Water again.

Healer. Destroyer. It seemed unsure of what purpose it served in this rippling hallucination. Ebbing and flowing to no rhythm of wind or earth, tides rising and falling with his own breath, the sea stretched on for an eternity obscured by the waving skies he felt he could not quite see. Somewhere in between it all he was suspended, forced to stare out through eyes of stars over and through the bubbling water.

Some believed that dreams could be symbolic. It was something Fox Mulder may have believed.

The thought rocked his mind and he fell into the tides, but he felt no splash and saw no effect. No noise marked his entry. Where ripples should have emanated, the waters only stilled, and he had breached the surface of another reality. A reality where he could see a face...

His face.

He tried to scream.

--

Pressure like a compressed sun was the first thing Krycek felt as he awoke. He grimaced as the pain flared with the thought, rolling and finding his body unwilling to comply. Opening a weary eye, he remembered that his single arm was chained to the hot water tap of a bathtub that had seen better years.

He gasped, eyes squeezing shut, rotating into what would be the closest to comfortable in such a space and tried to focus. It was all too familiar, the sharp burn, coming from a spot right behind his forehead.

As fast as it had come the pain retreated, and Krycek sighed, letting his head fall backwards into the smooth side of the tub. Now instead of the wicked pain his mind was now filled with worse thoughts as his conscience wandered back to the previous events.

He suddenly felt exposed, a feeling he'd trained himself to cover the instant it reared its head. The confession had flown from his mouth faster than he could build the dam, but he wondered if the entire impact of the flood had reached Mulder's ears. He was uncertain if he wanted them to. It had been so long since he'd stated such a deep truth to himself that the feeling left behind had become an almost physical sensation. Yet with Mulder, it had been so easy to release it all. Now that he thought back to it, it always had been.

Memories stirring from their resting places, he was back in time again.

He remembered the first time.

The first time he had heard them speaking, at the academy, of what should be done about the tiny paranormal division, and the first time he spoke in its defence. He remembered the first time that the figure in the hallway, reeking of smoke, had approached him and offered him an opportunity to do so on such a larger scale...

Then he was looking into the face of the man for whom he'd risked his words, but the man did not look back in the way he'd hoped.

The memories from there on out only got worse, and Krycek tried to turn to press himself into the wall, but his arm was locked and wouldn't allow it.

They weren't lies. He knew the truth. Everything he had told Mulder, for the brief time he had been his partner, he had spoken with heart. At least, most of what he had said, and what he had done.

Krycek tried to force his mind back into slumber, but the thing clawing behind his mind was beginning to break free and sink its teeth. Flashbacks flew by like a strobe light, and he saw things played back in horrifying detail. A cityscape from the top of a building where a man lay, his skin already cold, stood out to him as if he was back there, hands groping for the object they would never find.

"You did the right thing," were the words that had been spoken softly into his ear.

He had believed them. At least, he had wanted to so deeply, and the words still had yet to reach his ears so many more times, but by a voice not mellow and comforting, but aging and scorched. Yet, as he had come to see, those words had meant nothing. They were a mask over a bleeding face, the suffering from all those to whom the phrase had been attatched. All the ones on whom he'd pulled the trigger.

By the time he'd seen through the cloud of smoke, it had all been too late. He tried to tell himself that he'd somehow made up for it all through the incident in the stairwell, but something nagged him otherwise. A nightmare.

Oh God, oh God...

Mind writhing within its binds, Krycek pushed his cheek into the cool tub wall, shuddering a tremble so minute that it wouldn't be noticed at first glance. All this time a barrier had sat between the name of Alex Krycek, and the person it belonged to. Now that barrier was falling, but the contents on either side refused to mix.

The urge to scream was almost overbearing. In times of such stress, he knew this to happen occasionally. The sweating, the heavy breathing, the shakes, all feelings that brought him back to times like the ones spent locked on a rusty ship with a gun in the face and a lover out the door. Usually, though, he could tame them. This time, they would not rear to him.

Choking a little on nothing, he tugged weakly on the handcuffs. They tinkled fiercely in response and he only slid painfully into his prosthetic arm. Fury tore at his throat, but its peak was stomped down by another emotion that left it wounded, lying in its shadow. A feeling he hated even more.

As his throat spasmed again, in a wave of emotion almost alien to him, he began to feel the infuriated beating of his heart slow, and his breath change from a typhoon to a breeze. Still panting softly, he felt the fruits of his efforts begin to blossom and sleep wrap its hand around his once more. He welcomed it, still shaking as he tried to press himself into its arms, the only arms that would ever take him.

One last time, he choked, though the feeling was less wrenching than it had been before. He recognized what it meant and pushed it off, squeezing his eyes closed as he chased all thoughts from his mind, all unwanted entities from himself. All left, except one memory, which still drilled on even as the lights began to dim again.

He remembered the first time he had been called a coward.

He remembered how he slowly came to believe it.

--

Mulder hardly slept that night, as he too remembered. In between black dreams, he remembered the death of his friend and mentor, and the last words he had failed to obey. The words that could have saved his father. For one measly second back in time he had felt a sort of odd sympathy, even friendliness towards his new partner. That is what cost him. Why would there be a world in which hope and trust could cause you pain?

Yet, despite the betrayal, Mulder had felt something in Krycek's words. The turncoat's usual manner of speaking, straight and low, had suddenly dissipated, and though Mulder had blocked himself off from any inkling to even half-heartedly believe him, found it hard to disbelieve his strained, trembling speech. Maybe it was a possibility that...

No, Mulder told himself.

This is how it always happened. His better nature embracing a rabid beast. The want to adopt a monster beyond saving. He bulldozed aside his conflicted emotions and turned to his mind, instead.

He asked himself what Krycek would have to gain. Surely he was intelligent enough to see that becoming a supersoldier would strip him of his own will, so he couldn't be after that. Why aid the destruction of mankind, when Krycek had always been out for his own? Obviously, saving mankind encompassed his own survival. Mulder figured there had to be another reason, but he hadn't the slightest idea on what it was. He did, however, draw a connection between Krycek's frantic state in the parking garage and what had happened just hours ago. This connection, for whatever reason, had made Mulder slightly uncomfortable.

Since he had joined the FBI and even before, Mulder had trained himself to not see things as black and white. As a profiler, doing so would be hard; everyone had a motive, and every little thing in their life effected this. He had decided then that nobody was evil, and yet as the conspiracy stepped further into the light, this idea was something that slid between his fingers. Steadily he'd picked it back up, but his grasp had never been full. Now he felt he was just tightening his fist, but it was not as comforting as it should be. He wanted to see them as good or evil. He wanted to resort to this simplistic outlook.

He couldn't.

Mulder knew that it would be simple enough to get up, walk over to the bathroom and pump a final bullet back into the sleeping man, but he also knew he couldn't do it. Krycek was right. He could never kill him, for whatever infernal reason. However, it came to mind that him killing his enemies was only running further from the problem instead of facing it.

Stiffly, Mulder turned over and caught a glimpse of the window. Daylight was beginning to filter through the blinds.

--

"You said you could kill the supersoldiers."

Krycek, now handcuffed to the arm of a chair, tried awkwardly to eat a few measly scraps of bacon Mulder had offered hesitantly. He looked up at his captor.

"I don't know for sure if it can kill them, but at least it's a start," he stated, then tried to lean back and failed. "Magnets."

Mulder stared.

"Are you joking?"

"Why would--think that through, Mulder," Krycek smirked sardonically. "I'm not suggesting we chase them around throwing fridge magnets at them. I'm talking metals. Magnetite. That kind of stuff. It makes sense, sorta. Doesn't it? They're...metallic, in a way. Iron. Again, as far as killing them goes we can't be sure, but it definitely hurts them."

Mulder rubbed his hand with his chin. As much as he hated to admit it, the idea did make a marginal amount of sense.

"So where do we get magnetite?" he asked a little dumbly.

Krycek shrugged.

"I don't know about buying the stuff. But there are quarries around here, I think."

"Are you actually suggesting we steal from mines?" Mulder exclaimed.

"Well, you decide. Steal a few rocks and save the world, or let your conscience get the better of you and everyone dies."

Mulder sighed.

"Alright. Fine. Let's go break heaps of magnetite out of a wall of rock. Then what? Make swords or bullets or something?"

"That sounds fun."

"You're not helping."

"You said you didn't want my help," Krycek retorted.

"Honestly, can you blame me? When was the last time that ended well?" Mulder snapped back.

"Oh, I don't know," the gravel in Krycek's voice escalated to boulders. "Maybe when you put away a group of terrorists, or saved a rebel leader, or drove away from Billy Miles still in one piece or, maybe, when you were about to walk away from a wrecked car with your head twisted up into your ass."

Mulder faltered.

"That was you?"

"Didn't you hear the news? I'm a wanted man."

Mulder tried to come up with a response but found doubt nagging at him again. There was no reason for Krycek to have risked himself to save him the other night. Of course, there was the possibility that it was just an elaborate ploy...

Mulder got up and stomped past the table, Krycek, and towards the coffee pot, which he angrily lifted, poured into his cup, and the proceeded to accidentally slop all over the front of his shirt. He swore. Krycek snickered.

"Karma."

Mulder turned around and smacked him upside the back of his head.

"Jesus, Mulder! Can you NOT--AUGH."

Krycek struggled to rub the back of his head. He finally stopped, opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. Mulder went over to his bag and dug through it until he produced a new shirt, which he then changed in to. Krycek glared at his now empty plate. Then Mulder turned to leave.

"Hey. Hey!" Krycek shouted after him. "Where are you going, man?! You can't leave me alone here..."

"Yes I can," Mulder grumbled, before shutting the door behind him.

As he walked down the hallway, he smirked bitterly as the muffled syllables of Russian curses weakly pawed at his ears.

It went on like this for another day, with even less shared between the two men. Mulder would disappear early on and come back later, giving Krycek a little to eat before sending him to the couch to sleep. Krycek initially took this as a small act of kindness, but he hadn't forgotten his role as Mulder's punching bag.

He did, however, until later on the third day, realize he'd forgotten Jeffrey Spender.