Part 10 - Reunion
It took about another six months before I put it all behind me. I kept telling myself to stop thinking about Alex, but it wasn't easy. I was confused and angry and I still missed him, but eventually I started to move on properly. By the time another winter had passed, I had met someone and actually begun dating.
Rosemary was my age, divorced with a son in college and she worked in the bank where I had my safety deposit box. We met in the parking lot when I found her cursing her car which had refused to start. I helped her out by calling a recovery truck and then giving her a ride. She invited me for coffee to say thank you and it progressed from there with dinners, visits to the theatre, drives out to different places on Sundays. I never even considered going with another guy and I told myself Alex was firmly in my past, although I hadn't forgotten him completely. He would force his way into my mind when I was least expecting it and I was infuriated by it. I wanted to get on with my life - my work at the Bureau, my new relationship, even looking for a new home - but I didn't seem able to completely.
I determinedly avoided going back to my cabin, convinced that it would be too full of memories of the time I'd spent there with Alex. I considered appointing a real estate agent to sell it, but I knew I'd have to go back there to get the items I still wanted and I hadn't been able to bring myself to do it. Instead, I ignored it and poured myself into everything else.
Rosemary ditched me right after the Christmas holidays. We'd been together approaching a year and she told me a part of me was always somewhere else. We had no future when I couldn't give all of myself to the relationship or communicate properly and I knew she was right. I accepted her decision without question and that seemed to upset her more than the fact that I was always distant.
I needed a change and I decided to finally get off of my ass and do something about it. I started by putting the condo up for sale and then walked into the Bureau one Monday morning and handed in my letter of resignation. I had no idea what I would do with my life from there on, but I thought I might travel for a while - see things I'd always thought of seeing and never got around to. I had no ties anywhere and I'd barely spent anything over the past few years so I had enough money to not worry about working for the foreseeable future. I was forty-five and I realised I'd been in a rut for far too long, coasting along with no direction and no inclination to make things better.
Eight weeks later I was free. It was March, I had an offer on the condo and I'd packed up my belongings at the Bureau and walked out the door for one last time, despite fervent protests from Kimberly and Scully and a few others. Most surprisingly, Mulder expressed a determination to make me change my mind, but I wouldn't be swayed. I had no interest in continuing in the FBI and imagined myself leaving DC altogether in the future.
I decided to finally make the long-avoided visit to the cabin near Williamsport, to collect the items most important to me. I would put them in storage along with the furniture from my condo and perhaps sell the cabin too. Then I would take off and see where life took me.
Winter was lingering and I hired a truck to drive to the cabin. There was snow on the ground and I imagined it would be much worse in Williamsport than it was in the city. I didn't want to find myself stuck there if it had drifted and I remembered to pick up a couple cans of gas on the way in case I needed to use the generator. I arrived in the late afternoon, just as dusk was falling, and let myself into the cabin for the first time in over two years.
Immediately I got a strange feeling of someone's presence and I shrugged it off, telling myself that it was memory of Alex being there with me. I closed the door behind me, removed coat and boots and took my bag into the bedroom. The bedding was rumpled, the comforter mostly on the floor and I frowned at it in puzzlement. I was sure I hadn't left it like that when I took Alex to the truck stop. I usually stripped the beds and left the mattresses exposed to the air, but I couldn't exactly remember doing that two years before. Perhaps I'd been too distracted by him, knowing I was going to have to say goodbye to him.
I dumped the bag on the floor and walked to the side of the bed he had slept in, picking up the pillow and pressing it to my face. It smelled dusty and slightly damp, but that was all and I tossed it back onto the bed. I walked into the kitchen, turning on lights and heaving a sigh of relief that the power wasn't down. I reached for the kettle to fill it and then paused as my eyes landed on an empty vodka bottle standing beside the toaster. I didn't drink vodka and Alex hadn't either when he was with me. What the hell?
My heart slammed against my ribs and my breathing quickened as I made my way around the rest of the cabin, looking for other tell tale signs that someone had been here more recently than I had. There was just one more - a brand new toothbrush with its discarded plastic cover on the side of the sink in the bathroom.
I knew it was Alex. Who else, other than Mulder and Scully, even knew about this cabin? Would some random stranger break in and sleep in my bed, drink vodka and clean their teeth in my bathroom? How long ago had he been here? I didn't think it was recent - the bedding was dusty and there was dust on the cap of the vodka bottle. Frowning, I took another more careful look around, but other than the items I'd already noticed, there was nothing else. I even checked the door and all of the windows, but could find no sign of forced entry, but that didn't tell me anything. Alex could get into Fort Knox without a trace and he certainly could have picked the lock on my door without leaving a mark on it.
I absently went about making myself some coffee, while my heart continued to race with excitement and I cursed myself for feeling like that. He was in my past - two years in the past and since then he'd broken into the Bureau, killed two men and injured Baker, stolen files and almost put me in an impossible situation with the Syndicate. I should hate him and I told myself if he were to show up now, I would deck him. I could imagine myself doing it - one fist, then the other, making him stagger backwards with only one hand raised to ward me off. Then I remembered how I'd found him on my balcony, beaten and bleeding, half dead and I knew I'd never hurt him.
"You fucking jerk, Walter!" I cursed, stirring my coffee vigorously. I was imagining he was suddenly going to walk through the door again and that was hardly likely to happen. He had probably come back here once, perhaps close to the time when he broke into the Bureau, and that was more than a year and a half ago. I swore again, furious with myself and with him. I'd spent the past two years trying to forget about him and now here he was, forcing his way into my head all over again.
I spent the next few days doing the things I usually did when I spent time at the cabin. I hiked and fished, did some maintenance and drove into Williamsport to stock up on a few supplies. I didn't see a soul when I was at the cabin - the others were all empty as was usual at that time of year. Even Jeb, who I had occasionally seen in the winter, wasn't using his place and I had utter peace and quiet, the only sounds being that of the wildlife, particularly after the snow melted on a warmer day, revealing the green sprigs of spring poking through the ground.
I still wasn't able to stop thinking about Alex and it was that which spoiled the tranquility for me. I continually questioned what he'd done since I said goodbye to him and I questioned myself on how I felt and how I would react if I saw him now.
It was Saturday afternoon when my solitude was interrupted. I was gutting some fish I'd caught when I heard the sound of an engine and I looked out of the kitchen window to see a car pull up outside. For a moment my heart lurched, until Mulder stepped out and then it sank again and I scowled as I wiped my hands and went to answer his knock on my door.
"What are you doing here, Mulder?"
"Paying a visit, Sir."
"I'm not Sir any more, Mulder," I reminded him. "Plain old Walter will do."
Mulder grinned lopsidedly. "I was hoping I might twist your arm into changing your mind."
"You could hold a gun to my head, Mulder, and I wouldn't come back," I frowned. "I thought we'd already gone over this, more than once."
"I guess I was hoping a few days out here might have made you realise you made a mistake. The Bureau would still have you back, you know, Sir - Walter. Since Baker retired after his injury and that new jerk, Mitchell took over, you were the only one that ever got anything done. They all miss you, Walter. We all miss you."
"Does Scully know you're here?" I asked, turning to walk back into the kitchen and leaving him to follow if he chose to. I was exasperated and I knew he wasn't going to be easy to get rid of. Sure enough, he closed the door behind him and followed me.
"Nope. But she'd be all for it. She misses you more than most."
"I doubt that." I picked up my knife and jabbed it viciously into one of the fishes' bellies. Mulder grimaced and took a step backward.
"Walter, what do you plan on doing exactly? Staying out here and turning into a hermit?"
"I don't think that's any of your concern," I responded. "I quit, if you remember. Twenty years is quite long enough in the Bureau. I intend to enjoy life while I'm still young enough."
"Forgive me for saying so, Sir, but that sounds too lacking in direction for you."
"It's Walter," I reminded him firmly. "Look, Mulder, I'm not in the mood for visitors. You're wasting your time if you think I'm going to pack up and come back with you. I sold my condo and I'm considering selling this place too. I'm going to travel and then find somewhere new to settle, away from the city."
"But, Sir.." Mulder began again earnestly.
"No! Get it through that dense head of yours that I'm done with the bureaucracy and the endless paperwork, the back-stabbing and all the shit that goes with the position I had. Either you can go back out there and drive away, or you can drop it and have some dinner before you get on the road. Your choice, Mulder, but I don't want to hear another word about it. Like I said, I'm done."
"Alright...Walter." Mulder sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping. "I'm sorry. I just thought...well, never mind." He slipped his coat off and hung it on a peg on the back of the kitchen door.
"Help yourself to coffee if you want," I said, nodding at the kettle on the counter. Mulder opened a couple of cupboard doors until he found a mug and then suddenly picked up the empty vodka bottle which I hadn't yet put in the trash.
"Didn't have you down as a vodka man."
It was on the tip of my tongue to blurt, 'I'm not,' but I managed to swallow it. "There's a lot you don't know about me, Mulder."
We made awkward conversation for the next couple of hours while I finished the meal and we ate. Mulder was determined to keep bringing things back to the Bureau. He didn't mention me returning again, but he talked about the case he was working on and about Scully and a couple of new agents and he reminded me of things we'd worked on together in the past. All of it served to make me more sure that I'd done the right thing by leaving.
I hadn't intended to let Mulder hang around, but by the time I'd cleared away the remains of the meal, darkness surrounded the cabin and Mulder was yawning, asking me whether there was a motel nearby where he could spend the night, rather than face another six-hour drive the same day. I relented and let him use my guest room, resigned as I retired to my own room some time later. In the morning, I would send him packing the minute he'd had breakfast.
I was disturbed in the early hours of the morning and I squinted at my clock, noting it was three-fifteen. I heard footsteps outside my room and assumed it must be Mulder going to use the bathroom, until I heard the click of the safety on a gun and then I shot upright in bed, instantly wide awake. I reached for my own weapon, now a privately registered gun after I'd turned in my FBI issue collection, and slipped silently out of bed. I crept to the door and opened it a crack, immediately spying Mulder in the hallway, half-dressed in unfastened jeans and a t-shirt, a jacket hanging from one arm, gun in hand.
"What the fuck are you doing?" I growled under my breath and the man jumped, spinning around with wide eyes.
"Walter!"
"Planning on dragging me back to DC at gunpoint?" I asked wryly.
"I heard something."
"The woods around here are full of somethings," I pointed out. "Probably a deer."
"Deer don't wear boots. I heard footsteps," Mulder said.
"Jeez. Give me a minute." I lowered my weapon and ducked back into my room, quickly pulling on hiking pants and a sweater over my pajamas and shoving my feet into a pair of boots.
"You're going out there?" Mulder queried.
"If it's a deer, I'll have venison for weeks," I answered flippantly, holding my gun low at my side as I unlocked the door. I stepped outside, looking left and right. There was no sign of movement and no sound.
"They could be around the other side of the cabin," whispered Mulder.
"Who's this 'they'? Aliens?" Scowling, I turned left and trudged along the side of the cabin. When I glanced back over my shoulder, Mulder was creeping in the opposite direction as if he were on a mission, gun held at the side of his head. Indulging him, I turned the corner and made my way around the back of the building, then halted with my breath caught in my throat when I heard a yell.
"What the fuck? You!" It was Mulder's voice and I raced around the next corner, the sound of struggling loud in the silence of night. Grunts and groans, cursing, thuds that sounded like fists hitting flesh. By the time I reached them, one figure was pinning the other to the wall of the cabin by the throat and the victim was flailing and scrabbling at his own neck in an effort to get free. If only I'd thought to grab a flashlight. I hurried closer, panting, my heart racing as I realised that the new visitor was none other than Alex and it was he who was pinning Mulder to the wall, with his left hand.
"Alex!"
His head spun to face me and he released Mulder quickly. Choking and rubbing his throat, Mulder bent to retrieve his dropped weapon and raised it again, pointing it at Alex.
"Put it down, Mulder," I said and it was his turn to face me in surprise.
"What are you doing here, Alex?" I gritted out, unsure whether I felt anger or delight at that moment. I was certainly shocked, not least by the apparently new and very efficient prosthesis he was wearing. I tucked my gun into my belt.
"He's looking pretty damn healthy for a dead man," Mulder panted, still aiming his gun in the general direction of Alex, although he had lowered it.
I swallowed hard, unsure quite how to proceed. I stared at Alex expectantly, waiting for him to say something, but he stayed silent.
"You gonna let me arrest this bastard?" asked Mulder. "I should kill him, but you apparently don't want me to do that. Why did you tell me he was dead, Walter?"
Alex raised an eyebrow and then frowned slightly. I pursed my lips up and blew my breath out. Mulder wasn't going to keep his mouth shut about this, whatever I said to him. Cancerman was sure to find out that Alex was still alive and then it would only be a matter of time before someone came looking for me.
"It was you, wasn't it?" Mulder directed at Alex. "Eighteen months ago, killing the guards at the Bureau and pistol-whipping Baker. Who were you working for?"
"You actually think I'd tell you?" Alex said with a slight smirk. "Come on, Mulder, you know me better than that."
"You fucking smug...!" Mulder lurched forward, aiming both his fist and his gun at Alex at the same time. The fist connected, but the other wrist was quickly caught in Alex's false hand and squeezed painfully. Mulder dropped the gun again with a yelp and I realised I needed to do more than just stand and watch. What I needed to do was talk to Alex and that wasn't going to be terribly easy with Mulder around.
"Alex, let him go," I said sharply. "Mulder, get in the house."
"But, Sir..."
"I don't think he's accepted you leaving yet," Alex said and I glowered at him. He released Mulder, who rubbed his wrist, grimacing, but quickly did as I said and walked around the corner of the cabin. A few seconds later I heard the door slam closed. I bent to retrieve Mulder's gun and shoved it into the back of my pants, then headed to the front of the cabin where it was at least a little lighter without the canopy of trees that surrounded the rear. Alex followed, silently, until I turned to face him and suddenly the emotion that came to the surface, squashing down any others, was fury.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" I demanded, grabbing him by the upper arms. I slammed him back against the wall of the cabin and held him there and he stood still, arms hanging at his sides, his gun dangling from two fingers.
"I needed to see you."
"Why now? What the fuck have we got to say to each other?" I let him go and backed up a step. "Your little mission eighteen months ago could have gotten me killed! Enough people saw the security tapes. It's only luck that our cancerous friend didn't get to see them that day...!"
"I know, I'm sorry. I fucked up." Alex closed his eyes for a moment and his brows drew together before he opened them again and looked back at me.
"What if I'd been working late like Baker? Would I have been in the hospital having brain surgery too?" I demanded.
"No, of course you wouldn't. I wouldn't have touched you. Whatever you might think of me, Walter, I wouldn't have hurt you, even if it meant abandoning my orders and getting myself killed."
"So why didn't you take the tapes that night?"
"Honestly? My mind wasn't on it one hundred percent. I kept thinking about what I'd do if you were in there. You were all I was thinking about. The minute I left the building I knew I'd fucked up, but it was too late to go back in. I hired a guy to fix it the next day and just hoped the Syndicate hadn't already seen me on the tapes. That same guy spent the next month watching you to make sure there was no comeback."
I remembered the small, slim man lurking in the shadows. I'd suspected at the time that he might have been there to protect me rather than the opposite. "How do you expect me to trust you?" I asked more quietly. "After everything."
"Because I'm telling you the truth. I never lied to you, Walter."
"So why did you do it? I'm assuming you were working for Russia?"
"Yes."
"Are you still?"
"No." Alex shook his head. "It was a one-off."
"Then why?"
"This." He held up his left arm, rotated it a little and held the hand out towards me. He was wearing leather gloves, but even with the hand covered, it was clear that it was completely different from the cheap plastic prosthetic he'd had before. He wiggled the fingers, clenched them into a fist and then spread them out again before lowering the arm to his side.
"I thought they were reserved for those more deserving," I remembered.
"This is a new thing, from Japan. It's about the money, not who you are. They paid me a million bucks to get those files and this little beauty was almost as much as that. It's surgically attached. I spent three months in a Japanese hospital, one of two experiments before they rolled it out to anyone who could afford it. That's the only reason I agreed to that job and I haven't taken on any more since. I don't plan to either. I have enough left to live on for a while, especially after I sold the house in Canada."
"Fuck," I muttered. I didn't know what to think. I'd wanted to be angry with him, to hate him, but I found I couldn't. I could remember when I'd hauled him, shivering, from my balcony and put him in my bath to warm up. He'd been self-conscious about the stump remaining from his severed arm and continued to be uncomfortable about it even when I'd made it clear it didn't make any difference to me. Who wouldn't do anything possible to make that better? To have two arms again.
"I came here last winter," Alex went on. "I thought maybe you'd be here. I would have explained to you then why I did what I did and asked you to...I don't know...forgive me, if that were possible. I stayed two weeks, but you didn't come and I can't stay too long in one place here."
"I wondered," I admitted. "The empty vodka bottle? The toothbrush?"
"I left those on purpose. I wanted to leave you a note, but I didn't know what to say. I expected you to be pissed and you'd probably have torn up anything I wrote. I needed to see you."
"So why now?"
"It's the first opportunity I had to come back. I checked about a month ago, but you weren't here. I went to DC too and saw you sold the condo so I didn't know if I was too late, but I knew you were still at the Bureau. I figured it was worth coming by here again. I guess I didn't expect you to have...company."
"Mulder turned up last night," I said. "He wasn't invited."
"So, is this a vacation, or...?"
"I left the Bureau just last week," I said. "I don't know if you learned that when you were checking up on me."
"No." Alex shook his head.
"Mulder showed up hoping to change my mind and make me go back."
"Why'd you quit?"
"Twenty years...I'd had enough."
"What do you plan to do now?"
"I haven't completely decided. I thought I might travel for a while. What about you?"
"After I got the arm, I spent a few months living in Germany before I came back here. I thought I'd see how this went before I made any decisions."
"How did you expect it to go? You think we'd pick up where we left off two years ago?" I sounded sharper than I intended to, but my heart was racing. It should have mattered more, what he'd done, but somehow it didn't. I was no part of law enforcement any more and nothing had actually happened to me. I couldn't help thinking that maybe...
"No, I didn't think that. Why would you even want to after the shit I pulled? I just...I wanted to at least talk it out so I could move on."
"Are you with someone?" I asked, feeling annoyingly crestfallen. Surely he must be, after two years, but he shook his head.
"I pretty much went back to doing what I did before I met you. Occasional fooling around, nothing more. You?"
"I dated for almost a year," I told him, my pulse quickening further. "Broke up a couple of months ago."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It wasn't really...what I wanted. She wanted more out of it than I did."
"She?" Alex's eyebrows rose.
"I guess I didn't feel like getting into anything with another guy after..." I trailed off as the cabin door burst open again and Mulder emerged, armed with one of my hunting rifles.
"What the hell is going on?" he demanded. "Walter?"
"Mind your own fucking business," Alex growled, not even turning his head to give Mulder one glance.
"Go back inside," I added.
"How well do you actually know Krycek?" Mulder went on, ignoring both of us.
"Well enough." I couldn't help a smirk as I imagined the reaction I would get if I told him exactly what we had been to each other.
"We have some catching up to do," Alex said.
"Before you go to jail, you mean?"
"Mulder, back off." I turned to look at him. "This is my private land and you came here uninvited. I have some things I need to deal with, so either go back to bed, or get in your car and leave."
"But, Sir...!" Mulder looked shocked as his eyes darted between Alex and me. "He should be locked up after what he's done. Baker could have been killed, like those two guards. You could have been killed if you'd been there!"
"Well, I wasn't was I? I won't tell you again. This isn't your business. You can do whatever the hell you like when you get back to DC, but I'm telling you, while you're here, keep out of it."
"I've got my phone," Mulder said doubtfully.
"Who are you gonna call?" Alex asked him. "Your buddies at the Bureau? Go ahead. I'll be long gone by the time anyone shows up and the only one who'll get any shit from this is Walter. Do you want that?"
Mulder's mouth hung open for a moment and then he snapped it shut, turned on his heel and stamped back into the house. I turned back to Alex, realising that my hands were numb with cold and I was shivering.
"We still have a lot to talk about. Are you coming inside?"
"Sure, if that's what you want." Alex gave me a smile and the rather strained looked disappeared from his face. I nodded slightly and headed to the door, wondering what I would say to him. Would this just be a hashing out of what had happened in the past, laying ghosts to rest, or would it lead to something more? I had never been able to forget him and now the things that were at the forefront of my mind weren't what had happened in the past two years, but what had happened in those three weeks at my cabin.