TITLE: The Promise
AUTHOR: Kristen K2
EMAIL: k2_fanfic@yahoo.com
SUMMARY: A different perspective of the events of Requiem. 
Sometimes people are not what they seem.
KEYWORDS: Krycek/Other; Skinner/Other, implied MSR, post-ep
RATING: NC-17
SPOILERS: All through S7, especially SR819, Avatar, 
Tunguska/Terma, and Requiem. This starts in the middle of 
Requiem, and takes off from there. Forget S8; it never happened. 
(Or, this was written before it did.)
DISCLAIMER: Nobody in this story belongs to me. All belong to 
CC, or Fox.
NOTES: Well, I've never seen this pairing before, and believe me, 
I've looked! This one is beta-free, so any mistakes are all mine.
 
   

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 Alex Krycek stealthily slipped into the front door of the 
apartment, leaving the room dark. The hour was late, and he knew 
the occupant would be fast asleep. His eyes, from years of practice 
in night vision, easily made out the shadows of the furniture. In the 
six months since he'd been here last, thankfully nothing had 
changed. The couch and love seat still sat facing the entertainment 
center, a series of bookshelves filled one wall to his right, and just 
before reaching the hallway to the rest of the apartment, a wooden 
rack stood in the corner, with a single coat hanging from it. The 
details of the rest he could see tomorrow.

He peeled off his leather jacket, placing it on the empty hook next 
to hers, then silently toed off his boots and sat them below the 
rack. His socks soon followed. As he made his way down the hall 
toward the rest of his home, he un-tucked his shirt in preparation. 
He was ravenous after only eating repulsive prison gruel during his 
time away, and the bland, miniature food on the plane had barely 
made a dent in his hunger, but first things first.

The bedroom door didn't creak as he opened it, as he knew it 
wouldn't since he greased the hinges purposely for that reason. He 
left it ajar, not wanting the sleeping woman to wake up when she 
heard it catch if he closed it fully.

Her back was to him, so he couldn't see her lovely face in repose, 
but what he could see sent a thrill down his spine. Thick hair 
fanned out on the pillow, the red dusted with streaks of gold in the 
moonlight. Her curvaceous body, naked under the sheet, and the 
pale skin of her neck and shoulders. He knew from experience how 
soft it was, and the knowledge that he was here again, able to feel 
her warmth under his fingertips, made him discard his plan to strip 
the rest of his clothes before he slid into bed next to her.

She stirred as he rested on the mattress, his long frame spooning 
against her shorter one, and he kissed the tantalizing curve of her 
shoulder as his arm wrapped around her waist.

"Honey, I'm home," he whispered. "Sorry I'm late."

She shivered once against him, and he felt the relief tremble 
through her bones. "Did you remember to pick up milk?" she 
asked, instantly fully awake.

He chuckled into her ear, more breath than sound, as she reached 
for the lamp on the nightstand next to her, flipping it on before 
turning to face him. In the beginning, he had tried to stop her from 
waking when he returned after a long absence, but until she saw 
his face she was never satisfied. Which, really, was fine with him, 
because he was possessed by the same urgent need to see hers. 
That oval circle of white flesh, the forty-seven freckles splattered 
across the bridge of her nose, the pretty lips curving into a sweet 
and delighted smile. Lips that could make him laugh or cry or 
come.

Her eyes sweeping over him, she cradled his face in her delicate 
hands, and the cool yet warm metal of her wedding band pressed 
against his stubbly cheek. She only wore it at night, never outside 
their home. He had done the same until the hand he wore it on had 
been viciously and needlessly amputated. After that, they kept his 
in a box on her bureau.

For a moment, neither spoke, simply enjoying the quiet pleasure of 
being together again. They lay side by side on the pillows, both 
smiling like court jesters, until her curiosity got the better of her.

"Where've you been?"

"Africa."

"You went on safari without me?"

She kept the banter light, drawing the reunion out deliciously to its 
inevitable conclusion. In their six years of marriage, there had been 
many, many such occurrences; they'd made a welcome-home ritual 
of laughter before loving. She knew what he did, what he was, and 
she loved him all the more for it. At first it had been difficult to 
explain to her his chosen path, and he'd known she would resist 
him.

But the second he'd laid eyes on her outside Walter Skinner's 
office, he knew he was a goner. The sweet smile she'd given him 
as he introduced himself had his heart thumping so hard against his 
ribcage he'd thought it was going to break a bone. In two seconds 
flat, he'd asked her to dinner; by the end of the night, they were 
standing in front of a justice of the peace in Virginia. He 
deliberately swept her off her feet, not giving her any time to think 
about their actions rationally. As his wife, she had had no choice 
but to eventually forgive him once he revealed his duplicitous role 
to her the next morning. It had taken about a month to convince her 
of his sincere love and veracity regarding her, but luckily he was as 
persistent in this aspect of his life as he was in all the others. 
Failure was not an option.

As he answered her question, he knew he was risking breaking the 
levity, but he told her the truth. He always did. She was the only 
person alive he never lied to.

"No. I was in prison."

Her reaction was instantaneous. She sharply inhaled, and her 
lovely soft eyes filled with tears as she wrapped her arms around 
his head, pulling him closer and burrowing her head in his neck.

"Oh, Alex..." she breathed.

"Sssh. You can cry now, honey. I'm here."

Her muffled sob against his skin both shattered and strengthened 
him. She was the one person in the world who cared if he lived or 
died, and with that knowledge came security. Power. He'd 
believed, long before he met her, that being powerful meant being 
in charge of large groups, or aware of other men's secrets. With 
her, he came to learn that real power emanated from within, with 
understanding that you loved and were loved.

He hated to make her cry, and he knew he often did. His work was 
dangerous, and there was continually the risk that someday he 
wouldn't return to her, but he'd made her a promise, and his one 
ambition in life was to keep that oath.

So he caressed and soothed her, listening to her tears, whispering 
sweet nothings in her ear until she released all the pent-up worry 
and anxiety. When he felt her sobs die down, he cupped her face 
and pulled her away from his neck so they were facing each other, 
wiping the trail of wetness from her cheeks with his thumb and his 
lips, kissing her softly.

"I was so worried, Alex."

"I know, honey. M'so sorry. But what did I promise you?"

She gave him a small smile. "That you'll always come home."

"Have I ever broken that promise?"

A headshake. No. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he was a 
man whose word was his bond. She knew that better than anyone.

"So why would you think I would start now?"

She exhaled a shaky breath. "This was the longest you've ever been 
gone. I tried to keep thinking positively, but..."

He stopped her with a kiss. He'd only meant to give her a swift 
peck, but the moment their lips met, his bottomless craving for her 
took over and the embrace extended itself. So soft, so warm, so 
everything. Their tongues and limbs tangled, and he knew he was 
where he was meant to be.

As she helped him finish undressing, so he could be as naked as 
she was, she looked over his flesh, searching for wounds. Her eyes 
narrowed as she noted the fierce rawness of his shoulder, chafed 
from the straps of his new prosthetic. His old one had been 
confiscated by the guards, and its recent replacement, cheap and 
ill-fitting, had been a last-resort choice. Now that he was home, the 
spare they kept in the closet would be pressed into service.

She started to rise off the mattress, murmuring, "Let me get the 
cream," but he pulled her back near him.

"Later."

"But you need--"

"I only need you."

It was, quite possibly, the truest thing he'd ever said.

Her hands on his skin, small yet all-encompassing, erased the other 
pains he'd endured since he'd touched her last. At first, he simply 
basked in the feel of her caresses, in the understanding that he was 
the center of her life, but before long, her brilliant smile and 
intoxicating smell drove his desire for her to the point of action.

He nuzzled and lapped at her skin, kneading her full breasts with 
his fingers, suckling on her as she moaned. There wasn't an inch of 
her that he failed to stroke, not a place on her body that wasn't 
worshipped by his mouth or his hand. He'd wanted to go slow, to 
make this last for both of them, but too many months of mutual 
celibacy made that a ridiculous goal. She was as starved for him as 
he was for her.

She pushed him so he lay on his back and straddled his hips. Deep 
down, he knew he was exhausted, so he let her take control. There 
would be time later for more. She was open, ready for him, and to 
be engulfed in her hot wet flesh was the closest he'd ever get to 
sheer paradise. Heaven. She moved slowly against him, letting 
them savor the connection, and leaned against his chest so their 
faces were close, kissing lazily, her hair framing her face like a 
crimson halo. He reached up to feel it flow through his fingers, a 
silky waterfall running over his palm.

"Missed you so much," he breathed into her mouth, running his 
tongue along her bottom lip before sucking on it with a gentle 
nibble.

She sighed, mumbling her agreement, levering back up to deepen 
her thrusts, and the feel of her after so long, her smile, her love for 
him emanating from her pores, easily took him to the place he only 
reached with her. There had been others, certainly, and even once 
they were married, they'd both been forced to use sex as a tool for 
manipulation with other people, but it was never like this. Never 
with the body, the heart, the soul.

Just when he thought he couldn't hold on any longer, she quivered 
around him, the beginnings of her orgasm clenching her muscles 
involuntarily, and he felt himself get swept up in it with her. They 
moaned in unison, and for one endless and yet brief instant, they 
were caught in a vortex, trapped between time and space and 
reality.

Together. Man and woman. Husband and wife.

When he could breathe again, as his brain unscrambled and his 
thoughts became coherent, only one ran through his mind. She 
lifted her head off his chest, giving him the sweet smile he 
recognized as designed for him and him alone, and brushed her 
fingers against his cheek.

"I love you Alex," she said simply, beating him to the punch.

"I love you too, Kim," he responded.

+++++

Later, in the dark, feeling her husband's arm loosely draped around 
her waist, as he whispered in her ear, bringing her up to speed on 
what had happened to him during their separation, Kimberly Cook 
Krycek felt a sense of tranquility like none she'd experienced in her 
life.

Being married to Alex was the best thing that had ever happened to 
her. She only wished sometimes that she could tell the world. To 
shout it from the rooftops, that he was the most extraordinary man 
she'd ever met. But of course she never did. It was too dangerous 
for both of them for such a vital connection to be exposed.

"Kimmy, you falling asleep?" he asked quietly.

"No. Just getting comfy. Keep talking," she encouraged him.

He stroked the hair at her temple, smiling at her, as his stomach 
grumbled loudly, demanding their attention. They both laughed, 
and she started to get out of bed.

"I'll make you an omelet," she offered. She should have known 
he'd skip dinner in his rush to get back here. It was so typically 
Alex.

He shook his head no and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, 
heading for the dresser. As he pulled on the bottom half of a set of 
pajamas, he handed her the top.

"Mrs. Krycek, you are an amazing woman, but God love you, 
you're a terrible cook. I'll make myself one. Are you hungry too?"

She stuck her tongue out at him and he chuckled. "No, but I'll 
make the toast for you. I think I can manage that."

As corny as it was, she loved being with him in the kitchen as he 
cooked. He puttered from fridge to counter, humming to himself a 
little, brushing against her on purpose and dropping a kiss onto the 
roots of her hair as he jostled her. Once she placed the bread into 
the toaster, she hoisted herself up onto the counter and watched 
him as he gathered up ingredients.

Lord, he was a beautiful man. His face, which had been honed 
down by stress to sharper angles over the last few years, was still 
classically elegant. When she first met him, she had thought he 
was almost pretty, but the masculine air of his manner 
overpowered the femininity of his features. And that addictive 
body; it took most of her self-control not to touch it constantly. 
Long and lean, like a statue carved out of alabaster. She worried 
about the lost weight from his most recent incarceration, but knew, 
with time and hard work, he would be back to his normal fighting 
shape. Alex always recovered more quickly than she thought he 
would from his all-too-frequent injuries.

"Do I pass inspection?" he teased.

"Mmm...oh yeah. So how'd you get out of prison?"

He sighed, avoiding her eyes as he cracked the eggs against the 
metal bowl one-handed. "Marita came and got me released. 
Spender sent her, she didn't come on her own," he finished hastily, 
fully cognizant of the fact that Kim despised Marita.

Just because they both had had to take lovers to get closer to the 
truth didn't mean she had to like the idea. Alex was just as bad; the 
idea of her brief liaison with Walter Skinner had gotten his blood 
boiling. It was one of the reasons he'd injected Mr. Skinner with 
the nanocytes in the first place; although she'd disagreed, he'd said 
he'd rather manipulate the AD that way than by dangling her in 
front of him.

He handed her the bowl, setting it on her lap, and got a whisk out 
of the drawer next to her. "Hold this," he requested as he beat the 
eggs.

"What does he want, Alex? I thought this was just about over. 
Actually I thought Spender was dead by now. Scully had said he 
was fatally ill."

"I'm not sure. I'll find out in the morning when I meet with him. 
Has anything been going on with Mulder and Scully?"

Her role in the business side of their relationship was to keep him 
abreast of any Syndicate business the two Agents might be poking 
their noses in. So she culled out the reports of aliens from the other 
mystical mumbo-jumbo they dealt with, memorizing verbatim the 
information she was only supposed to type and file, and passed it 
on to him.

"Not lately. They've had this auditor going over their files for the 
last week or so. It's been pretty amusing watching them justify all 
their expenses on their cases. And of course, this guy is looking at 
them like they're out of their minds."

Laughing, he got a knife out of the drawer. "You mean, the 'c'mon, 
aliens?' look?"

"That's the one."

He was having difficulty both chopping the green pepper and 
keeping the cutting board steady since he wasn't wearing his 
prosthetic, so Kim slid off the counter and stood behind him, her 
left arm reaching out to hold the wooden board for him, in place of 
his.

When he finished cutting, she lifted the board and he scraped the 
vegetable into the egg mixture, held the bowl again while he 
stirred, then dumped all of it into the waiting frying pan. He'd been 
devastated when he lost his arm, sending himself into a tailspin of 
regret and humiliation, but she had found ways, such as this one, to 
help him without making him feel like less of a man. She kissed 
him on the shoulder blade when they were done, and he lifted her 
back onto the counter, standing between the shelter of her legs.

"Thank you," he said around the gentle smile on his face.

"You're welcome. Anyway, I think they went to Washington or 
Oregon today. I can confirm that tomorrow when I get in to work. 
They might have gone back to the place where they had their first 
abduction case, I think."

Alex digested that tidbit. "Could be related. I'll contact you when I 
know more." He stirred the eggs, gazing at the pan in a thoughtful 
manner. "Kim, I think I'm going to have to kill Spender. It may be 
time."

Six years ago, a sentence like that would have horrified her. But 
that was then, and this was now. One thing Kim Krycek had 
learned about herself since she'd met, fell in love, and married this 
man in less than a day, was that there was no limit to what she'd do 
to be with him.

So she didn't argue the point. "Be careful, Alex," was her only 
response.

He brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers, and moved from 
her to get a plate, still lost in thought. "He set me up so I'd be 
thrown in jail, and now he pulls me out, expecting me to be 
grateful and therefore willing to do his dirty work. Enough is 
enough."

While the omelet sizzled and thickened into shape, she leaned her 
head into the crook of his neck, sniffing that Alex smell that 
belonged solely to him. In turn, he shifted his body a little closer to 
her between her legs, lifting the egg mixture at the edges with the 
spatula, and silently encouraging her to keep touching him. So she 
lifted her hand to the back of his head, running her fingers through 
his dark hair, trailing her fingers along his nape, until his 
concentration broke away from his thoughts and his cooking and 
he kissed her, hard.

When he pulled away from her mouth with a sigh, she stifled a 
giggle as she glanced at the wall clock behind them. Fifteen 
seconds. It had taken her fifteen seconds to distract him from his 
task. Surely she could do better than that next time.

"Do you think we could be getting near the end?" she asked as he 
slid the omelet from the pan to the plate.

"I don't know," he said honestly, tugging her off the counter to join 
him at the table. He glanced at her as he sat and started to eat. 
"Why? Do you want us to get out?"

That wasn't a yes or no answer, and Kim wanted to get him fed 
before she headed the conversation in this direction. So she 
shrugged and waved her hand at him. "Eat that before it gets cold. 
I'll butter your toast."

He was clearly too hungry to argue, so he chewed quickly in 
silence. When his plate was clean, he pushed it to the side and took 
her hand, pulling on it so she moved over to his lap.

"Do you want us to get out, sweetheart?" he repeated, ready to pick 
up right where they left off.

She stroked his cheek. "I want a lot of things. For you to be safe, 
for this to be finished, for us to be a family, and for us not to have 
to hide anymore."

Steady green eyes met hers. He had to know which one she wanted 
the most, just by the way she had tossed it nonchalantly in the 
middle. "We are a family, Kim."

"I know we are. But isn't it time to..." She paused out of a small 
sense of fear. She hadn't really considered this before, but what if 
Alex didn't want to have children? They'd gotten married so fast, 
and the timing was obviously not good during all this madness, but 
lately Kim had heard her biological clock ticking. Loudly. And this 
too-long time that he'd been away just made it worse. If he had 
been killed, then she'd have had nothing. Nothing of him left to 
hold onto, and it had shaken her to her foundation.

"Do you want to have a baby?" His voice was raw, and she looked 
at him in surprise. Normally she could read all of his looks, but this 
one confused her.

"Yes." She could have wavered, or evaded the question, but that 
wouldn't have been who she was, or what they shared. This was 
the only place in the world where each of them trusted someone 
implicitly. "Do you?"

He was silent for a moment, his gaze unfocused. Then he gave a 
laugh and kissed her shoulder, squeezing her to him. "I never really 
thought about it in-depth before. I mean, I did picture it of course, 
how glorious you'd look pregnant, what any child of ours would be 
like, but I guess it just seemed so far away I didn't get much farther 
than that in my thoughts. It didn't seem fair to want to bring 
another life into the world when the future was so uncertain." Then 
he met her blue eyes with his green ones, and the joy and the love 
radiated off of him like a physical wave. "But yes, I want to have 
children with you, Kim. Lots and lots of red-haired little kids 
running under our feet. We just have to get to the end of the line 
before we take that step, okay?"


"Okay." Her eyes slid away from his so he wouldn't see the 
glimmer of disappointment in them. He cupped her chin with his 
fingers until she looked back at him.

"We're almost there, honey. I'll find a way to make it happen. I 
promise."

Of course she believed him. He'd never, ever not kept a promise he 
made to her. It wasn't a phrase he used lightly, so when he did, it 
carried all the meaning which he intended.

"Okay." This time she kept her gaze steady on his, satisfied for real 
now, until he smiled and lifted her easily onto the edge of the table. 
He perched forward on his chair, and she spread her legs so her 
feet rested on either side of his thighs. He made quick work of the 
buttons of her pajama top, sliding it off with a still-hungry look on 
his face.

"Time for dessert," he said with a knowing leer in his voice. 
Another welcome-home ritual they shared.

She leaned back against the wooden table as he buried his head 
between her thighs, kissing his way upward slowly. His tongue 
moved like a serpent against the sensitive inner part of her leg, 
making her moan and spread herself wider for him. When he 
finally reached her wetness, she was by then so ready, it didn't take 
long. He lapped at her like a cat luxuriously savoring a bowl of 
cream, sucking on her right there until she quivered and tightened 
and loosened, all in one fluid motion. She looked down at him, and 
his eyes, dark green with passion, watching her, pushed her right 
over the edge, where her brain spun deliriously and she cried out 
his name.

When she was still, he sat back onto the chair while sliding her 
bonelessly back onto his lap, and they kissed and kissed and 
kissed. She felt like she was dazed, floating in a sense of unreality, 
and soon ready for more, even as she came back down to earth.

"I think I'm hungrier than I thought," she purred in his ear, and he 
shifted under her, rocking himself against her until she stood up.

"Mmm...very tempting, but I want something else. Let's go back to 
bed, Kim."

She frowned, momentarily disappointed, but he took her hand and 
led them back into the other room, where he quickly got them into 
the position he wanted. Missionary wasn't an option for them 
unless he was wearing his arm, and she wasn't about to let him do 
that, even with the antibiotic cream she'd spread on him earlier. He 
needed to heal.

He spooned against her back, curling himself around her, and she 
lifted her leg so he'd have access. His fingers danced over her outer 
folds, sliding in and out, until she unconsciously rocked between 
his hand and his erection rubbing against her from behind. When 
she moaned and lifted her arms up to pull his head to hers, kissing 
him sloppily, he replaced his hand with his shaft and entered her in 
one clean thrust.

He paused briefly when he was all the way in, and it felt for a 
moment that he was melting into her, like molten lava deep inside. 
The rhythm he set was even slower than the first, smooth and deep. 
He kept up a constant stream of whispers in her ear as he plunged 
into her, words of love and desire and togetherness. His hand 
glided over her breasts down to her clit, and he stroked her where 
they were joined, gradually increasing the tempo of his thrusts 
until they both lost control and each gave in to their unquenchable 
need for the other.

When they came, his orgasm immediately following hers, he held 
onto her waist so tightly she couldn't breathe. She felt him rasping 
out shaky air against her neck, and his heart pounded against her 
shoulder blade.

"Welcome home, Alex," she murmured, when she could string 
words into sentences again.

He slid out of her, spent, and she rolled to face him. His forehead 
had little beads of sweat across it, but his expression was serene. 
Content.

"Thank you, honey. It's good to be back. Very good."

She wiped his brow and his eyes slipped shut. The exhaustion on 
his face that she'd seen when he first woke her up had returned. 
Now it was time for sleep, the last part of their ritual. So she curled 
him into her arms, where he nestled and soon dozed off, a small 
but euphoric smile on his face. As she felt the rhythms of his body 
at rest leading her in the same direction, she sent a quick thanks 
upwards for bringing him home to her, safe and sound.

+++++

TWO DAYS LATER

When Mulder stepped out of the office to talk to Scully privately in 
the hallway, Walter Skinner took the opportunity of the break in 
their discussions to review the situation and the other occupants 
left in the room.

Seven years ago, he'd been a Bureau man through and through. He 
followed the rules his entire career prior to that point, and had been 
rewarded handsomely for his loyalty and hard work, vaulting up 
the promotional ladder, until he reached the near-top and became 
the Assistant Director. But once Scully had joined the X Files, 
something inside him had begun to shift. As the years progressed, 
he'd found himself in predicaments and scenarios he'd never 
foreseen. And his proper behavior, his innate instincts about right 
and wrong, had blurred and been erased as he picked his way 
through each one. He realized, slowly, that he was beginning to 
believe, and now he may have reached the point where there was 
very little he wouldn't do to uncover the truth, once and for all.

And as a result of that, he currently found himself surrounded by a 
group of people that seven years ago, he would have never agreed 
to work with in any capacity, unofficially or officially. On either 
side of him stood the three Lone Gunmen, noisily debating 
amongst themselves the pros and cons of various electronic 
equipment they would need to assemble for Mulder for this 
assignment. Across the conference table stood Marita Covarrubias, 
the icy blonde from the UN whom he knew had assisted Mulder 
occasionally in his quest. She wasn't as loyal to the X Files as his 
previous two secret contacts had been; her personal agenda 
remained a well-guarded secret, and Skinner took every piece of 
the puzzle she gave to Mulder with a cautious grain of salt.

Alex Krycek stood next to her, silent and brooding. To be on the 
same side as the murdering, traitorous bastard again was one of 
those earlier predicaments that Skinner didn't expect would ever 
occur. Their newly- minted partnership was tenuous, at best, and it 
was really only the threat of death from the nanocytes that had 
made Skinner agree to it. But he had, and now they were here. 
Skinner planned on keeping as close an eye on Krycek as possible, 
far closer than the one he would bestow on Marita. At least she 
hadn't killed anyone, not that he knew of, at any rate.

Skinner was curious about the relationship between those two. 
When they'd burst into his office earlier this afternoon, with Kim 
trailing helplessly behind them, he'd been shocked. He hadn't even 
known they knew each other before that instant. And as all four of 
them had stood in his office, he'd sensed something unstated, a 
secret connection that went beyond business.

It had been almost a kind of heat, a sexual heat. The oddest part of 
that moment as the four of them had all frozen into almost a 
tableau, was that he wasn't 100% certain that it was due to Krycek 
and the blond woman. For one fleeting second, he imagined that 
the intimate connection was between his secretary and his former 
subordinate. But that hadn't made any sense, and Skinner had 
brushed aside the wild thought.

Looking back on the scene in his mind's eye, he recalled that Kim, 
facing Skinner and behind the two uninvited visitors, had glared at 
Marita's back with blatant disgust. That had been unusual, since 
she normally kept her feelings hidden from public scrutiny, but 
Skinner knew that his admin was keenly aware of what truly lay 
within the X Files, and he assumed she mistrusted the woman's 
disingenuous assistance as much as he did. Kim's gaze had shifted 
briefly to Krycek, her face blander and cooler, before looking to 
her boss with a more open questioning look on her face. "What 
would you like me to do, sir?" had been the only words she'd 
spoken. At the time he'd dismissed her, and proceeded with the 
impromptu meeting.

He refocused on the moment yet again, recalling the shadowed, 
unreadable look Kim had shot at Krycek's back. Skinner suddenly 
remembered the only other time he'd ever seen them together, the 
first day the new Agent had been assigned to his jurisdiction. 
When Skinner had stepped out of his office, Krycek had been 
leaning against her desk, on her side of it, far too physically close 
to her for a business discussion. From the animated looks on their 
faces, it had been clear they'd been flirting, and both enjoying it 
immensely. But as Skinner had made his presence known, they had 
slipped quickly back into professional mode, and that had been 
that.

He didn't think she had had any further contact with him, since 
Krycek and Mulder had immediately been sent out of town on the 
Augustus Cole fiasco and then, after the Duane Barry incident and 
Scully's kidnapping, Krycek had left the Bureau and gone 
renegade. Skinner couldn't think of another single instance he'd 
seen Kim and Krycek together in the same room after that one 
time; for that matter, even on the same floor of the Hoover 
Building. So an involvement between the two seemed impossible. 
It had taken he himself seven years of working side-by-side with 
her daily before their own relationship moved temporarily to 
another level.

As Scully and Mulder extended their discussion outside, Skinner 
continued to reflect on his admin. They'd been lovers for a brief 
time four years ago, but it had ended soon after it started, with no 
regrets on either side. It had occurred soon after Sharon's senseless 
murder, and Skinner had found himself adrift and achingly lonely 
without his wife. He'd never wanted the divorce, and the guilt that 
ate at him for being indirectly responsible for her death had 
propelled him into Kim's arms, he saw in hindsight. He'd never 
quite understood why she had been a willing participant in that; 
until they found themselves in bed together, he'd always assumed 
she had someone significant in her life. There had been so many 
mornings when she had strolled into his office with such a satiated 
look in her eye, her lips seemingly swollen from endless kissing, 
that he had assumed she was a woman deeply cherished by some 
unidentified man.

But she wasn't married, or at least she didn't wear a ring in the 
office, let alone mention anyone important in her life. On the other 
hand, neither had he until it was too late, and he wasn't married 
anymore. So he hadn't pressed the issue. During their short affair, 
he'd never been to Kim's apartment; she always came to his. 
Willingly, without discussion. And there they had made gentle 
love as if there was no tomorrow, which back then he had believed 
might truly be the case. It had been during that time together that 
he had discovered her awareness about the covert nature of the X 
Files, and he'd heard himself confiding details not found in the 
reports she typed up for him. Thankfully she was as loyal a 
creature as he was; she'd never let their pillow talk extend beyond 
his bed, even after the liaison was over, for which he was greatly 
appreciative. The information he'd imparted to her, in the wrong 
hands, could have been extremely damaging to Mulder and 
Scully's quest.

For example, in the hands of the man in black standing across the 
room from him now. If Krycek had ever learned those same 
secrets, he'd have used them to his advantage without a hitch in his 
stride. When Skinner recalled the time frame of his affair with 
Kim, he remembered that it was during it that Krycek had 
abandoned Mulder in Russia. Imagine what would have happened 
if he'd known why Mulder was there in the first place, Skinner 
thought to himself with a inward sigh of relief. That could have 
ended the situation even more disastrously than it did.

The door opening at the end of the office caught everyone's 
attention. But it wasn't Mulder and Scully, as they had all 
expected, and quickly the occupants turned back to whatever they 
were doing as Kim closed the door behind her and threaded her 
way through the small crowd to Skinner. As a part of the personnel 
staff, and not an Agent, her role, by the sheer nature of it, moved 
her to the background. Very little notice was normally paid to her, 
except by himself, since she was integral to the success of his 
work.

While she approached him, Skinner caught in his peripheral vision 
that he wasn't the only one who was paying studious attention to 
her presence. Krycek's eyes had lifted from the maps on the table 
to her face, his expression blank but intense. She, in turn, kept her 
eyes on Skinner, ignoring everyone else.

"Sir, here are the faxes you requested. They just came in."

She handed him a folder, and as she did, he shifted his body so he 
stood between her and the table, blocking Krycek's view. 
Something about the man's unwavering focus was raising Skinner's 
hackles, and until he could figure out what it was, he intended to 
keep her as far away from the traitor as possible.

"Thank you. I'd like you to make travel arrangements for a trip to 
Bellefleur Oregon. Book two tickets, one way, leaving tonight. I'll 
contact you with return dates once I've assessed the situation."

Her eyebrow lifted. "Yes, sir. In whose names?"

"Mulder and myself."

She seemed both confused and relieved, but she merely nodded at 
him and turned to leave. As she did, Skinner watched her eyes as 
they slid curiously and momentarily in Krycek's direction while 
she continued her path toward the door, leaving without further 
ado.

He started to muse on that further, when Mulder and Scully re-
entered the room, and they all went back to work. In the back of 
his head, as he listened to Mulder explain to them all his plan for 
locating the alleged alien craft, he kept a snapshot of the look that 
had passed between Kim Cook and Alex Krycek. Perhaps he had 
been mistaken about what did or didn't exist between them, but 
now was not the time to start an investigation.

But start one he would. Eventually.

+++++

LATER THAT NIGHT

Kim paced the living room, near frantic with worry.

The only real contact she'd had with Alex all day was his brief 
phone call that morning, asking her to distract the guards so he 
could enter the Hoover building. He hadn't explained, and she 
hadn't asked for details. So she'd been shocked when he had blown 
into her office soon after with that horrid woman, and not in 
disguise, as he had other times she'd smuggled him in.

But she'd put on her work face, and carried on as usual. She 
thought she'd gotten away with it, until Mr. Skinner had stopped by 
her office after the meeting in his had broken up. By his remote 
and slightly distrustful attitude toward her, she knew something 
was wrong. Ever since she'd taken him to bed to find out what he 
knew about the possible vaccine in Russia, he'd always treated her 
as an equal, as if they were in on this together. But the cold 
shoulder he'd given her this afternoon sent a corresponding brisk 
chill down her spine.

He knew. Or at the very least, he suspected. How had either she or 
Alex given their secret away? They hadn't even spoken, and she'd 
only given him a brief sideways glance, positive her expression 
had been blank as she did it.

Not that it really mattered, at this point. What was done was done, 
and now was time for damage control. She only hoped that by 
telling Alex about it, she wasn't causing Walter Skinner extreme 
physical anguish. She had enormous respect for him, and although 
she never had any romantic interest in him even when they had 
been lovers, she did care for him, in a way she could never explain 
fully to anyone, least of all herself.

On the other hand, maybe what had happened in Oregon tonight 
was going to take precedence in his mind, and the more 
extraordinary events would push what he might have seen or not 
seen between her and Alex to the back of his memory, until it was 
forgotten entirely. At this point, he certainly had bigger fish to fry.

He hadn't told her directly, especially not after today's troubling 
coolness, but she heard the stunned disbelief weaving through his 
voice when he had called her this evening, requesting 
arrangements for a return ticket back to DC.

Only one ticket. For himself. She didn't need to ask where Mulder 
was; she knew, even if Walter Skinner was fighting hard against 
accepting it.

Mulder had been abducted by the aliens. It was the only possible 
conclusion to draw.

So she paced, waiting for Alex to come home so she could tell him 
what had happened and they could figure out what to do next. She 
didn't have any ideas, and she'd been turning it over in her mind for 
hours. But he would have at least one or two; he always had a 
back-up plan.

When she finally heard the lock on the door unbolt, Kim nearly 
wept with relief. Her emotion flipped to one of concern as she 
studied his face. It was frozen, black with rage, so she stepped 
toward him cautiously.

"Alex?"

He didn't even flick his gaze in her direction as he strode down the 
hallway, shrugging his jacket off as he walked. "I need a bath" was 
his only terse comment.

She followed him, her stomach sinking to her feet. He'd killed 
someone today; he always jumped into the tub immediately when 
that happened. And until he felt clean again, he wasn't in any shape 
to talk. So she shoved her worries aside and helped him prepare his 
ritualistic bath, turning on the water, pouring capfuls of bubble 
beads into the bottom of the tub, while he began to strip off his 
clothes.

His only request when she had been looking for an apartment for 
them at the beginning of their marriage had been that the bathroom 
have a large claw-foot tub, not a shower stall only, and she had 
looked long and hard before she settled on this place. She'd 
selected their home entirely based on the bathtub, because it was 
large enough for both of them to lay in it, either due to this 
necessary habit or simply when they wanted to make love.

It was odd, but it was this particular ritual that made her wish the 
most that there was someone she could confide in about their 
relationship. A girlfriend like Holly maybe, to whom she could 
say, 'listen to this, how the allegedly ruthless assassin soaks in a 
bubble bath after he's committed murder, not to relish his victory, 
but to cleanse his soul'. It was one of the intricate contradictions 
about him that she loved. He had explained to her that in order to 
do what he had to do, he had to go to a very dark, very cold place 
within himself. A place where he didn't even feel human. When his 
job was complete, he needed the soothing sensation of water 
sloshing against the enamel and around himself to come back to 
what was real, to help him push the dark place back down.

"Do you want me to join you?" she asked. Sometimes he did, other 
deaths he preferred to wash away on his own.

"Please."

As the water ran, she aided him in undressing, watching his face 
carefully until his expression began to soften as she touched him. 
He was coming back to himself faster than other times, as if he felt 
less remorse over this particular death than prior ones. When 
Melissa Scully had been the inadvertent victim, he had sat 
unmoving in the water for hours, until the bubbles had all 
dissipated, and his skin had been as wrinkled as a prune. He had 
barely even acknowledged the fact that she had to pull him out and 
put him to bed, he'd been so lost within himself. It had taken her 
days to get him back to normal after that.

"Was it Spender?" she asked as she folded his sweater, smelling 
the cloyingly sweet perfume Marita wore lingering on it, and 
wrinkling her nose in automatic response.

"Yes." He paused. "And Marita."

Her hands stopped mid-air as she looked at him in surprise. While 
neither of them trusted her, Kim hadn't expected Alex would ever 
kill her. When he'd seen her at Fort Marlene the last time, severely 
weakened and brutalized by the tests, he'd simply left her to make 
her own escape, instead of taking a more active role in her demise. 
Not that he had cared for her in any way, especially after she had 
betrayed him so vindictively, but still not willing to permanently 
eliminate her.

Naked now, he started helping strip off her clothes, explaining, 
"She was an accomplice in Spender's death."

Kim didn't need him to finish, understanding why he'd done it 
instantly. He'd told her once that the only time a conspiracy truly 
survived was if all the members, save one, were dead. So when 
Marita had helped him with Spender, by the sheer nature of the act, 
she had to die as well. She then held a dangerous secret over his 
head, and with Marita being who she was, Kim knew she would 
have manipulated that situation to further her own ambitions. Alex 
knew that as well, and that was unacceptable. So now she was 
gone, and while Kim regretted the passing of a human life, she 
didn't give the woman herself another thought. Spender, she had 
already assumed was gone, and deservedly so.

He turned off the water when the tub was filled, while Kim 
finished folding her clothes and placing them on the pile of his. As 
they moved around the small space, he asked, "Did Skinner contact 
you yet from Oregon?"

She had wondered when she was going to get a chance to tell him. 
Now he'd taken the decision out of her hands. "Yes. Something bad 
happened there, too. He only wanted one return ticket for himself."

Suddenly Alex went very still, his back stiffening. He stood 
unmoving in the center of the bathroom, his expression clearly one 
of shock, and Kim grew increasingly alarmed as the minutes ticked 
by. Although there had been many unexpected developments in the 
course of the last six years of the X Files, Alex had rarely been 
rattled by them. In the beginning, as he was drawn deeper into the 
Syndicate, he'd certainly made mistakes, but as he learned more 
about the different areas that They controlled, those errors in 
judgment became fewer and fewer. By now, when something 
occurred that baffled Mulder and Scully, Alex took it in stride, 
half- expecting the situation before it happened. But it was clear 
this was a development he hadn't foreseen.

Finally he spoke. "If he's been taken, I think they may have 
accelerated the timetable. I'll look into it tomorrow. If it's true, then 
I'll have to get him back, and quickly." His eyes, which had been 
distant, refocused, and he gave her a curious look, as she slid into 
the tub and rested her back against the rear section. "What else 
happened today that I missed?"

"I think Mr. Skinner may suspect something about us."

This he absorbed more calmly, joining her in the water, and as he 
placed his body between her legs, he leaned back so he rested his 
back against her front. "Us? How?"

"I'm not sure. He was...aloof when the meeting broke up. He didn't 
say anything directly about it, but his manner was unusual, and it 
concerned me. But he was very shaken by what happened in 
Oregon when he called me tonight, so perhaps that will distract 
him enough."

"Perhaps. Try to find out more tomorrow."

She was both temporarily relieved that Alex wasn't prepared to use 
violence yet, and anxious about what would likely transpire when 
she probed into this with Mr. Skinner. But this bath wasn't for her 
release, it was for his. So she reached for the sponge and began to 
wash his chest, squeezing excess soapy water over his shoulders, 
caressing his skin with her hands while she did. He closed his eyes, 
tipping his head so it fell against her shoulder, and after a few 
minutes, she felt his body relax in her embrace.

"I may have to--"

He cut her off. "I know. Using the nanocytes will only confirm his 
suspicions. You...going to him will be the best approach, because it 
will throw him off the scent. I'd prefer a different method, but I 
can't think of one. I've got to concentrate on finding Mulder."

He leaned his head toward her neck, and licked upward to her ear, 
his voice shifting from a flat business tone to raw silk. "For 
tonight, let's just concentrate on each other. We're going to be busy 
in the days to come."

She looked at him then, and they smiled at each other. So she 
pushed the other thoughts aside, and focused on the sensations of 
his body against hers. Her hands, which had been gliding across 
his chest, slid down into the bubbles, and she stroked him, feeling 
him harden rapidly. He moaned, and moved his head so she could 
reach his neck, kissing a slow trail around, behind his ear, nuzzling 
his hair. After a few moments, he tried to reach behind him to do 
the same to her, but she murmured, "No. Let me."

As they kissed, and her hands continued their steady pressure on 
his engorged cock, they began to twist in the water, shifting until 
he was against the back of the tub. He slid up until he sat on the 
edge, his groin above the bubbles. On her knees, she splashed clear 
water on him to rinse away the soap. His eyes never left her face as 
she moved her mouth over him, running her tongue upwards along 
the vein on the underside. As she sucked on the tip, drawing him 
into her mouth slowly, his lone hand gripped the side of the tub to 
keep himself in place. His soft moans and whimpers as she brought 
him to the edge thrilled her, and she increased her rhythm a little 
faster, a little deeper.

She loved doing this to him, making him lose control and forget 
about everything but the feel of her mouth on him. Just as he often 
did to her. Soon he was thrusting himself into her, and she opened 
her throat and took him all the way in, as he breathed her name 
over and over, like a part of his exhalation process. An involuntary 
reaction. She looked up at him as her head bobbed up and down, 
and his eyes were closed, his head tilted against the tile of the wall, 
and a look of utter bliss on his face. She felt him expand and pulse 
against her tongue, and she knew he was close.

So she increased the suction, and within moments, he was jerking 
wildly into her, all restraint gone. Then she saw him and felt him 
and tasted him as he reached the peak, spasming and panting as he 
shivered, still murmuring her name with each shuddering breath. 
When the last of the tremors left his body, he opened his eyes and 
looked down at her with a beatific smile. All remnants of his 
earlier black mood had vanished, and she moved from him so he 
could slide back into the bubbles with her.

After a pause, while she watched as his pupils adjusted, and he 
came back to being fully being her Alex, his arm slid around her 
shoulders and he pulled her to him for a long, hot kiss, tasting 
himself on her tongue.

"Love you, Kim," he said against her lips.

She knew the work ahead of them would be long and difficult, but 
until then, she only wanted to be with him, and shut out everything 
else. With him, she would gain the strength she needed to get 
through the rest. And he would do the same with her.

+++++

THE NEXT EVENING

Walter Skinner sat on the couch in his office, his face in his hands. 
Upon his arrival back at Dulles, he had forced himself to keep 
moving forward, burying himself in his work and not allowing the 
thundering conflicts within his brain to control his thoughts or his 
actions. He'd nearly fallen apart in Scully's hospital room this 
afternoon, but he somehow had kept it together. Barely. And then 
she had stunned him even more with her news.

My God. She was pregnant. And the father of her child, the one 
who should have been the first person she told, was missing, 
disappearing right before his own eyes in Oregon.

Now that the day was over, and everyone had left the building, 
Walter was valiantly trying to face the truth. Not disappeared at all. 
Mulder had been abducted.

By aliens.

He thought he had believed, but until he saw the bright light lifting 
away from the ground, brilliant and blinding against the pitch-
black sky, he knew that a key piece of him had been holding out 
against the truth. Any of his previous understanding was so small 
in comparison to the enormity of the reality that he was 
diminished, defeated, by it.

He didn't know what to do, what to think. And the one person he 
wanted to ask was the one who had vanished into thin air, and 
created all this havoc in his mind. Mulder.

When he heard his office door open, pure instinct had him lift his 
hands to see who it was. Kim walked in quickly, heading straight 
to his desk with a handful of folders, but stopped short when she 
saw him at his perch on the edge of the couch cushion.

"I'm sorry sir, I didn't mean to disturb you. I thought you were 
gone for the day."

"Why are you still here at this hour?" He heard the curtness in his 
tone, but couldn't bring himself to soften the blow. He'd given 
more thought to the possibility of a relationship between her and 
Krycek during the plane trip to Oregon, and had had to admit to 
himself that he had no reason or proof to suspect her of anything, 
really, but after so many years of inexplicable events, anything 
seemed possible at times. So the sliver of doubt very well could 
have been a product of his overtaxed imagination.

She patted the pile she'd just placed on his blotter. "With 
everything happening today, I got behind on my typing, and I 
wanted to make sure you had everything you would need for all 
your meetings tomorrow." Her voice grew curious. "Sir? Are you 
okay?"

"I'm fine." A lie. He didn't think he would ever be fine again.

"Do you need me to do anything for you?" she asked gently, 
apparently unconvinced. His throat tightened, so he shook his head 
mutely and placed it back in his hands, hoping she would take that 
as a dismissal, certain that if he tried to speak, he wouldn't be able 
to stop himself from breaking down completely.

After a moment, listening for his door to creak as she left, he 
instead felt a soft hand sweeping across his scalp, and he looked 
back up in surprise. Kim stood over him, her eyes grave and kind. 
He'd tossed his glasses onto the side table when he'd collapsed onto 
the couch, so she was a little blurry in his vision.

"You don't seem fine, Walter," she said in that same gentle tone. 
"I've never seen you look more distraught. Please tell me what I 
can do to help you."

Walter. She had only called him that during their affair, and then 
only in bed. He continued looking at her, wondering. But she 
seemed sincere, and when her hand ran across his head again, he 
found himself speaking before he knew what he was doing.

"There's nothing anyone can do, Kim. Nothing at all." Was that 
even his voice, sounding so puny and conquered?

"Don't say that. You can't give up. Now is the time to fight, not 
withdraw into a shell."

In that instant, he realized that she had believed from the very 
beginning, and somehow had made her peace with it. That the 
terrible moment he was experiencing now was one she had already 
gone through, and she had emerged on the other side, unscathed.

"How did you do it?"

Her forehead furrowed. "Do what?"

"Accept this as the future."

She knelt suddenly in front of him, covering his hands, still cupped 
around his face, with hers. "It's not the future, Walter. Not if we 
fight hard enough." Her tone was fierce, but it gentled again before 
she continued. "It's a horrifying shock at first. To know. I was as 
terrified as you are now. But believing isn't the same as accepting. 
And you, of all people, just can't accept it and give up without a 
whimper. You have to fight, to make sure that future never 
happens, that we make our own, better one."

He knew she was right, and wished he could feel half of the 
conviction she did. Unbidden, the question popped out of his 
mouth.

"Did Alex teach you that?"

She looked stunned. "Alex who?...Alex Krycek?"

Simply by her incredulous tone, he suddenly realized how 
ridiculous his suspicion was. Kim Cook had been nothing but 
steadfastly loyal both to himself and the X Files since day one. 
Why on earth he had ever thought any differently based on the 
flimsy fact that she and Krycek had looked in each other's direction 
for a half-second as they both stood in the same room seemed 
insane to him now.

"Never mind," he muttered, mortified that he had even let the idea 
enter his mind.

"Walter." She paused until his eyes met hers again. "I learned that 
from you."

"From me?"

A smile played along the corners of her mouth. "I've watched you 
fight for many years, to allow Mulder and Scully the chance to get 
as far as they have. It's been a source of immense pride for me to 
help you in that. You're a warrior, Walter, a soldier in an invisible 
war. If you truly believe now, then that should spur you on to fight 
harder, not to surrender."

Her words were making a strange sort of sense, but somewhere in 
him they were getting lost among the other, more frightening 
memories and images of what had happened already, what could 
happen later. He tried to hold onto what she was saying, but all he 
felt was despair drowning them out.

As she continued to kneel close to him, her hands still on his, he 
could feel the last of his control ebbing away. He closed his eyes, 
trying to find his center again, his strength, when he felt her hands 
leave his and reach around his neck, pulling her to him.

"It's okay, Walter," she whispered. "You can let go."

<Let go.> Her soft words traveled through him like a wing on an 
arrow, piercing his resistance, and shattering the final thin shell of 
his soul. He felt her hands caressing him, silently encouraging him 
to do what he so badly wanted to act on. So he followed her order, 
switching roles with her for once, and his arms slid around her as 
he buried his head into her neck and he cried.

As he wept, letting the pulsing, terrifying emotions that had 
stormed within him for so long take over his free will, his body felt 
the physical comfort she was providing. The warmth of her skin at 
her neck, the curves of her body pressed between his chest and his 
arms, her hands stroking his head and shoulders steadily, her 
breathy, soothing whispers in his ear.

A still-vivid memory suddenly emerged of his wife. Sharon, 
standing in the middle of his tiny rental house after he'd been 
removed from the Bureau, her red coat like a flag of betrayal. She 
had tried to comfort him then, to help him through what at the time 
was the lowest he'd ever sunk, and he'd pushed her away. If he'd 
only relented, then she would still be alive. She'd died in the car 
accident that occurred immediately after leaving his house.

He burrowed his head deeper into her neck, murmuring, "M'so 
sorry, honey," not even realizing that it was a different woman this 
time in his arms. She shushed him, and held him tighter. And then 
somehow they were kissing, tongues and lips melting together, and 
the pain and the loneliness drifted away, replaced by heat and 
softness and need. God, he'd missed her so much, her absence felt 
like a physical blow to his chest. His hand slid from her back to 
cup her breast through the silkiness of her blouse, and it felt 
different, firmer and larger.

Opening his eyes, his vision focused onto Kim. He reeled, aghast, 
as his brain cells recorded that it wasn't Sharon embracing him. 
How could he have mistaken the two? How could he have taken 
advantage of her innocent desire to ease his pain?

"Kim, I..."

He was cut off when she kissed him, deep and demanding, and he 
could only respond in kind. Before, it had only been gentle, never 
out of control. But this woman ravishing his mouth, she was 
igniting a fire in him that was going to burn hot and fast. Within 
seconds, all his problems and worries evaporated, and Walter 
simply surrendered to the physical. Total primal hunger enveloped 
his mind.

He squeezed her breast in one hand while the other slid down the 
curve of her buttocks to the hem of her skirt. When it glided under 
the fabric, lifting it upward, his fingers recognized a garter belt at 
the end of a stocking and he groaned, pulling away from her to 
catch his breath. She dipped her head to his neck, licking and 
kissing and even biting a little, while her hands dropped to his lap 
and she stroked him through his pants, making him even harder, 
even crazier, than he thought was humanly possible.

When his hand continued its upward journey, and he discovered 
that her wet heat was uncovered, that she wasn't wearing any 
panties, the firestorm in him raged that much hotter. He plunged 
his finger into her, and the feel of her flesh around his digit 
instantly recalled for him how incredible she had felt when they 
had made love. He needed to be in her, now, with a depth of 
passion he hadn't experienced in years, not since his wife.

She must have recognized that need innately, for she pulled away 
and lay back onto the carpet, her skirt hiked up to her waist and her 
legs apart, brazenly exposed to him. For a moment, he simply 
stared at the jarring yet alluringly vibrant contrast of her red pubic 
hair and moist pink flesh against the professional confines of his 
office, and his latent sense of decency tried to slow him down. But 
she beckoned him with a lift of her hips, narrowing his entire 
universe to between her legs, and murmured one word.

"Walter."

Later, when he tried to remember what had happened, he found 
that large passages of time were missing. He recalled slamming 
into her mindlessly, burying himself in her up to the hilt, her hands 
digging into his back and his ass to spur him on even faster, her 
back arching and her clenching around him, drawing him in more 
firmly. But he couldn't recall exactly when she'd come or even the 
moment when he had. It had all passed by in a blur of needy 
desperation.

And when he was drained, his head crashed against her neck, 
slowly beginning to realize they were both fully clothed and in his 
office, for God's sakes, he remembered that she had lifted his head 
with her hands, wiped the last of the drying tears from his cheeks, 
and pressed her lips to his forehead, as almost a gesture of 
farewell. Then they had separated, and as she adjusted her clothing 
to go back outside, he saw a small smile of satisfaction on her face.

"Now you're ready to fight again," she had said, and he understood 
what she had done, and he was humbled by her generosity and 
faith in him. She had walked him through the fire of belief, and he 
no longer was afraid of the future. By allowing him to indulge in 
what is the most basic of all physical acts, she had helped him find 
his strength again. He knew that this was not the beginning of 
another affair between them, but simply a solitary act of human 
compassion.

From that moment on, he dismissed the idea of her being with 
Krycek entirely. He was far too inhuman and monstrously evil to 
ever appreciate a woman as incredible as Kim.

+++++

FIVE MONTHS LATER

Alex looked over the papers spread across the table, very worried. 
After months of fruitless searching, flying all over the country and 
the globe to inspect former bee farms, test facilities, and secret 
laboratories, his anxiety was about at peak level.

Nothing. Not one scrap of evidence that Mulder or any of the 
groups of abductees had ever been at any of them. Now he was 
following endless paper trails, but still coming up short at each 
dead end.

Time was running out, as more groups were beginning to 
disappear. Kim had relayed prompt information about each one to 
him, and the worry that tightened her features was as palpable as 
his. He had been correct; after the destruction of the ship in 
Antarctica, and the problems caused by the Rebel resistance, the 
aliens had shifted the timetable up by twenty years, an event for 
which the Syndicate, back when it had reigned, had not made 
accommodations.

But Alex knew that such large groups of people could not feasibly 
be in outer space. There was still too much work to be done on the 
alien's side before that became an possibility, so they had to have 
transported the abductees to some location on Earth, where they 
were keeping them hidden from all prying eyes. If he could find it, 
then he could destroy it, and leave the aliens with nothing. Then, as 
he had promised his wife, it really would be over.

The problem was, he couldn't find it.

He sifted through a stack of papers on his right again. Lists of 
warehouses owned by the Syndicate, which they had used in 
rotation to store supplies, switching from one to the other in no 
particular pattern, so as not to cast suspicion on what was held in 
them. Alex had been to each place personally on the lists, and 
found them all vacant.

As he felt Kim's hands on his shoulders, he tiredly leaned back into 
the dining room chair.

"Any luck?" she asked.

"None. I'm starting to feel like a hamster on a wheel, running 
around in circles."

"Scully and Mr. Skinner are having the same frustration."

That, Alex didn't doubt for a minute. Without Mulder or Spender 
or Marita, the two remaining Bureau officials had almost no 
contacts within the few remaining players in the Syndicate. It had 
taken Alex himself a lot of money and a lot of cajoling to get the 
papers sitting in front of him.

Kim kissed the top of his hair. "Want a shoulder rub to maybe 
clear your head a little?"

He lolled back so he could look at her, his smile enormous. "You 
have to ask?"

She laughed, and her fingers began to dig into the tight muscles in 
his shoulders. Alex let his head droop, closing his eyes, and his 
mind gradually emptied. One of the very pleasant side benefits of 
using his home for work was that situations just like this could 
occur. He doubted if he'd stayed at the Bureau or worked in an 
office as a desk jockey, anyone would massage him when he was 
as tense as this.

Her hands moved methodically; as each section under her 
ministrations loosened, she shifted to the next. Across his 
shoulders, down his one arm to his fingers, back up to his neck. By 
the time her hands reached his hair, rubbing his scalp, he was 
nearly floating, feeling lulled and happy and whatever had been 
eating at him was long gone.

When she finished, he pushed back his chair, and pulled her onto 
his lap, kissing her thoroughly until she laughed.

"So I helped, huh?"

"Very. Thank you."

She smiled, and glanced at the papers. "Maybe I could help with 
this."

"I wish you could. I just can't figure out where they've secreted so 
many people without anyone noticing. We're up to hundreds of 
missing people now, honey. Where the hell could they be without 
capturing anyone's attention?"

Kim mulled that over. "Well, let's think about this a different way 
for a minute. Where do groups of people congregate en masse 
already?"

"What do you mean?"

"In a normal situation, where do groups gather and remain 
unnoticed. For example, churches."

He got her point then, but didn't see how this would help. But he 
brainstormed with her anyways, since it certainly couldn't hurt.

"Shopping malls."

She grinned at him, and reached for a pad of paper and a pen, and 
started to write down their answers, which came out faster and 
faster as they got used to the pseudo-game.

"Schools."

"Hospitals."

"Office buildings."

"Prisons." That one earned her a grimace, but it earned him a peck 
on the cheek.

"Movie theaters."

"Ball parks."

"Amusement parks."

"Cruise ships."

Then they paused, looking at each other, waiting for the next idea 
to emerge. "Let me see the list," he said, something itching at the 
back of his brain. He scanned the words, then closed his eyes, 
trying to let the idea come to him.

When it hit, it struck like a lightning bolt. Prisons.

Specifically, the gulag in Russia.

"Honey, I think you did it," he said, and she looked pleased, while 
he reached across the table to grab at a farther, thinner stack of 
paper. He thumbed through it, found what he was looking for, and 
showed her the document.

The surveillance report described how the gulag from which he 
and Mulder had escaped had been shut down and abandoned after 
he had returned and stolen the vaccine and the boy. It had not been 
in use since then, but still it stood, its multiple cells and testing 
rooms intact.

She looked at him, her face pale. "You think he's there?"

"It makes sense. And the irony is just too overwhelming to brush 
off as coincidence. It's the last place anyone would consider. 
Remote and outdated, too."

She shuddered and he wrapped his arm around her waist. But she 
only said, "Be careful, Alex." He knew, above all else, that was 
what mattered to her.

All this time later, he was going back to the gulag. He knew Kim 
had to be badly frightened, so he suppressed his own shudder as 
the memories of what had happened there the first time returned. 
After a moment, he realized that her hands were around his face 
and her compassionate blue eyes were staring at him. So he 
regrouped and kissed her softly.

"Come back to me, Alex," she whispered against his mouth.

"I will," he promised.

A vow he intended to keep.

+++++

TWO DAYS LATER

Mulder sat in the corner of his cell, ignoring the sounds that 
clattered on the floors above him. For the most part, he tried to 
shut out the outside world, preferring to live in the happier 
memories that floated like smoke in his head. After five months of 
hearing tortured screams echoing against the walls, of being 
assaulted by probes and tests, of near total isolation, he was 
weakened to the point of thinking in childish, infantile terms.

They had broken him, in body and spirit.

He was only lucky that he had Scully with him this time. He 
looked down at her leaning against him, her eyes closed, and 
brushed his hand across her hair.

<Sleep, Scully. I won't let them wake you.>

The noises grew louder, and dimly Mulder recognized gunshots 
and running feet. Then a voice was shouting, growing louder as 
whomever was yelling approached his cellblock. The voice was 
raspy, and was calling his name.

"Mulder! Mulder! Mulder, if you can hear me, make a sound!"

Mulder clutched Scully's shoulder and pressed his lips tightly 
together. He didn't want anyone to upset her, and he knew the man 
was only searching for him to do more tests or something, because 
that was the only time he got to leave his cell. And those hurt. A 
lot.

Eventually his thick door opened, and a shadowy figure appeared 
in the entryway. In the wavering light, Mulder couldn't see who it 
was, but it didn't look like the beings who had been transporting 
him from his cell to the testing rooms. It was much taller than 
those things.

"Jesus, Mulder. Why didn't you answer me? Can't you talk?"

The man, a real human, stepped forward and crouched down, 
peering intently in his face.

"Mulder? Can you hear me?"

As he looked at the man, something came into focus out of the 
haze of his mind. He knew this man with the green eyes.

"Krycek?" he choked out, his throat scratchy after so long being 
quiet.

"Yeah, Mulder it's me. Time to get you out of here."

Krycek stood and held out his hand but Mulder shook his head, 
another faded memory crossing his cloudy mind. "You're just 
going to sell me out again."

A bittersweet laugh. "Not this time. Come on, we've got to hurry. 
They're starting to burn this place down, and we've got to get out 
before it blows."

Mulder looked up at him, and Krycek's face was bland. Not angry, 
not sneaky, not anything. "Why should I go with you?"

A sigh. "You don't have a choice. Don't argue, just put down that 
thing and let's go."

Thing?

He looked down at Scully, still sleeping, and nudged her. She'd 
know what to do.

"Scully, wake up. I have to ask you a question."

Krycek made a noise in the back of his throat, giving him an odd 
look. Then he bent back down and his voice was surprisingly 
gentle. "Mulder, that's not Scully. She's back at home and she's 
worried sick about you. She wants you to come with me so I can 
take you there."

"She's right here, Krycek!" What was he, blind?

Krycek's voice was still calm, soothing. "Mulder, did you have a 
cellmate in here?"

He nodded. When he first got here, but it hadn't been for very long. 
He had yelled and yelled and yelled, and then one day he woke up 
to find Scully sleeping on his lap. Then he didn't yell anymore. He 
didn't want to disturb her sleep.

"And did something happen to the cellmate?"

"He...he died. Too many tests on his brain."

"What did they do then?"

Mulder thought about that, squeezing his eyes shut. "Nothing. 
They just..."

<Left him here.>

He looked down at the figure in his arms, and finally saw the 
rotting corpse of his nameless cellmate. He froze, unable to fully 
grasp that the person he'd known in his heart was Scully wasn't her 
at all. After what seemed like an eternity, he watched Krycek's 
hand as he reached over and untangled Mulder's fingers from the 
dead man's hair matted with dried blood. Then he pushed the body 
aside, and lifted Mulder from under the arm to a standing position.

But Mulder couldn't stand. He'd been curled up in the corner for 
days, and his legs felt like boiled spaghetti. He started to fall, but 
Krycek leaned him against the wall, his human hand solidly 
against Mulder's chest to keep him erect.

"Can you walk?"

"Not...not really."

Krycek frowned, then his face smoothed as he apparently made a 
decision. "Don't fight me on this. I'm going to have to carry you."

Before he could protest, Krycek bent over toward Mulder's waist 
and lifted him onto his shoulder, his right arm over Mulder's hip to 
keep him from falling off. Scully wanted him to go with Krycek, 
and he wanted to make Scully happy. So Mulder went limp, like a 
rag doll, and closed his eyes.

In that position, he missed what was happening as they walked 
through the corridors, and the bodies, human and alien, that were 
everywhere. There were other men, dressed in black as Alex was, 
but they had sealed orifices on their faces. Rebel aliens that Alex 
had contacted to run this raid, his only condition being that he be 
allowed to bring Mulder out alive. The rest of the abductees, Alex 
couldn't concern himself with. He had enough burden as it was. 
More importantly, their deaths would ensure the aliens would be 
unable to proceed with colonization for a very long time, perhaps 
even forever.

By the time they reached the outside, where it was brighter but a 
lot colder, Mulder had started to collect his scattered wits, and he 
struggled against Krycek's shoulder. He felt himself flipping over 
again and when his feet touched the ground, he opened his eyes, 
looking at Krycek curiously. He could smell an oily, meaty smoke 
starting to seep from the building.

"What are they doing?"

"Destroying it. Once it's gone, then we can leave. I want to make 
sure that fucker's burned to the ground."

Mulder understood Krycek's vengeful tone. He hadn't exactly had a 
tea party there, either. His teeth chattered, and he realized he was 
cold, and that little puffs of air were appearing out his mouth when 
he breathed. He looked down at his feet, vaguely acknowledging 
he didn't have any shoes on. Krycek did, dark boots with no laces, 
but they were dirty. There was a black clump on the tip.

Suddenly the clump moved, and Mulder mutely watched as it slid 
up Krycek's pants leg. He followed its slow ascent up until it slid 
into the neck of his shirt and disappeared. Krycek didn't seem to 
notice, because he was too busy viewing the fire. He watched as 
the flames started to engulf the building, and Mulder could see the 
heat and light reflect off Krycek's cheekbones and shining eyes. 
Out of the corner of his vision, Mulder saw something wriggle on 
his neck. Something under Krycek's skin.

"What's that?" he asked, alarmed.

Alex's hand flew to where Mulder indicated, feeling the oily worm 
inching its way up to his face. He glanced down at his feet, and 
saw too late that he was standing in a long-forgotten pool of black 
oil. Whether it was vaccine or virus, he couldn't tell. Thankfully, 
Mulder didn't seem to be infected. In as steady a voice as he could 
manage, he said, "Mulder, I'm about to collapse. You have to get 
me out of here and back to DC. We have to go home. Okay, 
Mulder? Promise me."

The traumatized man nodded cautiously. "I'll try."

Alex's hand left his neck, where he had been trying to thwart the 
worm's movement, to firmly grasp Mulder's shoulder, in a futile 
attempt to shake reality back into him.

"Not try. You have to do this. Mulder, please. I saved you, now it's 
your turn to save me. PROMISE ME, MULDER!"

A firmer nod. "Okay. I promise."

As Mulder watched, Krycek's eyes began to glaze over with a 
filmy black oil, and his knees buckled, so Mulder tried to catch 
him before he fell. As he did, he heard Krycek whisper, "Kim..."

Then he was gone.

Mulder looked at him worriedly. He hoped Krycek would wake up 
soon, so he could tell him where home was.

Maybe he should ask one of those people with no faces standing 
over there.

+++++

FOUR DAYS LATER

Kim walked into the cafeteria of the Hoover building, keeping her 
face cast down. It had been a terrible weekend for her, full of 
strange, horrifying nightmares about Alex and aliens and grisly 
deaths. She'd barely slept two full hours at a stretch.

She made her way through the food line silently, in no mood to 
talk to any of the other secretaries in her department. Discussions 
of the latest movies they'd seen, or of their new boyfriends, would 
put her right over the edge. It was funny sometimes, the way they 
all took pity on her for being perpetually single, and often, one or 
the other, Holly mostly, would try to set her up on a blind date. But 
she wouldn't see any humor in it today, so she deliberately sat 
alone.

She was halfway through her meal when Holly came over and sat 
down in front of her, breathless and excited.

"Kim, have you heard the news?"

Kim shook her head. Mr. Skinner had been out of the office all 
morning without any word to her as to where he was or when he'd 
be back, and his cell phone was inexplicably turned off. Since the 
night she'd seduced him again, he'd dropped his distant demeanor, 
but thankfully he hadn't inquired into pursuing the affair any 
further. His unexplained absence today, though, was part of why 
she was feeling so unsettled.

"No. What happened?"

Holly leaned over, not wanting to look like the gossip she was. 
"Agent Mulder's back."

Her stomach clenched. Then why hadn't Alex returned? <Don't, 
Kim. Not yet.>

"Wow. Where was he?"

"Nobody knows. He came back on Saturday, I heard, and he's been 
in the hospital ever since. St. Luke's. I heard he was really out of it, 
and they think he might have gone crazy again. He was rambling 
about aliens and men with no faces." Holly rolled her eyes to 
indicate her disbelief, and Kim wanted to laugh at her innocence.

"Well, I hope he's going to be okay," she said conversationally.

"Oh sure, me too. Oh, and here's the best part. You'll never guess 
who he brought with him to the hospital."

"Who?" <God, please.>

Holly's eyes danced as she spilled her secret. "Alex Krycek. Do 
you remember him? God, he was so cute. Gorgeous eyes."

Kim felt a wave of relief run through her, and she bit the inside of 
her mouth to keep herself from grinning like a fool. <He was 
alive!>

"I remember him, Holly. But he's not exactly a guy you want to 
bring home to Mom."

<Actually, he was. Her mother adored Alex.>

Holly giggled. "Yeah, I know. But you know how those bad boys 
can just get you right in the gut. And he had that intense look, it 
just sent shivers down my spine. I remember, I couldn't help but 
think if that's how he'd look at a woman in bed, then she'd have to 
be the luckiest woman ever, to be the object of that focus and 
passion. It's a shame, really."

<Holly, you don't know the half of it.> "What is?"

"Oh, that's right, you don't know. Apparently, he's got some kind 
of weird infection. He's not expected to live. That's..."

Kim never heard the rest of the sentence, because she was running 
for the door.

+++++

THAT SAME DAY

Walter Skinner sat outside Krycek's room, waiting for Scully to 
finish her examination and come out to tell them the results. He 
understood that Krycek was dying, slowly but steadily. Whatever 
was filming his eyes was doing terrible damage to the rest of his 
body, and he was hanging on by a thread. How he'd made it this far 
was a miracle unto itself.

He stole a glance at Mulder sitting placidly beside him. Thank God 
he'd been returned, although no one knew how he and Krycek had 
ended up in DC or where they'd been before that. Now he just 
needed to come back to his normal self, and Walter could feel 
confident about the situation again. His progress uphill was as 
maddeningly slow as Krycek's was down. When he'd first arrived, 
he'd been a shell of his former self, unsure of what to do or say, 
acting in many ways like a child. His physical injuries were minor 
in comparison to the mental ones.

The only thing he'd been adamant about was that Scully take care 
of Krycek. "Make him wake up," he'd said firmly. And since then, 
Mulder had hovered over his isolation tent, watching him and 
talking nonsense to him occasionally. It had reminded Skinner of a 
big brother watching his new sibling sleeping in his crib. The 
fierce protectiveness Mulder was displaying toward his worst 
enemy was a sight to behold.

"When's she coming out?" he suddenly asked.

"Soon, Mulder. Just wait."

So they did. Eventually, the door opened, and Scully exited, a 
medical folder in her hand and her brow furrowed. Skinner stood 
up to give her his seat, and she sank down wearily on the bench 
beside Mulder, sending a grateful look up toward him before 
focusing on her partner.

"Mulder, can you remember what happened yet?"

He shook his head. "Not really. Just bits and pieces. Why?"

"I need to know how and where Krycek got infected. I want to help 
him wake up, and knowing this could help identify what's inside 
him."

He closed his eyes tightly, thinking. In the last few days, he'd 
flipped between the old Mulder and this more fragile one, and both 
Skinner and Scully tread very lightly around him. He still could 
turn on a dime.

"He was standing outside, watching the fire. And I saw a wriggly 
thing in his neck." He shivered, and Scully patted his hand 
reassuringly. "Wait. I remember when he fell down, I saw that he 
was on top of this black spot. His shoe was dirty."

Scully's voice was calm. "Do you remember where this was, 
Mulder?"

"Outside the bad place," he whispered, sounding as if he were 
almost in tears.

Scully sighed and wrapped her arms around him, rocking him a 
little until he relaxed.

"Okay, that's enough for now."

"Did he wake up yet, Scully?" he asked plaintively.

"No, not yet. He might not wake up. You have to be prepared for 
that possibility."

"What's wrong with him?"

She sighed again, and uncurled one arm from his shoulders, 
reaching for the file on her burgeoning lap. Then her eyes met 
Skinner's and she began speaking with him directly. They both 
hoped that if they took a more professional tone, maybe it would 
bring Mulder back to reality again. It had worked a couple of times 
already, before he reverted back to his prior, more immature state.

"His blood levels are all over the place. I can't identify the oil in his 
eyes, but we've seen it before, and it exists throughout his system. 
It may be extraterrestrial in origin. But it seems to be battling 
other, more human, components within his blood stream."

"What do you mean?" Skinner asked.

"When he first got here, he had an exceptionally high level of 
carbon in his system, which continued to rise every day. Then 
today, it's begun to drop dramatically, then shoots up again off the 
charts. I can't explain it. Moreover, the levels of the oil are 
dropping and rising in direct opposite proportion to the carbon."

"That's because the carbon is the vaccine. It's fighting the alien 
virus, the oil."

Both Scully and Skinner looked at Mulder in surprise. "How do 
you know that?" she asked cautiously.

"The man with no face told me. He said Krycek must have stepped 
in an old mixture of vaccine that the Russians were working on 
before..." Then he stopped, grinning, as a piece of the puzzle 
snapped into place. "I was at the gulag in Russia. I remembered, 
Scully!"

She patted his hand. "Yes you did. Good for you. Do you 
remember what else he said?"

Mulder paused, making that eyes-screwed-shut expression, but 
before he could answer, Skinner was distracted by the sound of 
running footsteps. He heard a breathless, vaguely familiar voice at 
the nurse's station and he turned his head at the woman's question.

"Excuse me, what room is Alex Krycek in?"

Skinner couldn't see the woman's face since she was on the other 
side of the station, so he began to walk toward her slowly, while 
also listening to the nurse's reply.

"I'm sorry ma'am, but only immediate family members are allowed 
to--"

"I'm his wife. Kim Krycek."

Skinner heard her say her name at the exact moment he saw her 
face. Both stopped him dead in his tracks.

My God. It was her.

He'd been absolutely right, there had been a connection between 
the two. But not one he'd ever imagined, even in his wildest flights 
of fancy. They were married?

Kim's eyes met his, and she looked at him silently for a long beat. 
She seemed to expect seeing him there. From behind him, he heard 
Mulder and Scully both rise and join him in the middle of the 
hallway.

"Kim!" Mulder cried out animatedly. "Krycek was talking about 
you."

She shifted her focus to Mulder as she walked closer. "What did he 
say, Agent Mulder?"

He shrugged. "Just your name. Then he fell down." He looked at 
his feet, shuffling them against the linoleum. "I'm sorry I didn't call 
you before to tell you. I just remembered it."

She hesitated, then she smiled as she picked up his chin with her 
hand. "It's okay. Did you bring him here?"

"Yes. He made me promise to bring him home."

Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn't cry. "Alex...Alex always 
keeps his promises. I'm glad to know you do the same. Thank 
you."

"You're welcome."

The two locked gazes for a moment, smiling, then Kim looked 
over at Scully. "I'm going to go in and see him first, then I'd like 
you to tell me what's wrong with him, please."

Skinner spoke for the first time since she'd arrived. "Only family 
members are allowed," he snapped. Now that he recognized her for 
a liar, he wasn't about to take anything she said on face value. He'd 
fallen for her fabrications one too many times as it was.

Her eyes blazed angrily. "I'm his wife. You are not my boss 
outside of the office, Mr. Skinner, and you are not keeping me 
from my husband when he's dying."

Scully interrupted. "Kim, I'm afraid AD Skinner is correct. I'm 
certain that you may think you have some kind of a relationship 
with Krycek, but there's no proof."

She shot a loaded look at all three of them, then dipped her hand 
into the purse on her shoulder, bringing up a piece of paper, and 
shoving it at Skinner's chest. He took it from her hand, and they 
studied the certificate. Alexander Krycek and Kimberly Cook, 
married in the Commonwealth of Virginia on August 2, 1994. It 
had an official-looking notarized seal at the bottom, just over their 
two signatures.

Skinner looked at the date again, then over at Mulder and Scully, 
who both seemed equally amazed.

"You married him the day he started working with me?" Mulder 
asked incredulously.

She smiled. "That night. A short courtship, but a long and happy 
marriage. We've been together ever since." Then her voice grew 
impatient. "So can I go see my husband now?"

Stunned, they all nodded in unison.

+++++

Kim took a deep breath, and stepped into the hospital room. On her 
frantic dash out of the Hoover building, it had dawned on her that 
Scully, Mulder and Mr. Skinner would most likely all be here, and 
she had prepared herself for that. She'd been terrified that she'd 
wasted too much time running home and getting their marriage 
certificate and some other things she thought she might have to use 
to get through to them, but she was glad as hell she had. One thing 
she'd learned working at the Bureau, is that proof was the 
cornerstone of their existence. None of them had any ability to 
accept something simply on faith.

Her heart stopped when she saw the isolation tent surrounding his 
bed, the various beeping machines on either side of him. She'd 
heard Holly say he had an unidentified infection, but it wasn't until 
this moment that she fully comprehended her words. She'd only 
been relieved then that he hadn't been shot, or was missing yet 
another limb.

He'd been infected with the alien virus. But this time it wasn't 
leaving his body out of his eyes and mouth, trying to return to the 
mother ship. This time it was killing him from the inside.

She and Alex had discussed the black oil many, many times. He 
had said that it wasn't really an oil or a virus; that it was actually 
the alien species' life force. Their blood, in a way. The vaccine that 
everyone had been working on was hopefully, two-fold. One, it 
was supposed to be designed to kill the life force, and two, it 
would create a carbon block to prevent the force from spreading 
too far within the body. The goal had been to create something that 
would handle both parts of the resistance; only the Russians had 
come close, and theirs consisted mainly of the carbon builder.

When she reached his bed, she willed herself not to cry when she 
saw him there, unconscious and so weakened and frail-looking. 
This wasn't her Alex. He never looked like that when he slept. And 
his veins were black, his skin mottled and grayish in color. The 
only thing she recognized as his was his mouth, the air slowly 
moving in and out, making his lips vibrate as if he were talking 
soundlessly. If she could lean her head close, she wondered if she 
could hear what he was trying to say. Was he breathing her name?

She looked over the tent again, and saw a set of attached gloves 
that went inside to where he lay, so the doctors and nurses could 
touch his body without exposing themselves to him directly. She 
placed her hand in one of them by his head, and brushed his hair 
off his damp forehead gently with the rubber glove.

"You did it, Alex. You came home," she said softly.

The door opened behind her, but she didn't tear her eyes away from 
him to see who was disturbing them. She simply kept stroking his 
head, and talking to him. There were things she wanted to say. 
That he needed to know, now more than ever.

"I'm so proud of you, honey. You did exactly what you told me 
from the beginning you were going to do. Mulder's back too, and 
he's going to be okay." She certainly hoped that was true, because 
she couldn't lie to him, even on his deathbed. "I love you so much, 
Alex. You're the best thing that ever happened to me."

Two machines to his right beeped suddenly, and she glanced over 
at them as Scully appeared out of nowhere, where she began to 
read the monitors. She looked surprised, as her gaze flickered from 
them to Alex and back.

"What's the matter?" Kim asked out of the corner of her mouth. If 
he could hear, she didn't want to upset him.

"Both the excessive carbon and the oil levels dropped slightly, in 
tandem this time. His own blood made a small gain in volume."

Kim moved her hand out of the glove, and faced Scully directly, 
shocked. "He's got both in his system?"

"Yes. Do you know what's causing this?"

Kim nodded, as understanding and joy flooded her nervous system. 
He might not die after all. He just had to fight, which he knew 
better than anyone how to do.

"He's got the Russian vaccine in him. It's a combination of a weak 
virus strain, and a carbon builder. They hadn't perfected it yet, 
which is why they kept a piece of the virus in it, but the idea was 
that if a person was infected by the black oil, the carbon would halt 
the progress of it, and that person would be able to resist being 
taken over by the aliens."

"Then why did both just drop?" she heard Mulder ask from behind 
her, clearly more alert than in the hall. Perhaps she hadn't lied to 
Alex about his condition after all.

"The problem with all the vaccines was that the two parts of them, 
the virus and the carbon, clog the blood vessels, and the body's 
own system can't work properly. So although the person might be 
able to resist total infection, they died anyways because the blood 
couldn't move from the heart to the organs, which is necessary to 
sustain human life. Alex's heart must have started pumping faster 
for some reason, and it pushed the foreign elements aside."

Scully nodded, reading the heart monitor. "That looks like it's 
correct, since his blood pressure increased temporarily. But it's 
gone back down now."

"You should keep talking to him. What you said must have made 
him excited, that's why his heart rate jumped. When I was in my 
coma, I could hear everything," Mulder chimed in. She looked 
over her shoulder at him in surprise, and she noticed without 
comment that Mr. Skinner stood silently beside him, just watching 
her with his stern, brooding look. Mulder's expression seemed 
sincere, and his eyes flickered back to Alex, where they stayed. It 
struck her then that Mulder wanted him to survive almost as much 
as she did. She'd wonder later on what on earth had happened 
between the two of them to change their relationship so 
significantly. Now she had to focus on her husband.

Kim leaned over the tent, placing her hand into the second glove, 
and squeezing his limp hand in hers. "Alex, you have to fight. 
Harder than you ever have. You can beat this, honey. You just 
have to concentrate." Her voice grew deliberately firm. "You've 
made me two promises, Alex, and I'm holding you to both of them. 
It's not good enough that you simply came home. Do you 
remember the other promise?"

She didn't want to say it in front of the others in the room. This 
was theirs, and six years of hiding their life away from the world 
made her hesitate. But when she glanced at the heart monitor, 
noting the lack of response, she knew she had no choice. So she 
took a deep breath and spoke with as much ferocity as she could 
muster.

"Alex Krycek, you promised me that we were going to have a 
family when this was all over. Well it's over now, and you have to 
keep your promise." Her voice broke, and she swallowed back her 
tears. It would be counter-productive for him to hear her cry. She 
knew how much it tore him up when she did.

"You're going to be such an amazing father, Alex. You've got so 
much love in you, and you can teach our children all the things you 
know how to do so well. Think about that. Picture yourself 
showing your son how to make your secret-recipe lasagna. I can't 
do it, you know what a horrible cook I am. You never would tell 
me what you put in that, but it's delicious. You have to pass that on 
to our children."

The heart monitor picked up a notch, and she knew she was on the 
right track. So she kept talking, exposing the secret facets of their 
life that until this very moment, had only been between them. He 
might be upset when he woke up that she had done it in public, but 
she didn't care in the slightest. If it was going to bring him all the 
way home to her, then she would do it.

She would do anything to be with him. Even shout it from the 
rooftops.

+++++

Alex heard Kim's voice fade in and out. Dimly he tried to think 
how she could have found him in Russia. Had Mulder, even in his 
shell-shocked state, gotten him out somehow?

He wanted to open his eyes, to see where he was, and figure out a 
way to get them out of this safely, but his lids wouldn't obey the 
command from his brain. He was tired, beyond any level of 
exhaustion he'd felt in the past. And his entire body ached with a 
sharp, pulsing pain. An agony that felt worse than the amputation. 
Eventually that had diminished; this was never-ending, seeming to 
throb harder with every heartbeat.

"...how you sneak your hand in when I'm not looking and eat all 
my popcorn at the movies..." he heard her say.

<I don't do that. You're too busy watching the screen to notice your 
own hand dipping in the bucket.>

"...can lie in bed between us on rainy Sunday mornings, reading 
the newspaper to him, and you can explain to him why Lucy is so 
determined never to let Charlie Brown kick that football..."

Him? He struggled to remember who she meant, and warmth 
seeped through him as he imagined their son in the position she 
just described. The pain faded, just a little.

<I want a daughter first. A miniature of you, with red hair and 
freckles across her nose.>

"...take him with us on vacation. I suppose we won't be able to stay 
in that bed-and-breakfast anymore up in the mountains, since they 
don't allow children. Do you remember the first time we stayed 
there, Alex?"

<We never left the room, or even the bed. It was our first 
anniversary. We wore nothing but our wedding rings, and huge 
smiles the entire time.>

"...build a fire on the beach, and teach him how to bury the clams 
in the sand with hot stones and seaweed, so they can steam open, 
fully cooked. And at night he'll fall asleep watching the fire, tucked 
into his sleeping bag, and we'll crawl into ours and make love 
quietly so we don't wake him up..."

<...and watch the sunrise in the morning over the water, still curled 
around each other. Just like we did on Nantucket that one 
memorable long weekend.>

Gradually, Alex began to piece together what she was doing. His 
mind flitted back, and rested on, what he'd heard she and Scully 
discussing. If he could outlast the internal struggle between the 
virus and the carbon, keeping his own blood coursing through his 
veins, then he would survive. And he knew he could do it. He just 
had to hang on long enough for the two to wipe each other out.

Then he could go home to his wife and they could start on the new 
chapter of their lives that both of them yearned for so badly. They 
could have the family, the future, he'd always wanted. He'd never 
been able to tell her that before she'd asked him when he returned 
from Africa. He didn't want to get her hopes up, in case he'd failed 
in his mission.

<Keep talking, honey. I can hear you.>

Alex focused all his efforts, his waning strength, on one goal. After 
what felt like forever, as she continued to talk, reminding him of 
all their shared moments of the last six years, both large and small, 
his lids fluttered. So he shut out her voice, and concentrated even 
harder.

Slowly, his eyes opened. Through a thin, shifting, black cloud, he 
could see her. Her red-gold hair framing her face, her blue eyes 
watching his, her sweet smile. The smile that was his. He watched 
as her hand lifted to rest against something transparent between 
them, something preventing her from touching him, as he ached to 
happen. His eyes shifted from her beautiful, unforgettable face to 
her hand, and he saw her wedding band flash in the overhead light.

<I love you, Kim.>

"I love you too, honey. Now close your eyes, and fight. Fight dirty 
if you have to, but fight to win. You have to come home to me. 
And don't forget the milk when you do."

As his lids flickered down again, a laugh bubbled in his chest, but 
it didn't make it out of his mouth. It stayed inside him, keeping him 
warm and secure. It gave him the strength, the power, he needed to 
win. Power comes from loving and being loved, he reminded 
himself. Because of her, he was a powerful man.

So he buckled down into himself, preparing for a long battle.

+++++

TWO DAYS LATER

Walter Skinner slipped through the hospital room door, not 
wanting to disturb the sleeping occupants, but taking this quiet 
moment to confront his feelings about the extraordinary situation. 
Perhaps if he watched them silently again, as he had the first day 
Kim had arrived, he'd come to some sense of understanding about 
it all.

He viewed the two of them with a pained eye. Krycek lay inertly 
on the bed, still unconscious. The levels of both things in his blood 
stream had lowered over the course of the last few days, but he 
wasn't cured yet. He still had a long way to go, if he was able to 
get there at all. A part of Skinner that he tried to deny wanted the 
man to die; when he'd first seen him lying there, he had recalled 
how he himself had looked when Krycek had implanted and 
activated the nanocytes in his blood. The resemblance between 
their two conditions was too similar to ignore. The veins, the skin. 
It had created a small sense of satisfaction in Skinner to see the 
man who'd done that to him going through the same type of pain 
and anguish.

Skinner's gaze shifted to Kim, dozing in the chair beside Krycek's 
bed. Her head leaned against her shoulder, and her legs were 
curled up in one arm on the seat. Her other arm was inside the 
glove, and she held her husband's hand, connecting with him even 
in slumber.

Her husband. His heart shattered from even thinking the word.

He had so many questions he wanted to ask her, he had actually 
debated making a list. How could she have married him the day 
she met him? How could she still love that monster after knowing 
all that he'd done? How could she have betrayed Skinner's own 
trust in her, and have helped Krycek all these years?

Skinner knew without question now that she must have told him 
what she'd gleaned from her position as his admin. It was the only 
explanation he could come up with to answer how Krycek had 
always ended up in the right place at the right time. She must have 
told him where Mulder and Scully were, and what they were 
working on.

But the biggest question he had, he could barely consider without 
wanting to weep. How could she have made love to him, both the 
first time years ago, and the last, in his office, when her heart 
clearly belonged to someone else? Why had she encouraged him 
that time, just months ago, to take her like that? At the time, he'd 
thought she was trying to help him; now he was horrified to admit 
that it had only been a way to distract him from uncovering the 
truth. He'd fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.

She stirred, her eyes opening and automatically first going to the 
man in the bed. After a moment, she rolled her neck, catching sight 
of him standing across the room. Her back stiffened, as she 
unfolded her body from its position on the chair. Looking at him, 
she stood up and made her way to where he was, her arms wrapped 
around her chest in a defensive position. This was the first 
opportunity they'd had to be alone since she arrived.

"Did you need something, sir?" she asked placidly.

Sir. He wanted to laugh at her still-polite demeanor, behaving as if 
nothing had changed between them. His entire universe had been 
altered irrevocably. She had worked for him for eleven years, and 
had lied to him for more than half that time. He realized he was 
angry, so he let himself act on it. The bile that churned in his 
stomach and throat was so bitter, his mouth tasted like he was 
chewing tinfoil.

"I'll expect your resignation letter on my desk as soon as you return 
to work, Mrs. Krycek," he said coldly.

Her eyes widened, and she matched his tone, only a few degrees 
less chilly. "Why? I haven't done anything wrong."

"You're married to a fugitive from the law. A known criminal."

"Being married isn't illegal. Quite the opposite."

Stubbornly, he said, "But passing classified information is."

"Prove it," she spit. "I'll bet you don't find one shred of evidence to 
support your accusation. And as we both know very well, the 
Bureau only accepts hard factual proof. Conjecture or theory is 
never enough."

He knew she was correct; as Krycek's wife, she must have spent 
years under his tutelage, and would have learned how to erase any 
trail leading back to herself.

"Then I want you to transfer out of my jurisdiction. I never want 
you in my office again."

She looked at him thoughtfully for a long beat. When she spoke 
again, her voice was gentle, as it had been that night when she'd 
comforted him, and then lain on the floor of said office, legs 
spread, luring him into her web of deception. "I never wanted to 
hurt you, sir. Neither did Alex. We both have a lot of respect for 
you."

"You have a very unusual way of showing that," he retorted.

She shrugged. "You know, I hate to say this, but you used me as 
much as I used you. I'm not quite sure you should take this holier-
than-thou attitude toward me."

Now he did laugh, without a trace of humor. "I used you. That's 
rich."

"You used to call me by your wife's name when you would come 
inside me."

Her voice was so delicate, so demure, he almost missed what she 
said. But when he did catch it, he was stunned into speechlessness. 
He had done what??

Her eyes lifted from the spot on the floor she had been studying to 
meet his shamed ones. "Every time, even the last. I didn't mind. I 
know exactly how it feels to love someone so much, that when 
they're gone, you can't even function. That was part of why I 
agreed to make love with you, when Alex recommended it against 
his better instincts. You were so devastated when she died, and I 
guess I wanted to make you feel alive again. To encourage you to 
move on, to accept the crushing loss. Maybe," and her eyes 
dropped down again, "maybe I was hoping if I ever ended up in 
your shoes, and Alex did the unthinkable and died, then someone 
would be generous enough to show me that same compassion and 
kindness."

Chastened, Skinner tried to take her hand from its place fisted 
against her elbow, but she resisted, stepping away from him. 
"Kim..."

"Sir, please don't. He's not going to die. He's just not," she 
whispered raggedly.

Now that his anger had vanished into thin air, he could recall more 
clearly what she'd said to Krycek as he lay there, prone and weak. 
She had described a full, blissful life to him, and even through 
Skinner's haze of fury and betrayal, he had recognized similar 
moments and gestures of his life with Sharon. What these two 
shared was far more than just a business arrangement, or a mere 
trading of information. They were a family, like he had had with 
his own wife so long ago. He'd simply never considered that Alex 
Krycek was capable of that much humanity, but the pictures she'd 
drawn for all of them were incontrovertible. As much proof as he 
would ever need.

"I'm sorry, Kim," Skinner heard himself say.

Her eyes opened, the tears brimming unfallen against her lashes. 
"For what?"

For everything, he wanted to reply. For using you so callously, for 
never seeing you for who you are, for not being the one who makes 
you feel happy and secure and treasured.

"For not believing in you," he answered. When he saw her slow 
smile in response, he knew that irregardless of everything, he 
didn't want her to leave him. Despite all the things she might have 
done to help Krycek further his goals, she had also assisted Skinner 
in his. Without her support, he'd have never reached the point he 
had. He'd have never been able to find out as much as...

The light began to dawn. Alex Krycek had encouraged her to 
continue supporting him the entire time he'd also worked at 
thwarting their efforts. Just as Kim had done, Krycek had played 
both sides of the fence, working with the Syndicate, but also trying 
to bring Mulder and Scully as close to the truth as possible without 
giving himself away. He remembered Mulder telling him about the 
time Krycek had broken into his apartment, with some complicated 
but accurate explanation of what was happening. Feeding him 
information so Mulder could act accordingly.

Could it be possible that, in reality, Krycek had been on the same 
side as them the entire time? Some niggling loose threads began to 
take shape in the back of his head. The illness both he and Krycek 
experienced. The talk of the vaccine. He just couldn't weave them 
together yet.

"Kim, why did he put the nanocytes in my system?"

She sighed. "I suppose I should be honest with you about that. 
There were two reasons. One, he didn't want me to have to go to 
bed with you again. He...he hated when it came to that."

Skinner could appreciate that sentiment. The thought of Sharon in 
bed with another man would have driven him insane. Part of why 
he'd been so shocked when she had come to him after he'd slept 
with the prostitute was that he couldn't believe she was able to put 
that aside and still want to comfort him. He knew he wouldn't have 
been able to do the same, if the situation had been reversed. <God, 
I'm so sorry, honey. I'd do it so differently now if I had the 
chance.>

"What was the second?"

She swallowed, and glanced back at Krycek on the bed, then 
squared her shoulders, as if making a decision. "I need to give you 
some background first. The Syndicate has been trying to both serve 
and resist for a long time, almost twenty-five years now. As time 
progressed in creating a vaccine to prevent infection, other, more 
modern technologies emerged. The nanocytes, while horribly 
painful when activated, create the carbon block in the blood that is 
necessary to fight against the virus. It was still in its early stages of 
development when the Syndicate fell apart, but it has proven to be 
effective, because once the virus has been pushed out, the 
machinery will immediately lower the level of carbon back to an 
acceptable, healthy range. So anyone with the nanocytes in their 
blood stream is sure to survive the alien attack."

She continued. "As I said earlier, both of us have a lot of respect 
for you. Alex is the one who told me that you were a soldier in this 
invisible battle, and that more than that, you were and are a leader. 
So by putting those inside you prematurely, not only was he able to 
manipulate you if he needed to now, he was ensuring that you 
would be able to continue your role of command in the war that 
would inevitably follow colonization, if he was unable to prevent 
that from occurring in the first place. He said that you were the 
best man for the job."

My God. Of all the strange, abnormal, out-of-this-world events and 
situations that Walter Skinner had almost come to expect from the 
X Files, he had never, ever foreseen that Krycek was trying to save 
his life. Not in a million years would he have believed it.

If it hadn't been Kim who was telling him this, he probably still 
wouldn't. But the conviction and brutal honesty in her voice 
couldn't be denied.

"But...why didn't he inject himself with the same device?" Walter 
was desperate to understand the entire picture, and there were still 
some missing sections.

"He was only able to steal one sample. He debated who to inject it 
into for a long time. At first he considered me, but I refused. I 
wasn't willing to survive the holocaust without him. And while I'm 
smart and capable, I couldn't lead an army. And Alex...Alex is a 
soldier. He'll fight to the death, but someone following him?" She 
shook her head, a sweet smile on her face that he didn't recognize. 
"Probably only I would. Of course, he also didn't want to live 
without me, as much as I couldn't without him. So finally he 
settled on you. I was surprised as you are now when he said it. 
He'd hated when...I couldn't believe he was able to get past that, 
and still want you to survive. God knows I didn't feel that way 
about Mari--"

She stopped herself, but Skinner knew who she'd meant. Marita, 
Mulder's former contact. Her body had been fished out of the 
Potomac two months ago, a single bullet to the brain determined as 
the cause of death. He didn't think Kim was the one who'd shot her, 
but at this point it didn't matter to him. Apparently he'd been right 
about that too. There had been a sexual connection between 
Krycek and the blond. Not that he cared if Krycek had pulled the 
trigger, either, he realized with a start.

He had to leave, to absorb everything he'd just heard, and decide 
what, if anything, he was going to do about it. He touched Kim's 
cheek lightly, feeling the warmth of her skin for the last time. Then 
he leaned over her, and pressed his lips to her forehead, in a perfect 
imitation of what she had done to him the last time they'd made 
love. A gesture of farewell.

"Thank you for telling me this. Now go be with your husband. He 
needs you to help him fight, more so than I ever did."

She looked astonished, then her eyes softened and she smiled 
warmly at him.

"Thank you Walter."

As he walked out, he knew he'd never hear her call him that again. 
He hoped he could live with it.

+++++

FOUR DAYS LATER

When Alex finally opened his eyes for real, he felt as if he'd slept 
for a hundred years. Once he'd heard Scully say that the virus had 
disappeared entirely, he'd surrendered to the sleep he'd been 
resisting for the eight long days the battle had raged within him. 
He'd gone under so fast he hadn't been able to do more than 
squeeze Kim's hand through the glove that separated them before 
he crashed.

But he felt incredibly rested now, although still groggy and slightly 
disoriented. The isolation tent around him had been removed, and 
he looked around the room quickly for his wife. Much to his 
surprise, she wasn't there, but he did have a visitor. Mulder sat in 
the chair she'd been using, a baseball cap on his head, and a 
friendly smile on his face.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty finally awakens," he wisecracked.

Alex wiped his face with his hand, and ran his fingers through his 
hair, trying to shake off the last vestiges of his deep sleep.

"I feel more like Rip Van Winkle right now. How long was I out?"

"Well, you've been unconscious for ten days. But you mean regular 
sleeping, right?" At Alex's nod, he finished, "Two days."

"Where's ah,..."

"Kim's sleeping in a room down the hall. She wouldn't leave the 
hospital, but Scully insisted she rest once you were in the clear. I 
told her I'd go get her once you woke up for good." He paused. 
"You're a lucky man, Krycek."

<Tell me about it.> "So are you, Mulder."

Alex started to shift, to try to get out of the bed, and Mulder stood 
up to help him sit upright. "Did you know I'm going to be a 
father?"

Alex stopped when he'd gotten his legs over the side of the bed and 
looked at his former partner/nemesis thoughtfully. Mulder seemed 
to have returned to his more mature self, but there were still some 
lingering effects of his trauma. His voice wavered, like a little boy, 
and the fact he wasn't trying to beat him up as per usual was 
strange but also reassuring, in a way. Apparently they'd come to a 
truce while he was comatose. Not that he was complaining.

"I heard. Congratulations."

"Thanks. I'm pretty excited about it, especially since I assumed it 
wasn't possible. Kind of like you, huh?"

Alex chuckled. He guessed Mulder had been in the room when 
Kim had talked him through the pain. Frankly, it didn't matter to 
him who had heard her. Not anymore. "Yeah, kind of like me. Can 
you help me get up? I want to go wake up Kim myself."

Mulder held out his hand, and Alex took it to get himself on his 
feet, but his legs wobbled so he sat back down fast. It was going to 
take some time for his strength to fully recover.

"You want me to carry you?"

He looked up at Mulder again, who seemed serious about the 
suggestion, and Alex laughed in surprise. Deja vu all over again. 
"No thanks. Let me rest here for a minute."

Mulder shrugged and sat back down on the chair. "Okay." Then he 
smiled. "You know, I used to have a little crush on her."

"On who?"

"Kim. I'd try to come up with excuses to go see Skinner, just to 
catch a glimpse of her on my way into his office. Man, did he think 
I was pestering him. He thought I was even more of a nuisance 
then than now." Then he laughed, and Alex found himself smiling 
at the image. "But that was before Scully came to partner with me. 
After that, well, you know."

"When you meet the one, everybody else fades into the 
background. I know that feeling very well," he replied instantly. If 
he didn't know any better, Alex would swear he and Mulder were 
bonding. How utterly bizarre and yet completely natural it felt.

"Yep, that's right. I think it was the red hair."

"What do you mean?"

"I think my crush on Kim was a premonition of some kind. So 
when I met another red-haired woman, I'd know that she was the 
one. That she was my destiny."

If Mulder was talking about premonition and destiny and other 
paranormal stuff again, he was definitely on the road to recovery. 
A road Alex wanted to be on badly. Starting now.

"I think I'm ready to try again. Let's go so I can tell my wife she's 
my destiny."

Mulder wrapped his arm around Alex's waist and led him slowly 
down the hall. On the trip, they passed Scully, who watched them 
approach with a skeptical look in her eye. She only nodded at him, 
and gave Mulder a quick kiss on the cheek as Alex stopped them 
both in front of her. He had something he'd been wanting to tell her 
since he had arrived.

"Thank you for everything Scully. I appreciate your help."

She looked him over coolly. Apparently the cease fire was only 
between he and Mulder; Scully would always be cautious toward 
him. He wouldn't expect any different from her.

"You're welcome. I, ah...I want to thank you for finding Mulder 
and bringing him back. I figure saving your life, just this one time, 
evens the score."

Fair enough. He nodded and started to walk again, with Mulder's 
assistance. Skinner stood outside Kim's room, but he stepped away 
from the door without a word. Alex had heard his discussion with 
Kim while he was comatose, but wasn't prepared to get into any of 
it with him at the moment. First things first.

When he got inside the room, and Mulder had closed the door 
behind him as he left, Alex was struck by the largest sense of deja 
vu of the entire episode. Kim lay curled away from him on the bed, 
her red-gold hair spread across the pillow. She was dressed, 
unfortunately, but not necessarily for long. He spooned around her 
on the bed, and felt her stir against his arm and chest, burrowing 
herself against him as she awoke.

"Honey, I'm home," he whispered. "But I didn't get a chance to 
pick up the milk."

She turned her head so she could look at him, and her eyes were 
damp, but shining ecstatically. "Where've you been?"

"Down the hall, stuck under some plastic tent."

"Oh, well you're not much of a Boy Scout anyway. I'll bet you 
never even earned a single badge when you were a kid."

They both laughed lightly, and he leaned in for a kiss. For the rest 
of his life, he would remember the soft sob of happiness mingled 
with relief that she emitted when his lips touched hers. It echoed 
through him like hope. An emotion he only ever felt because of 
her.

He pulled away from her mouth when he felt a tear slide onto his 
finger as he cupped her face. "You can cry now, honey. I'm here."

"No, I'm all done crying. But I am so glad you're home."

"Me too. I love you, Mrs. Krycek."

She smiled, and twisted her body so she faced him. "Ditto. Is it 
really over, Alex?"

He thought back to the fire that he'd watched in Russia. The Rebel 
aliens embraced a scorched-earth policy that was very effective in 
their situation, so he was certain there hadn't been anything left of 
the place, even after he'd collapsed. And during his search for 
Mulder, Alex had learned that all of the locations that had been 
used for the conspiracy had been destroyed or abandoned.

There were still some former abductees with implants around, like 
Scully, but beyond that, all the plans, the bees, the clones, the 
testing places, everything that had been so carefully created and 
preserved by the Syndicate, it was all gone. If colonization was 
going to occur, it wasn't going to happen in his lifetime, or even his 
children's or his grandchildren's. It would take the aliens centuries 
to re-build their efforts. And if that wasn't the case, then he would 
make sure to include in his lessons to his sons and daughters how 
to be effective resistance fighters.

"Yes, honey," he answered truthfully. "It's over."

And there was that sweet smile that made his bones melt. "Good," 
she said with a laugh. "Because I haven't been back to the 
apartment in over a week, and I left something there."

"My ring?"

"No. My birth control. And I know that look in your eye. I can tell 
you're just about to make love to me. So you've been warned, we 
just might make a baby if you do."

He nuzzled her nose, Eskimo style. He'd have to count to confirm 
it later, but it looked as if she might have a few new freckles. "I 
certainly hope so. But if we don't, we've got all the time in the 
world to keep working on it, until we get it right."

Then he kissed her, his tongue slowly filling her mouth, and he 
realized just before his body took over the thinking for his brain, 
that maybe Mulder wasn't so off-kilter in his ramblings after all. 
Kimberly Cook Krycek was his destiny.

He was where he was meant to be. Alex Krycek was home for 
good.

+++++

THE NEXT MORNING

When Walter Skinner unlocked the door and let himself into his 
outer office, the silence that greeted him seemed more unnatural 
than usual. Kim hadn't been back here since that first day, and he 
wasn't expecting to see her now, especially since Krycek had been 
released from the hospital yesterday. Skinner had come in 
irregularly during the last two weeks to check his email and to 
keep up to date on other pressing cases and matters, but this was 
his first full day of work since Mulder had been returned.

There was a flatness in the air that he couldn't quite put his finger 
on. He stopped at Kim's desk, and nothing looked any different, 
although it was difficult to judge. She had never kept any personal 
effects there, unlike a number of other staff members. No silly 
cartoons, or plants, and now that he knew why, of course no photos 
of loved ones.

He turned and unlocked his own office door, and the atmosphere in 
there seemed even more depressed. The first rays of the early 
morning sun were peeking through his half-drawn blinds, and dust 
motes floated and shimmered in the thin strips of light that he 
passed through on the journey to his desk. In the middle of his 
blotter sat a plain envelope and a small package underneath. The 
rest of his desk remained as he had left it, a large pile in his in-box, 
and his laptop closed and turned off to his left.

Skinner sank into his chair and opened the letter first. Addressed to 
him, it was brief and all business. He read it swiftly, and his heart 
dropped to his shoes. He'd half-expected it, but seeing the words in 
black and white still gave him a deep jolt of loss.

Kim's resignation letter, effective today.

After a minute, he refolded the letter and placed it in his in-box. 
Then he studied the package. A clean interoffice envelope with a 
small bulge in the middle. There was no indication on the outside 
of the sender or the receiver. When he unwrapped the string in the 
back of it from the fastener, he peered inside and found that he 
wasn't surprised by the contents. At least not by one of them.

Another blank envelope, which he hadn't expected, and a small 
electronics device, which he had. He slid both out, placed the 
larger envelope and the device carefully on the desk, and began to 
read the letter. There was no salutation or signature, but he 
recognized her tidy handwriting instantly. Too many years of 
"While You Were Out" pink slips on his desk couldn't allow him to 
think it was from anyone else.

"I know you told me that I could remain at my post, but it will be 
better this way. I still believe that my actions were justifiable, that I 
tried to do what was best for everyone, and I hope that you can 
agree with that. But I've waited a long time for this opportunity, to 
embrace the future we've all worked so hard to achieve, and now I 
can, so I'm taking full advantage of this chance.

"As you can see, we've given you something that is rightfully 
yours. The ability to control your own fate, and to prevent any 
further pain for yourself. Keep it in a secure place; in the wrong 
hands, it could be very harmful to you, as unfortunately you've 
learned. But we both feel that by giving it to you, we're placing all 
of our futures in the right hands. Yours. We've done our best to 
change what at first seemed inevitable to something more tenable, 
but if for some reason we've failed, then both of us have the utmost 
faith in you, that you will be able to lead the army out of the 
darkness. And if that never occurs, I hope that you will take a 
chance like I am, to find the happiness you so richly deserve.

"You asked me once how I was able to accept the future, and 
although I told you the truth, I didn't finish my answer completely. 
The main reason I was able to accept it was by cherishing the 
present, taking each precious moment in both my hands and living 
every day fully and totally, with no regrets. And yes, he taught me 
that. It's what I wanted to teach you as well.

"You are a remarkable man, and I know if you let yourself, you 
could find someone that would benefit from that lesson. You 
would benefit too. There's a wonderful world out there waiting to 
be explored and enjoyed, and it's all within your reach. While I 
never met her, I know your wife loved you deeply, as you did her, 
and this isn't the way she would have wanted you to go on without 
her. I only hope someday that you can forgive yourself and take 
that next step."

Walter finished reading, and folded the letter before he put in on 
his desk beside the nanocytes machine. After a moment, listening 
to the empty silence of his office, he leaned into his chair, and 
looked at the wedding band on his hand. He didn't need to take it 
off to read what was inscribed on the inside. He'd stared at it a 
thousand times before, until it felt as if the words were engraved 
on his soul.

'Love forever, Sharon.'

<How long did forever last if the person you'd made that promise 
to was gone?>

He sat there, pondering the question, and thinking about the future. 
As he did, he noticed to his right the pattern made by the blinds 
against the sunny spot on the carpet. It looked like prison bars.

He stood up then, and planted himself in front of the window, 
where the strips of light reflected onto his chest. Perhaps Kim was 
correct; he was in a prison of his own making, and it was time to 
be released. He looked at his hand again, and slowly took off his 
ring, placing it in his pocket with a wistful smile on his face.

Then he took the cord of the blinds and lifted them, letting the sun 
shine on him fully, without any shadows. Walter Skinner looked 
out the window for a long time, watching the sun rise, and he faced 
the coming day. For the first time in years, it seemed like a gift, 
waiting anxiously to be unwrapped and appreciated.

END