Removing her glasses with one fluid movement, she reached with the other hand and tightly pinched the bridge of her nose. The migraine was settling in nicely, now. Draining out of her in tandem her patience and resolve.

"I can't keep doing this," she muttered to no one. As punctuation to her audible thought, a sharp single knock announced the final break in her concentration.

"Agent Scully," the courier curtly delivered, "…arrived for you anonymously." Almost as an afterthought he added, "It's been thoroughly scanned. Clean," and just as quickly as he announced his presence, he was gone.

Deftly, she squeezed open the outer edges of the padded manila mailer, quickly surveying the contents with a practiced eye. She mentally ticked off the contents; wasn't really much to it. Slipping two fingers into the FBI-supervised opening, she withdrew the most conspicuous item contained therein, a single folded sheet of paper.

"If you are reading this, I'm either deep underground or dead.

In any case, I'll never have to face you again. So, I've got nothing

to lose by telling you this:

It's not Mulders; it's mine.

You dropped a bomb on me, a long time ago. It only

seemed fair to return the favor. Watch your back, Dana.

There are others, people we both know, who won't

allow their personal feelings to cloud their judgment the

way I have."

What? What in hell-? What isn't Mulder's? Scully felt a faint, not-yet-to-be-named fear rise up in the pit of her stomach. Looking at the note again- strong, mail oriented print- she knew she recognized the hand.

Alex.

Scully shot up, ran to the toilet and promptly lost her lunch.

He ducked back in the shadows of the dim supply hall, and sharply let out his breath. She got it. A flicker of real emotion –long ago buried – threatened his composure. Alex struggled to push it down. He was anything but a sucker, and far too used to self-denial to let this wayward feeling get the better of him. Thoughts, memories tapped out in rapid staccato in his mind's eye – memories of a brief time in his recent sordid past when things could have gone differently. 'If only…' he cut the thought off in midstream. Would do him no good now to feel any regret over the past.

What happened from this point, he couldn't say. Seeing his packet delivered safely was all he cared to stay around for anyway. He didn't allow himself to think 'what if' about the future. "What is, is," he muttered to himself, feigning, as he always did, a self-protecting carelessness. With a terse flip of his wrists he turned up the collar of his coat and spirited out of the quiet building and into the almost deserted street.

A sudden cold breeze assaulted his senses; autumn was upon them. Cold pressed into him, chilling him to the core; he knew it was more than the mild night could produce. Memories best left to the past were threatening his patched together resolve again; he had to find something to Nembutal his senses. "Come on, Alex," he said aloud, "get it together man."

Dana.

Damn, she was something else. Completely independent of his own mind, her name bobbed up to the surface of his thoughts. His heart lurched inside him and he felt his body tense. The same game he'd played a thousand times in the last six years; alternately denying and reveling in a competition of which he wasn't even sure the opposition was fully aware.

If there was one thing he knew, it was that Mulder was a clueless shmuck. How could you work closely with that, with all that for years and never once cross the line? Not even wonder to yourself? And yet, in a bloodless, fraternal way, Dana was fully devoted to that … that freak. Or, as he sometimes consoled himself, it was the job Dana was devoted to … not her nut-job partner.

Before he could get a handle on it, a craziness gripped his chest and he ripped his mobile from his inside coat pocket. Pressing the programmed button quickly – before sanity robbed him of the opportunity – he thrust the phone up to his ear.

"Scully," her impatient voice caused a little shock in the pit of his belly (a fire, he thought briefly) and robbed him of words for a split second. "…Alex..?" she half-whispered, the sound of it impossibly sharper than her cursory greeting. He fought the maelstrom in his body – conflicting sensations, at best – and bit out quickly, "D'ya get my package, Dana?" He waited, senses heightened, for that almost inaudible click telling him she would try a trace. It didn't come. Yet.

"What do you want, Krycek?" she hissed. "Back to last names, Dana," he almost smiled; he did so like to play the cat and mouse game …with her in particular. "I would have thought our relationship had progressed beyond the need for formality…" he let his voice trail in a manner much more casual than he felt. "…Come on, Dana, say it… say my name..."

"Alex …" her voice was silk on his ear, "you must understand the compromising position you put me in…" he heard her sharp intake of breath and her shakily exhaling it… he liked it. It made him … feel. "You have to understand, I am in the middle of an investigation…" her voice grew husky, "I'm trying to find my partner, Alex..." He knew. He knew she wouldn't stop until she'd exhausted every avenue. Several times over.

"He was my partner once, too, Dana…" knowing he shouldn't bring up old hurts, old betrayals…still he opened the wound fresh. She was right on top of him, too, "Your partner… Your PARTNER!" her anger was building, "Damn, Krycek… you have some Herculean nerve… you traitoring son of b-," she stopped short, showing her hand, trying to recover; he knew he'd pushed her right up to the line, but he couldn't stop himself. Or didn't want to, maybe.

"Save it; I've heard your sob story before," she sounded deflated, and he didn't want to be responsible for the loss, "you 'were at the mercy of those in control, unseen forces' you were 'manipulated by those hiding in the shadows' you would 'either have to kill or be killed'" her pause was savage, "isn't that the script… ALEX?" He heard her expectation in her silence, 'say something, Alex, to defend yourself… to make up for the lies, the deceit…'

"I was a pawn, Dana." This was worse…his admitting weakness to this woman…worse than being the double agent who wantonly risked her life and the life of her partner. He changed his tack; better she loathe him – there was at least passion in that – than disregard him altogether. "I played the game to survive, Dana, and I have. Survived, that is. You can hate me, but never make the mistake of thinking that I didn't mean every word I said to you last month. I did everything in my power to live… for the future. For yours and for mine."

"I'm going to find you – hunt you down, you son of a-," he hung up right after he heard the all but imperceptible click of the trace. She would keep her promise. He counted on that.