Departure III

Prologue: Scully

Today Skinner asked me -- tactfully, so very delicately -- if I would like to get some new furniture, if I need some temporary help to clean up the office a bit. He knows what happened to Mulder -- knows everything except for a few crucial facts. To him, Mulder is MIA, and the fact that he was last seen with the enemy signifies that he's probably dead. In his own way, Skinner's trying to help ease me through it.

I know the full, unadorned truth -- to the best of my knowledge, I am the only one who knows, other than the principals themselves -- and I can't bring myself to change anything in the office, in the hope that Mulder will come to his senses and return.

Or maybe he has come to his senses. I don't know.

I was ready to do it. I really was. From the moment I passed Krycek in the hallway and utilized every ounce of control pretending not to notice him, I knew what was going to happen, and what I was going to do about it. I staked out that back entrance for hours, I stalked him, and when the moment was right, I pounced...

I was ready to do it. I was completely prepared to kill Krycek, and never mind that Mulder might have hated me for it. I was convinced, down to the core of my soul, that I had to free Mulder from his obsession, no matter the cost...

And then everything changed in about half a second, and suddenly nothing was certain.

It was such a small move. Just a quick step sideways: Krycek, placing himself in front of Mulder. I remember thinking: that's stupid; doesn't he realize he's the one I want to shoot? Then it struck me: how very instinctive the move had been. How deeply ingrained was his reflex to protect Mulder.

That was when my perspective began to shift.

I got another of the notes today: another anonymous slip of paper with two neatly typed words. "Situation stable." They appear periodically, at irregular intervals: slipped under my apartment door, rolled up in my morning newspaper, wedged between memos in my interoffice mail. The routine is mystifying, but comforting.

Such a small thread, on which to base my sanity...

Damn him, damn Krycek. I can't even hate him anymore.

Not since I saw the way Mulder looked at him. The way he looked at Mulder.

It may well be twisted and unhealthy, this attachment, but it's real. And mutual. And Mulder deserves to be happy for a change.

Even if it isn't with me.

I never dreamed that it would be any other way. I always believed it was just a matter of time before our relationship developed into romance. I knew how I felt about him, I was certain of the way he felt about me, and we just kept getting closer...

And now this.

It isn't fair.

In the middle of the night, sometimes, I hear his voice in my ears, incredulous and plaintive: "You did..." A two-word indictment of our partnership. His likening of our relationship to the one he shares with Krycek infuriates me -- but what frightens me is the thought that he might be right.

And what makes me cry myself to sleep some nights is the thought that Mulder is sharing his life and his love and his body with Alex Krycek, and I'm alone here, missing him.

Damn.

I'm in charge of the X-Files Division now, which is meaningless, since I'm the only one in it. All it means, really, is that Mulder's old life is still here, still viable, if he ever chooses to step back into it.

Skinner thinks I'm clinging to an unrealistic hope; it hurts him, I think, the way I cling to the idea that Mulder might return. It would be easier, less painful, to close the door on the possibility: it would allow the wound of his absence to begin to heal.

But I can't let go.

It hurts me -- it kills me -- that Mulder was able to let go of me.

And then I remember the expression on his face when he turned for one long last look back...

'Situation stable', the notes say -- and never mind that they could be lies: even if true, there is still so much they don't convey. Is Mulder at peace? Is he happy? Does he wish he could turn back the clock and change the choice he made?

Does he miss me?

Does he ever wonder what-if, and ponder what might have happened instead if one of us had made a move sooner?

Or is he so wrapped up in Krycek that he doesn't think of me at all?

Some nights I can't shake the fear that it's all a cruel lie: that Mulder is already dead by Krycek's hand, and his murderer is merely playing a heartless game designed to shatter my soul once and for all.

Then I remember the way they looked at each other, and fear becomes -- I admit it -- jealousy, that someone else should own the part of him that I'd always thought would be mine.

And adrift, bereft, I journey through the nights and days alone, aching inside and always wondering about the would-have-been, the should-have-been, the future I'll never know.

Part Three

The ventilation crawlspace is narrow, dark, stuffy and thoroughly claustrophobic, and for the thousandth time I curse my curiosity and my vendetta in soundless Russian. I could be in a very comfortable bed right now, I think, in a wonderfully uncomfortable position, having all sorts of incredible things done to me; so what the hell am I doing here?

Oh, but this is interesting. Very, very interesting. Enough to make the dirt and discomfort worthwhile.

A cockroach scuttles across my hand. I don't flinch; I've trained myself to suppress such reactions. The price of being a survivor. Besides, the ugly little insect is a spiritual relative, of sorts: we're two of a kind.

My childhood cubbyhole-bedroom was cockroach-infested, like the rest of the apartment, and no amount of determination or chemical warfare could eliminate the problem. I used to wake up shrieking and swatting at the feel of them running over me. Then one day it dawned on my impressionable young mind that there was something admirable in the sheer persistence of the vermin -- the way nothing could stop them or hold them back; the way they managed to shrug off anything we could throw at them. Not long after my epiphany, my father 'changed jobs', and suddenly we had much more money, and a far better place to live -- but I've maintained a grudging respect for roaches ever since.

Eagles may soar, but cockroaches survive.

Together, the insect and I watch and listen through the tiny slotted grate as events transpire... oh, this is very interesting. Definitely worth the trip. Of course, Mulder wouldn't agree -- he hates it when I leave him -- but I have the feeling that when he hears this, he might just forgive me for being gone so long.

Assuming I make it out in one piece, and return home to tell him.

I recognize the whole cast of characters, having known them a few short years and a lifetime ago. They're all there, playing their parts in this pathetic charade. The ones who used to be my employers, my patrons, my associates and allies. The ones who have done their utmost to see me dead, now that they can no longer rely on me to do their dirty work for them. Some of their faces, Mulder would recognize -- some of them quite well: the smell of Morley smoke curls through the ventilation shaft where I am concealed. Some of their faces, no one would know, except for a former player like myself -- seemingly ordinary men whose lives are kept carefully separate from any hint of governmental intrigue, the better to conceal the sick truths of their existences. They all see themselves as superior to the rest of mankind. They believe themselves the shapers of history, when in fact they are only the most pathetic of pawns.

It seems their masters have demanded yet another group of human subjects, to satisfy their incessant curiosity about the human species and our many weaknesses. The more they know about us, the easier the colonization will be; but these 'superior men' never hesitate in carrying out their masters' wishes. Which means that the world is in for yet another rash of unexplained disappearances and abductions. The rabid xenophiles among the UFO theorists will have a field day, extrapolating fond dreams of a wise and benevolent alien race choosing human ambassadors, preparing us for the day when they will bestow their gifts of wisdom and peace upon humanity... Ignorance is bliss, I suppose. And what a rude awakening it will be, when the truth becomes known.

My thoughts turn briefly to Mulder's former partner -- Dana Scully was luckier than she knew. Her abduction had more to do with undermining Mulder than with the colonization itself; her usage as a test subject was almost an afterthought. Those tests were orchestrated in connection with one of the occasional token attempts at resistance undertaken by these desperate men, more to assuage any remnants of conscience they might possess than from any genuine belief that their actions might bear fruit. Her captors, her testers, were the hirelings of the men who stand before me, and so she managed to survive the experience. The victims who are chosen at the command of the aliens are never so fortunate. None of these have ever returned.

And now another group of innocents will be sent to the slaughter... Mulder's Cancerman is on the secure phone line, barking out orders to his newest (and therefore most expendable) batch of hired help, directing the delivery of the latest shipment of 'merchandise' to the principal testing center. Pathetic bastards have no way of knowing that they themselves will be part of the shipment as well; thus is the absolute secrecy of the Project maintained.

But not this time.

I don't even try to repress my satisfied grin. After months of patient and less-than-patient watching and waiting, scurrying down dark hallways and crawling through narrow passages, I have what I've been searching for: a location. I now know where the test subjects are being taken and held. It's not the Project's central command, but it's the best piece of information I've yet come across: a destination, a place of importance to them, a possible way to hurt them.

It is my first real chance to take these motherfuckers down.

The conversation concludes, the principal players leave the room; and once there is no one left to hear any small noises I might make, I begin the slow, arduous process of inching backward along the shaft. After I extricate myself from the ventilation system, it'll just be a matter of navigating unseen through hostile territory, then driving a thousand miles via a circuitous route. Just another typical commute home from work, for me.

But for now, as for the last ten months of my life, I have something to look forward to when I get there.

By the time I reach the third of five main entrances to my underground sanctum, I'm covered with four distinct layers of dirt, and I want a shower so badly I can taste it. It's hard to be cautious and circumspect when all I can think of is getting back to him -- but I force myself to take the time to cover my tracks, make myself spend three hours concealed in sparse shrubbery until I'm certain I haven't been tracked or followed, before I slip into a crack in the earth and slither home.

Of the five routes I can take, this is the most difficult and annoying -- I inch my way forward, hand over hand, flat on my stomach, until the tunnel widens enough for me to crawl on hands and knees. I evade two of the traps I've set to discourage uninvited visitors, disarm and rearm the others, as I continue creeping forward until the narrow passage joins with the main entrance. Once upon a time, this was my emergency route, to be used only when the threat of detection was highest; since bringing Mulder here, it has been my route of choice, as I will take no chances with his safety.

But that caution is almost more effort than I can bear to expend, in my current state of exhaustion. I barely remember to trigger the soft chime that will let him know it's me, so that I don't get a hole blown in my chest once I open that last door. My hands are shaking by the time I get to the entrance and stagger through, utterly spent.

It's more than worth it, though. Because there he is: a sight for sore eyes and then some.

He's reclining on the sofa in his usual position, pretending to read a book -- I notice that he is holding it upside-down; but this is our ritual, and one we both need, so I don't call him on the slip. Instead, I put all my remaining energy into sounding as wrung-out as I feel. "Hey."

Mulder glances up at me -- tosses the book aside and is on his feet in the same motion; half a second later, his arms are sliding around me. "You look like shit," he comments. "Are you hurt?"

"Not this time." I start for the sofa, pretend to stumble -- realize halfway down that I'm too tired to regain my balance as I'd planned; but just as I'd calculated, he catches me and keeps me from falling.

Damn, it's good to be home.

He guides me to the couch, gets me settled, fusses over me like a mother hen. Moments later, I feel his hands stripping off my dirty clothes. "You're not that tired," he says sardonically as he pulls off my jeans, sliding one hand along my rising cock.

"I'm never that tired," I agree, arching my hips into his hand.

Mulder strokes me a few times; then his hand stills. "You need a shower."

Oh, hell, don't stop...! "I can wait."

"No, you can't. You smell like something that died a week ago."

"What a wonderful way with words you have, Mulder. So poetic. So romantic."

"Shut up, asshole. And you're taking that shower, whether you want to or not." Pseudo-sternness fades into affection. "Don't look at me that way. I'm planning to join you."

Damn, it's good to be home.

"Come on," he says, and extends his hands; I reach back and clasp his wrists fireman-style, and he hauls me off the couch and into his arms. He drags me into the shower and bathes me, lathering me and caressing me until I'm so aroused I've totally forgotten to be tired: scolding me the whole time, his voice both annoyed and relieved, for having been away so long. "So where the hell have you been for the last three weeks?" he wonders finally.

I weigh my options swiftly. If I tell him now, I'll lose him to the problem: discussion will become debriefing, and all prospects of sex will fade into the background -- and I really really want him right now. "Later," I say.

Instantly, he looks intrigued -- most of the time, I don't offer to tell him anything at all -- but a long kiss distracts him effectively.

He's good. He's really good. I never expected... I thought it would be a long uphill struggle; that I'd have to drag him kicking and screaming into grudging acceptance. I never imagined that he'd be so damn willing. Never dreamed that I'd wake up in the middle of the night with his tongue shoved down my throat and his hands roaming all over my body. Never thought I'd share my home with him, spend my days and nights immersed in him, or return after a long absence to find him waiting to welcome me. I was gone for six weeks once, and he cried when I came back: cried like a baby in my arms, then literally threw me into bed and kept me there for four days straight. He's become a little more blase about my absences since then -- not much, but a little; just enough to maintain a facade of uncaring indifference, one that covers everything except the desperation in his eyes.

I can't remember a time since I was a kid when there was anyone who cared whether I lived or died.

Nor can I remember a time when sex was more than just a power game for me -- or a time when hands caressed me in desire instead of calculated coldness; when it was lovemaking, instead of just fucking.

Nor has there ever been anyone who could bring me off with nothing more than a kiss.

I have come to the conclusion that if this is a mistake, if my... obsession with Mulder is a weakness I cannot afford, then to hell with the consequences: it's a mistake I'm willing to make. I'll take my chances with the future, if it will gain me one more day with him. Our current situation won't continue indefinitely; I know it can't last. But while it does... this is the happiest I've ever been.

He precedes me out of the shower, wraps a towel around my waist -- leaves his arms wrapped around me and hugs me; his lips form a kiss against my neck, just below my ear. "Three weeks is too goddamn long," he growls softly.

Damn, it's good to be home.

Back at the very beginning, the first thing Mulder ever did to me was ditch me. I remember driving like a maniac to try to catch up to him, cursing under my breath in Russian, and wondering why the hell I was getting an erection. From the first time I saw his picture, I knew he was gorgeous; from the first time we met, I knew that he was an annoying son-of-a-bitch... The thing I don't know, the thing I have never managed to figure out, is why I find him so damned irresistible.

But at times like this, I really don't care.

I love fucking him. I love watching his face while I fuck him. He's so damn beautiful that it hurts to look at him, it hurts to watch his face twisting in ecstasy... but I keep coming back for more, because it's the sweetest pain I've ever known. I get so lost in watching him that I forget my own desires, right up until the moment he comes and takes me over the edge with him. I lose myself in him, every time.

And afterwards I collapse onto him, feeling our hearts pounding together, amazed all over again by the intensity of what we share.

Not for too long -- there's the inevitable clean-up to be dealt with, the one thing I truly hate about sex with another man. Women are easier: the positioning isn't as difficult, the byproducts aren't as messy. Probably one of the reasons I've spent more time screwing women, over the years: it's the path of least resistance. Come to think of it, most of my life has been spent following the path of least resistance... but never mind that now. I am what I am, and it's too late to change.

I drag myself to the bathroom and back, then it's his turn -- and by the time he comes back to bed, we're both ready for round two.

I love it when he fucks me. He knows just how I like it: how to be rough, and how rough to be, and when I need him to be gentle. The one thing I need that no woman can give me is the feeling of being taken, conquered and held captive by a strength greater than my own -- what I like best and resent the most, which is maybe why so many of my male companions have ended up dead, by one means or another. I can somehow never quite forgive them for giving me what I wanted from them in the first place. But Mulder knows how to conquer me so thoroughly that submission becomes willing surrender... and I can't get enough of it, not ever.

He's a drug so addictive he ought to be illegal, and I should know better -- I do know better -- but I'm enjoying the high too much to quit before I have to.

And when I'm lying sprawled across the bed, too sated and exhausted to manage the effort required to draw the bedsheet over myself, I feel his hands caressing me -- massaging, fingertips digging into the tight muscle-knots, smoothing over the sore spots, easing away the last remnants of tension in me that lovemaking couldn't quite reach, leaving me in a state of utter languor. I live my life on the edge, in adrenaline-bursts of action and violence and subterfuge; I can never afford to relax -- except for here: except with him. He gives me what I need: reads my mind and my body and my soul, turns me inside out with his eyes and examines me with unwavering scrutiny, and uses that knowledge to pleasure me, to please me, to create a zone of safety and comfort in which I can rest.

I have spent my life making sure that no one could ever know me so well... but this is paradise.

Sleep takes me like a lover, hard and fast and all-encompassing; and as consciousness dissolves into darkness, my last thought is the one that's become my mantra:

Damn, it's good to be home.

I've always preferred sleeping alone. I hate the feeling of being confined, imprisoned by another person's embrace. But Mulder is the type who seeks warmth in his sleep, so I've gotten used to awakening with his arms and legs tangled around me. Sometimes I even enjoy it: the sensation of waking up slowly, knowing that there is no imminent danger, only the promise of pleasure inherent in the sweaty body pressed against mine.

Then there are the times when I wake up to the sound of his snoring in my ear, thinking of nothing except how badly I need to take a leak, and cursing him under my breath as I struggle to extricate myself from his grasping arms.

This awakening comes with a splitting headache, signifying that I really need more sleep; and all that restrains me is an arm flung possessively across my chest. A vision of Tylenol lures me out of bed -- I swallow three of them, measure Jamaican Blue Mountain into the coffeemaker, and start thinking about what I want for breakfast.

I really don't understand why people are always so amazed to learn that I can cook. It's no mystery: I like to live well, which means that I like to eat well, which means that I've taught myself how to make a decent meal out of whatever happens to be around. By the time I was thirteen, my father was almost never home, and my mother was almost always drunk; if I wanted to eat anything other than fast-food hamburgers, it was up to me to make sure I did. But since I never discuss my childhood with anyone unless it's absolutely necessary, and since I don't care enough about most people to bother cooking for them, the few who do find out consider it somehow odd that I have this skill.

Mulder damn near went into shock the first time I fixed him a meal. Of course, he's a special case -- his kitchen contained, at the best of times, a jar of Tang and a box of baking soda and exactly one fork. The man can make incredible leaps of logic on the strength of a single shred of evidence, but he couldn't find his way to a cheese omelet with a compass and a cookbook...

I keep the kitchen arranged for quick, convenient meals that I can assemble without much thought, and pre-cooked dinners that Mulder can toss into the microwave and heat up without having to destroy my kitchen in the process. The freezer yields ziploc bags of sliced cooked potatoes and crumbled sausage and shredded cheese: I find a can of soup in the cupboard, next to the egg mix. Powdered eggs have got to be one of the foulest concoctions mankind has ever invented, but if you doctor them enough, they're bearable... By the time I've finished my first cup of coffee, a breakfast casserole is in the oven; and as I pour myself a second cup, I feel a pair of arms lock around my waist, and lips planting a soft kiss on the back of my neck. "Morning," he mutters groggily.

I reach for his mug and fill it before I turn around. Disregarding this considerate gesture on my part, he takes both cups from my hands and places them on the counter behind me, then kisses me -- a slow progression, beginning with his teeth nibbling at my lower lip and escalating until his tongue is searching for my tonsils.

"Good morning to you, too," I say, when I can breathe again, and he grins at me briefly before grabbing his coffee and shuffling off to collapse into his chair at the table. Funny: a year ago, I just had chairs. Now there is his chair and my chair -- such a small change in terminology; such a radical shift of perspective.

He gulps down his coffee, too quickly to taste it -- fifty-dollar-per-pound coffee, and he guzzles it like the swill you get from the corner deli; it irritates me, even though I don't actually have to buy the stuff -- and as he struggles to awaken, I spend a few moments studying him, unobserved. Hair tousled, eyes soft and sleepy, limbs uncoordinated... I have to fight back the urge to drag him back to bed. After we eat, maybe...

His eyes travel dubiously toward the oven. "What's for breakfast?"

"Breakfast," I say, and he grins at me again: a small secret smile, the key to unlock a private joke that only we understand. It takes the edge off my annoyance that he still doesn't trust my ability to cook a decent meal, even though he praises me extravagantly for every one I fix for him.

"And what was it that you were going to tell me last night?" he inquires -- too innocently; his gaze is sharp, penetrating. The eyes of the profiler, the investigator, seeking clues.

"It can wait," I tell him.

He accepts this -- but only barely. One quick glance tells me that he's aching to get it out of me... but his memory is all but perfect; and some of our most vicious fights have come from his insistence on being told things I do not wish to tell him. He's learned not to try to pry my secrets from me. In turn, I've learned how to keep him from suspecting that there are secrets he might wish to know, unless I'm willing to share them -- and that there are secrets I can share with him, and trust him not to use against me.

All things considered, we've become damn good at living together. I'm so comfortable with him, so used to him being a part of my existence... which is a very, very bad thing.

Because I know this cannot last. And what I have to tell him now... I have the gut-wrenching certainty that this will be the beginning of the end. But I can't hide this from him; he needs to know, and I can't leave this one alone, and I need his expertise to guide me, and perhaps most importantly...

Mulder is bored.

Oh, he'd never admit it to me, even if I asked, but I know him well enough to see the signs. At first, it was all right: he was shell-shocked, shaken, and perfectly content to be sheltered from the world while he healed. I brought him here and kept him here, took him on carefully-planned trips outside just often enough to keep him from becoming agoraphobic. I fed him and cared for him -- I'm not exactly the nurturing type, but I'm too fucking protective of Mulder for my own good -- left him alone as little as possible, and locked him in when I had to leave, for his safety and for my peace of mind. And it worked... it was perfect, for an amazing length of time; for months, everything was fine.

Little by little, it changed. The books and CDs and video games I brought back with me stopped being enough to keep him entertained. He became steadily more irritable, more restless; his questions, about my life and my past and my prolonged absences, became more pointed and incisive. Recently, it has sometimes seemed as though he were looking for reasons and excuses to bicker with me. Anything to keep himself occupied.

And of course, it's completely understandable. A mind like his can't be left to stagnate in a void. He can't stay here forever, and I... I have to have the strength to know when and how to let him go.

Not yet. It's not time, yet. But soon.

The news that I have for him will only hasten that inevitable parting.

But these are not good thoughts for me to be thinking. Not now, when I am weakened from too little sleep and not enough coffee and the pounding headache that the Tylenol still hasn't kicked in to relieve. I need all my strength, and all the coldness I possess, to think about the imminent day when I will lose him.

Sudden childhood flashback to a Saturday-morning kids' show I used to watch, curled up on the rug in the living room with a bowl of sugared cereal in my hands and Svetlana sitting on the couch behind me: I have a brief, ludicrous vision of myself as a cartoon figure, raising my fist into the air and shouting, 'I summon The Power of The Cockroach to protect me!' It's an insane image, and it makes me smile -- and banishes the onslaught of despair with swift thoroughness.

"What?" says Mulder curiously, and I shake my head. Maybe I'll explain it to him sometime. We discuss all sorts of things in the lazy times after lovemaking; I've told him things that I've never shared with anyone, and gotten glimpses of his own most private dreams and fears...

I'm going to miss that, so much.

But never mind that now. Breakfast is ready; I watch as he digs a heaping serving out of the corningware, coats it in a layer of ketchup and begins stuffing his face. He finishes his meal in half the time it takes me to work through mine -- I'm starving, but still slightly nauseous, although the headache is finally fading -- and sits across the table staring at me, studying me, as I eat.

Finally, I tire of the scrutiny, of his silent impatience. "Go ahead," I say wearily, "ask me."

His hand reaches across the table, grasps mine quickly, gives it a small squeeze. "Finish eating," he says softly.

The moments of unexpected consideration, the small startling displays of sweetness: these are the things that undo me, more than anything else. Oh, hell, Mulder, what you do to me... "It's all right," I respond. "Ask me."

After a brief hesitation, he nods slightly, and obliges. "Okay," he murmurs, "I'm asking."

And between bites of breakfast, I tell him.

Mulder lets me relate the tale from beginning to end, restraining his questions until I've finished; and the first thing he asks me is, "Why didn't you tell me about this sooner?"

"Incomplete data," I say. A partial truth: if I had told him before now, he would have insisted on taking action, and that would have been disastrous. Not only because of the information I didn't yet have, but because of his state of mind. When I first brought him back from the hospital, he was in no shape to Battle The Forces Of Evil, and any attempt would have gotten us both killed. Now, though... he's better than he was; and the new information I've acquired gives us a chance of actually beating the bastards at their own game.

Besides, there's no more time left to sneak and skulk and strategize -- and procrastinate. If we don't do something now, there won't be another opportunity. It's that close to happening: the colonization, the enslavement of all but -- at best -- a select handful of the human race.

And having experienced it myself -- having felt that oily inhuman presence crawling around in my own mind, raping me, controlling me -- I'll be damned if I'm going to let it happen again when I have the chance to stop it. Not to me, not to Mulder, and not to the rest of our species.

He's silent for awhile, thinking over what I've told him; I finish the last of my meal, take our plates to the sink and leave them there, shove the remains of breakfast into the refrigerator, waiting for the inevitable. I know what he's going to say, what he has to say -- it's just a matter of waiting for the words.

As I pour myself another cup of coffee, he says it. "We have to tell Scully about this."

Of course. I've been expecting this from the start. So why is it that I feel his words ripping through me like a bullet?

Stupid question. She's closer to him than I'll ever be, and long after he leaves me, she'll still be a part of his life. I don't stand a chance of competing with that bond, or even threatening it; I never did. And even though involving her with this business is the most intelligent, sensible course of action, it is the last thing I want to do.

I've had him all to myself for... about ten months, now. I don't want to share him with anyone, least of all the one person who stands a damn good chance of taking him away from me.

But my face reflects none of my internal struggle; it is as expressionless as years of ruthless practice can make it. I take a slow, deep breath, so that when I speak, my voice is calm. "Sure," I tell him. "I'll contact her, arrange a meeting."

Washing the dishes is his job -- unspoken agreement between us: I cook, he cleans up the mess. But now I start doing the dishes, because it allows me to keep my back turned toward him, keeps him from seeing my face.

Small noises: his chair scraping across the floor, soft footfalls as he pads barefoot toward me -- then his arms wrapping around my waist, his body pressed up against me, his growing hardness rubbing against my ass, and his lips on my shoulders, the back of my neck. "It'll be all right," he whispers into my ear.

Like hell it will. But what choice do I have? There's a war to be fought, and even I can't walk away from this one.

I abandon the dishes, turn to face him and pull him close, relishing the feel of him in my arms, trying to memorize his touch and his taste and his scent. Ten months isn't long enough. No amount of time could be long enough.

"Let's go back to bed," he murmurs, and kisses me; and I sink into the kiss, and try to forget that this is the beginning of the end.

Some time later, I find myself hiding behind a stand of neatly-trimmed bushes, waiting for her.

I don't have long to wait; I've timed it perfectly. Her car pulls into the apartment-complex lot, into her designated spot, and she emerges from the vehicle. She looks well, although there are new worry-lines in her face. I've kept a distant eye on her, mostly on paper through my remaining contacts in the government, and all indications are that she's been going on with her life and her work -- their work -- since his disappearance; as if the small matter of her missing-presumed-dead partner hasn't caused her the slightest bit of distress.

It's a nice act, one that wouldn't fool anyone who knew her worth a damn. Of course, all I know of her is what I've learned from Mulder, really -- but I recognize the look in her eyes. I've seen it on my own face in the mirror.

I wait until she passes my hiding place: I emerge from the bushes behind her, my weapon at the ready -- she's fast and she's a damn good shot, and I don't want to take a bullet for this if I can avoid it. "Hey, Scully," I say.

She's fast, all right. Her gun appears in her hand, even before she finishes turning to face me. Not that this would have saved her, if I'd meant to kill her -- I'm faster than she is, but hopefully she'll never have to know it. "Don't," I tell her. "We have to talk."

For an endless moment, we stand there, frozen in confrontation -- her eyes rake over my face, studying me intensively, measuring my intentions; I look her over just as thoroughly and try to figure out just how badly she wants me dead -- and at almost the same instant, we both avert our aim, letting the moment pass.

"How is he?" are the first words out of her mouth -- and much as I resent her, it pleases me that this should be her first concern.

"He's fine," I say, and she relaxes, just a little. "Want to see him?" and she tenses all over again, scrutinizing my face as if doing so will tell her whether I'm luring her into a trap... I'm better than that, babe; if I wanted to reel you in, I'd do it, and you'd never see it coming. But her opinion of me is low enough as it stands, and my feelings about her are irrelevant: I need her as an ally, in this.

Finally, she gives me a curt, nearly imperceptible nod; I nod back, and make a show of putting my gun away. Never mind that I could still disarm you and kill you in about a minute; that's never been part of the game.

"This might take a while," I inform her. "You might want to pack a change of clothes..."

"I keep an overnight bag in the trunk," she responds, and I acknowledge that with a nod as I lead her back toward her car.

"Give me the keys," I tell her, and she shoots me another long, suspicious look before handing them over. It takes me a few moments to get the seat adjusted to a depth I can live with, and then we're off, heading out of the parking lot and into the deepening night.

"What's this about, Krycek?" she asks me, as I merge into highway traffic and lose us in the throng of evening commuters.

"Oh, I thought maybe we could sit around and talk about old times, drink some cappuccino, go through the photo albums..." This is not the time to bring up the purpose of our visit, and I am not the person to do it. She's not about to listen to, or believe, a word I have to say. Mulder, she'll listen to -- Mulder, she'll believe. They share a deep rapport, after all... That thought leaves a bitter taste in my mind, but it's the truth, and I do my best not to ignore the truth. Survival characteristic: denial isn't much good for keeping you alive.

Now if I'd remembered that, back when it was just me and Mulder in that old warehouse, my life would be far less complicated right now...

...oh, but I wouldn't change it for the world. Even though eventually, I'm going to pay dearly for this lapse of sanity.

Like when he leaves me, and I have to relearn how to deal with life without him...

But I don't want to think about that now.

I keep my eyes on the road. The Friday-night rush-hour commuters require all my attention; terrible drivers, willing to cause five-car accidents behind themselves if it will get them home two minutes faster -- but I can feel her eyes on me, like laser beams. "Is he all right?" she says pointedly.

"I told you, he's fine. I've been keeping you updated all along, haven't I?" Small reminder of the notes I've been arranging for her to receive. A dangerous choice, on my part: any contact between us is risky, increasing the chances that some interested party might track me down. But I've felt... obligated, somehow, to keep her in the loop. Shit, if I were in her shoes, I would have wanted to know.

She let us go, let me go, and she didn't have to. By doing so, she committed the same lapse of judgement that she condemned Mulder for -- the condemnation that would have ended his life, damn it, if I hadn't been there to stop the bleeding and call for an ambulance.

I wonder if she's ever figured out that part? I wonder if she's ever thought it through enough to realize that the man she's so damned worried about wouldn't be alive right now, if it weren't for me?

...Of course, he wouldn't have been driven to suicide in the first place if I hadn't messed with his mind and screwed up his life, so I guess it all comes out even in the end.

Shit, I find myself thinking, what am I doing here? Why the hell am I bringing her to him, when she's the last person I want within fifty miles of him? Easy answer to that: because it's what Mulder wants, of course. Oh, sure, she's the most useful person I can think of to help us fight the impending battle -- but left to my own devices, she's the last person I ever would have contacted.

But it's what Mulder wants; and where Mulder is concerned, my judgement is... flawed, to say the least.

Off the highway, and onto a local route, one meandering enough to be scorned by most commuters, and therefore empty enough to detect a tail. I pull the car into the parking lot of a strip mall, drive around back to the loading area behind the stores, keep it in drive with my foot on the brake... "What are we doing?" she asks me, after we've been sitting there for a couple of minutes.

"Waiting to see if we've been followed," I reply. "Keep your finger on the trigger," because maybe she thinks I haven't noticed that her hand hasn't been more than two inches from her weapon since I first confronted her outside her apartment.

She shoots me a grim little sideways smile -- the expression of a co-conspirator -- and for a moment, I almost like her.

After ten minutes, I decide that it's safe to proceed, make a quick U-turn and exit the strip mall, taking us down a back road.

We repeat this ritual several times; she doesn't question me about it again, merely keeps a sharp eye out for pursuit. She's good, Scully is -- and if nothing else, her alertness reassures me about her suitability for the task ahead of us. Yeah, I resent her, and the competition she presents -- but she's a swift, strong little thing: probably a better warrior than Mulder is. It'll be good to have her at my side in a fight. If I can keep her from killing me, that is.

With a straightforward route, the drive would have taken us an hour. Doing it my way, it takes nearly three. We make a bathroom-and-coffee stop halfway through, at a little hole-in-the-wall gas station, taking turns standing guard for each other outside the restroom door without bothering to discuss the necessity of doing so; I note that she takes her coffee black, and find myself wondering idly if she would appreciate the finer points of really good coffee more than he does. Finally, we're pulling around to the back of a shabby little motel, one that takes cash and doesn't ask for I.D. upon check-in. I park in front of a room where the curtains are tightly drawn.

We get out of the car together, walk to the door. I notice that she is trembling, more so than can be accounted for by the chill night air -- and I knock on the door: one quick tap, then three, then two, code to let him know that it's me, before slipping my key into the lock.

I open the door, and we step inside, and there he is: sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a gun trained on the door. He slips on the safety as I step inside, sets the weapon aside on the nightstand, and at the sight of his former partner, he's up and moving...

It tears me apart to watch their embrace, fervent and tearful, the reunion of two long-parted lovers-who-never-were. I can't bear to watch, but I can't drag my eyes away, either. He kisses her forehead, strokes her hair, cherishing the very sight of her, and I suddenly know that this is what it will be like for them when it ends between Mulder and myself -- I'm seeing the future, an image of what will someday be, and I hate it. My fingers twitch with wanting to hit something, hurt something, take out my bitter fury on a wall or a pane of glass, because it wouldn't do to punch her... and I can do nothing but stand there and watch them fall into each other.

Damn it, I can't take this.

"How are you doing?" she asks him, in a voice that tries to be steady despite the emotion being held rigidly in check.

I see him smile. "I'm okay," he tells her. "A damn sight better than I was feeling the last time I saw you. But how are you, Scully?"

"I'm fine, Mulder," she says, in a patient, long-suffering tone.

"You're always fine," he chides her -- and they exchange grins, over what is obviously a private joke: one that excludes me.

Then he disengages from the embrace, reaches out with one hand toward me, his smile widening as he looks at me -- which soothes my nerves, just a little. I take a step toward him, reach back to him, and feel his hand curl around mine. She spares me a dubious glance, and I feel myself glaring back -- he's mine now! I think, but that's cold comfort when I know that it won't be true for all that much longer.

"It's good to see you again," she says to him gently, taking his other hand.

And there we stand for a long moment, Scully holding his left hand, me holding his right, all three of us trying to adapt to the sheer strangeness of this situation.

"So," she says finally, "why are we here?" and I could almost kiss her for breaking the tense silence.

We settle down in a loose circle on the room's double-bed, with cans of soda and a jumbo-sized bag of chips in the center, and I begin to tell the story. What I've learned, what I've surmised, the timetable involved. Mulder interrupts periodically, tossing in his own theories; and Scully listens intently, stopping us every so often to interject a question or supporting observation of her own.

When at last the tale is finished, he gazes at her expectantly, awaiting her opinion of the matter...

She stares back at him levelly. "You know what I'm going to say."

He nods briefly. "Are you saying that an alien intelligence of some kind is on the brink of conquering humanity and making us all slaves?" he says, in a passable imitation of Scully's intonation. "Mulder, that's crazy," and shoots her a wry grin.

Almost, she laughs; the corners of her lips twitch with wanting to smile, as she tries to glare severely at him. "Right," she says. "And now that we've got that behind us, what do you propose we do about it?" turning to face me for the last half of the sentence, directing the query to me -- accepting the fact that this is my operation, that I'm the one calling the shots, even though I know she can't be happy about it.

Damn it, if she weren't competition, I could really get to like her.

"I propose that we fight," I say. "While we still can. In whatever way we must."

Scully thinks about this for a moment. "All right," she agrees. "What's our first move?"

It's that simple. No long, wearying argument, and no hesitation: 'All right', and she's with us. I've always respected her, despite my resentment; and that assessment jumps a few notches, even though I still loathe the idea of her presence.

"Road trip," I tell her. "Let's get started -- we've got a world to save."

In order to confuse any future pursuers, and to avoid the perils of possible discovery inherent in returning to her apartment, we've decided to leave Scully's car in the parking garage of a shopping mall she frequents. The garage also provides space to guests of the adjacent hotel, which should allow the car to go unnoticed for some time. To do this, she needs to drive there, while I follow her in my car. "I'll ride with Scully," Mulder volunteered -- which means that I've spent the last hour watching them through the rear window of her car, my hands clenching the steering wheel so tightly that they hurt.

They're talking: non-stop rapid-fire conversation. I can see the movement of their lips when one or the other turns their head sideways. Occasionally, I see their shoulders move, as they reach out to each other -- and once, Mulder touched her face, a long caress at a red traffic light that made me want to rear-end Scully's car just to make it stop. Old friends, reliving old times and catching up on recent history. Yeah. But it's killing me.

Against my will, I find myself remembering the way it was when I rescued him from the hospital. Sound and fury, signifying everything: the roar of the engine as we tore down the highway, the howls of the music blaring from the stereo, the feel of his arms wrapped around my waist. Mulder clinging to me with all his strength, terrified out of his wits -- he'd never ridden a motorcycle before, I think, let alone at the speeds I ride -- and the sensation of his body pressed against my back almost more than I could bear. Laughing: triumphant, exultant, reveling in the sheer power of having claimed what I most wanted. Three days of twenty-hour rides, eating at dingy little truck-stops, sleeping in abandoned buildings with my body curled around his; culminating finally with his open-mouthed surprise at my secret hideaway -- astonishment and delight mutating into desire as he moved toward me, seizing me and capturing me with a hard and hungry kiss...

He was mine, and mine alone; and now he's slipping away from me -- and lucky me, I get to watch it happen.

By the time we reach the agreed-upon shopping mall, I'm seething. My mood is not improved by the fact that it takes nearly half an hour for Scully to find a parking space that suits her in the all-but-empty lot, or the fact that the conversation between them seems to get more animated as she tours the garage. Tying up loose ends while I'm not around to hear. Nice, real nice. Finally, she parks her damn car, and I pull into a spot across the aisle and slam the car into park so forcefully that I'm surprised I don't break the gearshift lever. Calm, Alex. Never let 'em see you sweat. One long, deep breath and a moment with my eyes closed, and my face is as impassive as I can make it; and I get out of the car and walk toward them, as nonchalantly as if the last hour and a half hasn't been sheer torture for me.

The two of them get out of the car at the same time; Scully starts rummaging around in the trunk. Mulder comes toward me, reaching out to take my hand -- I jam both my hands into the pockets of my jeans and brush past him, ignoring him as if he doesn't exist. How dare he pretend that nothing's wrong?! "You ready?" I say to Scully, hearing the edge of anger in my voice, tamping it down as best I can.

She extricates her overnight bag from the trunk and slams it shut. "I'm ready," she says. The look she gives me is an odd one, as if she's never seen me before -- what the hell has Mulder been telling her? And do I really want to know?

No, not really. "Let's go," I say, and turn back to the car. I catch a glimpse of Mulder's face, from the corner of my eye -- that kicked-puppy look, the one that almost never fails to touch me -- and turn away fast, before it can affect me. Damn you, Mulder. Damn you for making me hurt like this.

I slide into the driver's seat, and when Mulder takes the seat beside me, I realize that I'd been expecting him to get into the back with Scully. I should be relieved by this, I suppose; instead, it only makes me angrier. Like he's doing me some kind of huge fucking favor by choosing to sit with me. I don't need his favors, I don't need...

...oh, who the hell am I kidding? I need him: more than I need air, or the blood in my veins -- and right now I hate him for that.

As I'm steering out of the lot, I feel the barest feather-touch against the side of my leg; not an erotic touch, just the faintest contact. I look down at his hand, then sideways at his face. His expression is anxious, concerned: what's wrong? -- and innocent, as if he doesn't have the slightest idea what he's putting me through. And maybe he doesn't; maybe he's utterly blind to the way his actions affect me. Maybe he doesn't know that Scully's presence, and his bond with her, is driving me up a fucking wall. Typical Mulder: to be so oblivious to something so evident.

His hand slides along my leg, settles on my knee, a solicitous, possessive gesture -- and almost against my will, I disengage one hand from the steering wheel and cover his hand with my own. Damn him for making me feel this way, but I can't resist him. I've never been able to.

And as his fingers entwine with mine and clasp hard, I feel something inside me loosen. He's still mine -- for now, anyway.

So what else is new? Now is all I've ever had, and nothing lasts forever.

How I wish this could.

I negotiate the car onto the highway one-handed, unwilling to release him. His fingers twitch a little as we merge into traffic, ready to surrender my hand to the necessity of driving, but I hang on. I don't want to let go. I don't ever want to let go. The car is silent as a tomb; every so often I glance into the rear-view and catch Scully watching us -- watching me -- studying me, curiously: what the hell did Mulder tell her? I don't know if she can see us holding hands; shit, the woman's got radar, she probably knows -- and for some reason it gives me the creeps to think about her watching, yet still I hang on. It's my connection to the recent past, when everything was secure and perfect, and I was as happy with my world as I've ever been.

Memories: talking to Mulder, confiding things I'd never imagined telling him. About my sister and what happened to her, about my father and his associates, about how I found my way into the FBI and the brief period of time in which I actually believed in justice, about how I got dragged from that short interval of light back into the darkness of shadows. About what it felt like to have that oily shit crawling around inside my body and my brain. About who I am, and how I got to be who I am, and what it feels like to be me. And Mulder listening, punctuating listening with kisses, interrupting with passionate, distracting caresses when the pain of remembering got to be too intense for me; empathizing and accepting me, the only one who ever has...

Now we sit in silence, conscious of the observer in the back seat: his partner, my rival, our ally for the time being, and an intruder in the intimacy we would otherwise share. All we have in this moment is the touch of our hands, the small contact of skin against skin, and I feel his fingers wrapped around mine as intensely as I have ever felt him make love to me -- an infinitesimal reminder of ten months of languorous familiarity, now that the interlude of peace has come to an end.

I need him now. I need him beside me, inside me: I need to own him, for just a little longer. I need him, in a way that has nothing to do with sex. Our mission is paramount, and discretion has to be our top priority, but... I need him, and somehow I'll have to arrange for us to have enough privacy to make that possible.

Nothing else matters to me right now but feeling that close to him, for even a little while.

We journey onwards, for what feels like endless miles and endless hours. Mulder falls asleep with his head against the passenger-door window; Scully sleeps curled up on the back seat. I drive, listening to them breathing in counterpoint, to Mulder's faint snores, and try to keep myself awake despite the soporific sounds. When I feel my eyes closing, I turn on the radio... but we're deep into Pennsylvania now, and there's no reception at all: nothing to keep me from falling asleep at the wheel. I manage to snag the tape case from the floor between Mulder's legs without becoming distracted along the way, or ramming one of the semis that's speeding down the highway, and pop a cassette into the stereo without looking at it. Turns out to be Metallica: perfect. Loud, which is exactly what I need.

After a few minutes of thrash metal, I catch a glimpse of tousled red hair dragging itself to a sitting position. "Could you turn that down a little?" she mumbles.

"No," I reply. "Sorry." Bitch. You try driving all night on two hours' sleep and more stress than one person ought to have to handle, and see if you don't need something to keep you awake! But I keep that reaction to myself. It won't do to antagonize her so soon... and after all, there'll be plenty of time to antagonize her later.

She doesn't argue; merely sighs and flops back down onto the seat. Mulder, by contrast, never even stirs -- he's used to my music. He's used to me.

Damn.

I remember when I told him about Svetlana. Somehow, he'd gotten onto the subject of his sister, and was busy falling deep into one of his depressions, and it worried me -- and pissed me off. You'd think he was the only person who'd ever lost someone...! So I told him about my own loss of childhood innocence. Svetlana, who wanted to be called Lana but who everyone called Sweetie because she was so damn nice. Eight years older than me, and closer to me than either of my parents since she'd been looking after me since almost the day I was born. She used to pack my school lunches and sing me to sleep at night, she was my big sister and my best friend; and twelve days after her seventeenth birthday, three days before I turned nine, two men in an expensive black car drove past our apartment building and put five bullets into her chest and her skull. I came home from school and slipped and fell into a puddle of still-wet blood on the sidewalk, ran up the stairs to find my mother screaming at my father in hysterical Russian about how it was all his fault, and life was never the same for me again...

I hadn't told anyone about Svetlana for years and years, and as always reliving the memory made me a little crazy; by the time I got to the end of it, I was shouting at him. 'You think your life is so fucking lousy? At least you have hope! All I have is a grafitti-covered gravestone in a Brooklyn cemetery...' And he just sat there, listening, staring at me, silent tears streaming down his face -- and when I was too hoarse and miserable to yell at him anymore, he got up and came to me, wrapped his arms around me and held me until I stopped shaking, took me to bed and made love to me until the memory receded and I was more or less sane again. He never said anything to try to soothe me -- he knew, I think, how useless and ridiculous such platitudes would be. He just... listened, and understood, and used his hands and lips and tongue and cock to try to take my pain away. And nobody since Svetlana had ever cared about how I felt, or whether I was hurting: it was a new feeling, to have someone see inside me and not use that insight to harm me or use me to satisfy their own agenda. I rested in his arms afterwards, felt his hands stroking my back, his lips pressing small gentle kisses against my face, and marveled at the feeling of being cared for; of being comforted.

I had already given Mulder my body and my heart and half of my secret hideaway -- that was the night I gave him my soul.

And now it's being shredded and torn into a thousand bloody pieces; and the worst part is that he's not even trying to hurt me. It's just happening -- because of who he is, and who he needs to be.

He's right next to me, and I miss him already.

How will I survive when he's gone?

The road blurs before me, and with horror, I realize that there are tears in my eyes, very close to rolling down my face. Fuck! No, I can't let this happen. Not here, not now, not with Scully in the goddamn back seat and him beside me. Not at all, if I can help it; but if I'm going to fall apart, it's going to be when I'm alone, and free to be miserable without having to endure their scrutiny. Not hers; not even his.

This is a pain he can't relieve, and one I will not allow her to see.

I roll the window open; the harsh wind strikes my face and helps me freeze my face into impassivity. Cold, like the ice I keep inside me. Only problem is, Mulder's been melting the ice for ten months now, and my control isn't what it used to be. I've gotten used to letting him see me, letting him know me. I've gotten used to not having to hide from him.

How am I going to get used to being alone again?

By the time the gas gauge drops to an eighth of a tank, I've managed to regain my outward equanimity. I pull into the station, toss a twenty at the attendant manning the full-serve island, and manage to escape before either of my passengers are more than half awake. Bathroom first, a quick piss and a few handfuls of cold water splashed against my face until the mirror's reflection is as cold and unfeeling as I wish I felt inside. Then coffee and a package of Hostess cupcakes, caffeine and sugar to keep me alert for a little longer. On my way back to the car, I pass Scully on her way to the rest room; she acknowledges me with a flicker of her gaze and half a smile, and I raise my eyebrows in the barest fragment of a response. Don't look at me. Don't try to communicate with me. Don't remind me you're here.

Mulder is still standing beside the car, waiting for me. He gets back inside as I reclaim my seat. "I'll drive for a while, if you want," he offers.

"No, I'm okay," I tell him. The cold air and the movement and the coffee are reviving me; I should be able to hold out until dawn. By which time, we should have reached a motel I know, a place where we should be able to lay low for long enough to sleep awhile, and maybe more...

"Alex?" His voice is soft, worried. "What's wrong?" He reaches out, takes both my hands in his, caressing... and the sound of him, the feel of him, melts the ice all over again, shattering the too-thin facade I've managed to rebuild. Damn him and his concern, anyway.

I pull my hands away. It hurts; the loss of his warmth hurts like hell. "Don't," I say: a warning. Don't touch me, Mulder, or I'll break. Don't talk to me, or I'll shatter. Don't touch me, Mulder. Just don't.

A sip of coffee, a bite of preservative-laden spongecake and orange icing, and all the while his eyes boring holes into me -- then he gives up; "I'll be back in a minute," he says, and gets out of the car, closing the door behind himself. And for a few precious moments, I am alone: I can collect myself, try to compose myself, in privacy.

I've made a bad miscalculation. At this rate, I'm not going to survive long enough to be destroyed by the alien menace; this misery will kill me first. The irony of it would be amusing, if I didn't hurt so much. Oh, hell, Mulder. Do you even have the slightest idea how you make me feel?

By the time they return -- together, damn it, talking in low voices as they approach the car -- my walls are back in place, impervious even to his caring. They fall silent as they get into the car, which suits me fine, and I pull back onto the highway.

Music and cold air and the dregs of my coffee keep me alert. I play a subdued game of who's-passing-who with the semis, mindful of my passengers' safety as I wouldn't be if I were alone, but needing something to keep my mind occupied, anything other than the man sleeping beside me and the woman in the back seat, and what their unity means to the relationship I've forged with him.

The Capri Motel is the kind of place you don't find unless you're looking for it, and even then, not without a struggle. It's hidden at the back of a long deserted road that doesn't go anywhere in particular; as a consequence, it's dirt-cheap, and its owners don't ask a lot of questions, even of people they don't already know. I pull around back, behind the cabin I intend to occupy, and walk across the gravel lot to the office to get the keys.

The office is closed for the night -- Jim's pickup truck is gone, so I assume he's away on 'business', and rather than wake up his wife Bess, I pick the lock. "Hey, Bowser," I say softly, before the couple's mongrel dog can chew my leg off, and Bowser rests his head back on his paws and watches me as I take the key to cabin fourteen, and leave a couple of bills in its place.

"That you, Razor?" comes a sleepy voice from the back room, and I feel a grim smile tug at my lips: Bess has ears like radar.

"Yeah," I affirm. I have so many names that I sometimes have trouble keeping track of them all. 'Razor' is a convenient persona, and one I use fairly often: he's a bad-ass biker dude with a number of steadfast allies and an even greater number of people he's alienated by cheating them at poker. Jim and Bess are among the former -- I do them the occasional favor, and they watch my back when I need it. A good deal all around.

"I'm taking fourteen," I tell her. "Everything clear?"

"Smooth sailing," she murmurs sleepily. "I'll tell Jimmy you said hello."

"You do that," I say, and make my exit, back out into the dawn.

There are a couple of bikes parked outside several of the cabins. I check them out carefully, from a distance, and note that none of them seem to belong to anyone I know -- which is good: the last thing I need now is to have the various aspects of my life colliding. The sun is still low enough that it doesn't hurt my tired eyes, providing just enough light to create a soft glow over the world. If I fall asleep quickly enough, I can be out cold before daylight takes hold.

But despite my fatigue, sleep is the last thing on my mind.

Mulder and Scully are both awake when I get back to the car. Scully is looking around nervously; Mulder is just waiting for me. I jingle the keys at them and gesture at the cabin, and Mulder gets out of the car to join me as I unlock the door -- Scully is a little slower, surveying her surroundings before leaving the relative safety of the car, as defensive as Mulder is trusting. "Where are we?" she wants to know.

"We're safe," I reply. "For the moment."

Whoever originally built this place must have envisioned it as a 'family retreat'. The cabins are all two- and three-bedroom jobs with little kitchenettes and living-room alcoves, and once upon a time they must've been pretty nice. They're run-down and dingy now: half the furnishings stolen, the other half broken -- but there are walls, a roof, beds and a bathroom, and that's all that really matters.

Mulder makes a beeline for the bathroom while Scully looks the place over critically, and I go back out to the car to get our things. Her overnight bag, and the one Mulder and I are sharing, and a few extra supplies -- I can live without my morning cup of coffee, but I don't much like to, and traveling on four wheels instead of two allows me the luxury of not having to suffer. I live like a cockroach when I have to; that's more than enough to endure.

Scully's eyes widen a little as I set up the coffeemaker on the counter; apparently, I've managed to surprise her, but she doesn't comment. Mulder, by contrast, seems delighted. "Did you bring the good coffee?" he asks me as he emerges from the bathroom.

"I didn't know you noticed the difference," I reply sardonically.

"I notice a lot of things," he says, coming to stand beside me. I feel his hand slide across my ass in a quick, furtive caress, below the level of the counter so that Scully won't see -- if we were at home together, he would have wrapped his arms around me from behind and rested his chin on my shoulder, the way he always does; but of course, Scully is watching, and that changes everything -- and all at once, the seething rage is back, rising in a hot wave inside me, choking me. Damn her! I think; then, Damn him -- he notices everything except what he's doing to me...

I evade his hand, move away. "That room's yours," I tell Scully, gesturing toward the far bedroom. And why don't you go there, and close the door behind you, and get the hell out of my life for a while?

She slings her bag over her shoulder. "You've been here before," she says, not quite a question.

"Yeah," I say, and leave it at that. It's none of her damn business what I do with my time, and it's sure as hell none of her business what I do with Mulder, and I need some time alone with him, without her in the way...

Scully looks at me, then trades a longer glance with Mulder -- "Well, I'm going to get some sleep," she says, taking the hint. "Goodnight," and the two of them clasp hands briefly before she disappears into the smaller of the two bedrooms.

Mulder watches her go, then turns to look at me. "Talk to me, Alex," he says softly. "What's going on?"

I stare at him, incredulous. Just how dense is he? "I'm going to take a shower," I say, and stalk away.

The hot water and momentary solitude help ease my increasingly foul mood, relax me enough to find something resembling perspective. Maybe I'm reading too much into this. Maybe I'm just being paranoid and insecure. In any case, if I don't calm down, I'm going to jeopardize our mission with my tension and hostility -- and damn it, there's so much more at stake here than my relationship with Mulder...

It amuses me, in a sour and bitter sort of way, to realize that the fate of the human race means less to me than he does.

Eventually, I emerge from the shower feeling somewhat better, wrap myself in one of the oversized bath towels I brought -- another minor luxury, in lieu of the threadbare scraps of fabric Bess and Jimmy provide to their guests -- and pad barefoot into our bedroom. Mulder's lying in bed, flat on his back, eyes closed... asleep? No: as I close the door behind me, his eyes open and track me as I move toward the bed.

"About time you got here," he grumbles, as I slide beneath the covers.

I don't bother to answer, just pull him close to me. Ahhh, yes... this is what I've been waiting for.

And all the moves are right: the kisses, the caresses, the feel of his cock hardening against me, but... there's this strange hesitancy in him, almost reluctance, like a wall between us that I can't break through. It infuriates me; I need him, all of him, not just his hands or his lips or his cock but his soul as well -- and nothing I do can bridge that gap; I can arouse him, but I can't seem to capture him.

Finally, he pulls back, pulls away from me in the middle of a kiss. "Alex... I don't think I can do this," he whispers apologetically. "Not with Scully in the next room..."

I can only stare. Oh, you've got to be kidding. You can't do this to me, damn it, not now... But the look on his face tells me very clearly that yes, he's completely serious; and that my hard-on and my needs don't matter to him as much as the opinion of the woman who's probably already fast asleep, one room over.

All right, Mulder. Now I know where I stand with you. Thanks ever so fucking much, you son of a bitch.

"Fine," I say, and roll over, turn my back to him and curl up on the far edge of the bed. Alone. Alone and aching, when what I need most in the world is to be with him... I hate her. I hate him. I hate them both, and what the hell am I doing here, putting myself through this? I should have just left him on her doorstep with a gun and a map and a kiss goodbye, and spared myself the slow agony of losing him by inches. Or maybe I should've just laid in some extra supplies and holed up with him in my hideaway while the rest of the planet died. To hell with the world's future, and to hell with what he needs: what about what I need? Doesn't that matter? I thought it mattered to him, but all he cares about is her...

"Alex?" The faint sound of his voice, the lightest brush of his hand against my back. "I'm sorry..."

"Don't," I force out, between clenched teeth. Don't touch me. Don't be fucking sorry. Don't hurt me anymore, damn it, just leave me alone...!

His hand withdraws, leaving me to my desolation.

In the next heartbeat, his body is pressed firmly against my back, heat and sweat and the tantalizing pressure of his hard-on shoved up against my ass, as his arm curves around my hip and his hand wraps around my throbbing cock, stroking...

Damn it, he even knows me well enough to know when not to listen to me. How can he know me so well, and yet not know me at all?

"Alex, I want you so much, I just..." and his lips clamp down on my shoulder, teeth biting, sucking at my skin -- and I need him so badly, but what I need even more is to not need him. I need to be able to resist him, and oh hell, I just can't...

"I need you so much it scares me sometimes," he confesses, his voice soft and hoarse and pained. "I can't be near you without needing to sink into you and be a part of you, and... and I don't want Scully to know about that. What we are when we're together, Alex, that's ours; it's private, and I don't want to share that with anyone. Not even her."

...And sometimes he says exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, so perfectly in tune with what I need to hear that I wonder if he's telepathic -- and my heart aches with the knowledge that he's the only one who'll ever know me so well.

I roll over, into his arms. "Just shut up and fuck me," I tell him, in a voice that comes far too close to pleading for my comfort; and he cups my face in his hands and kisses me so deeply that I can't breathe.

Oh, God, Mulder: yeah, just like that.

No walls, no hesitation and no resistance; just you and me, Mulder, your arms crushing me against you, your lips hard and hungry as the rest of you, devouring me whole. This is the way it should be between us, this is the way I need it to be. Your hands pushing me back against the mattress as your lips and teeth draw a trail of hickeys down my chest, to... ohhh, damn, you've gotten so good at this. Practice makes perfect, and you are so goddamn perfect I could scream -- it takes all the restraint I have to keep from screaming, Mulder, when you do that thing with your tongue and teeth; you learned that from me, didn't you? But if I scream, you might remember your partner next door, and I'll die if you stop now, Mulder. I really will.

Don't, oh hell, don't stop... I'm so damn close that I can't stand it, but I want you inside me; if only you could suck me and fuck me at the same time, I'd die a happy man. Just hurry up, will you? Where the hell is the... there, on the nightstand; you're afraid of your partner hearing us screw, but you still made sure you were ready for me, didn't you? I can see it in your eyes: you're as desperate as I am for this. And you don't know what it does to me, to know you need me the same way I need you. Because I'm scared too, Mulder. It scares the hell out of me to need you like this, because I can't live without you, and I know I'm going to lose you... but not today. Not now.

Right now, it's just you and me, Mulder: you, easing my knees up against my chest, and me, rubbing my cock and wishing you'd hurry the hell up. Your cock poised for entry, and me on the verge of coming just from anticipating what it'll feel like when you... oh... fuck, yeah... all the way in, Mulder. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. This is perfect.

Cold sweat, dripping from your forehead onto my chest as you lean over me, gazing into my eyes... do you see what I'm feeling right now? Do you, Mulder? You're the only one who could ever take me like this and not make me hate you for it afterwards, you're the only one who ever made me come back begging for more. You... ohhh, yeah, you know what I like; ram it in, hard and fast, like... ohhh, just like that. Yeah. Give it to me, baby; give me all of you, take all of me. I'm yours, Mulder. I can't be anything else but yours, not anymore.

Ohhhh, yeah... so good, so damn good... harder, and faster, and... oh, it's starting, so strong, so damn intense, building and building and... oh, fuck, yes...!

So goddamn fucking good, his cock pumping into me, spurting into me as I come; I forget not to cry out, and so does he, and it's just the feeling: sweeping over both of us, Mulder sweaty and gorgeous and sobbing with pleasure as we share the same orgasm, nothing but the feeling, filling us and draining us and uniting us into one being, beyond any possibility of separation.

He slumps over, onto me, lips finding mine and kissing me sweetly, softly -- and I can breathe again. He's mine: I own him, and he owns me, and for a little while, for now at least, I can breathe again.

I lie still as he withdraws, work on stretching and straightening my legs as he cleans up the aftermath of our lovemaking with a couple of tissues; when he reaches for me, I nestle into his embrace, rest my head on his shoulder and snuggle up against him. I've never been the cuddle-after-sex type before, but with him... this is wonderful. This is exactly right.

"You okay now?" he murmurs, turning his head sideways to look at me with eyes that radiate concern and warmth.

I consider, for a moment. "Better," I admit. It's hard to be paranoid and miserable when I can still feel small residual tremors of orgasm resonating through me, feel his heart pounding and smell my sweat on his body. Oh, yeah, I feel a hell of a lot better now.

He kisses my forehead tenderly, and suddenly all my fears seem utterly ludicrous. How could anyone, anything, compete with what we share?

Amazing, how much easier it is for me to think clearly when I've just had sex.

Dawn has turned into day, and the sun is streaming through the gaps in the closed curtains... one bright ray hits my face, and I wince. Mulder pulls the sheets up around me to shield my face, smooths his hand over my hair. "Get some sleep," he says.

I smile, and relax in his embrace, and feel the fatigue take me away.

I awaken to the sound of a firm knock on the door, awaken in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed -- all signs of imminent danger -- and the only thing that keeps me from springing to my feet and assuming a defensive posture is the feel of Mulder's body wrapped around me: the instinctive awareness that he is awake and unworried.

"Yeah?" he murmurs sleepily, and as I blink and focus, I remember: the Capri, Scully in the next room; right.

The bedroom door opens -- just a crack: not enough for her to see us naked and tangled up in each other, only enough to allow her voice to carry clearly. "Coffee's ready," she says.

"Thanks," Mulder says, and the door closes again, leaving us our privacy.

Twilight seeping through the curtains -- a full day's sleep, and time for us to get going. I yawn and stretch, feeling rested and well-fucked; a good combination. A second round would go over nicely, but with Scully unmistakably awake and prowling around the next room, I figure I don't stand much of a chance of getting Mulder to go along with that. It's a measure of how my mood has improved, that this fact doesn't bother me as much as it could.

"G'morning," I greet him, through another yawn -- 'morning' being a subjective concept; we've lived quite literally underground together for long enough that 'morning' is whenever we happen to wake up.

He catches me open-mouthed, delivers a kiss that leaves me breathless -- he's never given a damn about morning breath, neither his nor mine. "Good morning," he says afterwards, in a seductive voice. "Sleep well?"

I just grin at him: sex always helps me sleep, as he well knows. "You want the towel, or the sheet?" I ask him.

Mulder thinks this over for a minute. "Sheet," he decides, and I snatch up last night's bathtowel, wrap it around my waist, grab our overnight bag and head off for the bathroom.

It takes me a while to work my way through the inevitable physical after-effects of being fucked, and to brush my teeth and wash my face; "Hurry up, willya?" Mulder whines through the locked door, and I let him in so that he can piss while I shave. "Meet me in the shower," he murmurs into my ear afterwards, nibbling briefly on the lobe, as I head off in search of coffee.

Still wearing my towel and nothing else, I wander into the cabin's main room, lured by the scent of fresh-brewed coffee. I pour myself a cup, and study our third roommate. She is sitting on the shabby couch, showered and dressed in a pair of functional blue jeans and a man's shirt large enough to be Mulder's -- for all I know, it is -- and there is a mug of coffee in her hands, which she is sipping slowly. I see her register my presence, and I take the chair opposite her, so that she can't ignore me.

"Good evening," she says, courteously enough. "I take it you slept well?" with an odd little sidelong look that renders it a rhetorical question -- obviously, she was awake, and heard everything.

And so what if she did? I've got him, and you don't; and he's better than you could ever imagine. Deal with it, babe, I find myself thinking, with a certain smug pleasure. "Very well, actually."

"Well, that's good," she replies, "since you're the only one who knows where we're going," her voice sharpening at the end, signifying an unspoken question. Just where the hell are you taking me, anyway?

I have quality coffee in my mug, I have Mulder in the shower waiting for me; I'm feeling good enough to be magnanimous, so I give her an answer. "Southwestern Montana," I tell her.

She considers this, nods slightly. "This is excellent coffee," she says. "I'm glad you brought it."

If she can appreciate the finer points of quality coffee, she can't be all bad, I catch myself thinking.

"I suppose I should thank you," she continues, in a carefully measured voice, without meeting my eyes.

"For the coffee?" I respond, confused by the shift in her tone.

There is a moment's silence, as she gathers her thoughts. "You kept him alive," she says finally.

Ah. "Someone had to." It occurs to me after I say it that the statement is perhaps unnecessarily cruel. Yet she doesn't flinch at the words.

"I didn't," she says, with a self-honesty I hadn't expected. "I couldn't. It would have meant... surrendering too much of what I believe in." Sadness in her voice, in her eyes: for what she believes to be her betrayal of him, perhaps, or for the price she had to pay for her beliefs.

Suddenly, irrationally, I feel the need to reassure her. I tell myself that it's because I need her as an ally, that it suits my purposes to keep our relationship from becoming antagonistic -- but I suspect that the truth is more complex than that. "You would have done it," I tell her. "If I hadn't taken him... you would have kept him going. You would have found a way."

Another silence. "Then I really should thank you," she says at last, glancing up for the first time to meet my gaze. "Because you did... and I didn't have to."

She's strong, this one. So strong. All the faceless men who quake in fear at the mention of Mulder's name -- and none of them realize: he's not half the threat that she is. Guilt and fear and pain and loneliness, and she has the strength to withstand all of it, without falling prey to disillusionment and doubt. She lost him to someone she despises, and still she has the strength, the self-awareness, to sit here before me and thank me for having taken care of him so that she didn't have to compromise her principles to do so. What an astonishing woman.

If I am indeed destined to lose him... some part of me takes comfort in the knowledge that I will lose him to her.

Suddenly, I can't bear to be near her anymore.

"Not if you don't want to," I tell her, and escape to the haven of the bathroom.

A wall of steam greets me, and the sound of the shower... "Hey," I call out, over the rushing water. "Is there enough hot water for two?"

Wry laughter. "Get your sweet ass in here," and I tug off the towel I'm still wearing, and take myself and my coffee into the shower with him.

Mulder naked and wet is a sight to behold. "Gimme that," he says, takes the mug from my hand and drains half of it.

"Hey!" I protest half-heartedly, reclaim the cup before he can get shower-water in it and finish the remainder, reach beyond the curtain and set the empty mug in the tiny sink so that I can give my full attention to the matter at hand.

Naked and wet and sporting a massive hard-on. Better than coffee. "Want me to wash your back?" I ask.

"Wash this," says Mulder, guiding my hand downward and pulling me close.

We tried screwing in the shower, once. The resultant bruises and gashes convinced us not to try it again -- and even blowjobs are risky; we both get too into it to worry much about little things like maintaining balance on slippery tile. But kissing and fondling are relatively safe, and damned good; and I find myself wondering if maybe I'm completely wrong. Maybe I won't lose him after all. I mean, hey, he's here with me, isn't he? Scully's in the next room drinking her coffee, and he's here with me, his tongue exploring my mouth and his hands all over me... I know better than to be optimistic. Life has taught me as much. But right now, I can't imagine us ever being parted -- I can't imagine him leaving me for anyone, or anything.

Every time we shower together, I remember the first time he touched me of his own accord: both of us sore and aching, and his soapy hands caressing my skin, and how powerfully arousing it was to know that he wanted to touch me, with caring instead of anger. I'd been so afraid that I would return to find him dead, or dying and too far gone to save, or simply so enraged that he would never forgive me for my absence, and instead... instead, that was the night we stopped struggling against each other, and against ourselves. Neither of us had the strength to keep our guard up any longer, and he needed me so much, and I needed him... and every time we shower together, I remember that first time, and am all but overcome by the incredible tenderness I feel toward him.

It doesn't take long for him to bring me off; all I have to do is let myself fall into that memory and the feel of his hands, and I'm gone. But I take my time with him, teasing him a little, so that I can watch his face as his desire builds into desperation, feel his hands clutch at me tightly enough to bruise as I bring him to the edge and drag him back again, hear him cry out my name in that sobbing moan as he climaxes. Damn, but he's beautiful...

"I'd rather have you in the morning than coffee," he tells me afterwards, as we're drying ourselves off and struggling to dress in the humid little room; he wraps his arms around my waist from behind, rests his chin on my shoulder, and for long moments we both gaze at our reflection in the half-fogged mirror. Our faces side by side, blurred by the mist: a portrait of us at our closest, at our best.

How could I be stupid enough to think that anything short of death could tear us apart? We're too close, we've come too far together. Not even Scully has that power, now.

I smile at him in the mirror, and he grins back at me: a lazy, satisfied grin -- and thus fortified, we head out of the bathroom to face the day together.

"I'll drive for awhile, if you want," Scully volunteers.

We're at a filling station, doing one of the usual gas, piss and munchies stops that are quickly becoming routine. "Just tell me what roads to take," she persists, "and you can catch a few winks."

It's a tempting idea. I've been driving for hours now, and I could use a break -- and with more than one driver, we could make better time. But it goes against the grain to surrender control of the situation to anyone else, and especially to her. Still... it makes sense, and I need to be sensible, not give way to knee-jerk reactions rooted more in jealousy than anything else. "All right," I say dubiously.

As I'm tracing out the next leg of the journey on the map for her, Mulder returns from the washroom. "What's going on?" he asks.

"I'm going to drive for awhile," she tells him.

"Oh," he says, and his eyes flicker from her face to mine and back again, in a silent question that I don't quite understand. Only as I slide into the back seat does it dawn on me: so, where's Mulder going to sit? Up front with his partner, or in the back with me?

With the back seat to myself, I can stretch out, get more comfortable, maybe even sleep a little bit. We're not high-school kids playing at going-steady; insecurities aside, it won't kill me to have him sit next to Scully for awhile -- but as I'm working out a way to let him know this, Mulder shoots her a look that might be a silent apology, and gets into the car next to me.

Well. Okay. See, Alex? Maybe all your doom-and-gloom predictions are wrong after all.

He turns sideways, makes himself comfortable, then holds out his arms; I settle against him, using his shoulder as a pillow. As Scully pulls back onto the road toward the highway, his arms curve around me and hold me in place possessively, and I close my eyes and relax, unwilling to let slumber take me away from the awareness of his embrace, welcoming the chance to be close to him.

Then I feel his hand shifting, moving down...

Excuse me. Is this the same man who didn't want to have sex with me because his partner was in the next room, now groping me like a horny teenager in the back seat while she drives? Reality check... "Mulder," I murmur, half query and half warning.

In the faint flashes of passing headlights, I see him grinning at me: mischievous and seductive and sexy, as his fingers dance lightly over my crotch. Damn it... don't tempt me, Mulder; I'm just as likely to rip off your jeans and take you right here, and to hell with Scully... I wonder if she'd be startled enough to steer us into a guard-rail or an oncoming semi, or if she'd just watch us through the rear-view mirror and keep on driving? For that matter, I wonder whether she'd be disgusted or turned on by the sight? Hmm... it would be an interesting thought, if she weren't the competition. Hell, it's still an interesting thought.

What Mulder's doing to me is even more interesting: just enough to tantalize, not enough to make me crazy. Comforting, somehow, to know that he's focused on me instead of her. Damn good to feel his hands on me, even if I can't really do much about it at the moment.

For just a moment, I let my mind contemplate what it might be like, if... Mulder, working by my side. Watching my back. Being my partner. Sharing the load and the worry with me. Oh, what I wouldn't give for that. An impossible dream, but so damn sweet...

But I know what's happened to me, over years of learning and knowing about the horrors of the conspiracy. I'm not the same man I once was, and he wouldn't be, either. And to lose this Mulder to that nightmares is unthinkable.

He's here with me now; that has to be enough.

Gradually, with the grumble of the car's engine as a background rhythm, and the feel of his hands embracing and fondling me, I fall asleep.

Rape isn't a physical thing. Not as far as I'm concerned. Unwanted sexual contact, that's just flesh and blood; the mind closes off and shuts itself away, to make the intrusion bearable. No, rape is when the intruder is inside your head, taking over and using you as casually and thoughtlessly as the piece of toilet paper you wipe your ass with and flush away afterwards.

Rape is walking through the world, seeing and hearing and able to affect nothing, tasting words flowing over your tongue that aren't yours. Fighting, summoning every ounce of rage and terror and hatred and struggling to make yourself known, desperately trying to communicate the situation to the one man who might believe you, who might save you or kill you -- same thing, really -- and feeling your rapist crushing you effortlessly, keeping you trapped inside the little cage it's built for you inside your head.

Rape is when you are nothing. Not even a victim but an afterthought, a thing of no consequence, a tiny spark of consciousness flailing helplessly inside a shell of flesh no longer your own. Being consumed but not eradicated, and praying to gods you never believed in that you might finally be extinguished, so as not to have to endure the violation any longer -- and helpless even to die, unable to seek solace in oblivion.

And hell is crouching in darkness, retching and shuddering as your guts turn to liquid and force their way out of every orifice you possess; strangling, choking you so that you can't even scream, and being certain that this is the way you're going to die... hell is living through it and wishing you hadn't, locked in a deep hole and knowing that this is the end, praying and pleading and howling to be set free...

I awaken, trembling, biting back the scream lurking at the back of my throat, sitting bolt upright as my eyes frantically strain to assimilate my surroundings: the car, the road, Scully driving, and...

An arm, encircling me; a hand, palm flat against my chest, warm and solid and reassuring, measuring the pounding of my heart. "Hey," his voice quiet and calm and steadying, helping to bring me back to the here-and-now.

Behind me, he moves, sitting up and pulling me back against him, holding me close. His lips, brushing against my ear: "The silo?" in the barest breath of a whisper, so that she won't hear.

I don't have to respond; he knows the answer. Instead, I reach up and hold his hand in place, pressed against my chest, as I struggle to slow my breathing to a normal rate.

The soft heat of kisses on the back of my neck. "It's all right, Alex. I'm here."

In my worst nightmares, he holds me and says similar words to me, and I kiss him -- and then pull back, and see the black sheen covering his eyes as his hands clench around my throat...

I turn around fast, because I have to look at him, I have to see him, and know that it isn't true -- I search his eyes, and see only his concern, his affection. Relief washes over me. Ah, but not for long... I'm taking him into hell, exposing him to the reality of the nightmare, and what will happen to him then?

Damn. I should never have involved him. I should have fought this war alone...

"Pull over," I say, and Scully catches the urgency in my voice; she pulls onto the shoulder and stops the car just in time for me to wrench the door open and fall to my knees on the gravel as the nausea takes over.

Shit, I hate this.

The feel of the vomit is too reminiscent of that thing making its way out of my body; and the nightmare has brought the memory to the surface, too vivid to repress -- I endure, as my stomach rejects its load of coffee and junk food, spitting to clear the taste of bile from my mouth; and gradually I become aware of his hand on my back, rubbing lightly, attempting to soothe me.

But we're a long way from the Ratcave, where nightmares were just memories instead of grim prophecies of the future; and there is no consolation for me now.

"Are you okay?" I hear Scully ask me, as if from a great distance; her hand drifts into my field of vision, holding a Kleenex, and I take it with shaking fingers and wipe my mouth.

"He'll be all right," Mulder answers her. "We've... done this before."

Oh, thanks, Mulder; like that's any of her damn business? And yet it feels good to have him protecting me; the intimacy of the casual 'we' catches me off-guard and, defenseless as I am right now, almost makes me cry.

I'm always like this after one of those night terrors, too damn vulnerable and on the edge of breaking -- it used to scare the hell out of me when Mulder first came to live with me, before I learned that I could trust him with my fears -- and I have to get a grip, right now, because Scully seeing me like this is the last thing I need.

Slowly, I stand up, brushing gravel from my knees. "I'm driving," I tell her.

"I don't think that's wise," she counters flatly.

Who the fuck are you to know what's right for me? And Mulder's hand wraps around my arm, gently but firmly, restraining me -- I realize that my hand is clenched into a tight fist, and that I'm on the verge of punching her.

She's noticed this, but stands her ground. "I think you should rest," she says firmly.

"I don't feel like sleeping right now," I lash out at her; and Mulder's hand tightens on my arm, as if he's afraid I still might hit her. Probably a good move: I don't have a whole lot of control at the moment.

But Scully's a brave little thing: she doesn't take shit from anyone. No wonder Mulder likes her. "In my medical opinion," she says, "you're in no shape to drive at the moment."

She's probably right -- my head is pounding, my stomach is still complaining. But what she doesn't realize is that if I don't have something concrete and definite to occupy my attention, I'm going to fall apart, or explode... "I'm driving," I say, and wrench free of Mulder's grip, push past her to the driver's door.

It takes a few minutes before either of them gets into the car. I sense a discussion, maybe an argument, taking place outside -- self-preservation instincts tell me that I should be eavesdropping; but really, I'm not in the mood to deal with it. I don't want to know what they're saying about me...

...oh, hell. I have to know.

I crack the window open and listen, as I push the seat back to suit me; I adjust the rear-view mirror enough to give me a clear view of them, standing by the trunk. Scully, ignoring the height differential that would leave most other people at a disadvantage, glaring up at Mulder: "...medical opinion; you could at least back me up, here!"

"I know him, Scully. He's not going to get us killed, okay? Just... leave it alone." His voice is pained, as if it distresses him to argue with her -- or as if he's as worried about the situation as she is, but doesn't want to let on.

She is silent for a moment. "I think your judgement is flawed where he's concerned."

"Oh, definitely. Without a doubt." Even without the mirror, I can hear the smile in his voice. "But I know him, Scully, and... I trust him. I know you can't share that trust, or even understand it, but I need you to at least trust me..."

"Mulder, I do trust you. I'm even beginning to understand. I just..." She sighs. "Krycek is in no physical shape to drive right now, and you know it as well as I do. Can't you persuade him...?"

"Not without a bed," he says, and I watch as a small, wry grin spreads across her face in response to his. Interesting reaction to the mention of our physical relationship, but I'm too tired to analyze it right now. "And maybe not even then. Believe me, when he doesn't want to be persuaded, there's not a damn thing I can do to change his mind. Besides, I've seen him drive for twenty hours straight on three hours' sleep. It'll be fine, Scully -- just leave it alone."

A long, long pause. "If you're certain."

"Yeah, I am."

She sighs and nods slightly, and he touches her shoulder and smiles, and then the two of them come around to the side of the car -- and casually, I readjust the rear-view to a roadworthy position, insert the key in the ignition, and pretend I hadn't been watching them.

Mulder gets in next to me, and I try to figure out whether I'm proud of him, or angry. Something about the idea of Scully knowing anything about our physical relationship makes my skin crawl, even as it brings my dick to life -- an intriguing contradiction, but one I don't want to examine at the moment. More to the point: he defended me to her, and his declaration of faith warms me as much as it dismays me. Damn it, Mulder, don't you know how terrifying it is to know how much you believe in me?

Scully climbs into the back seat, leans forward and places one hand on my shoulder to get my attention. "If we begin to swerve, or if your driving falters in any way..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Do I look stupid? Does she really think I want to attract the attention of the state troopers? Or, far worse, endanger the life of the man sitting beside me? Nobody expects you to trust me, Scully, but you could at least revise your opinion of me to a level above 'idiot'.

I check the mirrors very carefully before pulling back onto the road; and Mulder waits until I've settled the car firmly into a lane before sliding his hand onto my thigh. He's no idiot, either; he doesn't do anything that might distract me -- just keeps his hand there, solidly reassuring, reminder of his presence.

Which doesn't stop my cock from noticing, and getting ideas of its own. Ah, Mulder, what you do to me...

And you know, the little bitch is right. I'm not in any shape to drive. True, it helps me shake off the last of the nightmare, but my headache won't quit, and I still feel vaguely nauseous, and... and I'd much rather have Mulder's arms around me than just his hand on my leg. Damned if I'll let her know that, though, so I pass the upcoming exit and its Gas-Food-Lodging signs without so much as slowing down.

But by the time the next set of exit signs come into view, twelve miles down the road, I'm ready to concede defeat. I pull off onto a long, dark highway, into the island of light in which the gas station resides, the only sign of life for miles.

"You win," I tell her, and drop the keys into her hand as we get out of the car.

"You think this is about winning? It's about safety," she chides me. Just as I'm ready to snap at her for being such a cold bitch, her eyes soften -- "I have some Tylenol and some Pepto-Bismol, if you need anything," she says.

Damn it, you won't even let me hate you, will you? "I'll be fine," I tell her.

Mulder has gone ahead, paid the attendant to fill up the tank, and procured the rest-room keys; he tosses one of them at Scully, as we head to opposite sides of the building. And rest-room keys means a door that locks -- good. Very good. Perfect.

He unlocks the men's-room door, and I push him inside and hit the light switch and kick the door shut behind us and slam him up against the wall, all in one motion; and his arms lock around my waist as I shove my tongue down his throat as far as I can. He's already got a hard-on, which saves time -- slow seduction is not on my things-to-do list at the moment.

And he knows how I get, at times like this, so he doesn't resist or protest when I turn him around and bend him over the sink, just fumbles with his jeans and pulls them down. I reach into my back pocket -- yes, they do sell lubricant in little single-use packets, and yes, I do carry 'em around in my wallet -- rip the packet open with my teeth and squeeze half of it out of the foil before my fingers slip and drop it on the floor; well, that'll have to be enough, because I can't wait. I just can't.

I hear him make a little sound, sort of a choked cry, as I push into him, but my mind doesn't quite register the sound of pain, nor would it make a difference if it did. I'm running on automatic, now. The memory is hot and aching inside me, as much so as my cock buried in his ass; and I need to fuck him, because nothing else can take away the ache. Hard and fast, no finesse and no restraint, just slamming into him until my balls twitch and spasm and explode, draining me of the need and the fury and the pain.

Ahh, sweet relief.

And it's only when I pull out, and notice the traces of blood, that I realize...

Fuck! Oh, hell, Mulder, I never want to hurt you.

He doesn't move as I clean us both up -- only a little blood: no serious damage -- straightens up slowly afterwards, taking entirely too long to zip up his jeans. Damn it. I grab his shoulders and turn him around before he can finish shoving his still-hard cock into his pants, drop to my knees and take him into my mouth. He comes about as fast as I did, and I suck him dry, tasting him and apologizing with my tongue until his cock softens. "I'm sorry," I murmur, as I release him.

Then I feel his hands under my armpits, hauling me to my feet, pulling me hard against him. Startled, I find myself looking into his eyes, taking in the intensity of his gaze... "Don't be sorry," he whispers, and kisses me forcefully.

I think that if this man ever walks out of my life, I'm going to have to kill myself, because there will be nothing left worth living for.

Another kiss, and he releases me, moves past me to the toilet stall and locks himself inside. "A little privacy, maybe?" he calls out to me.

"You all right?" He's got to be hurting right now, and that bothers me more than I could ever have imagined.

"I'm fine, Alex." His voice sounds normal enough, but I can't see his face; and I can never really be sure what he's feeling when I can't look into his eyes to find the truth.

"I didn't mean to hurt you." How goddamned lame that sounds. I took him like a cheap whore in a fucking gas-station bathroom, for chrissake -- nice work, Alex. Just treat him like trash... him, the only person in this whole rotten world who cares about you...

"I know." So soft and gentle, his voice. "It's all right. Just... go away and let me take a shit in peace, will you?"

So I wait outside for him, worrying at the length of time he's been in there, and feeling lousy. One thing for us to hurt each other in a relatively fair fight, of the type we had so many of in the days before we were lovers, but this... this was rape. Never mind whether he blames me for it or even whether he enjoyed it; that's not the point. I've been desperate for him before, and we've gotten rough with each other, during sex and otherwise -- but not like this. Never like this.

Damn it, I made him bleed; and that's never happened, not even the first time I probed his virginal asshole. I've always been so careful, and now... what if he is hurt? Granted, we do have a doctor on hand, but the thought of having her examine and treat this particular injury makes me cringe -- and doubtless he'd feel the same way.

Eventually he emerges, walking a little stiffly; he must be hurting pretty damn badly, to be showing it in even a small way. "Mulder..." I begin, feeling about two steps lower than arthropoda on the evolutionary scale, ready to start apologizing anew.

"Listen, Alex," he cuts me off, placing his hands on my shoulders and halting me in my tracks, meeting my gaze squarely. "If I had a problem with you or your behavior, I would tell you. Maybe I'd punch you in the face -- I've done it before, remember? I know how. I'm a little sore right now, but I'll be fine; and the only objection I have to that little interlude is that it didn't last longer." He smiles at me, so affectionately that it leaves me breathless. "So stop looking like you want to go play in traffic. We're square, okay?"

Only you, Mulder, could know me for who I am and care for me anyway. "You really are a piece of work," I murmur.

His hands move up to my face, caressing me. "I'm your piece of work," he responds, his smile broadening. "Deal with it."

Forever, if you'll let me. "Yes, dear," I say instead, in the usual sarcastic tone, and he laughs and kisses me.

And y'know, men don't kiss other men in public except for certain neighborhoods in certain large cities, not even in the near-darkness behind an all-but-deserted gas station in the middle of nowhere -- but I kiss him back, and hold on to him longer than I should. Not even the awareness that Scully is a few yards away, watching us and waiting patiently, can induce me to let go. "I don't deserve you," I hear myself whisper into his ear.

"Yeah you do," he whispers back. "Face it, Alex, we're a match. We're both completely fucked up, and horny as hell; what could be more perfect?"

I laugh, and can't stop laughing, because it's just so damned true.

"C'mon," he says, releasing me only long enough to wrap his arm around my shoulders; I slide one arm around his waist, and together we join Scully and head for the car.

The miles slide past in a liquid haze. We take turns driving, mostly at night, and sleep during the day. On Sunday, we can't find a motel that will let us check in before three p.m., nor a place to park where we can sleep in the car undisturbed; so we buy movie tickets at the discount theater and doze in the darkened hall through four consecutive showings of Godzilla. Later, when we're on the road again, Mulder tells us about the dream he had, about a four-hundred-foot-tall Skinner who single-handedly destroyed D.C., and does such a good job of telling the story that it sends Scully and me into fits of hysterical laughter that last for fifty miles.

On Monday morning, Scully calls the Bureau from a pay phone, reporting a bad case of the flu and requesting/demanding an interval of sick leave; and I wonder what Skinner would say if he knew the truth. Probably he would think she'd lost her mind. I mean, come on, everyone knows better than to trust me. Never mind that none of them have the slightest idea who I really am, or know about the war I've been involved in since before anyone else had a clue that there was a problem. No, I'm Krycek-the-traitor, and no one really wants to know anything more about me than that. Although Scully... I don't know. I don't know what goes through her mind when she looks at me anymore; it's been a long time, relatively speaking, since I saw hatred in her eyes.

On Tuesday, we do laundry, and go shopping at a local strip mall for a few supplies. Doctor Scully keeps a better-than-basic first-aid kit in her overnight bag, but with the kind of danger we're walking into, I figure it's a good idea to be prepared for more than minor lacerations. There's also the small matter of our depleted supply of lubricant; I toss a tube into Scully's shopping basket at the drugstore, and force my face to blankness so as not to look as embarrassed as I feel when she grins at me. We pick up extra clothes -- mostly in black: things that will help us blend into the shadows once we get to our destination. And more coffee, from a gourmet specialty shop and actually paid for this time, since my stash is running low. I'm getting impatient by this point; if it had been just Mulder and me on my bike, we would have been there by now -- but then again, this isn't the kind of trip that should be done in twenty-hour drives and catnaps; we need to be well-rested and alert when we get there.

On Wednesday, we find a cheap motel a hundred miles away from our target, and settle into adjoining rooms. The very first thing I do is drag Mulder into bed for a few hours -- not that he really needs to be persuaded. For the last two nights, we've been sharing motel rooms with Scully, sleeping together in one of the double beds while she occupies the other. It's been killing me to sleep next to him without being able to have sex -- we're getting very good at making love in bathrooms, but it's not the same -- and once we're together, alone, there's no way I can keep my hands off him. Nor am I alone in this urgency: he shreds one of my favorite shirts in his haste to get it off me.

And after we've had sex a few times, slept for awhile and had sex again, we join Scully in her room and begin making plans.

The Consortium has been careful to keep their project under tight secrecy -- which will be their downfall, I hope. Instead of diversifying and running the operation from a number of different staging grounds, they've kept everything centralized, using only a handful of locations. This place, this nameless facility in Montana where humans are assimilated, tested, tortured and killed to advance the goals of their inhuman captors, is the second-most important base of operations next to the still-unknown command base. If we can somehow manage to bring this facility to its knees, we will have halted the menace -- or crippled it so severely that it'll take years, decades, before the invader has brought itself to a position of strength from which to try again. At least, that is my hope.

That's the up side. The down side is that we'll be walking into Their territory with nothing more than hand weapons for defense -- guns which will kill humans, but not the oiliens or their half-breed servants -- and that all the oiliens have to do is get close enough to seep into our skin, and we're toast.

Or test subjects: a far more horrifying prospect.

I emphasize this last point repeatedly, and with great intensity. "Don't touch anything," I tell them both, "don't touch anyone, and don't let anyone touch you. The black oil can survive indefinitely without a host, and if you get within a foot of the stuff, it'll have one. It can also jump from human to human at will; and once that shit takes you, there's nothing you can do until and unless it decides to leave..." and all at once, I'm back in that fucking silo, choking and struggling to breathe as the ooze crawls out of me. A hand wrapping around mine brings me back to reality, and I realize that I'm shaking; and I squeeze Mulder's hand hard, using the grip to anchor myself.

"We don't split up," I continue, striving for a steady voice, "we don't separate, not even for a moment. Once a person's infected, it's almost impossible to tell. The only tip-off is the black haze over the eyes, and that doesn't show once the infection's established; not unless it wants to. Mulder was with me for hours, and he never knew," as my eyes slide sideways to meet his -- he nods slowly, his gaze compassionate and guilt-ridden. I wish I'd known, he told me, the first time I confessed to him about the nightmares, I would have found a way to help you, but the truth is that there wasn't anything he could have done. There are rumors that the Russians are close to developing a vaccine that might provide a defense against the black oil, but as far as I know, it hasn't been perfected yet -- assuming it even exists. Which means the only way to help an infected person is to kill them, and that's not an easy task; and even if you do manage to kill them, you run the risk of being infected yourself as the oil seeks a new host...

I tell them that, too, and make it very clear: "If any of us are infected -- don't try to talk, don't even shoot; just run. Run as far and as fast as you can, get clear of the facility at maximum speed, and try to find someone who'll believe you and help you fight this thing. Don't let sentimentality get in the way. As far as I know, we three are the only people on this planet with knowledge of the colonization who are prepared to try and fight it. If this goes bad... one of us, at least, has to survive, and spread the word."

"The others -- the Consortium -- why on earth are they going along with this?" This from Scully, who despite her fierce strength is undoubtedly the most naive of any of us. Lucky girl... how I miss my own days of naivete: the brief period of time in which I believed in justice, and the idea that good might prevail over evil. When I still imagined that humanity was essentially good at heart.

And the reasons are far too convoluted to explain completely, so I give her the short form. "They've been told that they'll be spared from slavery," I tell her, "as a reward for their faithful service. They prefer to believe this, despite evidence to the contrary, because the alternative is unthinkable. They're desperate men, relying on a desperate hope -- and willing to sacrifice their entire species for the chance of personal survival, in the face of what they regard as a bleak and inevitable future."

"Is there no chance that any of them might be swayed, persuaded to help?" she persists -- knowing, I think, what my answer will be, but holding on to her own desperate, futile hope.

I shake my head. "The ones who've been... less than committed to the Project... have been systematically weeded out over the years." Mulder's father. Mine. The string of informants who've found their way to Mulder over the years. Others, some of whom I killed myself before I knew what was really going on. "The Consortium has been ruthless in its elimination of all weakness from within. If this thing's going to be stopped, Scully, it's up to us to do it."

She nods, begins to speak -- hesitates, clears her throat, and finally says, "There isn't any easy way of saying this, but I have to... Krycek, how do I know you're not leading us into a trap?"

And is about to continue, to say something else, until she glances up and sees my face and falls very suddenly silent.

You fucking bitch.

Oh, but of course I've expected this. Scully doesn't trust me, and why should she? I'm Alex Krycek, liar, murderer and coward: isn't that what everyone says? Never mind that I've repeatedly put my ass on the line to get this information, when I could just as easily have spent my time amassing wealth and power, or stayed safely hidden away with my lover where nothing could touch us. Never mind that I've been one of those hosts, enduring the filthy touch of the alien bastard inside me, stealing my mind and my body and my self and leaving me forever scarred in ways she can't even imagine. Never mind that for the last sixteen and a half months, I've been hopelessly wrapped around the little finger of the partner she claims to trust above all others, and that he trusts me enough to follow me through the gates of hell without question. Never mind that I could have killed her, any number of times, without even getting my hands dirty; I'm Alex fucking Krycek, fucking traitor, fucking killer, just another fucking scumbag cockroach to be crushed under her self-righteous heel...

"You don't," I spit at her, and stalk out of the room and back to my own before I can give in to my impulse to throw her against the wall and break every bone in her body.

I slam the connecting door shut -- it isn't enough. I need something to break. Something to smash. The lamp -- it hits the wall and shatters with a satisfying crash, and still it isn't enough. The window...?

"Alex," and I whirl around to face him: he isn't Mulder now, he's a target, something I can vent my fury on.

Mindlessly, I move to lash out at him, and he grabs my wrists and clamps down tight, holding me in place. "It's her nature," he says, very quietly, very calmly. "She has to question, she has to be skeptical; it's who she is."

The words flow into my ears, they make perfect sense, and they don't matter in the slightest. They're just words, powerless against the rage. I twist, trying to wrench free; he hangs on. "She doesn't know you the way I do," he murmurs. "She doesn't understand."

And all I can think about is that I need to get away from him, need to hit something, break something... "Alex," he repeats, gently, insistently, "look at me. Look at me."

I look at him. Into his eyes. Gradually, I begin to see him. Mulder.

"Deep breaths, Alex," he says softly. "C'mon. Just breathe."

I look at him. I breathe. Deep breaths. "That bitch," I growl.

"She's Dana Scully," he tells me, "you're Alex Krycek. That's not your fault, or hers. It's just who you both are." He's still clutching my arms firmly; but now his thumbs are rubbing little soothing circles on the insides of my wrists. "Breathe, Alex."

Deep breaths. Calm. Control. Yes. These are the kind of moods in which people around me tend to die, brutally and messily -- and the only person around me right now is Mulder.

"When'd you get so good at talking me down off ledges?" I hear myself ask him.

A slight smile crosses his face. "I learned from you," he says. "You've spent the last few months talking me down from mine; now it's my turn," releasing his grip just a little, waiting to see if I'm going to go off again.

When I don't, he slides his hands up my arms, over my shoulders, settles his palms against my cheeks and moves in -- kisses me, a small soft kiss. "I trust you, Alex," he says. "With my life, with Scully's life, and then some."

He rubs the tip of his nose against mine, in what some call an Eskimo kiss -- such a sweet, affectionate little gesture that it drains away the last of my unreasoning fury. "Yeah," I whisper. "I know."

And I slip my arms around him, and he holds me, until I feel almost normal again.

When he judges that I've regained control, he takes my hand and leads me back into the other room, where Scully is still sitting at the little table, waiting. "I'm sorry," she says to me, at once. "That was unfair."

Yes, it was. Bitch. But was it, really? She has no reason to trust me. I've been involved with so many things that have hurt her... I don't trust her, and I never expected her to trust me; why the hell does it suddenly bother me so much?

It's all tied up together in my head somehow: my dread of losing Mulder, my terror of the oiliens, Scully's distrust -- all the fury and fear in me, tangled into a giant snarl that will either keep me alive and wary, or get me killed.

Damn it.

"You want an answer to your question?" I say, feeling the anger surge forth again, and forcing it back; feeling Mulder's hand gripping mine, and clinging to it as my sole anchor to sanity. "No, you don't know that I'm not leading you into a trap. You don't know the first thing about who I am, or what I do. I hate to tell you this, Scully, but you're just going to have to take this one on faith."

She gives me a long look, studying me, then gazes at Mulder for even longer... "I don't trust you," she says to me, finally -- no hatred, no loathing: just a simple statement of fact. "But I trust him, and he trusts you. I guess that's going to have to be enough."

Our eyes meet, and lock, for an endless moment. All right. Fair enough.

I signify acceptance with a curt nod. She nods back. And slowly, ever so slowly, Mulder's fierce grip on my hand loosens.

We sit down at the table with her, and go back to our planning, as if nothing had ever happened.

But Scully's words linger in my mind.

Most likely, no one's ever going to know what we've done here: whether we succeed or fail, our efforts will go unnoticed and unrecognized. But if history ever does record our actions, if any of us ever make it to the status of footnote... Mulder and Scully will be the brave heroic figures who stood up to the Forces Of Evil and vanquished their foes, or died trying. And me? If I'm remembered at all, it will be as a liar, traitor and murderer; and if anything goes wrong with this operation, it will have been deemed my fault.

I've never given a damn what people thought of me. Not since Svetlana died, and I stopped giving a damn about anyone and anything except myself. But I've been working to defeat these bastards from the inside, from the moment I first figured it out, and it's disturbing -- insulting -- to realize that no one will ever know what I've done, what I've sacrificed and how I've suffered, to try to bring them down. Not that I'm faultless, or blameless; not to imply that I haven't followed a purely personal agenda at times, or that I'm not a cold ruthless son-of-a-bitch when I want or need to be. There are many shades of grey, though, between the extremes of black and white; and for Scully to have so firmly assigned me to the dark end of the spectrum, when she of all people should know better than to categorize... makes me realize that no one else will ever judge me in any other way.

Mulder knows better. Mulder knows me. But who's going to listen to Spooky Mulder, when he tries to tell them that his lover isn't quite the man they imagine him to be? They'll label him a crazy faggot, turn their backs as they've always done when confronted with his beliefs.

I shouldn't care about any of this. I never have before. But somehow, now, I do.

Maybe it's because I'm so damn terrified that at least one of us is going to die tonight; and if it's Mulder, well, I just hope that I go down with him.

We've made our plans; and now we're taking a few hours to rest before we head out. We've set two a.m. as our ETA at the facility, and the sun is only just setting now. Plenty of time to catch some sleep. Except that I don't dare sleep: the real-life nightmare is too close, and I can't take the chance of succumbing to the terror of my dreams. They leave me too shaky afterwards, and I'd rather be fatigued than trembling.

I lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling, and Mulder lies beside me, doing the same thing -- we don't touch, we don't speak; just knowing he's there is enough for me.

When I was seventeen, I ran with a gang of would-be hoodlums in Brooklyn; one day we got drunk and brave and stupid, and attempted to boost a car. A passing patrol car caught us red-handed, and we scattered and ran -- I didn't run fast enough. I was underage, and we hadn't actually managed to steal the car, so the cops didn't book me; instead, they called my parents, and I ended up cooling my heels in a jail cell at the station, waiting for them to come and get me.

But it wasn't my father who picked me up. It was two men in dark suits, who manhandled me into a long black car with tinted windows. They took me to one of the big old houses in Bensonhurst, dragged me down to the basement, and proceeded to explain to me -- in Russian-accented voices and with fists bearing heavy, sharp rings -- the errors of my ways. I was my father's son, and a native-born American, and as such, they had plans for me. Plans that did not include youthful delinquency. I was to become their m