Thanks Emma for the beta!
His parents would have understood. They might have been the only ones who would. Not because they were communist or had a thing about the United States government, but because they were fighters and certainly had never given up when all hope seemed to be lost.
It was a small village in the Ukraine. Alexi and Alina Krycek were bakers. Everyone in the town knew them and hailed by their bread and they'd give what was left over for the day to the kindly beggars who sat outside the shop. They played chess with the elderly of the village and were known to be quasi innkeepers for the destitute and forlorn.
Alexi had gone to school for psychology at the University in Moscow but had left two years in, to return to his parents an make them comfortable while they died. Alina had been their housekeeper for a few months and one lone night, making tea, he had kissed her and confessed his love of her green eyes and kind heart.
They were married in the spring of 1943, both of them having just turned eighteen years old. The German threat loomed on the edge of their country but the Kryceks did not leave. As their village packed up and fled, the two kept their bakery open, servicing wandering drifters and people who were fleeing. They reduced their prices and overfed the people who came by their modest shop, because they could.
Even as the SS marched through their town and smelled the scent of sweetly baking pastries they were not discovered in their basement crawl space. They lived off of stale muffins and a pail of water for three days until they were sure that the evil had passed them by. They helped begin the reconstruction of the village and lived there for many years, finally scared away by the threat of a nuclear holocaust. San Francisco became their new home and Alexi toiled in the shipyards while his wife worked at a small hotel.
In 1962, Alexi Dmitri Krycek was welcomed into the world. He didn't cry, even when he took his first breath, he didn't cry. The doctor had said in jest that it was some sort of miracle, but the proud parents believed it to be true.
As he grew, they told him stories of strength and belief, of heart and courage. 'Courage... have courage, have heart, son'. Birthdays, friends, graduations, they all came and went and Alex began to know it meant to live with a purpose, live for a cause, a fledgling, learning. He learned the tricks of the trade, fell into the right circles and the wrong, and still had the same heart that he did when he was born, the courage that had been passed on from his parents.
Seeking kindred spirits he packed up and left his parents to go to Washington. Alex never really liked it there; he missed the sun and his mother's baked goods, but he learned to cope.
When he was in his mid-twenties, a man approached him and he fell into his life, right then. Everything made sense, every screw-up, every failure, every short coming. None of it mattered because he had purpose and yes, he had heart.
And he did, all along, that mantra stuck with him. 'Have courage in what you believe in'. He tried, he really did. Even as he committed treason, back-stabbed, lied... he believed in what he was doing. It all happened for a reason, after all. He lacked his parents' kind heart but he made up for it with quick thinking and charming smile.
It was all he wanted to be, even as he came down to the very last seconds of his life. He remembered his mother's green eyes and his father's words about trust and belief and was at some sort of strange peace within himself. Even as he spoke, he knew he was going to die.
Yes, even as the bullet sped towards his skull he knew he was dying with a purpose, with a reason.
He had but one regret as the hot steel tore through his brain; that he would never truly get to tell Mulder that they really were brothers in the same quest and the same courage pulsed in their veins.