Cracking Up

by nightshade444

Krycek's initial attempt at convincing Scully to join him has failed, so he's left her behind to decode the files on his own. He's not going to shake her that easily, though. There's a good amount of UST flying back and forth, as well as a fair amount of angst. Sequel. Read "Undivided Attention" first if you want to understand the references in this one.

1. Chapter 1

"Cracking Up"

By Nightshade444

nightshade44

No big spoilers, but references to various characters and situations from seasons 1-6

R for profanity and sexual references

Scully/Krycek UST, angst, Krycek POV, Scully POV

SUMMARY: This is a sequel. Read "Undivided Attention" first if you want to understand the references in this one. Krycek's initial attempt at convincing Scully to join him in furthering the Syndicate's work has failed, so he's left her behind to decode the files on his own. He's not going to shake her that easily, though. There's a good amount of UST flying back and forth, as well as a fair amount of angst. Beware: Scully still has a potty mouth and a dirty mind. Krycek is still worse.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In my pretty little head, Krycek is one of the heroes of the X-Files, not a villain. True, he butts heads with Mulder, but then, name a single, solitary person who doesn't. Even his mother and Scully want to throttle him on a semi-regular basis. And that Skinner thing? Well, I'm not saying Skinner deserved the nanobots exactly, but he's been far from squeaky clean in his "transactions" with Krycek. I can think of some plausible reasons he might want to take Skinner down a few pegs. In any case, if you're one of those people who goes all red in the face and starts foaming at the mouth at the mention of Krycek's name, then save yourself some grief and look elsewhere for your kicks. If you continue on and your head explodes, it's your own damn fault. You're not pinning that on me.

DISCLAIMER: It's perfectly obvious that I do NOT own these characters, nor am I making any money from this nonsense. I'm merely scratching my Skipper itch.
All things X-Files, including Scully, Krycek and Mulder, belong to Chris Carter, no matter how much consternation it causes me that he doesn't know what to do with them.

"Cracking Up"

Sequel to "Undivided Attention"

By Nightshade444

Part 1

October 24

Rural Missouri

The clock reads 3:11 and it dawns on me that my stomach has been growling for some time now. I've been at it since about 8:30 this morning and I haven't had a bite to eat since I waited for the computer to boot up. Somehow that half-eaten bag of stale chips, six M&M's and the warm, flat soda left over from last night just didn't cut it. Nonetheless, I've made remarkable progress decoding these files. Turns out that each one of them is coded differently, but there are only 7 keys I've had to apply so far. And I've become an expert in detecting which one works for which. Somehow, I'm almost a quarter of the way through them. So it's been painstaking, but it wasn't nearly so hard as it could have been. At least not once I got away from a certain pair of glacier blue eyes.

The content I've uncovered, while not quite as earth-shattering as I hoped, is still pretty revealing and much of it will definitely prove useful. If nothing else, three or four of the documents have confirmed a couple of my suspicions. My instincts are apparently still serving me well: I've generally been going in the right direction. I allow myself a self-satisfied smile as I stretch and yawn, rub my tired eyes, and slowly re-acclimate my brain to my physical surroundings.

I stand up for the first time in hours and look around this pigsty of a room to dig around for my jacket and find my wallet. I'm too engrossed in my work to actually get in the car and leave for something so trivial as food, and there's no way in hell I'm risking all this sensitive data or my whereabouts by getting anything delivered, so I'll have to make due with the snack machines this little shit hole motel in the middle of Nowhere, Missouri has to offer. The next stop I make is going to be at a five star hotel. With a mini-bar and room service. But right now I'd probably squeal like a little girl if there was a Waffle House across the street. I shove a wad of bills in my pocket and open the door...to find darkness.

It's 3am, Alex, not 3pm. Jesus. No wonder I'm starving. I guess time flies when you're decoding top secret government files and scouring their depths for information that will help you save the human race from annihilation at the hands of alien invaders.

That doesn't sound too self-aggrandizing, does it?

The angry growl my stomach gives me reminds me of the task at hand. Time to hit up those vending machines.

"The least you could do, Scully, is bring me some decent food and coffee. Ya know, return the favor."

I have no idea why I said that out loud. I guess I said it to the vending machine...there aren't any people around I could have directed it to. The good Doc and I parted company a few days ago. She's most likely tucked cozily in her bed in Georgetown right now. But she's definitely not here.

Although if she was, I'm fairly certain she'd have responded to my suggestion with a rapid fire, crystal clear, "Go fuck yourself, Krycek."

Actually, no. That's too easy, and too crude. She's far more clever and cutting than that. She'd be more sarcastic, bordering on cruel. She'd say something along the lines of, "Right away, Alex, dear, because ever since you left me stranded on the top of a mountain after kidnapping me with my own gun, engaging in a couple days worth of some truly world-class mind-fuckery, and stealing the zip disk that I'll need to somehow explain to Mulder is now gone, I've been desperate to figure out how to repay your kindness."

I think I just said all that out loud, too. It's bordering on pathetic how much I already miss her. Nah. It's crossed the border. It's most truly, genuinely pathetic. Even when that razor sharp tongue of hers was slicing me into bloody strips I didn't want her to leave. In fact, it made me even more desperate to convince her to stay. Why the hell is that? Maybe if I had Mulder's psych degree I'd understand it.

Ha! That last thought brings tears to my eyes. I'm laughing so hard, so suddenly, that I nearly drop the handfuls of snacks I've just selected to serve as my dinner. I don't care what Oxford says, and I don't give a shit how many degrees the guys has. He's more clueless than anyone when it comes to Dana Scully. And he's an idiot. He's a clueless fucking idiot.

"You're a clueless fucking idiot, Mulder! She's brilliant and beautiful and so fucking, wickedly funny and she's totally into you and you've WASTED it. You've thrown away YEARS!" The door to my motel room doesn't offer any response to my keen insight. That doesn't stop me from continuing to talk to it, though.

"Alex, it's probably not a healthy sign that you're holding imaginary conversations with Scully and Mulder in your head. You need to get something in your stomach and then crash for a few hours. You're delirious."

"And you're talking to yourself in the third person, too."

Delirious or not, I'm still grinning at my/her little joke. Scully's really funny. Even when she's a figment of my imagination.

I inhale the crackers and cookies and other crap I got from the vending machine and wash it all down with a soda. The sugar makes me even crazier for a bit, pulse rapid and nerves jumping. Makes me pace around the room like a caged animal, heart racing, sweating and twitching, and talking out loud to myself the whole time. I imagine her there, calling me out.

"'Parted company', Krycek? That's a seriously sanitized version of how you suddenly extracted yourself from my arms, pulled your boots on and walked out the door with not so much as a 'see ya later, Scully'. ' And, 'tucked cozily in her bed'? That's an utter dismissal of the fallout from your little stunt. Truth is you have no idea where I might be or if I'm safe. You fucked me over six ways to Sunday. Just left me stranded at a remote location without a car or phone reception, not a single soul knowing where I was. With a twisted ankle-knowing I'd have to leave on foot down a damned mountain. AND you took the fucking disk, too! 'Oh, I need your help, Scully, I can't go on like this alone, Scully. You're so smart and pretty, Scully. Let's work together and rule the world, Scully.' What a load of crap, Alex."

"You just called me 'Alex.'" Let's see if changing the subject can get me off the hook with my own guilty conscience.

"I called you 'Alex' because 'Krycek' sounds far too adult for someone behaving like a child."

Guess not.

"I'm sorry, OK? Is that what you want to hear? But you're the one who cut me off at the knees with your whole 'I gotta tell Mulder all about this' shit."

"Oh, please. Did you honestly believe for one single, solitary nano-second that I WOULDN'T tell Mulder every word of it?"

"I wanted to earn your trust, and I got caught up in trying to defend myself, to justify my past decisions. I wanted you to understand why I did those things. To know that I had valid reasons…"

"Ahh, yes, that's right, your 'valid reasons'...the ones where you protect your own family at the cost of every other person who happens to cross your traitorous path? The ones where YOUR sister's life is more valuable than MY sister's life?"

That stings more than a little. I turn the accusation over and over again in my tired, sugar-laden, nutrient-deprived brain and can't come up with anything close to a worthy reply. Guess I've got to cede that point to 'her'.

Conscience 1, Alex 0.

I never lose to my conscience anymore. Never. There's no way I'll let this go, but I'll have to wait for my chance to even the score because the sugar crash hits me like a freight train. I collapse onto the bed, and the last thing my brooding, broken brain can think of is how I've got to figure out a way to make this up to her.