October 28, 1:57pm

Washington, DC

"Agent Scully?"

I look up from my computer to find Holly hovering in the doorway.

"Hi, Holly. Can I help you?"

She steps inside as I stand up from my desk and pull my glasses off.

"I just wanted to deliver this package to you. It required a signature, so I wanted to make sure it got into your hands. It's gone through all the security scans." She hands the oversized manila envelope to me and I thank her, absently, as I put my glasses back on to examine the mailing label. It's postmarked from St. Louis and there's no return address. I flip it over, looking for any other markings, any signs at all that might indicate who the sender is.

I'm still puzzling over it a moment later when I hear Mulder in the hall, exiting the elevator and greeting Holly with a distinct trace of wariness in his voice. Finding any human being at all in our office, or even in the whole of the basement floor, triggers a level of territorialism in him that would befit a bloodhound. Even sweet, helpful, unassuming, little Holly isn't above suspicion. I find his paranoid diligence to be, well, not annoying, exactly. But exhausting...and rather sad.

I watch him step inside, his eyes landing immediately on the envelope in my hands. "Anything interesting?"

"I don't know yet, Holly just brought it down and I can't figure out who it's from."

"Only one way to find out…"

I pull my top desk drawer open and rummage around briefly for my trusty letter opener. A flick of my wrist sends the stack of papers inside falling onto my desk and landing with a soft thud. There are maybe 40 or 50 pages and a short handwritten note, which I snatch up to examine more closely, hoping to find out who sent this to me. I immediately recognize the handwriting, and it surprises me completely, even before I actually read what it says. "Work progressing slowly. More soon. -AK"

I feel the corner of my mouth tug up just a bit before I can stop it. I think back to holding another brief note from 'AK' and the very strange and confusing, but not altogether unpleasant, day I received it flits through my mind.

As soon as Mulder got back from California I told him all about the two days or so that I spent with Krycek. Well, okay, not everything. There were a few details, some snippets of conversation, that I kept to myself, but I offered up nearly the entire event to him. I have to say that he ended up taking it better than I expected. Which is not to say that he took it well...just that it could have been worse. He was angry, and utterly dismissive of most of the information that Krycek gave to me. Of course what really pissed him off is that I had believed even a single, solitary word that "that rat bastard" had spoken. There's been so much complicated history between them, and this has made it a thousand times worse. I'm pretty sure that if Mulder ever lays eyes on Krycek again he won't live to tell me or anyone else any more tales.

After the initial yelling and gnashing of teeth, he barely spoke for about three days, while he brooded and pouted and refused to look at me. But his fowl mood eventually evaporated and in the past couple of days things have been better. Not really normal, but at least there's communication, even a little conversation, and eye contact again. Makes me wonder how he's going to take this...will it help or hurt?

My reaction to reading this new note must have been more visible than I'd realized because Mulder calls my name, halting my ruminating, and steps towards me.

I look up over my glasses at him. "Well, Mulder," I reveal with a tiny bit of gratification, "it seems Krycek has decided to share after all."

He verbalizes nothing, but eyes me rather incredulously, looking back and forth between the contents of the package and my face. I'm not sure if that's due to his curiosity about the material or if he's still harboring resentment over my little jaunt with Krycek. I suppose it could be both. But at this particular moment I realize that I don't really care. At least not enough to erase the self-satisfied smirk that's crept onto my face.