Part II
Do what you must if that's what you wish
I can't be a party to this
If you had the sense that you were born with
You'd find a way to make things right
Mulder didn't say anything for a while after they were gone; he simply stood there, staring at the now closed door. At long last, he turned, hands on hips and a weary look on his face, to the man looking out the window.
"Alex…" he whispered, but he couldn't find words to express what had just happened or what he was feeling at the moment.
The other man sighed, removing the bloodstained towel from the back of his head and examining it with ostensive great interest. "Sorry about your window. I was almost out it, but my hand slipped…." He, too, trailed off, but never looked away from the rag in his hand.
Mulder shifted his weight nervously: the tension between them was thicker than cold custard, but he didn't want to be the one to acknowledge it.
"Don't worry about it. I'll have someone come fix it tomorrow."
Alex nodded slightly and turned his attention back to the window once more.
"What are you going to do?" he said after some time, but not averting his eyes.
"I … don't know. They'll not want me back at work—consorting with the enemy, imagine." Despite what he had just said, Mulder couldn't stop the ghost of a smile from creeping across his lips. "I guess I'll just have to … run off somewhere."
"It does appear that way, doesn't it?" said Alex softly, now studying him with apparent impassivity. "You know … what this means."
"I'll most likely be expected to hand in my badge and gun?" he said in a voice that did not sound like his own in the least.
The younger man nodded once again, as if deep in thought, and, shoving his single hand into the pocket of his dark jeans, scaled the bedroom. At length he stopped and smiled sardonically at Mulder, though the latter knew the expression was directed at the bearer and not the receiver.
"We'll have to end it. And cover up the evidence. Tell people it wasn't me, Scully and Skinner would lie for you, wouldn't they? I, at least, have seen the way she looks at you, Mulder—she loves you. She wouldn't hurt you." He had a sincere quality to his tone that the agent had never heard before.
He took an involuntary step backward, hoping he had not heard him correctly. "Alex. We don't have to end it. And … and Scully doesn't love me, not—not like…." Words were failing him again.
"Fox," said his partner sternly, "we do. If you want to return to your job, to your goddamn life, we do. There's no way around it."
"My job? What are you talking about? They know it was you, and it'll leak eventually—this kind of thing always does. They've been looking for a reason to get rid of me since day one, you know that. We worked together, Alex, you know what I'm up against," replied Mulder, speech suddenly finding him once more.
"This isn't the Fox Mulder I hated to love—what have I turned you into? You don't give up on your job that easily, it doesn't work like that."
Mulder turned his head away from him. "You know, we've spent two years like this and I'm sick of it. I know what happened to my sister. That's all I need. I can live on that for the rest of my life. I just … want to get away from me, even for just a little while would do the trick. I'm tired of being me, and having to meet you in secret, always in secret!"
He shook his head, obviously wanting to hear none of Mulder's excuses or ludicrous proclamations.
"It has to be like this, don't you understand? We were doomed from the start, honey," he stated, smiling at his successfully ironic use of a pet name. "Remember? I was the bad guy and you were the good guy and everyone knows they don't get a happy ending where they ride off into the sunset together, sharing horseback. It doesn't happen, Mulder, it's not part of the fairy tale you've been clinging onto so frenetically these past years. It just … doesn't," he ended desperately.
Mulder took a moment to let this sink in. He hadn't counted on Alex's giving up hope. Instead, he had been fully prepared for the contrary—perhaps even his urging him to leave the Bureau, but immediately upon realizing this was what he had believed, Mulder felt like hitting himself. Despite his training in psychology and apt deduction skills, he had apparently failed to make an analysis on the two people who meant the most to him.
Though he did not like to admit it, he could not help but see it now: all those instances where Scully had brushed his hand unnecessarily or given him that strange look or why she had tears in her eyes when she saw him with Alex. She loved him, she must, it would explain so many things.
And Alex, whom he had hated for so long, was not really a "bad guy" as he had long-since believed, but a mere eager boy, unsuccessfully being manipulated by his superiors. And now, would he have thought seven years ago, when a seemingly naïve young Agent Krycek had been assigned to him, that he would be in the predicament? Moreover, that he would love the man who—
Suddenly, a thought occurred to him, one that had several times within the past twenty-five or so months, one that had never been voiced aloud to anyone.
While he might have some sort of twisted sense of love for him, Alex didn't return those feelings. He knew this from the way he looked at him; like he would do anything to bring him happiness or protect him, but these affections were not love, and Mulder was very aware that they probably never would be.
Despite this, he could not stop himself from saying, "Alex?"
He took a moment to respond, apparently deep in thoughts of his own.
"Yeah?" His remaining hand was resting on his waist, his other a short stump; he had not replaced his prosthesis.
Mulder ground his teeth and fixated his hazel eyes on the ground before raising them to Alex's set of magnificent green. From here, he searched those eyes, as if looking for his truth before asking for it.
"You don't … ah … do you love me?"
Though it was evident that he had tried to mask it, Mulder recognized a brief look of shock and perhaps hysteria pass over his lover's face.
"I—no," he said lamely, careful not to meet the other man's gaze, which was full of blatant hurt.
"Then why are you here?" he said in a shaky voice.
"Because you need me." He paused. "Because I need you."
"If that's true, then why, exactly, are we 'over'?"
"Mulder…."
"Answer me!"
"Jesus Christ! I've told you, Mulder! I don't know about you, but I can't keep doing this. No, I know you can't. You have to go back to work, and the only way to do that is for us to call this quits. If we … keep doing this, then they'll be watching you all the time. Do you want that?"
No, he didn't want that, not in the least—not for himself, but especially not for Alex, whose life was always in jeopardy. But he also knew that he didn't love him, and he did need his job. If he had neither work nor a love life, what would he have? College basketball twice a week on ESPN 2 every winter? Alex was right—he was always right. Not quitting would be a throwaway of everything the both of them had.
Without a word, he came to stand by his partner. He looked down at Alex's hand and took it in his own. The feel of his warm flesh gave him a chill. Not looking up he said,
"You're right."
Alex shrugged and squeezed Mulder's fingers. He offered a peculiarly poignant smirk and said, "I wish I wasn't, but I am. Otherwise you're wasted on me."
He pulled Mulder toward him and rested his head on his shoulder. Whole minutes passed before either of them made a sound.
Grinning, Alex whispered into his ear, "It's over, Mulder. Tomorrow…."
"Tomorrow," he agreed, and allowed himself to be led to bed.
Fin