Hi again! It's been a while since I have written anything, so here I am. I own nothing at all...this is just some dribble I wrote about the Marita/Krycek relationship, one with beautiful potential, but unfortunately never developed. PG-13 for angst and safety...don't wish to get yelled at.

: Official disclaimer: I don't own the X-files. I sometimes wish I did, but then, who wants to get chased around by the Flukeman?

The first time he met her, Krycek knew she was trouble. Trouble for the project, trouble for Mulder, but most importantly, trouble for him. Krycek was a man of ideals and self preservation, and he didn't need a woman to muck up his operation, especially just as the Syndicate was beginning to fall apart. However, it soon became clear to Krycek that this was more than he had bargained for.

Marita prided herself on the fact that she had never been in love. In fact, she reveled in it, knowing that she had given herself the protection of having nothing that could be taken away. She surrounded herself with an icy shell that no one had been able to thaw. No one, that is, until Alex Krycek came along.

The moment he laid eyes on her, Alex knew he had found his match, his other half. The icy exterior that surrounded her seem to roll over him even as the heat he expelled melted her frost-covered heart, sending proverbial rivulets of cool water down her spine as his fiery passion slowly thawed her. Their eyes glared at each other even as their bodies began to react to the sparks that were flying between the two polar opposites.

And then came the kiss, and Marita felt her every resistance crumble as he pressed her against the wall of the ship they had boarded, their brief passion engulfing them both. Fire and ice collided, drawn toward each other like two planets caught in the other's orbit, each slowly being destroyed by the other, but unwilling to break apart for fear of the cold of space. Whispers of treachery split labored breathing and the kiss finally ended, the passionate moment doused by the reality of what could happen if they lost control.

And then, shortly thereafter, she betrayed him. Not out of malice necessarily, more perhaps because she could. He had infused in her strength and self-reliance, the kind of which she had never known and she turned it back on him. Even as her heart began to refreeze, his last lesson remained the only weak spot in her armor.

Soon, Marita learned that Krycek was the wrong man to double cross. He exacted his revenge by turning her over to the aliens for experimentation. She knew he had been angry and trapped by the Syndicate, but the look on Krycek's face when he had seen her talking to Jeffery Spender after she had been returned told her everything she needed to know. He was sorry for hurting her, sorry for tearing her life away from her. In those eyes, those piercing green eyes, Marita saw love. Krycek didn't seem like the kind of man who could love anyone. But he loved her.

They saw each other occasionally, but between juggling their duties to the Syndicate and remaining informants, all while trying to stay alive, left them very little time for the classic white picket fence and a litter of children. But they were in love, and sometimes, that was all that kept them going. But there was war.

The romance could never last. Not with the situation they were in. There was no room for love in war. In war, there is only hate and bloodshed and death, so much death. Love was something that could only serve to weaken a side. In a way, love was the greatest weapon of all. Marita could feel how it had weakened her.

Marita curled under her silken sheets, seeking warmth from a chill that flooded both her body and mind. A chill that had haunted her during her whole life. A chill that was only satiated by the fire that was Alex Krycek. God, how she missed him. Missed his touch, his caress, his lips. She missed those piercing green eyes that drilled holes into her soul, eyes she could never lie to. Eyes before which she felt bare, even though she had been on more than one occasion. She missed his haggard face as he washed the blood from his hands after doing another job, his small smile the only visible sign of the spirit that blazed beneath the surface. She missed his scent, the warm, smoky odor that enveloped her when he held her, a scent that still lingered in the air of her home. She missed everything that he was. Correction, everything that he had been.

And now he was dead. Dead to her, dead to the world, dead in the deepest sense of the word. A bullet through the head had destroyed the only man Marita had ever loved. And that thought alone was enough to give her chills that refused to dissipate. Marita had planned her revenge, but deep down she knew that simply killing Skinner could not avenge the death of her other part, her completion. Skinner was not loved as she had loved Alex. He had no one to come home to at night, no warmth to feel curled against him as he fell asleep. No one death would be enough to satisfy Marita. She would take out the whole damn planet if she had to. And then, she would find her Alex in Hell.

Marita brushed away her morbid fantasies as she rubbed her arms to warm herself. As she lay down on her pillow, her room illuminated only by the light of the full moon outside her window, she sighed. She would dream of him again tonight, as she did every night. And as her eyes fluttered to a close, sleep carrying her weary soul away into the throes of darkness, a single tear trailed its way down one pale cheek, only to be absorbed into silky pale hair that he had loved so much. He was gone, doomed to burn in Hell as she cried for him in a Hell of her own creation. She only wished she could follow him there, if only to cradle his head and tell him it would all be alright. But her Alex was doomed to burn and all Marita wanted was to burn with him. He was the only man she had ever loved and because of that, she couldn't find a way to let him go just yet.

Night passed slowly on.

Bathed in moonlight, silent tears trickling down her frozen face, the Ice Queen finally fell asleep among her ghosts, faces of a past that would never truly melt away, one final thought echoing through her mind.

"Soli, ma insieme."

Fin

For those who don't speak Italian, that phrase means "Alone, but together." I have no idea if Marita even speaks Italian, she probably doesn't, but it's pretty so there. :D As usual, please read and review. I like all kinds. Except flames...you cannot burninate trogdor!!!

Krycek lives on!