Disclaimer: Alex Krycek doesn't not belong to me, he belongs to Chris Carter and 1013. No infringement intended.
Spoiler: En Ami
Keywords: Angst, Violence
Spoiler: None.
Archive: Only with written consent of the author;TrekPhile47@hotmail.com
***
What do you do when the enemy is your friend? What do you do if your friend is the enemy? You see, you can take the statement and make it converse to suit your needs.
Sometimes that is good, sometimes that is bad. Most of the time, it depends on who put the spin on it in the first place.
So tell: you know the enemy as the friend, you know the friend as the enemy. Would you save the enemy?
***
Demona Launce approached the office in London, England with stealthy movements. She went to the door and paused for a moment of uncertainty.
She had received her assignment from the Syndicate two days before: get the disks with further plans for The Project on them. Failure was not an option. Under the alias Lara Lyons, UN secretary assistant, Demona managed to create less of an uproar than had she gone under Demona Launce: spy of The Syndicate against the rest of the world. She knew this was going to be easy---like the microchip that she has gotten before, the disks would be in an unmarked box in one of three different areas of this warehouse.
Demona noticed that the numbers on the keypad of the outer door were worn and she began tinkering with 5-number combinations. It took her several tries for her to get the correct one. The bolt inside the plate glass slid in the door and the alien-blood green illuminated the doorknob. Demona pushed in the door, swinging it steadily. Slipping through the crack, she entered the warehouse, but took a moment to rest in an alcove before moving on.
In her shoulder holster, her Sig Sauer gleamed, poised and ready for use; other trinkets and toys filled her pockets. She waited a couple of moments before she was up again and darted behind boxes down long rows of shelves.
She was pretty sure that the weapon wouldn't be in the office section. Too many people walked by there...too many nosy people. The door was also locked, but only with a deadbolt. It would most likely be in the warehouse/storage section.
She saw a door at the end of one of the rows and sprinted to it. Ten feet away from the door, the storage row ended into open space, Demona dove into a roll, making as little of herself known.
She thought maybe she hadn't been seen in that moment of vulnerability, but she had misjudged whom she was up against. A shout caught her attention. A bobby was running straight towards her, weapon drawn. Demona's brain froze for a moment, but then she made an immediate decision---she ran.
She must have caught the police officer off his guard because he stopped, not knowing whether to pursue her or get backup. Those critical seconds gave her the start she needed. Only moments passed before she heard the heavy footfalls of uniform dress shoes after her.
The clock was ticking.
The man's shouts barely registered in Demona's head as an adrenaline rush ran past her ears. She felt as if she were flying as she whizzed around another corner and up another aisle, her boot barely making a sound against the concrete. The pursuer grew farther and farther away as she darted throughout boxes stacked high and as menacingly as precarious stones of the Arizona desert.
She was breathing heavily as she slowed and stopped. She couldn't hear anything behind her. Then again, the steps had to compete with the wild hammering of her heart. She knew that not having the guard coming after her was a mixed blessing. She didn't have to run now, but would have to when the cop came with backup.
She thought that maybe she could escape if she could not be found. She jumped and caught an iron ledge and began to heave herself up. She only made it far enough to hook her chin on the bar when she heard a voice call out to her.
"You there! Freeze!" Demona turned to find the voice and saw the guard she thought she'd escaped---he must have taken a shortcut. "Get down from there."
Demona stared into his gun and complied, dropping to the floor and pausing, waiting. She did not want to get confrontational, so she resisted shooting him right then and there. He motioned for her to get on the ground and she descended slowly onto the cold, worn concrete. She smelled the unpleasant smell of cleaning fluids and grease oil.
"You don't understand," she began; her voice was muffled by the floor, and she wasn't sure if the guard had an itchy trigger-finger or not.
"You: quiet," he ordered. She listened to him click back the hammer and she flinched. She could almost feel the gun pointed at her head. He wouldn't shoot first and ask questions later---would he? She didn't want to misjudge him and end up a bloodstain on this floor.
As she rolled to the left, she heard the guard's gunfire and the bullet ricochet off the floor. She ripped the Sig out of the holster, looked, aimed and shot over her left shoulder. She heard a sickening squish and a thud as the body fell to the concrete floor.
She turned around to examine the full extent of the damage she had done. She was a crack-shot, her aim impeccable. He stared at her with glossy dead eyes. His blood was running away from his body, and her fingers reached out to touch it morbidly. It was fresh and warm and runny, but would congeal soon enough. She left the body behind.
Demona ran to the end of the aisle and followed the wall back to the door. She had probably alerted everyone under the sun to her presence and she didn't have time to go clean up her mess. This door had another keypad on it, but the numbers weren't worn away like the others.
This door hadn't been used as often as the first one, and she was willing to bet this was the door she was looking for. She couldn't waste time and fiddle with combinations. She ran her fingers along the floor, lifting fine dust and she had an instant idea.
She lifted up more of the powder and placed it on the palm of her left hand and blew all of the powder off her hand and onto the pad. Only the keys with oil and finger residue held fast the gray powder. She could see used numbers.
She had to try quite a bit of combinations, and time was a precious commodity...too precious for her to buy. She swore she could hear footsteps and punched wildly at the keypad. The bolt on the door clicked and Demona pushed through the doorway, letting the door hiss shut behind her and the office hallway embrace her.
She took a blessed sigh of relief and was amazed to feel her hands and knees shaking ever so slightly. She gave herself a few moments time to recover and she then rose to her feet and looked at the keypad. The low-set lights made it hard to see around her. She noted that from inside, she could change the code and she did. It would keep the people out for a little while.
She quickly assessed herself, making a mental health check: all was good, just a little shaky. She began a slow and steady path down the hallway. There were no doors down the hallway of the other office attachment, just a straight path. It turned sharply and Demona followed. The dark hall grew brighter and brighter until Demona was in a more spacious area of what looked like a laboratory.
Floodlights in corners lighted the room, illuminating frightening exam tables. Cabinets with no doubt dissection tools and solutions lined the walls. Bunsen burners lay on metal countertops beakers and test tubes sat lined up n rows like a pristine classroom lab.
She bit her lip and let out an exasperated growl. She couldn't believe what she had put herself through to enter a room with nothing more than tissue cultures and horror-house tools! But, she chided herself, some things set you back a few steps, a calm and clear head helped you catch up.
She tired to figure out why this room was here and what relevancy it had, but images she conjured up were revolting. Turning around slowly, she examined the room entirely. One wall had a large vent, an image which she stowed away in her mental bank.
She finally noticed the door ant the end of the room. She grinned slyly and moved to it. To her luck, there was no keypad, no lock whatsoever and the handle didn't catch on anything inside the door. She opened the door expecting to go down another hall.
She cried out as a man with a gun exploded from an alcove the door protected. Demona instantly grabbed for her pistol, but he had his own gun leveled at her chest, fingers against the trigger. She removed her hand from the holster and raised her hands slowly above her head.
"Remember me," the voice was heavy and for a moment, she thought of the officer that lay dead in the warehouse. Then the voice registered.
"Krycek!"
"That's right."
"You jerk," she spat, "get that gun out of my face."
He obeyed with reticence and she looked at him with contempt, "What the hell are you doing here?"
He got inches away from her face, "I heard someone coming and I looked for cover."
Coward. "Why are you here in the first place," she asked, glaring at him with evil contempt. He seemed to not notice her evil glance. But, if he had, he did nothing about it.
"I was sent here to look after you," he said.
"Watch after me? Don't think that I can take care of myself, Krycek? I'm a big girl." Demona's teeth were bared like a tiger, Krycek didn't dare stick his fingers between the bars to tease her, either.
"You think that I would rather be here when I could be in the States," he said just as simply and angrily as she had. He met her level for level, stare for stare, tooth for tooth.
"I don't know what goes on in that puny brain of yours. But I will suggest that you take it and your slimy self and climb back under the rock you evolved from," she replied. She narrowed her eyes, waiting for what he had to offer back to her.
"Listen, I could stand here and match insults with you, but I am not in the mood for it. If you think that I am here to bail you out if you get in trouble, you've got another thing coming."
"Is that right?" She rolled her tongue in her mouth, it felt thick and heavy. She worked on her demeanor carefully, "Why are you here?" She shifted uneasily, waiting for guards to come looking for the commotion.
"Spender sent me," his words were simple; his eyes held devilish mischief. She wanted to slap that smirk off his face.
"Why does he care? For God's sake, he was the one who sent me here," Demona narrowed her white eyes at him, and he felt another chill in his body.
"He wants me to make sure that you have no second thoughts about your mission," Krycek let her think these words over and he took a look at the room they were in. Quite a place to put a series of top-secret disks; instead of an office it was a lab.
"My mission is clear: I don't sell-out. So you are right: you would be better off in the States."
"That's not it," Krycek said slyly. "'Chickening out' is not what Spender is afraid of. Spender does not want you to betray him...us. Now that you know everything about the Syndicate; what is keeping you from going to the government who pay you royally?"
"He thinks that I would betray him! If I remember correctly, he was the one who sold me out---with your help! You both wanted me dead!"
"Exactly," his voice had grown heavy with mystery. "If indeed we sold you out as we did, what would stop you from giving the weapon to the American government? Perhaps to get back at us?"
"Probably the fact that if the Americans had these disks, they wouldn't know what to do with them and they couldn't do a damn thing about then," she told him. "Hell, if anything, I would keep them."
"That was why I was sent here, to make sure that you didn't thwart this mission," Krycek raised his head with his own arrogance.
"Screw you," she hissed.
"No thank you," he replied with a smirk. "You're not my type."
Demona's mouth puckered and she spit in his face. He felt the wetness fleck against his cheek. He wiped it from his face with disdain. Before she could react, Krycek raised his hand; he brought it across here face brutally. Her head jerked to the side and she held it there, blinking away the stinging pain.
"Bitch," he hissed. He narrowed his eyes and watched as Demona looked back at him, tears of stinging pain lining the corners of her eyes. He was halfway sorry that he had done it, but she had instigated it.
Her eyes flickered for a moment, and then all sparks of life or of fighting back had been killed. The marks of his fingers were once white pressure marks, but now they were turning bright red. They looked as if they stung like angry hornets. "I guess you are going to follow me whether or not I have a say."
"I have to," he replied with a little guilt.
"Just stay out of my way, then," she deliberately pushed him as she passed and looked into the vent that she had seen before. It blew stale air in her direction, sending tendrils of hair across her face. She shook them away. Alex looked on, not trying to notice how good she looked---despite the fact that she was a pain in the ass.
She removed a small screwdriver from one of the opulent pockets in her clothes. She made short work of the screws holding the vent against the wall and ripped it away. Krycek dodged it as it clattered past. Demona put a hand over her mouth and Krycek figured that he should do the same. As she passed into the open vent, Krycek saw the pink insulation fibers wafting in the breeze generated by the circulation system.
Krycek just barely saw Demona's figure as she climbed into the darkened space. He heard the slow creaking and clanking as she moved through it. He searched for a foothold or a niche in the wall. It was then that he realized that Demona had gotten up inside the chambers by jumping. His jaw hung at half-mast---it was a near seven-foot jump.
He tried to jump once. He reached the chamber with his head, but he couldn't feel for a crook in the floor of the tube.
"Hey, could I get a little help here," he called into the dark. The clanking stopped for a moment, and then an angry but audible sigh followed. Her shadow appeared at the side of the chamber and she looked at him.
"Here, take my hand," she offered to him.
"Glad to," he replied and she rolled her eyes in disgust to his humor. He wrapped his rough fingers around her tiny ones as she helped him scale the wall of the vent. When they were both in the cramped area of the vent, Demona was a hell of a lot closer to Krycek than she cared to stomach.
"You first," Krycek let her slide past him and for a moment, he smelled her perfume: it was sweetly intoxicating and he allowed himself to briefly indulge.
It was then that Krycek felt the blast of piercing cold that tore through his clothes and stung at his skin. Cold air reduced germs, and as a general rule, scary laboratories were generally freezing. In the dark, he could only barely see his breath swirling in front of him. He could only see the faint silhouette of Demona ahead of him; all he saw was the small amount of movement that she made in the darkness.
She switched on her flashlight. "I can barely see a thing up here."
"I dunno, I'm getting a pretty good view back here," he said, avoided the backwards kick that she sent towards his face. "I was kidding."
"You are so juvenile," she sniped. She kept moving forward and Krycek followed her closely, using the reflections from the flashlight to guide them. They went all of fifty feet when the vents forked sharply.
"Where to," Krycek pulled himself next to Demona, just barely able to have his own breathing space.
She pulled a small map from the pack on her pack, hastily scribbled on a piece of hotel stationary. She put the flashlight between her teeth and studied the map dubiously, her LED green eyes darting about the paper. The information of the ventilation system was easy to get, she wasn't sure if she was going to need it or not. Studiousness and thoroughness came in handy when one was a spy.
Krycek fought the cold; he blew warm air into his hands and rubbed them together vigorously. "Aren't you cold?"
"Yes," she wanted swat at the mosquito named Krycek, but she didn't feel like getting his guts on her hand.
She looked finally at the map; she knew where they were now. "To the left," she pointed over her left shoulder. Krycek inched backwards awkwardly and gave her room to maneuver. She turned first her shoulders, then her hips and then her legs. He stared at her in admiration: her movements were so feline, so smooth.
She moved so quickly and quietly, proof that she had been taught well by whoever had trained her. Demona and he would have made a good double-agent team. He just had to get past the fact that she had horned in on his job...then maybe.
There were so many twists and turns in the vents that Demona wondered if she was leading them in circles. The area had grown larger, and there was enough room for them to sit up and move with relative ease if need be.
There was a sharp drop in the vent that caught Demona off guard. Her hand slipped out from under her and she landed hard on her left side. The flashlight slipped out of her stinging fingers and rolled out of her sight. She leaned over the side and her fingers scrabbled all over the floor, searching for the light, but it was gone.
"What's wrong?" Krycek asked. The stop in motion worried him slightly. Then the light had gone out, and the thud was unnerving.
"I dropped the flashlight. I think there is a gap in the floor where the stale and the fresh air meet and circulate. The flashlight fell down in it," Demona shifted herself in the narrow tube. Krycek figured that she had turned to face him though he couldn't see a darn thing. "We're going to have to work blind."
Her voice was dangerously close to him; he could feel the moistness of her breath on his face. He instinctively recoiled and he pressed against the wall. "Stay close to me, Heaven forbid you get lost."
He nodded even though she could not see him; a hand brushed up against him, searching for his own. For a minute, he let the hand search, but he finally took it: her skin was very soft and comforting. It pulled gently and he followed.
"Do you think we'll make it?" he asked her. He wasn't afraid, he just asked it to say it---to fill the dead air created by their holding hands. Demona knew he wasn't afraid either.
"Yes," her voice was full of assurance, matching her feelings. As long as Krycek didn't screw something this simple up, there was no way that they wouldn't get out of here. Her fingers squirmed for space beneath his, his fingers just barely tightened around hers and the pressure that was once there was gone again. She could only barely feel his hand on hers, and despite herself, her fingers floundered in his palms. "I'm going to change positions, don't break our link and move slowly," she warned.
Alex heard Demona shift ever so slowly and carefully around and he waited; she began to inch along on her back. It wasn't easy crawling around in the pitch-black tubes using only three appendages for balancing posts, Alex affirmed. He was afraid to put down the fourth appendage that might have been used had he not been holding Demona's hand---afraid to crush her china fingers.
As Demona inched along in the dark, she strained to see what she was doing. With her head up, it was impossible for her to see the vent dropping out below her.
She inched along still until the entire floor had disappeared. Her scream was audible as she fell down, down, down...down into what seemed like eternity.
She finally hit the bottom with a loud splash. She took a deep gasping breath and realized that she was inhaling water. In her acute fear that hit her, she floundered for the surface, but she didn't know which way was up. The cold stabbed through her body with an alarming vigor. She turned again in the black water and managed to get to the surface. She took deep breaths, feigning hyperventilation.
Krycek had felt her hand torn away from him and he struggled in the dark to follow the scream. He inched forwards so quickly that he too fell into the hole. His ragged outcry was no more than a harsh whisper. He felt the freezing liquid engulf him and he felt his side hit the bottom of the pit with fire. He reached the surface, kicking and gasping, but not without feeling the fire from the injury.
They both stood in waist deep water. Demona then choked some up from her lungs. Part of her violent expulsion hit Krycek; the water was faintly warm from being inside her. But, it was more pleasant than having the icy knives of pain stabbing him. Her coughing ceased after only a few moments more.
Krycek looked around, but there was nothing to see, it was pitch black. The water in the pit was frigid to match with the air and perhaps was even worse. They both stood in it and they shook with the imminent cold, trying to catch their bearings for a moment.
He heard Demona rummaging about and then a cracking sound, and then the room was illuminated only moments later by a sickly green glow: he was thankful, any more darkness and he would have gone insane. He looked at her in the light and saw the purple gash that marred her creamy smooth forehead, which was oozing. She must have noticed it; she went under the water and resurfaced with the blood cleaned from her face.
Krycek himself was quite ashen, his breath flowed from his nostrils and lips pale green. He looked everywhere that there was light bouncing off the walls. He looked into Demona's eyes for a second, and fear tinged in them. Inside, he laughed: the great spy was human after all...he had begun to wonder. As quickly as their eyes had met, they darted away again.
Demona shone the small light in the area that they were trapped in. It was deep, and the only way out was to go up. And "up" was quite high, about ten feet into the air. The distance they had fallen was pretty far, considering that they were in a ventilation system.
"It smells like antifreeze," she murmured as she flashed the light around. "This just can't be."
"What?" Krycek looked at her with anticipation. For a moment, it was more than anticipation---it was pure fear. It made him rigid for a moment, but then it was gone and his body relaxed again. The cold hit him as soon as he relaxed his muscles.
"The fact that there is a space ten feet deep and five by five feet wide---in a ventilation system? There is no need for it at all. Then, there is the fact that there is water in the bottom of it," she said. Her voice shook from the icy waters lapping around her waist.
"Maybe we passed from the ventilation system into the water pipes," Krycek suggested, but the offer seemed weak, even to him. His shoes, soaked through with water, searched the bottom of the pit, searching for even a minuscule trapdoor. For anything that would get them out of there at all.
"Possible, but unlikely."
"Then what is it? Where the are we?" he mustered a low shout.
"I don't know!" she shouted back. She bit off the rest of her remark; anyone near the vent system or what this was could hear her screaming at Krycek.
Krycek looked at her in the pale light again and her image shook in front of him as he quavered in the Arctic air. "It's so cold."
"The air is at freezing point," she told him, "The water can't be much warmer...maybe twenty degrees warmer."
"It's a comfort to know I'll be freezing to death and it's not at the hands of the government!" he snapped at her.
"Would you calm down? Instead of yelling, why don't you save some heat while we figure a way out of here?"
She pulled a bit of wire from her pack that was floating on the water. She attached to it a piece of metal that with a flick of her wrist sprang open to reveal three prongs. She handed Krycek the light and he held it up so they could see. She swung it in a circular motion it floated up into the air. She failed the first time to hook it to anything, and it came falling back and landed in the water with a ploop.
She repeated the swinging for a second time and it hooked onto something. She tested her weight on it and it didn't budge.
"Go first," she said to Krycek, who swam over to relieve any movement in his hip. He pulled himself up out of the water, which had lessened his weight gratefully.
Krycek managed to climb three feet up before he had to use his legs. He pulled them up slowly, to avoid the pain he knew would come, but it was no use. Fire engulfed his body and clouded his brain; he let go of the wire and splashed back into the water. He twisted around and gasped for air.
"Are you all right," Demona hovered close to Krycek. He blinked in pain and looked up at her from his icy heaven.
"My hip," he muttered. Demona leaned down with her light stick and examined his hip. She fingered the small tear of his jeans and Krycek had to suppress which was ultimately, his body's reaction to a woman touching him. She resurfaced with somewhat of a flush, but Krycek thought better of commenting on it.
"Nothing broken, nothing bleeding," she assured him. He nodded and let his weight off of his left leg, and looked forlornly at the escape wire.
"Can you try again?" she asked. He nodded slightly, and moved to the wire. He pulled himself up out of the water, and when he moved his legs, the fire burned his body and he dropped back into the water.
"I guess not," she said when he resurfaced.
"Listen; go ahead and complete the mission," Krycek said, Demona nodded slowly with uncertainty. At least she had some loyalties to something. She climbed the escape wire, and Krycek was sure to get a good look at her smooth, sinewy muscles beneath her wet, tight jeans.
She paused after she had climbed into the ventilation system: "Here is another light stick, it should burn for another hour. I can't guarantee any results after that. ...I'm sorry."
"That you had to leave me," Krycek asked with some sympathy.
"I'll come back for you," she assured him. She broke a light stick all the way and let the glowing liquid coat the area around her in the top of the vent so she could find it again. She wasn't sure whether or not it would take her an hour---her map was soaked through. She hoped it didn't. "---I promise."
"Leave me," Krycek insisted; he surprised himself. He returned his eyes silently into the water.
"I don't play your games, Krycek," her voice grated the air. "I'm coming back for you."
All he could do was nod: he wasn't sure what he would have done if he had looked into her pained expression. She turned and left. Krycek felt something die; the sensation was throbbing.
***
Demona hooked wire to where she left Krycek and hooked the spool to her left hip. It unraveled as she moved off in the direction where she thought the weapon would be.
Alex Krycek's face haunted her as she moved away from him. She thought that maybe he was human after all; but he actually gave a damn for something more than himself. This was not like him, and this new Krycek that lay exposed at her feet was something she didn't know how to respond to.
She shook her head and traveled all the more swiftly down the ventilation tubes, testing each to see whether or not it was an office. She became disoriented with a couple of dead-enders, but she looked through one of the vent grates and looked down onto a lighted desk, which had a series of disks laid out in a Plexiglas box. This was the box she had come for in the first place.
***
Krycek lay on his back, floating in the icy water. His breath swirled in the pit and he just barely saw it waft away from him. In his right hand, he clutched his silver-plated flask with vodka in it. He had been taking little sips ever since Demona had left; hoping it would keep him warm. It failed, but her enjoyed the tipsy feeling. He did feel a little twinge of something that he had carried vodka with him all the way to England. He usually saved it for homeland trips.
He took another sip now, the liquid burning his cheeks, throat and tongue with passion, and he instinctively tilted his head back to savor the liquid. It was only then that he remembered why he shouldn't have done that. Icy water rushed over his forehead, up over his eyes and then into his nose. He coughed hard as the vodka slid down his gullet.
He resumed his floating position after long moments and felt warmth in his body that he knew would come with the drink. His head throbbed angrily, but he ignored it with great difficulty. He closed his eyes and tried to relax as much as he could. Something whirred above him, and a few minutes later, air washed over his face---cold air. He swore angrily, the air worsened the pain the water created. This pit he was in felt colder than the Arctic. His breathing grew ragged in his throat as he took big gulps of air.
He wanted to die; the pain was too great for him to bear.
It looked like he was going to get his wish.
***
Demona kicked open the grate that covered up the vent and it clattered open with metallic warning. She looked to see if anyone was in the room, but there was no sign of anyone.
She slipped herself through the entire vent opening and hung from the lip of it for a moment, then dropped to the ground silently. She looked at the Plexiglas box and its mostly unmarked sides, except for a barcode and numbers.
She slid a screwdriver from her boot. She put the slim edge to a crack in the box and pushed firmly on it. The box's lid split and cracked the lock into shame. With slow measure, Demona lifted the lid off and put her hand inside.
She lifted out a simple black plastic box, heavy with fifty disks. She turned it over and over in the light. The light bounced off the black in harsh beauty. She opened the unlocked box and lifted out a fistful of black disks with numbers printed on the labels.
She replaced the disks in the box and placed the box in a watertight bag and then into her pack. She placed the false box into the crate and placed the lid snugly back on. She ascended back into the ventilation system, replaced the grate of the vent and began to follow the guide wire.
Now she had to get back to Krycek before it was too late.
***
Krycek lay very still in the water. The green sickly glow still was in the air, sending wild shadows everywhere, but he didn't notice it. He could barely breathe, his clothes were heavy and soaked with water, and he was loosing his buoyancy as the water covered more of his body.
Occasionally, when he opened his mouth to cough, some icy water spilled into it. He could barely manage a full-hearted cough; his throat was parched. He tried another swig of his flask, but it was bone dry. He tossed it aside and now it bobbed on the water ripples created by his sluggish movements.
He closed his eyes. Was this it? Was this all Alex Krycek wrote? It couldn't be---he was too young...he still had too much to do to let this be the end. But there were too many things that he had done to keep on living.
He was afraid, but it didn't register in his brain as much as it should have. It was a nagging emotion, poking and prodding at the back of his mind; it wasn't acute or bone chilling. The cold was starting to deaden his wits.
Alex was so cold. The water swiftly numbed his fingers and his toes, but most of his extremities burned with the cold. The analgesic waters had not kindly deadened his everything; he was still able to think of the malevolent ache.
He moved his arm, and much to his chagrin, pain pelted the appendage like exploding glass. He could hear the frost crackling at the movement. Alex could feel the trace amounts of ice upon his skin; a frost caused by his expiring heat, every passing second, he was getting colder. He reached up with great strain and agony and massaged his brow. His eyebrow hairs crackled as he broke the frost that caked them.
He reached for his hairline and felt the ice frozen in his ruddy hair, he viciously rubbed it away. The pain of that chafing hurt his frozen arm, and he dropped it back into the water heavily, for the first time he wished he only had one arm to feel the pain in. Water showered onto his face, he blinked it out of his eyes and licked it from his cracked lips.
His eyes felt so heavy, and he was so tired. Krycek tilted his head to the side and water covered the side of his face. It coated his one eye and filled his nostril and seeped into the side of his split lips. He returned his head to the center of his body and spit the water from his mouth to the air. It arced in the air and little droplets sprayed everywhere. It was kind of pretty.
The cold had permeated every muscle and every bone in his body. It now passed freely through his body, and he only had a few hours---or mere minutes---left in this frozen shell. He knew the cold was affecting his brain.
He began to let his mind wander completely around: the life of a spy was not an easy one. The life of a traitorous, hunted man was even harder. He could barely remember a day that went by that he had spent in comfort, without something of dark demeanor nagging for his attention.
Fate. Krycek snorted. Fate was a poor man's religion and something Agent Mulder believed in. He never believed in fate, only a man's will.
He had put himself in the wrong position at some point in his life, it was his fault, he admitted to that. It was probably when he told Spender he would join the Syndicate. He didn't agonize over it now; he had made the best of it; as he had made the best of every betrayal, clue, assignment and every person that he had to walk on.
Krycek contemplated how much of a self-righteous bastard that he had become. He wondered when he was replaced by this new soul that he donned. He didn't know. It hurt too much to think.
"Krycek!"
The name called to him and sounded like a tape being played at slow speed. He opened his eyes with effort and looked up. He was expecting to see someone in the light, but there was no one claiming to own the voice. The voice called to him again and he closed his eyes. He didn't care to know what was out there, lurking and waiting for him. It could only be the devil, come to take him to Hell.
***
"Krycek," Demona called a third time. Her stomach sunk: Krycek was dead. Now she had to bring his body back to the States and explain to more than one person why he had failed the mission, and how she didn't kill him.
But maybe she had. Maybe by leaving him here, she had signed his death warrant. She didn't like Krycek, but she felt even worse about leaving him for dead. She wasn't sure what to expect when she reached the edge of the vent.
She felt like she had been punched in the stomach and the breath actually left her body. She looked at Krycek's body floating at the surface of the water. She was too late and he was dead. For a moment, guilt and pain washed over her, but she managed to push some of it away. She put on her best game face and lowered herself into the water.
The coldness was a harsh shock it had gotten colder since she left, and she scolded herself for leaving Krycek in it. She waded to his lifeless form and placed a hand beneath his neck, lifting his head from the water.
His head tilted back; unresponsive...she should have expected that. She feigned acute nausea looking over his cadaver; his lips were purple, and his skin was ashen. His clothes that were not underwater were coated with a thin layer of ice, and his hands were stiff and rigid with cold. There was no sign of breath escaping from his lips or nose.
She took his hand and pulled him to her, and lifted him to get him out of this frosty grave. His body was unresponsive to her and she shuddered holding his dead body. She never really expected to have him dead in her arms, at the moment it was too malicious for her to actually enjoy as she said she would have.
This was her fault. She could have done something to stop this and she hadn't. Tears stung her eyes as she looked over what was left of Alex Krycek. Guilt flooded over her. What would she tell the Syndicate? Would they think this was her fault?
Suddenly, he took a deep and sucking breath and Demona nearly dropped him in shock. She was taken back, but then grabbed him before he could sink beneath the water, "Krycek!"
"Can't get rid of that easily," his eyes fluttered open and he looked over her with tired orbs, he was exhausted. "You came back..." The words escaping from his frigid larynx were no more than a whisper.
"I did," Demona felt relief well up inside her. She watched as a once dead man rose from a watery grave. Since he was out of the cold, he convulsed slightly. She pulled him close as she put a crude security harness around his waist.
"So...so...so cold," his voice shook. She clipped him to her and made sure that he was secure.
"We'll get you warm, I promise," she lifted Krycek and herself out of the water with the last strength that she had. Her reserves were almost gone; the cold was getting to her, too. She had to push and shove to fit them both into the tube side by side.
Krycek clung to her and fed off her warmth greedily. She stripped of his wet jacket and left it behind, leaving a soggy airplane ticket, a gun and a cell phone with it.
Demona was so blessedly warm to him, and he wrapped himself around her. She allowed him for the sake of hypothermia. He shook violently against her body; he begged for her warmth.
His skin rose in goosebumps as his cover that he once had was pulled away. Krycek's teeth rattled in his head, threatening to shake his brains out. He nuzzled close to her, and Demona could feel his breath moistening her neck. It gave her the chills, but she let him keep as close to him as he wanted: she was probably saving his life. She fought the irrational discomfort that him being so close gave her.
"You okay still, Krycek, getting warmer?" She stripped away his wet shirt and rubbed his skin to generate heat, he still shook with the chills.
"Better," he assured her weakly. His voice was fluttering and Demona could tell that he was drifting in and out of consciousness.
She checked his forehead, and felt the sweat; he was burning with a fever. She smoothed his bristly hair back from his face and examined it as best she could. His eyes were glassy and his lips had lost color. She placed his head back close to her, which lolled limply against her collarbone.
Together they moved slowly and surely out of the vent system, this time taking a route that would get them directly outside. Krycek was soundless and offered as much help as he could, but it was not much. Demona heaved herself forward slowly and then, with limited strength, heaved him with her.
He stood at least 6 feet tall and she guessed that he weighed about 175 pounds, which was a good fifty pounds heavier than she; but now being laden with water and immobile in a tight space made him feel like he weighed 300 pounds.
She grunted with each tug she could muster. She figured that she couldn't take much more of this, and neither could Krycek by the way he groaned in pain. The chances of getting Krycek looked back to safety were looking bleak.
Demona thought that she was going to faint from relief when slats of light pierced from the vents leading to the outside world. She gained new strength looking at the lights and heaved Krycek farther and longer with each pull as she approached the end of the vent.
She pressed the side of her face to the vent in satisfaction, but withdrew sharply when her face stung angrily. She remembered when Krycek struck her. She pulled Krycek nearer to her and he could make no attempts to hold onto her for warmth, he just lay on her. She hoped he was getting his perverted thrills now, because it would never happen again. But, she was worried, he wasn't moving at all, and his breathing was shallow.
She pushed once...twice...three times violently and finally, the vent fell away from where it had held fast. She looked out the vent and looked out into the parking lot where her rented Mercedes sat parked with only a handful of other cars.
She slid away from Krycek and hung out of the open vent. Her legs dangling over one end and her hands locked under Krycek's armpits, she pulled herself down and dragged him to the end of the vent. Her feet felt like they were on fire as she hit the ground. With one final, full-of-effort pull, she heaved Krycek out and he tumbled onto hard-packed cobblestone. She swore at herself and she got down to help him to his feet. He shook with the new cold that blasted against his skin.
"Once we get to my hotel room, we'll get you into some warm water, and you should warm up," she talked to him as if he were a child. The words didn't register to him at this point, for he was in a delirium. She brought him to his feet and supported him, where they stumbled to her car. She pushed him to the passenger side and then got in. She checked her pack for the disks, relief flooding her when she felt the plastic bag. She jammed the keys into the ignition and roared away from the warehouse.
Into the night, she drove down back alleys and up to her hotel. Krycek's head lay on the closed window, lolling about with each curve in the road and each bump. He formed speechless words that faded in front of his face. Occasionally, his body wracked with a cough. Demona spared a moment to place a hand to his forehead, feeling it burning up.
She managed with great effort to lift Krycek onto his feet and dragged him through the lobby of the hotel; he wasn't much help to her, either, his feet dragged and refused to support his weight. A few late-nighters were in the halls and shot her skeptical looks.
"Party," she explained and they nodded; they probably knew nightlife all too well. Krycek played his role well enough, he looked so drunk that he could barely stand. It also explained her dark clothing to some extent---but not the fact that they were both soaking wet and Krycek was half-naked.
She slid the keycard through the slot and they both fell into the room haphazardly. Demona's palms shot fire throughout her entire arms, and Krycek lay still, except for his hypothermic shaking. She was up as quickly as she had gone down and got blankets. She came back and remembered to turn the lights on. Right in the living room, she stripped him down to his underwear and she slid the blankets around him. She could feel the flush raise in her cheeks as she noted that Krycek did have a great body, despite the fact that his skin was purple with cold.
She then lifted him to his feet and they stumbled to her bathroom, where she drew lukewarm water for him to soak in.
He shivered violently against her body as they staggered into the bathroom. The colors swirled in front of Krycek's eyes, and he couldn't tell what was real or what was a dream.
Demona stripped off the blankets, but left his boxers on to save herself a lot of embarrassment later. She worked as quickly as she could to keep him from dying. She then slipped him into the water, he was submersed to his ears, and his nose was just above the water. He shook in the water, rippling the edges like a stone in a pond.
"Come on, Krycek, get warm," Demona begged, she rubbed his extremities vigorously in hopes that the blood would circulate to them. His skin slowly went from white to purple with splotches and then to a nice, rosy pink, but his fever remained. His fingers and toes threatened with frostbite, so she massaged them gently, pressing her fingers persistently between his.
"Ouch...ouch," Krycek protested weakly as the feeling came back to his fingers and toes. He was submersed in water again, but this time it was warm water. He opened his eyes and looked out over himself, looking down he saw he only had his underwear on. He couldn't figure out where he was for he was so delirious. He could, however, feel gentle hands nursing and urging warmth into his body.
"Krycek," someone whispered in his ear. He could only barely look up to see caring eyes peering into his own; he recognized the face, but he couldn't place a name to it. He closed his eyes and let the warm water warp around him protectively. The hand placed on his forehead was warm and soft; he breathed a sigh. "Alex, can you hear me?" He nodded in reply, which sent his head buzzing.
"How are you feeling," Demona asked, but didn't expect an answer.
"Not so good," he slurred; she supported him with the towels so he wouldn't drown. Moving swiftly, she went to her telephone.
"Room service to Room 218. Chicken soup: and I want it scalding, do you understand?" The man on the other end assured her it would be there in a couple of minutes and she cut the connection. She looked in on Krycek and saw him twiddling his fingers on the arm hanging out of the tub. She added more water and left him again.
Demona walked to the living room of the suite and opened her laptop. It flashed to life at her bidding---if only other things were so cooperative....
She opened a file on the disk. It was full of binary codes and HTML markups. "What have we here," she asked to no one in particular. "What have you gotten me into, Spender?"
A knock on the door startled her. She slammed shut her laptop and removed the disk. She went to the door.
"Room 218," the teenager asked. She nodded and took the tray. The attendant looked at her for a moment staring at her body, noticing she was soaking wet...and cold. Demona shot him and insulting look, and took the tray from him. After a moments thought, she dropped a tip into his hand.
Demona moved to the bathroom and poked her head in. "Krycek," her voice was no more than a muted whisper. He turned to her slowly and looked at her with hollow eyes, mute with a feverish delirium.
"It's time to get you out of there," she helped lift him out of the water and wrapped a towel around his damp skin, rubbing him warm and dry. She cocooned him with warm towels and blankets after she got him on the couch and left to find any clothes that she might have for him to wear.
His fitful quaking had ceased, but now he shivered as he waited for Demona to return. How much had she given so that he wouldn't have died in a wet tomb? His hip angrily throbbed and he reclined his head back into the pillows, allowing the lights to stop their dancing.
He caught sight of Demona and looked at how tired and weary she looked. The gash in her forehead made her look even more pained and fatigued. This image of the once sanguine woman who could even beat him was so different it unnerved him. She moved to him quietly, placing a soft hand on the side of his face.
"I found a shirt and some large jeans in a hamper outside. Put them on," she helped him with mental distance wriggle into the pants, grunting as he moved his hip with pain, then sliding the t-shirt over his head. She then wrapped the blankets around him again, wrapping he extremities near him to keep his core temperature higher. She smiled at the fact that she had made a Krycek cocoon: maybe if she were lucky, he'd emerge a butterfly and fly away.
"So what do we do now," he asked feebly.
"We don't do anything. You're still pretty fragile, you're body temperature is still low."
She then offered out to him a bowl of warm broth that smelled dangerously good. With the gilded spoon, she spooned small amounts into his parched throat with the care of a mother. The blessed liquid slid down his throat more easily than the vodka had and warmed him better. Krycek allowed her to feel him as if he were a baby.
She never expected to hear a "thank you" from Krycek for all that she had one to save his life: he was a self-assured and arrogant, and that didn't make for someone to admit he was thankful. She could never expect anything from him. She accepted it. She helped him finish off the soup and then watched as he drifted in and out of sleep.
"You got the disks," Krycek's hoarse voice cut into the peace. Demona looked up at him as he lay on the couch with tired eyes. She nodded slowly; she would have offered a side comment, but she was too tired to argue with him, even though she'd win.
"Thanks," he said.
"Pardon me," the words dropped from her mouth like a stone.
"I want to thank you for saving my life," Krycek repeated. He owed it to her.
"It's okay," she replied slowly. She was unsure of the ice on which she was venturing.
"Thank you anyway." He placed his head on the pillows and stared at the ceiling. "My hips still hurts."
"I'll get you something," she stood up and teetered over to her bedroom. She tried to pretend that she was not tired and that she was all right. It didn't fool Krycek, but he refrained from saying anything to save her from embarrassment.
She moved back to him with a syringe full of clear liquid. She rolled up his sleeve and paused. Krycek pounced on the opportunity: "Are you licensed to do this?"
"No one's died yet," she replied slyly and pushed the needle into his arm. Krycek winced and turned away as he felt the pinching. "The pain should stop within fifteen minutes. But, you should get you hip x-rayed. I'm taking a shower and going to bed," she moved off and left Krycek alone on the couch.
She closed the door of her bathroom and turned on the hot water. She watched the delicate steam rise and curl in the light. Her fingers trembled violently as she unlaced her boots and slipped them off her aching feet.
She couldn't hold onto the zipper to unclasp the teeth that held her suit on her body, her fingers were shaking so badly. She took a deep breath and ran a nervous hand through her brown hair. She managed after more agitated movements to unzip her clothes and remove them from her body. She moved to the mirror and wiped away the steam with the flat of her hand and stared at her fogged-over complexion.
She examined the bruises on her shoulder and hips and the gruesome cut on her forehead. She reached up to touch the swelled skin and withdrew. It was tender to the touch and she was sure it was going hurt like a bitch when she was under hot water. She ran a washcloth under water and dabbed at another minor cut on her chin, it stung and smeared red over the pristine white terrycloth. She didn't worry about the towel too much---she could always pay for it.
She turned her back on herself and removed her remaining clothing. She stepped over them and then got into the shower. The hot water soothed her aches and pains, but she cringed and drew away as it stung her forehead. She shampooed her hair as carefully as possible, but cringed as the shampoo and blood from her forehead mingled, watching as the pink froth swirled angrily for a moment or two and then slid down the drain.
Demona felt all the agonies that she had managed to subdue burst forth from where she had dammed them up in her brain. Her legs, once strong and supple, were now as weak as two pipe cleaners. She leaned heavily on the cold tiles in the shower stall and let everything flow away with the water.
Her salty tears went undetected as the shower water ran down her forehead. Her choking sobs couldn't be heard as it had to compete with the water drumming furiously against the tile.
The water was no longer the comforting cleanser she had aimed for it to be. It ripped at her skin and tore at her limbs, begging and beckoning for her to join them as they flowed to the sea. She wanted to join them, to escape from this harsh existence she was thrust in.
She wanted the past eight years of her life to be just a nightmare that she could wake from, but also knew it was more than a nightmare...it was the misery of her reality. You can't wake from what is not a dream.
Demona thought she was going to go insane, living all alone in her brain was beginning to take its toll. The protective fortress she built for herself was crumbling away to nothing; she was starting to walk down the road to Insanity. It was only a matter of time when she was going to shut down entirely.
This was all The Syndicate's fault: and she still couldn't bring her entire self to forgive Nina for what hell she had put her through
Demona wrapped a towel around her and entered her bedroom. The moon slipped through the curtains and stained her bed sheets a glistening white. She pulled on underwear and pajamas and slipped between the sheets. Staring out the window, she ebbed to a deep sleep.
***
Krycek heard the water turn off in the bathroom and heard Demona moving in her bedroom. He was still slightly delirious from his fever and still a little cold, but on the whole, he was much better.
He had lost any desires at stealing the disks where the lay on her desk, which he had planned before his near Kryceksicle episode. He had to admit that when Demona Launce was on business, she sure knew how to mix business with pleasure, he couldn't have chosen better himself. He actually hadn't bought himself a hotel room, he just expected to be let in to someone's house for the evening, as he liked to do.
He mused over his near-death experience and paid it no more mind than he had any other near-death experiences. He was just grateful that he would rise to see another day pass from dawn to sunset again. He had survived; which is what he'd learned to excel at since joining the Syndicate.
He stood up and walked about a bit: his hip was better, but he was still woozy from his fever. The painkillers had worked very nicely; he could at least walk now. He hobbled to Demona's desk and let his eyes pore over all the equipment; cell phones, phones and computers as one, a laptop, a digital camera and a PDA. Demona must have been a very thorough person when it came to work. Krycek carried little more than his wit and a good weapon when he trotted across the globe, Demona showed promising skills.
For all her brashness and brooding silence, Demona was somewhat of a mystery: Krycek admitted to that. She hid something very dark beneath the chains of her mind, Krycek couldn't even guess as to what. It would only take time to pull away links to release the chains of her secrets. It would be easy, and Krycek was pretty certain that it could be done.
He moved to her bedroom stealthily and gently pushed the door open. Much to his sweet relief, it didn't squeak to betray his presence. He didn't dare move or scarcely breathe; his only grip on the world was his fingertips grazing against the doorframe. He prayed to God that he didn't pass out in her bedroom.
Krycek swallowed mightily, but he didn't move, he was frozen in his gaze at Demona. He looked aver her and her surroundings, he smiled seeing the handgun on the night table, she did seem to expect someone willing to kill her.
She was dead to the world and dead to Krycek staring at her. She was totally relaxed and unassuming and innocent in her slumber. Her brown hair spilled out over the pillow like milk sliding over a marble table; her lips that were normally held in a vacuous frown were now open and smooth. Her thick lower lip moved ever so slowly as she murmured in her sleep. Her milky, Nordic skin looked luminescent in the anemic moonlight. It would have been so easy to kill her or take her right there.
Krycek was a marble statue, unmoving; wanting to move but afraid to move. She was so unprotected in her sleep, so much looking in need of someone to be with her, to protect her dainty figure. He had a vague though of protecting her, though he knew he couldn't do it.
He thrust his body to move towards her, but he remained paralyzed. He wanted to reach to her, to touch or to hold her, but he wouldn't shatter her peace. There were things to be said about falling in love with your co-workers, but somehow, it didn't apply here. Krycek wondered if it was falling in love, or just the fact that Demona was incredibly sexy.
He only looked with misery at her, then turned and hobbled back to his couch. Sleep descended on him, and his mind was plagued with nightmares.
***
Demona woke up the next morning disoriented in a room that was vaguely unfamiliar to her. It took her a few moments to actually wake up. She stretched and groaned, feeling all of her muscles unwillingly expand and contract. She yawned and the skin on her chin cracked painfully, she snapped her jaw shut. She touched her chin and withdrew as something wet and warm coated her fingertips---blood.
She leaned back into the bed and stared at the ceiling. She remembered what lay beyond her door and on the couch; she didn't feel like going to face him.
The emotional meltdown of last night was very disappointing. She felt extremely let down at herself; anything less than her hard shell was totally unacceptable.
Avoiding the living room of the hotel room for the moment, Demona dressed herself.
She ignored the cut for the moment and began to put on her clothes. She put on the beige pantyhose and slipped on the off-white shirt around her waist. She put on the white blouse and finished with the matching off-white dress jacket and high-heels. She put on pearl earrings and the five-strand pearl choker around her neck. She was ready to leave England as she had arrived---as an innocent, tight-assed businesswoman.
She picked up the clothes from last night and packed them along with her clothes that she had brought over to England and packed them into her suitcase. She opened the bedroom door, took a deep breath and walked into the main room of her hotel. She turned on the coffeepot and began making something to wake herself up.
A loud snort and grunt emanated from the couch and Demona jumped away from the coffee. A voice followed suit with her movement, "Who'zat?"
"It's me. Krycek," Demona poured a cup of coffee. "You want some coffee?"
"No," he replied hoarsely, "working off the drink I had last night."
She moved across the room and sat down in a wicker chair across from him. "Leave it to you to find alcohol in the middle of a ventilation system."
"So what," he asked harshly.
"Makes no difference to me," she replied indignantly. She paused and took a gulp of her coffee. "How are you besides the hangover?"
"Much better."
"That's good to hear," Demona replied flatly. "Your hip?"
"It's fine," Krycek assured her. "Probably just a strain or something."
"Look, Krycek," she said with seriousness. "I know that we haven't always been on the best of terms since we first me. I understand how you feel about me horning in on your glory with the Syndicate. That's not the case. I just want you to know that my conduct in your apartment was inappropriate. It's not an excuse: it's fact. Just understand that I am sorry for that."
Krycek didn't respond immediately. As long as she knew why he hadn't approved of her in the beginning, there was no reason for him to hate her blindly. ---It wasn't even that he hated her, it was resentment. It felt good that they had reached a somewhat level ground---they didn't have to be best friends, they just needed that understanding.
"I accept that. As long as we understand our ground?"
Demona nodded. "I'm not asking for you to be my friend---or even to like me. Just understand that I am every part of the Syndicate as you are."
Krycek could pass with that. He looked at her new outfit and dignified posture; she almost passed for a lady. "Where are you going?"
She sipped her coffee nonchalantly as if she hadn't heard him. She began, as he was about to ask her again; "Back to the United States; I have to give Spender the disks." She stood up and placed the empty cup on the table; she then moved to her suitcases.
"Hey," he recovered from his hangover and moment of sensitivity quickly, "are you just going to leave me here?"
She sighed and moved to the desk at which she was working last night. She looked through her lock box and pulled out a large roll of bills. She then moved back to the couch and dropped the roll into his lap.
"Here is four thousand dollars cash---enough money to buy a plane ticket back to Washington DC, a new set of clothes, and enough money to stay in this hotel for two more nights. You might even have enough to put in your pockets afterwards."
He rolled the money in his and smelled the fresh, new ink; he loved the smell of fresh, unadulterated money. He should have left it at that, but he picked at the scab. "What about a gun and a phone, I lost them both last night."
Demona's eyes grew dark and stormy but her eyes betrayed nothing, "I have a gun and I will leave it to you. With the money, maybe you could get a cheap phone and a good deal on roaming charges."
She tossed the gun and clips of ammunition in his direction. He caught them skillfully and set them on the table.
She packed the hardware from the desk to a carryon bag and she placed the disks in a UN Security bag ignoring Krycek for the majority. Anyone of Customs in their right mind would not open a UN Security bag and thus open the bowels of hell with plague and pestilence on their descendants.
Krycek watched as she picked up the suitcase, the carryon and the pouch. "See you in the States, Krycek---and good luck." She closed the door behind her.
"Gee thanks," Krycek murmured, holding the gun and the clips. He would meet up with her later, he was sure of it.
-End-