Title: The Plan

Rating: T/PG-13

Pairing: Mulder/Krycek UST, but no worse than on the show. Scully+Mulder friendship.

Warnings: Mpreg

Canon/Timeline: Originally written as a way to explain Krycek's absence from the 'Fight the Future' movie. Takes place after 'Foile a Deux', and the beginning of this story replaces the Fifth season finale, 'The End'. Spoilers for 'Tunguska-Terma', 'The Red and the Black' and several other episodes prior to 'Foile a Deux'. Does not count season six, etc.

Written: Winter 1998.

Author's Notes: I still like this piece. I hadn't learned a lot of the tricks I've picked up since, and I was still too shy to write all-out slash, but I like it.


Chapter One


"Scully?... Yeah, it's me... could you come over here right away?... well, I was hoping you could tell me. ...I'm at my apartment. Right. Bye," Mulder flipped his phone closed, and took another look at his unexpected guest. Krycek was curled in a pitiful ball on the dark green leather couch, eyes shut against pain that coiled and struck. Krycek had shown up at apartment 42 a couple of minutes ago, looking like hell. He hadn't spoken, except for a whispered one-word acknowledgment,

"Mulder..." before sinking to his knees, jaw set and eyes shut tight. The look that Krycek gave him as he spoke, coupled with his sweat-slicked hair and ashen color, was enough to convince Mulder that his one-time partner and enemy wasn't faking. He was really, really sick. Mulder looked up and down the hallway and, seeing no-one, he looked dawn at Krycek in annoyance.

"Why the hell are you HERE?" he muttered. Krycek made no reply. Cursing, Mulder pulled Krycek inside, and shut the door, locking it after him. "Stupid sonofabitch, you think coming to me is going to HELP you?" Krycek lay where he had been pushed, and didn't give any indication of having heard him. He was holding his stomach, and whispering something in Russian. Mulder sighed disgustedly, and manhandled Krycek over to the couch. And now he had a sick, one-armed, Russian triple agent-assassin curled up in a miserable ball on his couch. Terrific. Mulder dropped into his chair, and leaned his head back to look at Krycek upside-down. Not that he expected Krycek to try anything, but he wasn't taking any chances. He checked his SIG, then rose, crossed to the couch, and frisked his guest for weapons. Krycek had a gun tucked into the back of his jeans, and a black-handled pocketknife in his jacket. Mulder put Krycek's hardware in one of the desk drawers, then waited for Scully. Krycek didn't move much.


"What's going on?!" demanded Scully, lowering her gun slowly.

"Hey, he just followed me home," replied Mulder, "-he collapsed on my doorstep, and he's been like this ever since. Do you think he's dying?" Scully though she heard a note of hope in Mulder's voice. She shook her head.

"I don't know." She handed her gun to Mulder, and crossed to the couch. An effort to uncurl Krycek proved ineffective. She checked his eyes, pulse, forehead temp.

"He's not faking," she decided. Mulder ran a hand through his hair, and waited for her to continue. "Krycek, I need you to move your arm so that I can try and find out what's wrong with you,."

Krycek made no response.

"Mulder, give me a hand here." Mulder had to use both of his hands against Krycek's one to get it to move. Scully checked Krycek's abdomen and found it free of visible injury. "This fever has got to come down. let's get him into the shower," decided Scully. A cold water shower later, Krycek opened his eyes, shivering. Seeing Scully and Mulder, his breath caught, and his eyes went wide. Then he seemed to remember something, and quieted.

"What's wrong with you, Krycek?" demanded Mulder. Krycek started to laugh, but stopped and winced, slipping from a semi-sitting position to the floor of the shower.

"...Don't know," he looked up at Scully, and sat back up again.

"How did this start?" asked Scully. Krycek looked at something in the air between them, trying to remember.

"I... quit. Old bastard did something... ...when I- -just dumped me someplace... that was last night," he pieced together.

"Mulder, it sounds like he's been poisoned. I think we should take him to a hospital." said Scully.

"No! No hospital... ...dead in two hours," snarled Krycek.

"He's got a point," agreed Mulder, "-want me to carry him down to the car now?" Scully shook her head.

"Just get a couple of blankets together."

Mulder shrugged wistfully, and left. Scully got Krycek out of his wet clothes and toweled him off, checking for the tell-tale dark bruising of internal bleeding, but finding nothing. Krycek was still shivering, and she wrapped him in a dry towel. His eyes, when she met them, were the same as many she'd seen in hospitals: in pain and scared and trying not to think about it.

"Out... please." he said, suddenly. Scully looked at him quizzically, and took a step back. With a last exasperated look in her direction, Krycek turned away from her and threw up in the toilet. Mulder decided he didn't really want to see that, and finished making up the couch.

Krycek was asleep, finally. That had taken some fairly serious chemical help. Scully guessed that if he survived the night, he probably wouldn't die at all. She had done what she could, but without hospital facilities, Krycek was going to make it or not on his own.

So they waited.

Krycek was still there in the morning, and Scully took a blood sample into the FBI toxicology lab, but she couldn't find anything unusual about it. Mulder stayed at his apartment with Krycek, and played Tetris. Scully came back at four with a dinner of Chinese take-out, and absolutely no clue as to what was wrong with Krycek. Krycek was awake and reasonably coherent, though.

"What do you remember?"

"Well, I told the Englishman that I wasn't going to work for him anymore, and he said...um...he said something like, 'sure you won't' or 'we'll see about that'. I got as far as the outer door, but it was locked, and they gassed the room. That's the last thing I remember until the alley."

"How did you get to Mulder's apartment?" asked Scully.

"I went back to my place, but then I got sick. I thought I was dying."

"Hear, hear," murmured Mulder, through a bite of food.

"I came here because I couldn't think of anywhere else that wouldn't automatically get me killed," Krycek finished. Mulder grinned.

"You thought coming here would keep you alive!? As opposed to WHAT?!"

"Anywhere the Englishman would follow me," Krycek looked at Mulder as one predator to another, "-I figured I could count on you to either help me or shoot me, and last night, either one would have been an improvement."

"You're feeling better, then?" cut in Scully.

"A little, but that's probably the drugs," replied Krycek.


And so it went. Krycek got better, the cause of his illness still a mystery, and Mulder stayed with him, not talking much. He was looking foreword to bringing Krycek in. He was also thinking a lot about Krycek's 'I knew you'd either help me or shoot me' statement. Five days after he showed up, Krycek disappeared. Mulder came out of the bathroom to discover Krycek's absence, and a note with one word on it: 'Thanks'. Mulder crumpled the paper angrily, and, throwing it aside, ran out into the hallway to find it deserted. He made for the exit, and stood shaking on the concrete sidewalk, alone, realizing that Alex Krycek had gotten away... again. When he got up to his apartment, he discovered that Krycek's knife and gun were missing, too.

If there was one thing Krycek was particularly good at, it was disappearing without a trace. Mulder decided that the next time he saw Krycek, he would bring him in, in whatever state he happened to be. Scully wasn't surprised that Krycek had pulled a disappearing act, but she hadn't counted on him trying it so soon. Maybe losing an arm had given him an exceptional pain tolerance. Or maybe he just hadn't been as sick as he looked. Mulder fumed for a couple of days, and then seemed to write off the incident with fairly good grace. Their next case was in California; A body had washed ashore just north of San Francisco, looking like it had been mauled by Robby the robot. In other words, things got back to normal. That lasted about four months.

Scully looked over at the clock: 12:15. Great time for someone to knock, really. It was probably Mulder. She got a robe, and tied on the terry-cloth belt. She padded over to the door, and reached for the lock, but then the knock came again. That was not Mulder's knock. She found her gun, then peered into the peephole. Krycek. She cocked the gun, and unlocked the door. She took aim at where she estimated Krycek's chest would be, and called,

"Open the door."

Krycek did so, paused for a second when he saw the gun, and philosophically decided to ignore it.

"Close the door," Scully instructed.

"O.K..." Krycek closed the door, and leaned on it casually. Scully tossed him a pair of handcuffs. He looked at them as a farmer would look at a shovel.

"To the doorknob. Now," ordered Scully. Krycek knew the drill. He left the cuff on his hand just loose enough to escape if he had to, and secured the other to the doorknob. Scully caught this, and kept the gun trained on him.

"Why are you here?" she asked, suspiciously.

"I need your help again," replied Krycek.

"Why would I help you? You killed my sister, remember?"

"Actually, I didn't. I doubt you believe me, though."

"No. I asked why I should help you," glared Scully, keeping her gun trained between Krycek's eyes. Krycek sighed, and seemed to contemplating something unpleasant.

"I think I have evidence that the aliens you two have been chasing all this time are real."

"What?! I mean, what do you mean, 'you think' you have evidence?" Demanded Scully.

"I mean there's something inside of me that doesn't belong there," said Krycek, "I don't know what it is, but I think the Englishman arranged it as a parting shot. He always was a rotten loser." Scully stared at him for a moment, then noticed that his jacket was zipped up for a change. She tucked her gun into the belt of her robe, then found the phone and dialed, keeping an eye on Krycek as she did so.

"Mulder?...Krycek just showed up. No, he's handcuffed to the door. ...He says someone put something inside him, but he doesn't know what it is... I don't know yet. ...well if he was in enough trouble to come to us for help, he's probably serious. ...that'll be fine." She hung up.

"You went through the black oil and losing an arm without coming to us," stated Scully, "-what's different here?"

Krycek looked down at the carpet, and looked very uncomfortable. He hated even thinking about this.

"It moves," he replied.

"To a different place?" asked Scully. Krycek shook his head.

"No, it just... moves."


Mulder glared at Krycek from across the room. Scully had made them all coffee. She didn't usually drink coffee in the middle of the night, but it looked like they were going to be up all night anyway. Scully was now examining Krycek, and she had unzipped his jacket and pushed up his T-shirt. Mulder felt momentarily jealous, and took another sip of coffee. Krycek didn't look all that different to him. True, he was looking rounder, but that could be caused by one too many airport hot-dogs. Still, Krycek seemed to be taking this very seriously. Mulder remembered what it was like being infected with the black oil, the subtle but inescapable intrusion, the infestation. It had been one of the most terrifying and violating experiences of his life. Knowing that the enemy you have been tracking so ruthlessly is now inside of you. Krycek knew what that felt like too. No wonder he was running scared over this. Scully completed her examination, and stood up, thinking hard. Krycek pulled his shirt back down, and looked at her searchingly. Scully shook her head, finally.

"I don't know what this is, Krycek. I agree with you that it isn't supposed to be there though, and it's not hard enough to be mechanical. I want to run some tests at the hospital."

"I can't go there," reminded Krycek.

"We'll use the back door," assured Scully, "-besides, it's one in the morning."

"Argue this one... please?" encouraged Mulder. Krycek shut up.

Scully looked up and down the white-walled corridor, and called back,

"It's clear." Mulder brought Krycek, at gunpoint. True, Krycek seemed to co-operating with them for now, but every time Mulder had trusted him in the past had turned out badly. The corridor reminded Mulder of descriptions of the door to the other side as described by people who had near-death experiences: white and clean, and running from almost unlit to bright white fluorescence at the end. They passed through a set of inner doors into the gleaming maze of regular hospital hallways. When Scully walked past the doors to radiology, Mulder asked,

"Scully, where are we taking him?"

"Well, I wanted to find out if the anomaly is alive or not before doing any x-rays. I'm going to do an ultrasound."

"Aww, an ultrasound on a baby alien... and me without my video camera," lamented Mulder. Krycek scowled, but didn't comment. The room where the ultrasound equipment was kept was deserted at this hour, fortunately. Scully did the ultrasound, and made a tape. Whatever had taken up residence in Krycek was most definitely alive. Scully looked at the results critically. Whatever this wee beastie was, it had grown there, and she suspected that the biological crash Krycek had experienced four months ago was an unsuccessful attempt by his body to reject it. She tuned out Mulder and Krycek, who were busy baiting each other, and looked at the data. Slowly, a theory gelled, and it was one that she could test fairly simply.


About 18 hours later they were still sniping at each other, but Krycek was only playing the game as a distraction. He was worrying about what Scully was going to come back from the lab with.

"Hey Krycek, are you familiar with the works of David Cameron?"

"Fuck off."

They were back at Mulder's apartment, and Krycek wondered briefly what Mulder's reaction would be if he suddenly put an elbow through the fish tank. Probably not good. He wouldn't put it past Mulder to execute him on the spot, for icthiocide. Or for breathing, for that matter. Scully's knock startled him. Mulder got the door, keeping a wary eye on Krycek as he did so. Scully had a businesslike look on her face, and she set down a large brown paper bag on the coffee table on her way in.

"What have you got, Scully?" asked Mulder.

"And is it going to kill me?" added Krycek. Scully shook her head.

"It shouldn't."

"Hell," said Mulder, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"So what is it?" asked Krycek.

"From the tests I just ran, it appears to be human. Half the DNA is yours, and half of it is from an unknown source."

"Waitaminute, WHAT?" broke in Mulder.

"The embryo that was placed inside Krycek is completely Human. No aliens involved, but this is still extremely unusual, medically speaking," Scully replied. Krycek stared at her, mouth slightly open, in mute shock.

"Guess what Krycek, you're going to be a mommy," Mulder offered, brightly.

"I can't do this... I'm an assassin for god's sake!" protested Krycek.

"You're a lot of things, Krycek," observed Scully.

"Why would he?..." Krycek pondered his own internal monologue, and made a few guesses that sounded plausible. The Englishman was displeased when I left, but not the kind of displeased that gets someone out with orders to kill me... if he wanted me dead, he could have killed me after he gassed me. No, he wants me alive and working for him. If I'm really pregnant -god that sounds weird- maybe he thinks that I'll come to him for help and then I'll owe him enough to stay... like hell. Maybe he just didn't have any further use for me, and he needed someone to experiment on, so... no, if that was the case he'd still have me locked up. What does that leave, him trying to slow me down enough so that someone else could kill me? I was his protégée, though. Yeah, maybe he's just trying to force me back. Wouldn't be the first time somebody's done that to me, though this is a new approach. Hmm... maybe he sold me to the people at the cloning labs and THEY did this to me? Idle speculation. I need to get rid of this thing.

Krycek looked up to see that Scully and Mulder had been talking over his head. He listened, hoping they hadn't noticed him coming out of his reverie. Then he decided not to bother, because if they were going to say something they didn't mean him to hear, they knew him well enough not to say it within earshot.

"Okay, let's narrow it down. Who do we know who doesn't wish Krycek great bodily harm?" Mulder was asking. There was a silence.

"That's the problem," offered Krycek, "-Scully, can you help me get rid of this thing?" Scully looked distressed.

"And let you go?" scoffed Mulder, "-in exchange for what?"

"Information."

"That would have to be a pretty good tip, Krycek," said Mulder. Scully leaned over and whispered something in Mulder's ear. Mulder shook his head, smiling. 'No of course not?' No of course not WHAT? wondered Krycek.

"It will be... and I have reason not to cross you on this one," promised Krycek.

"Who does this information belong to?" asked Mulder.

"You'll see," replied Krycek, casually. He had a plan, he had an open door, he had a course set. One that was interrupted by Scully standing in front of the door.

"That's it? You're just letting him go?"

"He'll be back, Scully. He has to. He knows that," Scully looked at Mulder in surprise, and Krycek slipped out past her. She watched him leave for a moment, then back at Mulder in consternation.

"How do you know?"

"As opposed to the alternative? That has to be the number one male fear of all time, Scully. -Especially for somebody like him." Scully quirked an eyebrow. "-Black leather jacket, black jeans, likes waving a large handgun around and playing head games with people? That's not the profile of somebody who'd go Martha Stuart," Mulder finished.

"What if he has somewhere else to go for help with this?" asked Scully.

"He would have gone there first," replied Mulder.

Scully closed the door.

"Sooner or later we have to get around to actually turning him in, you know," she said.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Mulder.

"He always finds a way to get away from us," explained Scully. That 'us' sounded suspiciously like 'you', to Mulder. Probably just his guilty conscience.

"I want him as much as you do, but I'm playing him for all he's worth first," explained Mulder

"If all else fails, you'll still get an X-file out of all this," observed Scully.

"Yup," sighed Mulder.


Getting in and out of the Englishman's headquarters was too easy. No, Alex corrected himself, It wasn't easy, it just hadn't cost him any skin. Lately, that was as good as he could reasonably hope for. He had the information, in the form of two newly-burned CD-ROMs, tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket, where they burned like a paycheck. He had covered his tracks well, altering the security camera footage from within the Englishman's own computer system, and erasing the information retrieval commands. The computer had no idea anything had been accessed, much less copied. Alex hadn't had a chance to go over the information himself, but he had hidden a copy in a local train station locker. Time enough to go back for it later. The two CD's in his jacket contained only one half of the data each. He would hold the second half of the data back against Mulder trying to turn him in.

So probably, this would work. He could walk away from yet another mess. Alex surveyed his apartment, which was for the moment home, dubiously. It was a room that could have been in any city from Los Angeles to Vladivastok. There was a bed in a corner away from the soaped window, and a rectangular wooden table in the center of the room, covered with portable computer hardware and several backup weapons. The laptop was connected to an improbable socket-cube underneath the table. Maybe this room had once been something else. Krycek locked the door and window carefully, then stripped out of his clothes, including his left arm, and took a long, hot shower. During his time in Russia, Alex had learned to appreciate an abundance of warmth. He toweled off, turned out the lights, and crawled into bed naked. Part of his mind reminded him that this was a pretty stupid thing to do, but the rest was tired, and collectively told it to fuck off. It was gray dawn when he woke, and the sheets clung to him limply with the residual dampness of his shower the day before. The air in Alex's apartment was cold, as would the floor be, and he didn't want to get up. So he didn't. There are certain advantages to being in Alex's line of work.

About two hours later, he was still there, trying to decide when to take the CD to Mulder. The problem was that he felt great for a change. Not completely normal, maybe, but great. When Scully finished with him he'd feel like hell again, and he wasn't looking foreword to it. He'd been working locally in information trafficking, which given his hacking skills wasn't all that hard. It was relatively clean work too, which is to say that it didn't involve any dead bodies. It had necessitated him to move a couple of times, when somebody back-traced him, but that was all part of the job.

As for the deal with Mulder, he knew he was being played, but that was at least easy to understand. He had to make Mulder really WANT the rest of the information. The more Mulder knew about the information on the first CD, the more he'd get curious about the second one. He'd never had Mulder this far over a barrel, but unfortunately, the reverse was also true. He decided to let Mulder mull over the first CD for a while before showing up in person. Let him get hungry. Speaking of food... breakfast sounded like a really great idea. Krycek dressed and left, drawing the shade before walking out. He decided to drop off the CD while Mulder was at work before doing anything else, though. Somewhere between his apartment and Mulder's however, he got to thinking about a concession stand in times square station that had excellent Pirogi. It was the sort of place you can pass every day for twenty years and only notice when it's gone. As far as he knew though, it was still there. New York would be cold this time of year, as would Moscow. Maybe he should disappear for a while after he gave Mulder the CD. Somewhere cold, with excellent Pirogi...

Waitaminute. I'm going to New York because I want a Pirogi? Well... I'm also lying low for a while anyway. Why the hell not?

Alex slid a white envelope under Mulder's door, containing the first CD, and bearing a handwritten, 'I'll call you' on the outside. At about one o'clock that afternoon, Krycek stepped off a train onto a platform in New York. Yuri was still there.


Mulder turned the light on and looked around warily before retrieving the envelope on the floor. It was white and unadorned, save for the words 'I'll call you' written on the side in felt-tip pen. Mulder closed and locked the door, then opened the envelope carefully. Inside was a CD, gleaming golden. Mulder let his coat fend for itself on the couch, and brought up the contents of the CD on his computer. There were files, thousands of them, most designated by a first and last name, and a number. All the named files from A to M were there, but the rest of the alphabet was missing. Mulder skipped to the end of the list, and found six more files, one of them encrypted. None of the decryption programs he already had would work on it though, so he decided to leave it for later and see what was in the other five. The first was a list of pharmaceutical equipment and chemical requisitions. It didn't say where they were to be delivered to, though. The second was a lab use timesheet. The third was a murky and indiscernible picture, that took up most of the screen to display. Mulder studied it intensely, discovered a repeating, seemingly random pattern in the dirty swirls, and concluded that it was a picture someone had made into a fractal. Another encryption.

"What's next Krycek, a crossword puzzle?" Mulder asked the screen. He clicked on the fourth file, but as he did so, something caught his eye. He exited quickly, and looked at the main list again. Towards the end of the M's there were two files, one just below the other:

Mulder, Fox #00004913805

Mulder, Samantha #00003839064

Mulder squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them eagerly. He opened Samantha's file.

He was still staring, reading, absorbing the data he had discovered, when Scully knocked on his door the next morning.


"Mulder? Are you in there?" Mulder leaned back and rubbed his eyes.

"Yeah... hold on..." Mulder stretched, then got up and let Scully in. She took one look at his face, and deduced,

"You've been up all night?" Mulder nodded, and indicated the computer with a hand.

"Krycek came through. Big time. I don't know what he got this from, but it's going to be pissed."

"Where is Krycek now?" asked Scully. Mulder pointed to the envelope.

"I haven't the faintest. Maybe when you do the operation on him, you should put a tracer in."

"Not a bad idea," Scully had a look at the files on Mulder's computer.

"They have a file on you here, I wonder if they have- -hey, everything below 'M' is missing..." -And her file with it. Scully opened Mulder's file, and found it disturbingly complete. They had his medical history from the day he was born, and moreover, they had his address. She went back to the file directory and scrolled upwards. Mulder called from the kitchen,

"You want some coffee?"

"Sure, thanks." she called back to him. Mulder came back with a mug of coffee for Scully and a tumbler of orange juice. He handed her the steaming mug, and took a seat on end of the coffee table, elbows on knees.

"Here we go... I think I've figured out what this is," said Scully.

"What?"

"Remember the cloning labs? I think these are copies of the files they have."

"That would explain Samantha's," agreed Mulder, tiredly.

"And why they keep medical histories on these people, but..." Scully trailed off.

"Scully?"

"If you're still holding that cup, put it down, and then come take a look at this." said Scully. Mulder found himself looking at Krycek's file. It looked a lot like his own file, but right at the end of Krycek's medical history, there were a couple of screens about 'Experiment X1' dated four months ago.

"He stole this from the same people who played doctor on him." observed Mulder.

"Look at the bottom of the screen." said Scully. It read,

"DNA source list

Alex Krycek

Fox Mulder"

There was a long pause.

"Scully, did you just type that?"

"No."

"Oh, shit..." Mulder scrolled back up to the top of Krycek's file, and looked for an address. There were several, but only one in the D.C. area. There was also a phone number, but nobody picked up. Mulder wrote down the address, ejected the CD, and slipped it into first a clear plastic case, and then his trench coat's deepest inner pocket. Scully had another look at Krycek's file.

"Are you coming?" asked Mulder, tugging on his coat.


Rain beaded on the surface of the passenger side window, and slid down to the black rubber seal separating the window from the rest of the door. Scully was driving. Mulder had no idea what he was going to say to Krycek when he found him, but he did know that he had to find him soon. This day had the familiar bad-dream quality that characterized his least pleasant adventures. The ones that were still there when he woke up. Alex Krycek... there was a loaded name. Partner, friend, betrayer, murderer, triple agent, clever, occasionally considerate, ruthless, seriously but never quite fatally unlucky, Alex Krycek. Until recently, Mulder had a way of dealing with Krycek that worked pretty much of the time: beat the shit out of him and watch him like a hawk. Then Krycek had ambushed him, told him about the alien civil war, kissed him, and handed him a loaded gun. That had been a very weird experience, and one that he hadn't completely absorbed when Krycek had shown up four months ago. Let alone now.

Krycek's apartment was empty, except for a gun and a laptop on the table. Mulder checked in the bathroom, and found a slightly damp towel. He'd been here recently. Scully tried to see what was on the laptop, but when she turned it on, a digital timer appeared in the corner of the screen, counting down from ten...

nine...

eight... Scully turned off the power hurriedly, and bolted for the door in case that didn't work.

"Get out Mulder, now!" At the opposite end of the hallway, and around a corner, Scully checked her watch, and saw that the ten seconds would be up- -now. Mulder and Scully covered their ears just in time, as a pressure-wave of concussive sound and dislodged plaster blasted past them. Scully picked a few pieces of plaster out of her hair dubiously, and Mulder looked down the corridor they had just fled down, now filled with dust and a harsh chemical tang. The door to Krycek's apartment had been blown off it's top two hinges, and it hung out into the hallway at a precarious 45-degree angle by it's third. Pieces of the splintered frame had imbedded themselves in the opposite wall like porcupine quills. Numerous cries of alarm and consternation sounded as the people living in the other rooms alternately hid and came out to see what had happened. Someone called the fire department. Mulder called Skinner and explained that they had located Krycek's apartment, but that it was now totaled. Skinner was not amused, but he was glad they were OK. Krycek had vanished without a trace.


Icicles hung from the fire escapes, and from the concrete eves, and dirty snow was piled up here and there in the gutters. Everyone on the sidewalk was bundled into heavy coats and sweaters, but most people had the sense to either stay home or drive. On the ice at Rockefeller center, people of all mittened description sailed past, skate blades glinting and glittering as they moved. Krycek watched them from the edge of the rink, black-gloved hand in the right pocket of his jacket. He watched an older man with a stocking cap skate competently past a group of younger skaters, hands clasped behind his back. That guy wasn't local, Alex guessed. There was a girl, about fifteen, passing hand in hand with a boy of the same age. Her clothes smelled of money. Then there was a woman with long brown hair and a green jacket, alone. When another skater passed her, she looked up at him just a little too quickly... too warily. She stayed alone for a reason, Alex guessed. Alex left the center, and walked until he found a payphone. He held the receiver to his ear with his shoulder, dropped a couple of quarters in, and dialed the number for Mulder's office phone. It rang once.

"Mulder."

"Hi," said Alex.

"Krycek?! Where the hell have you been?"

"Out of town," Alex didn't elaborate, "-what do you think of the information I gave you?"

"It's good. Why didn't you tell me, Krycek?" asked Mulder.

"Because I thought you wanted to figure it out on your own," shrugged Alex, "-I assume you want the rest of it?"

"There's more?... You mean the files," realized Mulder.

"Yeah, I mean the files, what were you talking about?" demanded Alex. There was a long silence.

"Mulder?..." growled Krycek.

"You don't know what was on those files you gave me, do you?" said Mulder.

"Of course I know," retorted Krycek, "-it's a copy of-" he shut up abruptly, realizing that Mulder might not know. He wasn't going to give Mulder any more information than he had to. "-You know where it's from."

"Yeah, I'm just surprised you left in your file when you made me the copy," said Mulder.

"Nice try, they don't HAVE a file on me."

"They do now," said Mulder.

"Whatever. How soon can you help me?" asked Krycek.

"Are you in town?"

"No."

"We're going up to Michigan tomorrow on a case. Can you meet us there?"

"My apartment's in D.C.," Objected Krycek.

"Uh, not anymore."

"What!? You son of a bitch, you blew up my computer, didn't you?!" snarled Krycek.

"You're the one who wired it with a self-destruct," countered Mulder.

"How did you find my apartment in the first place?" asked Alex.

"It was in your file," replied Mulder. Krycek swore vehemently in Russian and asked,

"Where in Michigan?" Mulder gave him the address.

"Make sure you're not followed," Mulder reminded him.

"I've been moving around for three weeks, Mulder. Nobody's following me."

"All the same-"

"Shut up. I'll see you in Michigan."

"Wait-!" Krycek hung up.

"Damn. Did you get the trace, Scully?" asked Mulder, putting the receiver back.

"Yes, but I don't think it's going to be much use," she told him, "-it's a payphone a few blocks from Rockefeller center in New York."

"In other words, 'poof'."

"Yes," Scully wrote down the address anyway, then looked at Mulder. "-You didn't tell him."

"He hung up!"

"I guess it won't matter," Scully's eyes were sad, "-but I would have preferred to do this sooner, if at all. If I didn't think his condition would kill both of them, untreated, I wouldn't be going along with this at all."

Scully gathered up some of the papers strewn across Mulder's desk, replaced them in a manila folder. She paused.

"What about you? Are you okay?"

"Yeah..." Scully waited for him to continue, but he didn't.

"-But?"

Mulder looked up, and made eye contact.

"I've just been feeling a lot like my father lately."


The rendezvous was a bed and breakfast on the shores of lake Michigan. Krycek got there four hours early, and made sure no-one was skulking around except him. He parked in back, a nondescript blue car he'd rented in Canada, and got a room on the lakeside branch of the building. Krycek had no idea when Mulder and Scully would show up, so he went to the motel's diner and got breakfast. The diner consisted of six booths and a bar, topped with sand colored linoleum. This early in the morning, the diner was empty except for a couple of long-distance truckers.

"'Morning," one of them grunted at him. He was surprised, but didn't let it show.

"Good morning," he said back. People usually pegged him as trouble and avoided him, but the truckers had acted as if he was nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe I forgot to put on my 'dangerous killer' look this morning, Krycek mused. Or maybe being round in the stomach makes you look less dangerous. Trying not to feel embarrassed, Alex found a booth with a view of the front motel parking lot, and ordered a continental. Embarrassed or not, he really was hungry. When he finished breakfast, Krycek got a newspaper and a cup of coffee, paid the waitress, and waited. Scully's car pulled into the lot around 11:00, and Krycek watched them check into adjoining rooms facing the road. Timing was everything.

Scully got the door. Mulder didn't quite go for his gun, but it took a conscious effort.

"Come in," said Scully. Krycek did so, and closed the door. Mulder hadn't said anything yet, and this struck Alex as odd. He looked at Mulder curiously. Mulder's emotions were deciding between nitro and glycerin but hadn't quite made up their minds yet. On the one hand, he wanted Krycek dead or hurting, and on the other, he wanted to... protect him? Interview him? He decided to stick to business until things sorted themselves out.

"Did you bring the disk?" Mulder asked.

"You get the disk when I'm out of here," said Krycek, "-besides, what I already gave you should be worth this," Scully and Mulder exchanged glances. Krycek was right, but that didn't matter. Scully cleared her throat.

"Do you have a place to recover? This won't be a procedure you can just walk away from," cautioned Scully.

"Yes," Alex nodded once. He didn't like the sound of this.

"Could you take me there?" asked Scully.

"Do you need to know?" countered Alex.

"Mr. Krycek, I don't think you should be moved for at least a couple of days after I do this, so we need to actually do the operation wherever you're planning on recovering. -If it's clean enough to chance it, that is," She added.

"What, exactly, are you going to do to me?!" Demanded Krycek.

"As little as I have to, but you are almost five months pregnant," Scully replied. Mulder crossed to the door, and opened it.

"Where are you going?" asked Krycek, suspiciously. Mulder half turned, and looked back at him.

"I'm going to go and pretend to be working on the case we were sent up here to deal with."

"Wait a minute," said Scully, "-while you're out, could you pick up the things on this list?" she wrote something on a piece of the motel's note paper, and gave it to Mulder. Mulder mumbled,

"Sure," and left. Half the tension in the room went with him. Scully turned to Krycek, and tried to think of him only as a patient.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Well enough that this isn't going to kill me." Krycek replied.

"That's not what I asked."

"What difference does it make? I'm going to feel like shit tomorrow anyway," said Krycek.

"This isn't an interrogation. I'm a doctor, and I'm just trying to make sure you're not sick before I do this operation," Explained Scully.

"How professional of you," Krycek paused, "-I feel fine, though."

"That's good. I'd like to see where you're planning to stay. We can take my car."

"Actually, I rented a room around back. Will that work?" asked Alex.

"I hope so," Said Scully.


Mulder had a bad feeling about all this. The case they were supposed to be working on was definitely strange, but thankfully didn't involve any dead bodies. He could cover for Scully on this one. The case wasn't the problem. The problem was Krycek. Mulder wondered if the only reason that Scully was going along with the idea of an abortion was the probability that Krycek would end up dead, and the baby with him, if she didn't do it. The mission of a doctor was the preservation of life and health. Krycek had looked so different standing there... like he wasn't 'Krycek' at all. Except that he was still Krycek, and would be back to his usual deadly, treacherous self within a month. Mulder unfolded the list Scully had given him, and read it while waiting for the light to change.

"Liquid bleach, plastic sheet, 3 rolls of paper towels..."

Great. This looked like being one of the messiest things he'd ever been party to. And he was party to it. More even than Scully. He hated it. His father had sacrificed one of his children to... what? The truth? The concealment of the truth? Survival? Or had it simply been a deal, like this one? Mulder had always hated his father for doing that. He already hated Alex Krycek. Would he hate himself as well?

BLAM!!

Mulder was momentarily deafened by the noise of the airbag that had just deployed in his face. The car had stopped moving, and Mulder could smell gunpowder and fried wiring. Then he got a bloody nose and he couldn't smell anything. Mulder unbuckled his seat belt, and climbed shakily out of the car... Scully's car. Shit. The driver of the other car, a man with a gray mustache and a cowboy hat, had also gotten out, and was yelling at him, but it didn't make sense for some reason. None of it. A highway patrolman stopped to assist, asked him if he was hurt. Mulder shook his head. The highway patrolman gave Mulder a handful of Kleenex, and called in the accident. Mulder wiped his nose with the Kleenex, and was impressed by how much blood came away on them. Then he looked down at the front of his shirt and discovered that it was soaked with the stuff, as was his tie. Great.


Scully inspected Krycek's room carefully, with an eye for anything that looked dirty. Aside from Krycek's jacket and boots, everything looked pretty clean. Krycek, who was looking out the window, suddenly grabbed her arm and announced,

"We're leaving."

"What's wrong?" Scully asked.

"C'mon, NOW!" Alex ran out the door and down to his car, Scully in tow. Scully saw three men get out of a black Buick, and start running towards them. Alex ducked behind his car, and pulled his gun. He popped up for a second, and fired four times, downing two of the approaching men, and then ducked back down. Scully accounted for the third, and

Alex got in and started the car.

"Will you get in?" he shouted at Scully. She did so, and Krycek peeled out, then braked suddenly when he saw a large black van enter the Motel parking lot. The exit was blocked by the Buick. Krycek swore, and put the car into reverse, but there was no way out of the back parking lot, just a row of trees on the left, a robust-looking fence on the right, and a dock jutting off the lakeshore. Krycek drove up to the dock, stopped, and made for one of the boats at the end of the dock on foot. Scully followed him. The boat Krycek chose was white with blue trim, and had a serious outboard motor. The van stopped by Krycek's car and what looked like an unmarked six-man swat team piled out, racing down the dock towards them. Scully started the motor, and Krycek cast off, then began firing at their pursuit. He caught one in the face and another in the shoulder, but the rest were gaining, and firing at them as they ran. The boat lurched, and began racing away from the dock. Some of the guys from the van were getting into the second boat to continue the pursuit, but Krycek got a shot into the fuel tank and the second boat went up in an impressive ball of flame. Scully steered their boat out onto the open gray water of lake Michigan.

-tbc-