek sighed. "Its off to the showers we go." "This must be the worse part of my day," Bob murmured. "I feel dirtier after I get out then before I get in." "Ah, yes, the smell of soap, blood, dirt, and sperm," Krycek joked, "is a lovely combination." Bob rubbed his eyes and shook his head a few times to clear the cobwebs. "Just as long as no guy tries to rub against me I'll be fine." The two walked with the other inmates from their hallway into a room where a few large guards watched them with harsh expressions on their faces. One of them clenched his fists. "Strip." Krycek groaned and pulled off his white shirt before pulling off his shoes, pants, and underwear. Soon, all the guys in the room were completely nude and awaiting their fifteen minutes of shower time. Another guard opened the door to the steamy room and rasped out the command, "Enter." The men obliged him quickly and turned on the water in order to try to get everything washed in the amount of time they were given. Spreading the soap over his body, Bob leaned towards Krycek. "I think the gay guys should be put with the gay guys so that us straight guys can be free to shower in peace." Krycek nodded in agreement and looked around. "Is one of them on me?" "Eleven o'clock," Bob told him slowly. Krycek turned his head and noticed the blond-haired man in the corner that was looking down at the more personal parts of his body. Catching his gaze, the muscular man turned a bright shade of red and gazed up at the ceiling. Krycek sighed and continued spreading the soap over his body before stepping under the stream of water and letting it run over him. He closed his eyes and put his hand through his hair to try and wash it out without the luxury of shampoo. Feeling clean enough he leaned against the wall and waited for Bob to finish. Once he had, the two got their towels from the blue bin in the corner of the room and began drying themselves off. Glancing with embarrassment at Bob, Krycek handed the older man his towel and allowed him to begin drying off his back and most of the left side of his body because he couldn't reach it. Suddenly, the blond-haired man who had been watching Krycek walked in front of them with his towel over his genitals and looked at Bob. "May I?" Bob groaned and eyed Krycek with a grin. The younger man slowly relented and motioned for him to take the towel. The blond man did with a huge smile on his face and wasted no time drying the lower areas of his body. As Bob chuckled Krycek shuddered with disgust. "Um, I can reach that part of my body quite well with my good hand." Muttering his innocent apologies, the blond man returned to the back and patted it gently with the towel. "Don't let anyone tease you because you're missing an arm. Being handicapped is nothing to be ashamed of." "I'll be sure not to." Grinning, the man leaned closer to his ear and whispered, "My name is Greg. What about you?" Krycek sighed with annoyance. "I'm Alex." Seeing Krycek's completely upset expression, Bob caught the hint. "Ok, Greg, enough is enough." Greg pouted and tried to pull the towel back. "Hey, Man, what are you doing!? I'm not done yet!" "Oh yes, you are," Bob told him. "Now, be a good boy and let go of the towel." Greg grunted and swung at Bob, hitting his cheek. Krycek glanced at his cell mate only to see that his face was entirely red with rage. "No way, Gay Boy. That's going too far." With that, he threw a series of punches at Greg, sending him flying to the floor in agony. An African American who had been watching the whole thing, walked over to Bob with a massive frown on his face. "You hit Greg and you die." With that, he attacked Bob and soon the whole shower room had broken out into a brawl. John and Sean, who were watching the whole thing, looked around and shrugged. "Which side should we join, Brother?" Sean questioned. "I don't know, Sean. Do you want to fight for the gays or the straights?" Sean sighed. "I have no clue, John. Would you rather watch instead of joining the fight?" John nodded. "That seems like a better idea." The two leaned against the wall and glanced at the men fighting with interest. Krycek gasped in pain as he felt a blow hit his jaw. Looking around, he was alarmed when someone poked his ribs and, glancing up, he saw a large bald man with a surprised expression on his face. Supposing that he had been expecting to grab his left arm, Krycek took advantage of the situation and swung his good fist around, hitting the unsuspecting man right in the gut. As he fell over, Krycek grinned, ran over to the big to get a towel, and covered his privates before any other gay guy could try to rub him as this Greg had. The door to the shower room burst open and the guards entered, storming in between the inmates and breaking them apart. Once this had happened they pushed the prisoners out of the room, had them put their clothes on, and led them back to their cell. On the way back, Krycek felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned around to see an Asian man standing there with a friendly smile on his face. He chuckled. "Great moves, Man. You really knocked the wind out of that guy. I've never seen a handicapped guy move faster." Shrugging, Krycek looked him over again and easily recognized him. "Hey, you really kicked some major ass in there. I saw you kick and punch at, like, every singly guy in there. Are you a Jackie Chan wanna be or something?" "I wouldn't say that," the guy said, turning slightly red. He extended his hand. "I'm Ryan Jenkins." Krycek narrowed his eyes before taking the hand. "Please tell me that you're straight." Ryan chuckled. "I'm as straight as those lines that those policemen have you walk in to see if you're drunk." Seeing Krycek's eyes widen, he grinned. "If you are sober, of course." "Well, in that case, I'm Alex Krycek." As they passed by Ryan's cell, he walked in and waved farewell. "I'll see you this afternoon when we go out to do our grunt work." "All right." Krycek offered him a grin before looking around for Bob. Noticing that he was all the way at the front of the line he ran to catch up with him. When they were both back in their cell, Bob acknowledged him with a nod before saying, "Well, I hope that was enough excitement for today. The drying by a gay pimp turned into an all out brawl." "Thanks for sticking up for me," Krycek told him. Bob merely smiled at him before closing his eyes and leaning against the wall of the cell. *** (The next day) The man known only as Cancerman entered the prison where Krycek was being held early the next morning. It wasn't that he wanted to see the younger man, but the Consortium had sent him to inform Krycek of their plans. He strolled with pride down the halls leading to the visitor's area before turning to the brown-haired man that was standing there. "I'm here to see Alex Krycek." "You and everyone else," the man murmured. "The inmates haven't been woken up yet, Sir. Would you mind waiting for about thirty more minutes?" Cancerman nodded and glared at him. "Yes, I would mind waiting. Get him up. I don't care if he's disgruntled in my presence. It won't be anything new." Regarding him closely, the guard sighed and looked at the African American guard on the other side of the room. "Alex Krycek." What was it with this Alex Krycek? Everyone wanted to see him but no one seemed happy about it. The man nodded and left the room. The CSM pulled a cigarette from his pocket and took out his lighter, lighting it and taking a refreshing puff. As a very upset Krycek was led into the room Cancerman sat down in front of the window and watched as he did so, as well. "You look glad to see me." "Couldn't you have at least let me sleep?" Krycek moaned. "I'm tired and I didn't have a very good day yesterday." Realizing that he had just allowed Cancerman to humiliate him, Krycek rubbed his eyes. As Krycek expected him to, Cancerman took the opportunity to harass him. "Does that bruise have something to do with it?" The CSM questioned. Krycek sighed. "There was a little mishap in the showering room if you must know." Cancerman laughed insultingly. "Started by you, no doubt." "I doubt you came here to tease me about fighting with some guys in the showering room," Krycek growled. "What do you want?" He knew the CSM wouldn't have just come to see him for the hell of it. The older man always had a good reason for doing things. "Your secret is out but it will only be believed if you start telling the truth," Cancerman said, his joking mood leaving as quickly as it had come. Krycek shook his head. "It won't work." Not this again. Why couldn't everyone just leave him alone about this? The CSM took another long drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke at the window making Krycek turn away in anger. "We have learned that one of the Bounty Hunters has joined with a project in Hong Kong to eliminate the vaccine tests so that we will have no advantage when the colonists arrive." "Well, what do you plan to do about it?" Krycek was actually interested in hearing the answer to this question. It seemed like Cancerman always had a solution for everything, and resistance was a subject that Krycek was very absorbed in. Cancerman looked him over before replying, "This Bounty Hunter is a threat to our secrecy. We will have to dispose of him, and that is what I have come to promise you. His existence has been as brief as yours." Krycek snarled, "I suppose I should thank you." "I suppose you should, as well, but I know you won't." Cancerman stood and puffed his cigarette again. "Have fun these last few weeks and try to stay out of trouble in the showering rooms." As Krycek glared at him, the CSM smirked before putting out his cigarette on the floor and leaving the room. *** Subject: NEW: Redemption 17/21 by Christina Ortega (A week later) Morning came slowly on that day that would mark the beginning of the end for Alex Krycek. He looked up groggily to see that Bob was pacing through the cell, his face set in an expression of determination. Sitting up, Krycek watched him for a few moments before observing, "You seem a little tense." "Today is the day, Alex," Bob told him quietly. "Today is the day." "The day for what?" Krycek questioned, but even as he was asking the horrible truth dawned on him. "Today!? It can't have been four weeks already." Bob shrugged. "I don't know. Actually, I lost count a long time ago but one of the guards told me yesterday. I watched you go to sleep and then I stayed up. It was the last night I would be here and I didn't want to waste it by getting shut eye. I'll have plenty of that soon. Tomorrow, actually. Today they just take us to the place where they are going to do the injection." Krycek looked at him with wide eyes. This could not be happening. It could not be happening. Bob could not be just a little while away from being injected. This was just a dream. This was not real. "You should have told me yesterday. I would have stayed up with you. We could have talked or something." "You were tired, and I was perfectly content spending the time thinking," Bob told him. "It's all going to be over. I don't know, I guess it's just a little hard to believe." "You're damn right it's hard to believe," Krycek muttered. "Bob, you can't go. It's not supposed to...you can't..." He trailed off and just continued staring at the man who had been like a father to him for four weeks. Krycek had only been with him for a month and yet he felt like they were best friends. This couldn't happen. Bob sighed and sat down next to him. "I know what you mean. You know the other person is going to die but you don't really expect it to happen. I deserve it, Alex. You don't. There is still hope for you if you take the chance." He rubbed his eyes and put his hand on Krycek's knee. "I'll be gone tomorrow at noon. Well, so I'll miss lunch. At least I won't have to eat the crap they give us in here anymore." At that moment, the door was opened and a guard who was leading two other men down the hallway in handcuffs motioned to Bob to come with him. Bob turned to Krycek and the two hugged each other sorrowfully and stood. "I doubt it will help, but pray for me, Alex," Bob told him. "Well, you should know that you are a great son. Your father was an idiot for not realizing it." Krycek looked at him with disbelief before chuckling lightly. "I will pray, though I doubt God will listen to me." Bob smiled and walked out of the cell. He turned back towards Krycek one more time and said, "You have the chance to get out of this, Alex. I suggest that you take it before it's too late." With that, the guard led him and the other two men down the hallway and out of Krycek's sight. He stared after them, still in shock, and glanced around the empty cell. It seemed so empty now. So quiet. So lonely. Krycek's lip quivered and he sat down helplessly on his cot. Glancing at the other cot where Bob had slept, he bent down and cried for the man who in four weeks had changed his life. Krycek stayed in that position for what seemed like hours. Another guard came to see if he felt like going out with the rest of the inmates but he merely turned away from the man and did his best to go to sleep. It didn't work, and the quiet invaded the building like a thousand ghosts haunting him. Bob's ghost? Not yet, but soon. Night came dreadfully slowly for him, but even when it came he couldn't sleep. As the other prisoners snored he stared from his prosthetic to Bob's cot to the clock near the phones, and back to Bob's cot. Morning came even slower than night, and Krycek was barely conscious of events going on around him as he was led to the showering room. At one point he forgot that Bob was no longer there and he became frantic looking around for him after he had finished washing himself. He was so out of it that he barely remembered letting Ryan dry him off in Bob's place. Krycek thought he heard Ryan trying to say something to him on the way back to their cells but his mind was too boggled to let him respond to or even hear him. Finally, the time came. Krycek glanced up at the clock reading 11:59am. He looked away from it for a moment as he saw a bunch of little girls enter the hallway, but as he heard the click of the clock his head snapped back up just to see the minute hand fall onto 12:00pm. Dead. Bob Wolf was dead. Lowering his eyes slowly, Krycek glanced at the ground and then up at John who was muttering, "An awful shame. Bob was a good guy. He didn't deserve it. It's his wife who deserved it." "His wife? No, I don't think anyone deserved it," Sean said. "He was just doing it to help his family and his wife took it the wrong way. If anyone deserved the injection it was Bob's contact at the employment office. That person should be killed." John shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe that person should just be shipped off to that Asian country where they can be beaten with a bat. You know, that kid who was beaten because he put some graffiti on a wall?" Sean nodded. "Yeah, I remember that. I bet he never did that again, eh?" "Either that or he moved to New York where no one cares about it." "Now that would be the life. Look at the people in New York. They find graffiti to be an art," Sean told him. "How many people here consider graffiti to be an art?" John frowned. "Not many, I suppose." Krycek snapped out of his thoughts as two people stepped in front of his cell. They both looked quiet young. One of them had blond wavy hair that flowed over her shoulders. She was wearing a ski sweater and blue flares. The other one had brown hair that was shaped around her chin. The one with the blond hair smiled cheerfully at him. "Hi. My name is Julia and this is Marie. We're both fifteen and we're with the RBC prison program." Rubbing his eyes, Krycek smiled faintly at them before inquiring, "RBC is a church, isn't it?" Marie, who seemed timid, nodded. "Yes, it is." Krycek chuckled weakly and sighed. "Church isn't a strong thing in my life." "Sometimes trusting in God is what you need," Julia told him. While she seemed to become even happier Marie had begun to back away from him, her eyes wide. The terrified look she was giving him made Krycek want to burst out with laughter, and he had to force himself to hold it in. Looking him over, Julia frowned. "You seem upset. Is something wrong?" Rubbing his eyes, Krycek glanced at her silently for a moment before saying, "Well, my cell mate was just injected a few minutes ago, if you must know." He didn't know why he was opening up to her, but he supposed that it was because without Bob he needed someone to talk to. Julia gasped. "Oh, I'm so sorry." By this time, Marie seemed to be hiding behind her, her body shaking. "When are you going to be...if I may ask." Krycek shrugged. "I really don't know. Two weeks, I think." Two weeks. That was going to go by really fast. He couldn't believe that in two weeks he was going to be fried on the hotseat. Julia nodded and looked back at an adult woman who was motioning for her to come. While Marie instantly ran down the hall, Julian put her hands on the bar. "Do you have a name?" Thinking, Krycek remembered the time when he had introduced himself to Mulder. Giving her a handsome grin, he nodded. "I do. It's Krycek. Alex Krycek." What Krycek didn't know, however, was that this meeting would not be the last between himself and Julia. *** The sun was beating down on the prisoners' heads as they walked aimlessly around the fenced in yard of the jail. Krycek turned around as a hand fell on his shoulder, but he quickly became calm as he realized it was Ryan. The younger man grinned faintly at him before lowering his eyes. "Look, I didn't know your cell mate well, so I can't say that I know how you feel, but I am sorry." "It was his time," Krycek told him. "At least he doesn't have to be stuck with me anymore." He smiled and leaned against the wall of the prison with Ryan following suit. Ryan shrugged. "Bob really liked you. I heard him tell John that you really were like a son to him. There were a lot of people, including me, who were jealous of the bond you two shared that four weeks." "I didn't know that. Maybe it was because he was such a comfort to me." Looking away from him, Ryan squinted at the fence and tapped Krycek's arm. "Hey, is that girl waving to you?" Confused, Krycek looked towards the fence and sighed as he saw who it was. "I'll be back in a little bit." As Ryan stared after him, Krycek ran over to the fence and up to Julia, who had been waving towards him. He shook his head. "What are you doing here?" "I thought you might want to talk for a little bit. You know, yesterday it seemed like you needed someone to talk to," Julia explained, beaming at him. Trying to get rid of any irritation he felt towards her, Krycek bent down and shrugged. "Well, what do you want to talk about then." Julia frowned. "I'm just here to help you to let out anything that you may need to because I don't care what you may have done." "I'm dying in two weeks. What more do you want to know?" Krycek inquired. "Do you want to know how it feels to have to talk to you through a barbed wire fence? Do you want to know what its like to have a great man be in your life for only four weeks and then disappear? Do you want to know what its like knowing that in three weeks I won't be alive? What do you want to know?" As he realized his tone of voice had gotten stronger, he sighed and did his best to calm down. "You can tell me anything you want," Julia told him, as if she were ignoring his irked tone of voice. "I want to know everything." Krycek smiled weakly at her. "A little nosy, aren't we?" Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he said, "I don't really care that I'm going to die. It'll get rid of all the emotional stress and pain that I have to go through here. The lack of freedom in this place is very offensive. Yes, I know they consider all of us security threats, but I guess knowing that you've lost everyone's trust is kinda frightening. I guess you wouldn't know, but when people stare at you like you're a monster...like your friend, Marie, did yesterday." "I apologize for Marie. She's very shy, and she doesn't like talking to inmates. They make her very nervous," Julia told him. "It's all right, I guess. I mean, it wasn't like I was expecting anything different. Most people look at me like that now. I'm just some hideous beast now. You may not believe it, but I used to be a normal person. In high school I had a big group of friends and a very lovely girlfriend who I'm still with now." "I haven't seen her in awhile though. There was an accident that put her in the hospital." Julia frowned. "I'm sorry that happened, and I do believe that you were a normal person. Hey, you're still a normal person now, right? Just because your here doesn't make you any less human." Krycek nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. Maybe it's just that in my own eyes I don't seem as human. After all the things that I've done...it's like I don't have a soul." "What did you do, if I may ask?" Julia inquired. The two stayed like that for about an hour. Julia had a longing for understanding what went on in the world. She liked being able to comfort those in need of the help and listen to descriptions of emotions that she had never experienced. Her willingness to listen made her easy to get along with Krycek, who had been waiting for someone to replace Bob; someone who would just listen to what he had to say and not try to counter his words or butt in and say that they related. Without knowing what he was doing, Krycek asked her to come again the next day, only to discover that she was going to come again anyway. As he was walking with Ryan back to his cell, Krycek wondered if his own sister would have been like Julia had she lived long enough to reach the age of fifteen. Silently, he thought that she would have been. *** Subject: NEW: Redemption 18/21 by Christina Ortega (That night) The Bounty Hunter walked through the parking lot of the prison and glanced around. Though a passerby may have thought he was waiting for a bus he was really looking around for the person who had sent him the note that he was holding in his hand. The paper had said to meet an unknown person in the parking lot of the jail where Alex Krycek was being held and, never able to turn down an invitation, the Bounty Hunter had come. Even though his face didn't show it, the Bounty Hunter was beginning to get a little nervous. By now whoever had told him to come here should have appeared by now. Unless it was a trap. What was this person trying to pull? That was when he heard it: the raspy voice that had annoyed him for so long. Spinning around, he found that Cancerman was walking up to him, a cigarette in his hand. He put it out on the ground before saying, "Thank you for coming. I fear that there has been some kind of misunderstanding between us." "Misunderstanding?" The Bounty Hunter refused to fall for his tricks. Humans were tricky, but they were also weak, and breaking their necks or any such killing method was a piece of cake for the bounty hunters. "Yes," The CSM told him. "You see, I had become somewhat suspicious of Agent Mulder, Agent Scully, and Assistant Director Skinner lately. In addition, Alex Krycek's sentencing was very odd. There was evidence and statements that should have given the jury reasonable doubt of his guilt, and yet they still decided to sentence him to the chair. "At first, the troublemaker seemed to be the lawyer, Mr. Halloway. He was obviously not doing a satisfactory job defending Krycek, and so I decided to dig a little deeper with an associate of mine. That was when we came across Alex Krycek's personal file. I had scanned it briefly before assigning him to work with Fox Mulder a long while ago, but what I had never noticed was that his sister was killed when she was nine which is exactly how old Cassandra Duncan was when she was injured." The Bounty Hunter sighed. "Is there a point to this mindless information you are giving me?" Cancerman glared at him. "This is not mindless information. Since Krycek had a faulty lawyer my associate and I decided that this coincidence may not have been a coincidence so we dug a little deeper. What I mean is that we did the only thing we could think to do; see what the FBI had come up with since Mulder had talked to Krycek more than any one of us. "Mulder came through for us by providing us a name: Eddie Chang. This man is part of a Hong Kong group who had been using the secrets Krycek had been selling to find out where the vaccine against your black oil were being run and to shut them down. Krycek didn't know this at the time, and I don't really know if he knows this now, but then we discovered that you and Eddie had paid Marita a little visit." "How did you know that?" the Bounty Hunter questioned, stunned. Cancerman sighed and took out another cigarette. "Marita double crossed us not to long ago, and, though she seems to be back on our side, we didn't want to take any chances. Surely you knew that we would bug her hotel room so that we could keep an eye on her. Our outcome: that you know about the vaccine that we have in our possession. This is not good, and it seems as if you haven't told your fellow bounty hunters yet. If you would have they would have alerted the colonists and we would all be dead right now. Unfortunately for you, this information must end right now." Chuckling, the Bounty Hunter neared him tauntingly. "How do you plan to stop me? All you have is a gun, and I could kill you before you'd even get a chance to get it out." "Oh, I'm not going to kill you," Cancerman told him. Not expecting to get this answer, the Bounty Hunter's eyes widened in fear as he turned around... ...but it was too late. The Well-Manicured Man had come up behind him, sticking a stiletto like the one the Bounty Hunter carried himself into the back of his neck. Hissing in pain, the Bounty Hunter tried to reach for the stiletto in his neck, but, unable to reach it, he fell lifelessly to the ground. Glancing around to make sure no one had seen what had happened, the Well-Manicured Man pulled out his cellular phone and dialed a number, putting it up to his ear. "Send the boys now." Within five minutes a black truck pulled into the prison parking lot and a group of men wearing all black uniforms climbed out of it with a stretcher. Picking up the body of the Bounty Hunter, they put him on the stretcher and pushed it into the truck. One of the men walked up to the Well-Manicured Man. "What would you like us to do with him, Sir? Should we keep him for testing?" He asked. The Well-Manicured Man shook his head. "No, it's too risky. Burn the body and make sure that you are wearing protective gear when you do." As the men left, Cancerman looked at his associate. "They will find out about this and our association sooner or later. What should we do?" "We keep this quiet. Do not tell any of our other associates because they will definitely go to Strughold with this and we will be killed," Well-Manicured Man explained. "No, this stays with us. If it is discovered that we are both planning to lead the resistance then the plan with fail." "What about Krycek?" Cancerman questioned. "Does he know?" The Well-Manicured Man sighed. "He may know, but he will be dead in a matter of weeks. Poor boy. Imagine what a strong addition he would have been to the resistance." Cancerman looked at him somewhat sorrowfully for a moment before asking, "When are you planning to follow Krycek?" "When Mulder understands and appreciates the resistance then I will leave this world. You and he will go on to lead it. Krycek has opened the door for him by explaining to him briefly about the resistance. What we have to do now is inform him that if his little green men come to Earth then we will all be destroyed." *** (A week later, night) Mulder sat alone in the basement office with his head in his hands. Glancing at the watch on his wrist, he saw that it was nine o'clock, and he silently wondered what he was still doing at work. Scully had left about two hours earlier to return home, and Mulder was sure that even Skinner must be packing up to return home now. He ran a hand through his tousled brown hair as he realized that he had been sitting there thinking for an hour. This Krycek thing was really getting to him. Mulder wanted to get Eddie into custody and he wanted to get him in now. It seemed like Eddie was the key to the truth now. He recalled thinking about two years ago that Krycek had been the key to the truth. If you get to Krycek everything will come together. Now that he had Krycek he wanted to get someone else. Why did that not make sense? Realizing that there really was no point for him to waste any more time just sitting and thinking, Mulder stood, grabbed his trenchcoat and briefcase, and exited his office locking the door behind him. He got onto the elevator and returned to the main level before going to the parking lot and looking around for his car. All of a sudden, he felt something jam into his back and a harsh British voice whisper, "Listen to me, Mr. Mulder. Turn around slowly." Mulder did as told and realized that before him was none other than the Well-Manicured Man that had lied to him so many times in the past. "Hey, thanks for coming to see me because I was getting kinda jealous that Krycek was getting all of the Syndicate's attention." "I'm not going to play games with you, Mr. Mulder," Well-Manicured Man told him. "We have located Eddie Chang and we want you to take him into custody." "Where is he?" Mulder inquired, completely alert. "My associate is going to pay your superior a visit tomorrow. During that meeting he will be told the location of Eddie Chang," Well-Manicured Man explained. Mulder nodded in understanding. Just then, a thought crossed his mind. "Wait a minute. Why do you want us to catch him? Can't you have your people kill him?" "We don't have the resources at the time to take him into custody," Well-Manicured Man said, "and we don't want to kill him because if we do then Krycek will still be killed, but if you and Scully get him into FBI custody then you two will have the evidence needed to get Krycek's case reevaluated." Clicking the safety off on his gun, the Well-Manicured Man motioned for him to leave. "Go now, but be prepared to confront him soon." Mulder eyed him suspiciously for a few moments before deciding that the Well-Manicured Man wouldn't have seemed so desperate if this had been a trick. Turning around, he spotted his car and got in, driving away from the building. As the Well-Manicured Man had promised the next day as soon as Skinner entered his office he found Cancerman already there sitting on a chair in the back of the room. Standing, he took a puff of his cigarette and offered the younger man a steely smile. "I quite like your furniture, Mr. Skinner. It is very comfortable, especially since I have been waiting here for awhile." "What are you doing here?" Skinner snarled. He was still tired after not getting a good night's sleep, and he hoped that whatever this miserable SOB had to tell him that he would do it quickly. Cancerman put out his cigarette in the ashtray on one of Skinner's wooden tables before saying, "One of my associates had a little chat with Agent Mulder yesterday. I have come to do what he said I would, which is tell you the location of Eddie Chang." His anger fleeing, Skinner neared him, startled, "You've located Eddie Chang?" "Our men spotted him checking in to the Hyatt in Reston, Virginia," The CSM told him. "If you ever want to get Krycek cleared then your people will have to get this man into custody." Skinner eyed him suspiciously. "Why do your people want Krycek to be freed if he's working for the Russians? Wouldn't you want him to be killed?" Cancerman couldn't help but smirk at this. "He's not working for Russia and he's not working for us. Alex Krycek is a loner, and he's positively harmless now. Believe me, Mr. Skinner, Alex is more valuable to us alive." With that, he took out another cigarette, lit up, and took a satisfying drag off of it before exiting Skinner's office, leaving him to ponder his words. That afternoon, as Mulder knew he would, Skinner relayed the information Cancerman had given him to them and other agents who would be assigned to the case. "Should we just storm in or wait for him to show?" One of the agents questioned. "We wait," Skinner told him. "At the moment it is possible that Chang has some friends who would stand up for him if attacked. We will do around the clock surveillance. If you see him and there seems to be no other signs of danger go get him." "Sir, Agent Mulder and I will take the first shift tonight," Scully offered. Skinner nodded. "Very well, but if he doesn't come by the time your shift is ended then you are to leave as scheduled." He glanced at Mulder to emphasize his point. "Do you understand?" "Yes, Sir," Mulder said, knowing that the question had been directly pointed at him. As planned, that night they were in front of the Hyatt in Reston. Much to their dismay, their shift ended after a few hours and there had been no sign of him. As they were walking back to their car, Mulder sighed. "Do you think he may have checked out? Killers don't tend to stay in the same spot." Scully shrugged. "I don't know, Mulder. There's just something that's telling me that he's here. Maybe we'll get him tomorrow night." "Maybe." *** Subject: NEW: Redemption 19/21 by Christina Ortega The next shift came slowly for the two agents, but finally they were back in front of the Hyatt the next night. The sun had just set forming eerie shadows on the marble building. Sitting in their blue car, Mulder popped a sunflower seed in his mouth before turning to Scully. "Do you want to pop a seed?" Scully smirked at him before, much to his surprise, reaching inside his bag and taking a handful of them. "Thanks for the offer, Mulder. For once I'll take you up on it." Cracking the shell in her teeth, she chewed the seed and threw the shell out the window before cracking another one. "Scully, your tastes just keep changing and changing." Mulder chuckled in amusement before looking down at the car radio. "Feel like listening to something?" Scully smiled. "Sure, why not?" She felt like being loose tonight. Even if Eddie didn't show up they could still have a good time, right? Mulder flipped it on and grinned flippantly as he heard Brandy and Monica's new song, The Boy is Mine, finishing. "Hey, Scully, have you ever fought over a guy like this?" "Why, do you want me to fight with some girl over you, Mulder?" At her suggestive tone of voice, Mulder coughed and looked at the building again. He tilted his head and pointed. "Hey, isn't that him?" Scully glanced at the picture Skinner had given her after Cancerman had left it for him before looking at the man in all black entering the Hyatt. "That's definitely him. Lets go." The two quickly got out of the car and ran after him. Reaching the lobby, they looked around and were caught off guard as shots began firing in their direction. Diving to the floor, they scrambled behind anything they could find before motioning for everyone else in the room to do so, as well. Mulder pulled out his gun and froze as a bulled whizzed past his head. "Too close," he muttered. He looked towards the source of the firing and noticed Eddie shooting at them from behind the information desk wearing an all black ensemble complete with a black leather jacket. As Scully crawled over to him, gun drawn, Mulder scoffed. "Let's get this guy. I don't think Krycek will appreciate him stealing his look." The two agents looked at each other and returned fire, seeing Eddie duck out of the way. Mulder got up and ran over to the desk to apprehend him, only to be knocked back by a powerful kick that sent his gun flying to the other side of the room. He looked at it before glancing up in terror at Eddie who was pointing a gun at him. Just then, he heard the Asian man gasp as Scully came up behind him with her gun on his head. Eddie slowly clicked the safety on his gun an allowed Scully to take it from him before being cuffed. Mulder watched her admirably before getting up and retrieving his gun. Looking around, he noticed that two people were lying on the ground unmoving. One was a slightly obese blond-haired woman and the other was a short man with barely any brown hair and a brown mustache. Mulder felt for a pulse on the man and shook his head. "This one is gone." Checking the other one, he grinned faintly. "I've got a pulse." Pulling out his cell phone, he called 911 and the two waited with Eddie until the medics arrived. After all those weeks there would be no more guessing. Just answers. *** Krycek was led out into the visitor's area the next afternoon by the same African American guard who always brought him out. Sitting in the chair on the other side of the window, to his delight, was Julia, who he had been talking to everyday since she had first come with her RBC group. Sitting down across from her, Krycek smiled. "So, any news that I would like?" "The Yankees kicked your team's butt," Julia told him while shaking her head. Frowning, Krycek sighed. "They're only losing to make my last days miserable." Julia shrugged. "I root for the winning team, so right now I'm happy that the Yankees are winning." "Hey, stop making me feel worse," Krycek whined. He really liked Julia. She was smart and a whole lot of fun. Honestly, he didn't think he was good with teenagers, but if Julia saw something in him...then maybe he was ok with thems. "You know, after all the time we've spent together, it's hard for me to think of you as a killer," Julia admitted. Krycek chuckled at this. "Yes, well, unfortunately its true." "Well, I have been praying for you," Julia remarked, "if that comforts you." "I don't think it will do any good, Julia, although I appreciate the effort," Krycek said with a laugh. Julia sighed. "You have to have faith, Alex, or God won't listen to you." "That's kind of a hard thing for me," Krycek admitted. "I have a tough time trusting people because if I do they usually end up double crossing me." Julia grinned at him and said, "You can trust God...and you can trust me." Krycek thought about this for a moment. Yes, he had been able to trust Bob and he felt like he could trust Ryan and Julia, but to trust some being that he couldn't see? That was too much for him. Then again, aliens were a little too much for people to swallow, but they were real. The colonists were as real as he was or anyone else was, and yet people doubted that they existed. Julia glanced down at the watch around her wrist and groaned. "I don't want to go, but I have to do some things today for my grandma. She's in the hospital with some kind of liver problem. My mother is making me go with her up to retrieve some of my grandma's things over the next couple of days...so..." "You won't be there," Krycek finished. As she nodded he sighed. "I understand. In all honesty, I don't know if I'd want you to go. My idea of a good time is not watching someone fry in the electric chair, so I don't know why it would be yours either." Julia smiled weakly at him before shaking her head. "This is hard. I feel like you're, I don't know, a brother or something. What I want you to know is that I've loved every minute of it, Alex. You're a great guy." Krycek looked into her soft blue eyes and grinned. "Hey, don't worry about me, all right? I'll finally be free from all this." "I know, but its still hard," Julia told him. "Alex, I wish I could just hug you goodbye, or at least touch your arm, but I can't, so know that I would if I were allowed to." "Hey, I would, too," Krycek told her honestly. As she stood from the chair he continued to watch her. With one last sad wave she left the room. *** (The next day) Just as the clock's hour hand reached the two Krycek looked up from his cot to see the African American guard who he had come to know _really_ well for the time he was there opened his cell door and motioned for him to stand. "Krycek, I'm going to need you to take off your prosthetic and come with us." Looking past him, Krycek noticed that there were two other prisoners with him, their hands cuffed together. So, this was it. This was the last day he would be in this prison. Removing his fake arm, Krycek walked out of the cell one more time and glanced back at it, remembering when he first entered it and he met Bob. From behind him he heard John's voice say, "They lead the prisoners like lambs to the slaughter." Sean looked at Krycek and sighed. "May you fare well in the next life, Alex." "Thanks," Krycek replied awkwardly before walking with the other men down the bleak hallway. To his surprise, they stopped in front of Ryan's cell and the African American guard opened the door, motioning for him to come. Ryan did as told and watched as his hands were cuffed together. It was at that moment that he noticed Krycek, and he smiled. "Well, what do you know? This is an interesting predicament. I didn't expect you to go for a few more weeks." "I didn't expect you to go for a few more months," Krycek told him honestly. "Well, if I have to live my last day with someone I'm glad its you, Man." "Thanks, Alex, that really means a lot to me," Ryan admitted. The guard told them to follow him which they did. Walking through the drab hallways for what would be their last time, the prisoners were led out of the prison and into the plain blue van that was waiting to drive them over to the building where their fates would be met. As they sat in the van, Ryan looked at Krycek. "What do you think its like to die? Do you think we'll still live after death or will we just go to sleep and never wake up. We'll lose all track of ourselves and not be ourselves. You know what I mean? We will have no more consciousness. That's a scary thought for me." "I think there has to be an afterlife," Krycek told him. "If there were no afterlife then we wouldn't have those near death accounts where people remember seeing a bright light at the end of a tunnel. Honestly, I just don't know if I'm going that way or another way." Ryan shook his head and closed his eyes in thought. "May God pity our souls, then." *** (The next morning) Mulder and Scully entered the office the next morning, still waiting to see if the governor would allow for Krycek's case to be reevaluated. Scully rubbed her temple before looking at Mulder. "Do you think he'll live, Mulder?" "I don't know," Mulder told her honestly. "Eddie has given us what we need. He has a chance if the governor allows for an appeal." At that moment Skinner rushed into their office, his breathing rapid from running down the stairs to their office instead of taking the elevator. Scully quickly grabbed his shoulder. "What's wrong, Sir?" "The governor has heard my request," Skinner told them. "Someone has been sent to stop the electrocution." Lowering his eyes, he frowned. "There may be some complications, however." "Complications?" Mulder questioned, "What complications?" "If the person doesn't make it in time then Krycek won't be breathing as well as he is right now." Their eyes wide, Scully and Mulder looked at each other with concern. What if he didn't get there in time? At that very moment Krycek was being led down a long hallway by two guards. His feet were chained together as his right hand hung free by his side. Ryan was going to be electrocuted at around two, so they had exchanged their bittersweet good-byes because the guards had denied Ryan's wish to attend. Krycek had to admit that he had been a good friend. Reaching the room where the electrocution is to be done, Krycek's eyes widened in terror as he saw the large chair with wires attached to all sides of it. Completely shocked, Krycek was unprepared for the person who flew into his arms. Looking down at the pale blond hair of the woman he was holding, he realized quickly that it was Marita and she was sobbing on his shoulder. The guards attempted to pull her off, but it still took a few moments for them to succeed. It was at that time that Krycek noticed the bruises around her neck. Seeing them, he had to do his best not to start tearing himself. As she was being led towards the viewing area, Marita pushed past them and reached her hands out to him. "I love you, Alex! Please, you have to know that! After all this time I still do, and I always will!" His mind was in a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions as he recalled what he had been through with this woman. She had betrayed him, and he had betrayed her, but they had still remained. Krycek touched her hands softly with his good one and let out a deep breath that he felt like he had been holding in since he first met her. "I...I love you, too." It had seemed so hard to say before, and now it was so clear. So simple. Subject: NEW: Redemption 20/21 by Christina Ortega Two more guards pushed Krycek into the electric chair and began strapping him in. They put a headpiece on him, and took the cuffs off his feet, replacing them with straps from the chair. He shivered, realizing just how scared he really was. This was really it. He was going to die. Just then, a pounding caught his ear and he looked towards the viewing window only to see that Julia had come. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she put her forehead on the window in agony. A wave of grief ran over him as he saw her cry. After he was all strapped in a minister walked into the room carrying a bible. He opened the large book and read a passage from Psalms before inquiring, "Do you have any last words?" Krycek thought for a moment before muttering, "I'm sorry that I let everyone down. Those are my last words and that's what I want put on my gravestone." This was too much for him and slow tears began to fall from his eyes. The minister watched him with pity before stepping out of the room. One of the guards walked over to the switch and looked at the other guard standing there. "Now?" "Poor guy. Go ahead," the other guard said. Krycek watched them with terror. He closed his eyes and took in a shaky breath seeing his life flash before his eyes. *He was watching his sister being raped. As he cried his father thrust harder, and he screamed as he saw his sister give one last wail before collapsing... ...a thirteen year old Alex being beaten by his father. His lip is bleeding and his father is laughing at his battered form... ...the beach. It is 11th grade and a young Alex had just found the courage to ask his crush, Marita Covarrubias, out. She had been so happy, and he saw them making out on the beach. That was such a peaceful time... ...Jennifer's wedding. Marita teased him about `cleaning up his looks just for one day' because of his tux. At that time he had dreamed about the day when he would find the courage to propose to her... ...it is Alex's first day at Quantico. A few guys gave him a hard time about being a rookie, but others, especially the women, accepted him with open arms... ...Alex remembered the day when he was told he would be working with his idol, Fox Mulder. THE Fox Mulder, as in Spooky Mulder. He knew a few of his friends admired him, and for good reason, he thought. Yes, he may have unorthodox methods, but he did solve the cases and that was what counted... ...punched again and again by Mulder. He thought Alex had killed his father. ... ...the black oil had just come out of his face. Where was he? Why was he in a silo. The door was locked! No! There was no way out! He was trapped here! What had happened? The last thing he remembered was being in Hong Kong after getting some last minute plane tickets to Washington DC so he could finish the deal with Eddie Chang from there... ...Alex watched the black cancer seep into Mulder's face. It wasn't a pretty sight, but Alex knew it had to be done. He knew that the vaccine the Russians had created worked, and that this was the only way that he would get it into Mulder's system... ...Marita was gone! Alex couldn't believe that she left him while he was sleeping after their unbelievable sex. He thought she had changed, but now he knew the truth. He would never trust her again. Never... ...he was in his trial. Guilty. They found me guilty. No surprise there. Alex knew they wouldn't believe him, especially since Don Halloway was a fake... ...Bob, the man who had adopted him as his son, was dead. Alex couldn't believe this at all. Bob couldn't be dead. He just couldn't be!... ...Marita really did love Alex, and Alex knew he loved her too. Why couldn't things be normal?...Why couldn't it have all worked out?* An unbearable heat went coursing through his body, and Krycek's whole body tensed. Krycek tried to open his eyes but it was impossible. He was burning. It was like the sun had fallen on his head. He was losing feeling in his feet. A horrible knife-like feeling was piercing through his chest and making it hard to breathe. The African American guard watched his face before looking at the horrified man in a gaudy suit who had just come in. Getting his bearings, the man hollered, "Stop it! Shut that thing down! I have a note from the governor saying that this man's sentence has been lifted!" Quickly, the guard flipped the switch and looked through the window at Krycek. He convulsed a few times, his eyes wide open, and fell limp against the straps binding him. The guard looked down the hall at two more guards who were coming towards them. Before they could ask why he shut it off early he yelled, "The man's sentence was lifted. Get the paramedics in there now!" They quickly nodded and ran down the hallway to find a phone. After about twenty minutes a whole bunch of medics were inside the room and pulling a convulsing Krycek out of the electric chair, putting him on a stretcher and rolling him out of the building as quickly as possible. Marita who was crying, looked up to see a girl looking at her. "Do you think he'll make it?" "I hope so," Marita whispered. "I really hope so." *** (A week later) Mulder sat in one of the chairs across from Krycek's hospital bed and watched the younger man blankly. His cheeks were bright red from the burning, and every once in awhile he would get chills forcing his body to convulse heavily. Scully, who was looking over the doctor's reports, lowered her eyes. "They're saying its just a matter of time. All that heat burnt a lot of the lining inside of him." "If that man would have gotten there a minute earlier then Krycek wouldn't be in this position right now," Mulder muttered, his eyes still on Krycek. Marita, who was also in the room, was in the same position that Mulder was in, only her eyes were red from days of crying by Krycek's side. She buried her face in her hands for a moment and rubbed her eyes before looking at Mulder. "Did he tell you what you wanted tp know, Mr. Mulder?" Mulder glanced at her and thought about the question. Eddie had given them a lot of information, but in the end he shook his head. "No, he didn't tell me what I wanted to know." Just then, Krycek's pulse seemed to speed up as his body convulsed once. His eyes opened and he turned his head painfully from one side to the other. Marita, noticing this first, grabbed his hand. "Hi, Alex." He closed his eyes for a moment and brought her hand up to his warm face. "Love you," he whispered hoarsely, kissing her hand. Turning to Mulder, he shook his head slowly. "Didn't kill him." "We know you didn't kill the Duncans," Mulder informed him. "Eddie has told us this much." Krycek frowned and tried to motion for Mulder to come closer to him. He did so and listened as the younger man whispered, "I...I didn't kill your father." Even though his eyes widened, Mulder wasn't as surprised by this as he thought he would be. Somehow, since the case began, he had a strange feeling in his gut that told him that Krycek hadn't ended his father's life. Suddenly, Krycek's pulse, which had picked up for a moment, began to drop. Scully looked at it in alarm. "We're losing him. I'm going to get a nurse." She ran out of the room in search of someone who knew where to find something to help him. Smiling faintly at Mulder, Krycek closed his eyes and rasped, "The game...I lose." With that, he turned away and his heart flatlined. Marita looked at the heart monitor in disbelief before trying to shake his limp hand that was still in hers. "Alex? Shit, no, Alex!" Mulder continued to stare at him for what seemed like an eternity until Scully returned with one of the doctors. When she saw the flatline, she motioned for everyone to leave the room even though, in her heart, she knew there was nothing she could do. Marita, Scully, and Mulder exited the room and looked at each other cautiously. Finally, Scully sighed. "I'll drive you both home." The others accepted and the three left the hospital together, still not able to accept that Alex Krycek was gone. THE Alex Krycek, who had been both a burden and a friend, was dead. *** Subject: NEW: Redemption 21/21 *epilogue* by Christina Ortega (closing) Mulder walked into his dark apartment after being dropped off by Scully and wandered around it aimlessly before sitting on his leather couch. Spooky shadows invaded the room's walls and he watched them dance before taking off his trenchcoat and putting it next to him. He thought about watching TV but decided against it. Somehow, it didn't feel right. It felt like something was missing, all of a sudden. At that point Mulder realized that usually if his mind was wandering like it was now that it would be thinking of how much he wanted to get at Krycek and get the younger man to tell him the truth about his father. Krycek's death was bittersweet. In a way, it was like a huge weight had been lifted from him. Now, there was one less person to worry about who could double cross him, and yet he felt like it was he who had lost the game and not Krycek. Even though Mulder always refused to admit it to himself, he had found that a part of him had always wanted to trust Krycek. The younger man had always seemed so alive and yet he was such a rat. Mulder thought about what could make it possible to drive Krycek like that. What made him tick? Now he would never know. Another part of him, although it was a smaller part that had grown over the past few days, had always wanted to be on Krycek's side. He had hoped that once Krycek had come clean that maybe, just maybe, they could be...not partners, at least acquaintances, but that would never happen. Krycek's death was truly bittersweet. All the memories of the younger man seemed to haunt him as if his ghost was really there with him. He remembered Krycek as a green agent who ended up double crossing him. Then, when he had been under the influence of the LSD, he had accused Krycek of killing his father, which was never proven. After that Krycek had been possessed by the alien oil, and it was at that time that Mulder had realized that he wanted to trust Krycek. After the alien had entered him Krycek had mellowed out and Mulder had thought that he could be ok if he wanted to be. Then came the time when they went to Tunguska. He had blamed Krycek for what had happened to him, but now he realized that the younger man had done what he did to save him from whatever was going on with this resistance. Krycek had tried to explain it to him. Hell, Krycek had even kissed him, and at that time he seemed so...healthy and so believable. It seemed natural to want to trust him and accept what he was saying. Now, he was gone. Alex Krycek was no more. Mulder didn't realize that he had begun to cry until he felt the tears slide down his cheeks. At first he wished them away like they were demons coming to taunt him, but then he realized that this man that had given his life to a cause and had lost it because of a horrible mistake...this man was very brave. In fact, Mulder couldn't help but admire his strength. Burying his face in his hands, Mulder let himself shed tears for this man, Alex Krycek, who had tried his best to win the game and though he had tried his best and had seemed to be doing well, in the end, he hadn't succeeded. *** The End. Yes, I am a Krycek lover. Why did I kill him? I don't know! I was possessed! Well, I love feedback and, congratulations to me, this is my longest story beating out Fate! *claps* Yes, well, you may have noticed a few injokes. If you don't know me that well then you probably didn't. Anyway, this story took forever to write and right now my left hand is about to fall off *like Krycek's, right? Hahaha...* so I'd love some feedback. E-mail me at Rkacat@aol.com Again, thanks for reading, and, if CC happens to read this, DON'T YOU DARE REPEAT THE ENDING OF THIS STORY ON AN X-FILE ANYTIME SOON!!!