Scully threw out the rest of the rice she'd been attempting to eat. It was useless. She hadn't been very hungry since that call from Krycek (…Alex…) her nerves were beyond flayed at this point. Mulder had been missing for three months and every lead was turning up cold. In seven years they'd helped each other through every trap, pitfall and abduction… But this time she feared their streak was ended.
What she couldn't get past was why. Why? Why had Mulder disappeared, and why was Kry- Alex… insinuating himself stealthily back into her psyche. What game was he running this time? And did she even really want to know the answer to that one? Alex had situated himself between her and Mulder many years ago (between each and every finger…like a glove on a hand) and wreaked such havoc… 'Personally and professionally,' she thought and quickly brushed the thought away. It would do no good for her to rehash her weaknesses, and the gaps in her steely defenses. He'd gotten through, and she knew it, and was forever shamed at the knowledge.
Throughout the years of trails improbable and implausible, Krycek had turned up repeatedly… 'like a bad penny,' she thought, and smiled a little. What he'd done to them, turned on them when they thought he was an ally, a fellow officer… She had thought it was unforgivable. Thought she'd never be able to look at him again without spitting in his face, truthfully.
But that isn't what she'd done when they both turned up on Amsterdam. Not what she'd done at all.
She felt the presence before she heard any sound. Krycek. Slithering out of the shadows the way he always did; his breath in her ear before her reflexes kicked in. "Hello…Dana. I didn't think you'd come… you are full of surprises, aren't you?" he'd whispered in that harsh, tortured way.
She'd spun on him and jammed her gun into his ribcage, smiling grimly, "Don't flatter yourself, liar," she'd bit out at him, " I'm not interested in what surprises or delights you." She'd relished the brief stunned look on his face, "just give me the disk, and we can call it a night." He recovered quickly, but then he always did, and a slow smile played at the corners of his mouth, "not so fast, Agent, we have to verify the ground rules, first…" She remembered that it angered her that he knew she wouldn't shoot him; not in cold blood in the middle of the foreign, darkened street. He knew her enough to know that she was a shade too gentle for this game he and Mulder played so effortlessly.
"Rules? Now you disappoint me – when did you ever follow rules, Krycek?" she knew she was in danger, could feel it in the pit of her stomach. She liked playing this game with him a little too much. Knowing that he knew it, too, made her angry. And… intrigued. "Say it, Dana… say my name," he'd whispered…and in spite of the effect the words had on her, she still managed to thrust the gun harder into his ribs. "Alex," she'd said slowly, drawling it out, torturing him with it. His face leaned into hers and he took her lips with a slow heat. She allowed herself to be kissed, leaned into his mouth, stretching over her outstretched gun, both of them lost for a moment… it wasn't the first time, not even one of the first times, that they explored the edge of boundaries this way… and she'd given up excusing it. He was flesh, and so was she. It was, she'd thought, what it was.
When they'd come to, later, in his cramped hotel room, tangled together in the sheets and guilt and fear and some desperate, indefinable longing… she'd thought irrationally that they could just run away. She had nothing left for her at the bureau (Mulder was gone) and he was a marked man with a talent for survival. He'd even whispered in her ear during their fevered exploration that he loved her…but she suspected he had long ago forgotten how to even define the word.
"Stay with me," he'd whispered. He'd been looking at her as she leisurely dressed herself. 'Stay with me,' his words contorted in her ears as he lay before her, still as death, vulnerable and exposed. It was too much. She'd felt the panic rise up – or was it self-preservation? – and harshly yanked her boots on. "No!" she'd thrust out like a rough handshake, "NO! Have you lost your mind?" His face was inscrutable in the dark room, but she thought she detected a shift in his expression, "Dana… we can start from scratch. We can leave this trap, this maze they've set us in – we had no choices in this -- don't you see?" Then he'd sat up, and reached out for her, grasping her wrist with something not unlike tenderness saying the words that stirred her loathing for him, "Mulder is gone, Dana, and he isn't coming back for you." He crossed the only line that she'd set down for him; Mulder was not a subject that either of them were supposed to broach. Ever.
She twisted her wrist from his grasp and before he processed what she was doing had her knee in his chest, and the thumb of his right hand jammed backwards, immobilizing him, "Don't contact me again, Alex; this insanity is over!" and without thinking she lowered her lips right above his and kissed him hard on the mouth. She jumped up, leaving him stunned, and exited without a backward glance.
She hadn't seen him since. Or heard from him; until this evening.
As he passed by the trash bin, he chucked the cell phone into it; best not to leave any inconvenient links. It was foolish. Foolishness, to lose his composure and call her. Now he would have to acquire a new phone, under another false moniker… a new number he'd have to try to remember. He almost startled himself with a brief gust of mirth – he didn't have anyone to whom a change in number would make any difference, anyway; and he'd gone for so long without his own name that he almost didn't answer to Alex (except when it spilled from her lips) anymore… so what did it matter? The irony might have been enough to set his equilibrium aright, if he wasn't tortured with the undeniable desire to see her again.
This game was over – this global espionage that had enfolded them all in a binding, constricting web. Mulder was sacrificed to it; he felt it, more than knew it, that he was gone. As in gone gone. Stripped of this mortal coil. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But he'd never tell Dana of his suspicions. He feared the knowledge might bring her house of cards down, too, and he wouldn't (couldn't) be the one to sacrifice her.
He remembered when he infected Skinner with the nano-virus. He'd been carrying out wishes that weren't his own, and so had no stake in it, but he was rendered slightly more capable when he'd erroneously suspected that Dana was involved with the AD. He couldn't accept the thought she'd have him. No, he had no issues with sacrifices that must be made, and there was a time when he would have easily taken even her down. He thought he had once, but that had resulted in the badly executed death of her sister. It had been a long time since he could muster the detachment that would allow him to risk anything involving the person of Dana Scully.
It startled him, at times, the knowledge that he could feel a complicated mix of desire, and frustration …maybe even love. All for this woman who had sworn herself his enemy (more than once) and would never look at him with anything more than anger or lust. He wouldn't have let his guard down so completely with anyone else. He'd never have opened himself to anyone else the way he did to her in Amsterdam.
He remembered her eyes closed and the deep moan rising from her throat and the utter ecstasy he knew she felt when tangled up with him, and something erupted in his chest moving him beyond control, the words slipping over his lips, I love you, over and over. And after, she was lying in an exhausted and peaceful sleep, her skin glowing almost pearlescent from the ambient light in the room and he felt in spite of the overwhelming odds that they could make something together, something good, something right, in the midst of all the ruin… and he'd asked her, begged her really to go away with him. No – it was stay with him, he remembered.
And she'd rejected him outright. Told him it was over. "This insanity" she'd called it. He had never allowed himself to think on it, but the memory would always come to him unbidden. And he'd have to shove it to the back of his mind, repeatedly. He'd never had so much trouble handling himself in any other arena; act, react, survive on instinct, don't think too much, stay one step ahead fueled only on adrenalin. But she rendered all his abilities insufficient, and left him in chaos. Truth? She was his only constant, incalculable risk in a life otherwise ordered by danger and fear.
He turned toward the south and headed to his hotel. It was a good thing he blended in with the other unsavory night walkers in this city; if Dana didn't turn him in he wanted no other incident tonight to alert the bureau that Krycek was back in town.
He awoke in a hyper-alert state. Something wasn't right, but his thoughts were still sleep drugged and murky. He looked over at the clock and noticed that the display wasn't lit up, and glanced out the window. The street lamps outside the hotel were dark, too – electricity was out. Breathing out his relief in one heavy gust, he closed his eyes and waited for sleep to reclaim him.
This insanity… Liar… hunt you down, you son of a-… His eyes snapped open again. Sleep would elude him, he knew. He strained his mind to hear her voice, to recall every contour of her face… God help him. He couldn't get her out of his mind. He'd die because of her, he knew it. She made him stupid, and careless. But her words – angry words, every time -- were become like drops of water to a man dying of thirst.
He rolled to the edge of the bed and pulled his jeans up over his naked backside, his sweater over his head like a man in a trance. He half knew what he was doing only after he'd already hit the road. Damn the consequences, damn the outcome; he was going to her.
Scully woke with a start and immediately looked at the clock. The face of it was a inky as the night. Huh, she thought, electricity is out. She rolled back over and tried to will sleep to come, but it remained beyond her reach. In spite of all the hatred she felt for him, Alex – his words, his mouth, his eyes – kept intruding into her consciousness. Lying prone only intensified the effect the thoughts of the man had on her body. Giving in, she pushed herself to the edge of the bed, and slipped into her crumpled work slacks. God help her, he exhausted her. Somewhere inside lurked the idea that if she just gave in, met him head on… they'd …oh, she didn't know. And the thought made her feel disloyal to Mulder, anyway.
She shuffled sleepily into the direction of the kitchen, mindlessly taking all the well-known turns. She got out her battery operated candle warmer, and set a mug of water on it. It would take a while, but it would get the water hot enough to make a tepid tea. She desperately needed something to right her jangled thoughts.
Through the darkness, she sensed rather than heard the slight noise. All of her being became poised and ready, her mind reaching out for the exact location of her gun. Nightstand, top drawer… she'd creep to it, slowly.
Rounding the corner in the hall, just shy of her bedroom door, she was stopped short, "Shhhhhh. Don't make a sound, Dana." She didn't have to see, she knew. She knew when she hung up the phone with him at the bureau office that he would make an attempt at physical contact. She was ready for him (but not in the way she should be) and turned to meet his face with a level gaze. She would try to beat him at his game.
"What took you so long?" she whispered hoarsely. This stopped him in his tracks, and she was pleased to sense his astonishment. She leaned back lightly against the wall, and studied him a moment. She didn't have to be in a hurry with her perusal. He liked the tension, she knew. He looked tired. Her heart gave a little involuntary lurch. He'd been too consumed with thoughts of her to get much sleep. Good.
"You knew I'd come." It was a statement, or a challenge but not a question. He copied her pose and leaned back against the opposing wall. Opponents; just as it should be, she thought savagely. "Did you come here to stand there stupidly and just stare at me, or are we going to have it out?" A smile played at the corners of her mouth, but her eyes were dangerous, "or did you come here to take me down in the darkness like you meant to years ago?" He was across the narrow hall and on her in a heartbeat, his hands bracing him on either side of her head, his face inches from hers, "I came," his breathing was suddenly ragged, "because I had no other choice."
His lips covered her mouth before she could form a protest and she met him with as much energy as he delivered. Perhaps more.
"Talk to me, Dana… tell me how I can erase the mistakes… tell me how I can …find redemption…" he was virtually panting out his entreaties to her between breaths, "your god… tell me the prayers to pray," his hands embraced her face, "I need absolution…" Her arms were around his neck now, pulling him to her. "You play a dangerous game with God, Krycek, I fear for your mortal soul…" she muttered into his hair. She wanted to push him down in the hallway, lay with him right there…
Just as suddenly, he pushed himself away from her, took her hand and led her to her bed, the only place he could have an undeclared part of her that held no anger, no righteous animosity toward him. He pulled her down on top of him, stroking her hair, smothering her mouth and uttering words of pleading, accusing incoherence. "You've completely destroyed me, Dana, completely… I've… I'm … lost… decimated…" He seemed a crazed man loosed in Bedlam. Suddenly he looked into her eyes, his own so clear, and readable, "kill me, or love me, Dana…it's all the same, now…" he expelled his breath sharply and was lost again, "but I can't do this any more."
