Disconnected - Complete

• Book I,
• Book II,
• Book III,
• Book IV,
• Book V

Book One

The palmtop computer sang beneath his fingers. Alien technology was a bitch to handle, never an instruction manual when you needed one. And as for technical support - forget about it.

Captured alien technology, captured sounded so much better than stolen.

Fortunately, Alex Krycek was a patient man. He'd had to be. Any job no matter how dumb. Any sale as long as the price was right.

What were a few months in jail to a man who had always known he had a value, that sometime, someone would come and open the door? What were a few hours of frustration and fiddling with unruly electronics on the off-chance that this gadget might actually work?

He played with the mouse again, sighing at its clumsiness. He knew there were better ways; he'd seen them use this thing and their way was far superior. Look mom, no hands. Look mom, no computer either. But Krycek was no purist, you do whatever it takes. So many variables between here and there. So many reasons for it not to work. Such potential if it did.

The display fluttered to gold and he couldn't resist humming in welcome. Data reception in progress. Alex Krycek resisted the urge to respond to it too quickly; gratification delayed often proved to be gratification heightened. Two impossible things before breakfast, assuming the sound meant what he thought it meant.

Hard enough to believe that Mulder had allowed himself to sleep unguarded. Sleep? Chemically assisted sleep for sure, but Mulder had willingly drunk the cup of coffee in the same room as Alex Krycek. Surely if Mulder had been paying attention he'd never have made that mistake. Krycek swallowed at the thought of such naivete. How the hell had Mulder made it this far?

Of course, maybe this was all some frighteningly subtle stratagem by Mulder. Maybe he'd sensed that Krycek had to do something and knew that if he were alert then he'd be obliged to stop him on general principles. Alex shook the idea away. Strategy wasn't Mulder's thing; he ran on instinct. Alex had both. And this time his instincts had said to implant the signaling device behind Mulder's ear and his strategy might be about to pay off.

Pure bliss that they hadn't stripped it straight back out of him.

Which gave Krycek the third impossible thing that day. They must have wanted Mulder to be able to communicate. And with him, of all people. Well, there was a development.

He smiled as he activated the viewing screen; these were interesting times.

The decision to intercept Dana Scully on her way home from the Hoover Building was obviously the correct one. It was only right that she should be the first to know. Only proper that she should find herself totally unprepared at the meeting to discuss it.

It became even more the right decision once Krycek realized that Scully's car was heading in the wrong direction. She was not on her way home at all. So, they were going to Alexandria? He nodded to his reflection in the mirror, and placed a little bet with himself. No need to follow her. Why let her study his stalking technique? Why not maintain a little magic and mystery and just go directly to Mulder's apartment. He eased back in the traffic and paused for coffee, a little taste of freedom earned.

Mulder never had bothered to upgrade the locks on the apartment door. Krycek considered it for an instant. Fox Mulder, who liked to declare himself paranoid, was actually the most pragmatic of men when it came to certain things. Like recognizing that his foes wouldn't let a little thing like a lock put them off.

Nor his friends, come to that. Krycek let himself into the room, moving as silently as the somber mood required. "Feeding his fish? Why not move them to your place?"

She spun, spilling food flakes into the hungry mouths, then onto the dusty carpet. Her hand shifted to find a weapon that was too comfortably concealed in her back holster. She failed to find it quickly enough to make her point.

He shook his head and she froze, her hand falling back to her side, her face moving back to icy calm, "Get out."

"He misses you."

A moment's silence to let her replay his words. The ice in her eyes melted for an instant. Her mouth opened on a low breath. "Do you know where he is?"

"Sure. So do you."

Two steps forward and she almost fell onto the couch, a pale reflection of the giddiness that had frightened Mulder only a matter of days before. "Get out," she offered again, sad and a little more pale, a little more of her washing away as she spoke.

"Don't you want to know what he says?"

A solid deep breath as she forced her chin forward and lifted her eyes to look directly into his. "Cut the crap. This is me you're talking to. If you can really talk to him, show me how."

"I don't think I want to do that."

"Then you're a fucking liar, Krycek. I don't play the dangling game."

"You've been playing it for years."

It might be said to be the theme of Mulder's life, to get stuck in a predicament where either you do or you don't, and either path looks just as crappy as the other. Alex Krycek didn't like the idea of getting stuck like that. He'd already hit too many dead ends. A silo. A Tunisian jail. You don't get much deader than those. Important, then, to focus the mind on keeping the options open.

Mulder was of interest to a lot of people. Scully, for sure. But also, to the tail end of a conspiracy that was still thrashing around like a headless chicken, still looking for a leader. But there were men there, still powerful men, who saw Mulder as a knight, a man to win over, ideally suited to getting a surprise result in a crowded end- game.

And then there was Skinner. The man Alex saw as the point where the personal met the political. The man had switched sides so often it was a wonder he still knew that there were sides at all. Even Alex, if forced, would concede that Skinner remained a wild card. Just as much a joker in the pack as Alex himself.

Self-sacrifice or cowardice? Krycek shrugged at the black and white of that question. Maybe Skinner really was just a man who knew the difference between a winning and a losing hand and played the game as well as he could. Cards held firmly to his chest, Skinner remained a challenge. A challenge who Mulder trusted. A challenge who Alex sensed felt somehow honor bound to play the hero; a man who needed to do the right thing for Mulder.

"Krycek." Its tone was neither a question nor a demand, yet maybe a bit of both.

Alex nodded, understanding Skinner's confusion, before moving directly to the point. "Scully's been spending a lot of time at the hospital."

Skinner admitted nothing, folded his arms to ask why it was any concern of Krycek's.

Krycek had learned to be thorough and flexible in his work, the advantage of a career history that avoided the straight lines of lives like Skinner's. Hospital records were too easy. "It's his, isn't it?"

A glimmer of weakness in Skinner's eyes, that slipped rapidly toward surrender. He didn't need to reply, just pursed his lips in preparation for an angry hmppph of dismissal.

Krycek pressed home the advantage, prowling the room confident that he'd made the right call, positively boucing as he stabbed out the words. "I need to tell him. That he's got something to come back to."

And Skinner melted, unhappy and uncomfortable at a confidence betrayed yet with no way to maintain indifference or ignorance of the accusation. "You've seen him?"

"Conversed."

"Tell him. He's got to come back."

Book II

The newspaper headline was not funny. Not in the conventional sense. But the irony was delicious. Mulder would have seen the humor; Krycek wasn't too embarrassed to smile.

Federal Agent Abducted by Aliens.

Then in smaller, but still bold text - FBI Assistant Director Witnesses Abduction.

Followed by a log-line of - FBI confirms that an agent vanished without trace while on assignment in Oregon and that the investigation remains open.

It had been an easy payday and not even illegal. Scarcely even morally dubious. If the headline had appeared in the Washington Post, Fox Mulder might even have been grateful. As it was zapped across the front page of the Enquirer it might be a little less attractive, but no less valid.

In a month or so, there would be an opportunity for an even easier payday when the story got debunked. By the Star, perhaps? Missing Federal Agent - his unmarried partner was pregnant, and his department was under review by Federal auditors investigating dubious expense claims.

Scully would be furious. Skinner would grieve a little more. Mulder wouldn't even know about it, unless Krycek told him. What was he supposed to live on while he waited for something better to come along?

Good suits didn't grant automatic access to the seats of the powerful. Even so, sometimes you needed more than just a pair of clean jeans to convince the naive that you were a player and not a pawn. Krycek recalled those Armanis in Mulder's closet. Was that why they imagined him to be more than just another do-gooder with a gun? Wouldn't that be ironic, too?

Alex's smile faded at the sudden remembered image of Mulder. Had he pushed him too far in that last exchange? Was raising the specter of a Scully in pain too much?

Looking back at the distress in Mulder's words, had there been some hint in there that Mulder might actually seriously be contemplating injuring himself, killing himself even? Or shutting down communication permanently, which would amount to the same thing. Surely Mulder knew that was the fast track to insanity. What if Mulder didn't care?

On the bright side, maybe the aliens just had him too drugged to respond. A much nicer thought than Mulder rejecting his overtures outright. Maybe the equipment had failed. What if they'd removed or disabled the implant?

Enough ifs. It was time he tried again.

"Hi, Scully."

She tamped down the urge to fight or flee with a single shake of the head and pushed her hands against the edge of the desk instead. "I'm calling security." She rose to her feet, shifting her fingers towards the phone for emphasis.

Krycek pointed at his lapel badge. "Visiting the Assistant Director, with special access to the X-Files office. Now. What are you doing here? Making yourself at home." He glimpsed up at the nameplates on the door to reinforce the point.

"What do you want?"

He toured the room, pausing to analyze and consider the placement of the furniture, the choice of pictures and newspaper clippings on the wall. "I like that. You, getting on with your life. Not preserving the place in aspic like some kind of shrine." He waved a gloved hand towards the tired looking spider plant. "That'll die, of course. Not enough light."

"I didn't know you were a horticulturist."

A knowing glance back in her direction.

Scully swallowed and stood up a little straighter, keeping her eyes on his. "The plant's on rotation with two others, one week here, two weeks in my apartment."

"Interchangeable clones, huh? If only we could do that with people."

"If you've got something to say, feel free."

"Mulder says - don't waste your life looking for him." Krycek glanced over at the in-box; it had been moved down from its high perch above a filing cabinet to a more practical, table level. "But I can see he needn't be worried."

"Let me talk to him."

"Not possible."

"Then this conversation's over. I will not be played."

Krycek made no move to reply, just watched her as a film of moisture glistened and coated her angry, tired eyes.

He waited until her head drooped a little and she broke eye contact with him. Gratified, he spoke smoothly. "What can I ask him that will convince you that we are in contact?"

"What have you done to him?"

"Given him a link back to the world. Of course if you don't want to talk to him."

She pawed at the ground for an instant, then forced her gaze back up to his face. "Ask him about my keychain."

Krycek smiled, raised an eyebrow. "Not exactly warm and fuzzy, is it? But if that's what you think best." He switched his focus from her eyes to her stomach. "Anything you want him to know?"

"Get out."

"What. Not even a coffee?"

Krycek slipped another weight onto the exercise machine. Being prepared was the name of the game. Life might be about to get a little harder, and it was important to get in shape. Though, actually, using the damned prosthetic arm made everything hard. Trying to maintain muscle tone and balance across the shoulders and back was miserable. Months in that lousy prison, trying to be ready for when he got out and with nothing, no one to help. It had been hard enough to hold onto enough food, let alone hold onto anything else.

So Mulder was having a hard time, was he? Whiner. There had been moments in that prison when Alex would have been grateful for anything that knocked out the sound effects, anything that stopped him feeling every inch of the bruising on his body. Any distance between himself and what was happening around him, to him.

So Mulder didn't like being surrounded by aliens, was scared that he'd go insane, worried that he might not get out? Mulder hadn't had a monster sharing his body, hadn't spent weeks sharing a missile silo with a thing. Insanity had looked like a very attractive option then, but Krycek was made of sterner stuff.

He pushed against the weight machine; pushed harder until the sinews threatened to end the session; pushed faster until the sweat dripped through his eyebrows and slipped down onto his eyelashes.

Negative vibes, got to deal with those. Not possible to do justice to the present, if he was still looking for revenge against the past. Those things hadn't even been Mulder's fault. Krycek had already had his dose of vengeance against the man who represented those hurts.

Didn't stop Mulder being a whiny-assed son of a bitch, though. Which just made it all the more infuriating. Why did anyone care? Scully probably had some excuse, but hell, just how good in the sack did a man have to be to get that kind of loyalty and self-sacrifice? And exactly when had that little turnaround occurred anyway? Surely, they weren't lovers when Diana had been on the scene?

His mind flashed on Marita, and his blood pressure kicked up another few points.

Skinner, those conspiracy geeks, the Cancer Man, some of the top players in the old conspiracy, some of the leading wannabes in the new - what the hell did Mulder have that made him attract such a devoted following? Even the aliens gave him star treatment.

The sweat stung as it broke past the eyelash buffer zone and into his eyes. Shit. He was going to do damage if he kept this up. He carefully released the strain of the weights. Panting as he listened to the thunder of his pulse raging through his temple, he tried to let it all go. They weren't the only ones giving Mulder top billing; he was doing it himself.

What he'd give to go and pound a punchbag and call it Mulder. That would get it out of his system. He knew it. Trouble was, it wasn't nearly so effective now that a quick one-two, the old left and right combination, wasn't possible.

Brains, that was what were needed now. Mulder was feeling bad. The rights and wrongs of it didn't matter. It didn't matter which of them had been hurt more, been through the worse torture, the most pain, the cruelest isolation. All that mattered was that Mulder was valuable, therefore Mulder was an asset that needed protection.

Rational analysis was going to have to win out over the desire to bait. Mulder needed to be saved from himself. Nothing unusual there. Alex Krycek would save Mulder. He would nurture and protect Mulder's sanity, even if Mulder was too busy brooding to notice the favor.

Still, today's chat should have focused Mulder's mind on the task in hand. Tomorrow a gentler, more understanding Krycek would tempt Mulder back out. The stick and carrot approach was necessary, and Alex knew he couldn't let frustration or anger get in the way. Didn't stop Mulder being a whiny ass, but Alex didn't need to let that taint their conversations.

Krycek was pleased with himself for choosing the gym as a venue for this meeting today. Not only a suitably public place but also a chance to work a few things out. He'd have to come here more often. He headed for the showers.

Walter Skinner was waiting for him as he entered the locker room. Krycek paused in the doorway to assess any threat. The Assistant Director could be dangerous, with or without a gun. Not today, though. Krycek breathed a little more comfortably as he recognized the sadness that lingered in the man's eyes and the helplessness in the droop of his shoulders. Skinner was still in mourning.

Skinner seemed to be analyzing him in turn, so Alex brought the stand- off to an end by supplying a bright smile. "Nice of you to join me."

Skinner didn't move. "How is he?"

"Alive. Did you give Scully my message about her keychain?"

Skinner averted his eyes as he nodded.

"Then you know it's true?"

The suddenness of Skinner's assault took Krycek by surprise. The ferocity of it was going to leave bruises as Krycek's face bounced against the doorframe.

The stranglehold around Krycek's neck tightened as Skinner followed up actions with words. "You're going to help me find him."

Skinner was going to regret this latest assault. Krycek could feel it in his bones; his time would come again. But not right now. "You know who he's with. We can't 'find' him."

The dull groan in Skinner's breathing as he eased back in the hold took Krycek by surprise. The assault had been a mere whim then? A whim that Skinner was already trying to distance himself from? "Let her talk to him."

"I'd like to, but it just doesn't work like that." To be thought indispensable was almost as good as being indispensable.

"So, you are - "

"A conduit."

"What's happening to him?"

"The usual. I'm sure Scully's got it in the files."

"He'll be coming back?"

"It's not up to him. We have to find something his captors want, something they want more than they want him."

"Such as?"

"That's what we've got to try and find out. But I need more resources. Better access to records and files. Official clearance. Protection from prosecution. Money."

"Money."

"Don't knock it. You know how much Mulder costs; they made you a spreadsheet about it. Now, try to think how much more it'll cost if we don't just want a few more open-ended files? We need tangible results. I may have to buy my way into a few secrets."

Krycek bit into his sugar-coated breakfast.

No wonder so many people had a thing for Mulder. It wasn't every puppet that was so easy to handle, nor so responsive.

He took a good swig of coffee to help swallow down the mouthful of donut.

The blinking light on the answering machine brought with it an invitation to lunch. Things were moving along nicely.

The X-Files office was brighter than Krycek remembered it. The reduction in clutter, the streamlining of the notice board's contents, the plants. Someone had cleaned the glass on the high windows, the dead tubes in the light fittings had been retired and replaced with new "daylight" types. Little things. The new broom was sweeping clean. The nest was being feathered.

"Mike Nicholson, I presume?"

The nod of the head was stiffly controlled, dark brown eyes never wavering from Alex Krycek's face. "And you are?"

"Alex Krycek. I'm here to see Scully."

"Agent Scully has just slipped out for a moment." Nicholson shifted his linebacker frame far enough out of the doorway to let Krycek enter the office. "Coffee?"

Krycek's face shifted to a brief smile. At last, someone with manners was working down here.

Scully's new partner was a man of few words and certainly with none to spare. When Krycek had read the summary of the man's casework, he'd anticipated a geek, albeit a geek with good range scores. Something more along the lines of a Frohike than an African American version of an Alien Bounty Hunter. Krycek watched him move, heavy and solid, but never clumsy.

No wonder Mulder had wanted to thank Skinner for the choice. Krycek wondered if Scully had even noticed. There had probably been a time when she'd have been annoyed at such an obvious bodyguard. Maybe she'd learned to accept a little protection.

When Scully returned she exchanged a quick glance with Nicholson. He waited for her all-clear signal and said a polite goodbye as he left the room. It gave them the necessary privacy for what might be a difficult conversation.

Krycek smiled. "He's cute."

Scully shook her head and almost smiled. "His looks are deceptive. He's smart, too."

"And believes Mulder was abducted by aliens?"

Her lips tightened. "He believes Mulder is worth finding."

"Mutual appreciation, then. Mulder was pleased Skinner chose him."

"I chose him. Skinner assigned him."

"Mulder'll be jealous."

Her eyes clouded over, and she looked toward an image on the wall, wanting to believe. "How is he?"

"He's holding up."

"I need to talk to him."

"I can't do it."

"Can't or won't?"

"Think of me as a conduit."

"Then start conducting, talk to him now."

"Doesn't work like that. He's going to send you some notes on what they've been telling him about their history and ours."

Her mouth drifted open as she considered his words. "Oh."

"Anything you want me to tell him?"

"Just - just, that I know he'll come home."

Krycek accepted her words. They would need to start campaigning together soon. But that was going to have to wait until tomorrow. Today, he had other fish to fry. And one of the sharks was going to buy him lunch.

Wasn't that a thing, a lunch invitation that wasn't just a suggestion he stop off at a Dairy Queen on his way home? The Watergate Hotel. Maybe the new suits really were having an impact on the weak-minded men who wielded power, or imagined they did. Such trivial people, and these were the leaders of the race? There were moments when Krycek doubted not only mankind's ability to survive but also its worthiness.

Krycek had raised a flag, and now he needed to know just who would salute. Knowledge is power. But then, so is money. And he was only one man whereas these people, despite their setbacks, had resources he could only dream of. How to negotiate himself into the right position?

From pawn to player was a leap, but then so was having a direct line onto an alien ship. No need for them to know that the equipment at the other end of the line was proving itself frustratingly fragile and all too human.

The Maitre D' considered him for an instant. Krycek recognized the appraising glance, punk or prince? The respectful response reassured him of his princely status. "Mr Carver's party?"

A waiter escorted him directly to the quiet corner table.

"Mr Krycek. We've met before."

Krycek cursed powerful men with good memories. Being Cancer Man's general gofer and temporary chauffeur was not an impressive line on his biography. "It's been a while."

"A lot's changed."

"A lot," confirmed Krycek strongly, keen to maintain the momentum.

The man named Carver had no such compulsion. He returned to conversation with the other three men at the table, debating menu items, seasonal vegetables and the possible break-up of the Microsoft Corporation.

Krycek almost lost it at that. These men had the fate of mankind in their hands? Perhaps he could do mankind a favor and poison their whiskeys. Later. Best to sit back and enjoy the ride; they'd get down to business soon enough.

Business waited until the meal was almost over, until the food had gone and only the drinks remained.

"So, Mr Krycek. What's your price?"

Krycek choked down the sip of bourbon that he'd just taken. "I'm not selling."

"Of course you are."

"You don't even know what I've got."

"A way to talk to Fox Mulder."

"More than that. It's a link. To them."

"Captured technology. Stolen from one of my former colleagues I believe. But I don't hold that against you. The price?"

"It's not that simple."

Krycek sensed rather than felt the gun barrels that were now trained on his body. Carver smiled as Alex stiffened. "I suggest you think very hard before you make my life complicated."

The four men walked out without further comment. Krycek was just relieved that they hadn't left him to pick up the tab.

Just sell it. Sell the goddammed thing. Find out what they'll pay and do the deal.

Solo, he wasn't a match even for the people at the table, though he knew that he could give the men themselves a run for their money. The people at the table weren't the problem. They were the officers; there was no doubt that each one of them had his own personal squad of marines backing him up.

Coup d'etats were possible. But only if you could get inside and work on the fractures. Take money for this, and he was doomed never to be anything more than a nobody. A rich nobody, for sure. But also, a wanted nobody. Scully wouldn't forgive him. Neither would Skinner. And both of them already looked so tightly wound that he was surprised they weren't spinning. And it was always the pawns that got sacrificed first.

Maybe there was another route. Another faction. Maybe he should get out of the States and try his luck elsewhere.

Such as? Tunisia again? Russia? He slid the car back into the traffic and wondered if there was some way he could use Skinner on this. Maybe one of Skinner's government contacts could tip the balance.

Dare he ask Mulder? He struck that thought away, Mulder was a boy scout, not a player. Had he ever considered becoming a player? Tried it and found himself lacking? Or had he never even tried?

Krycek could have laughed at the irony. If only it wasn't so fucking pathetic. What was the betting if Mulder had walked up to that table, bearing no gifts at all, they'd have welcomed him home like some prodigal son? Which, of course, was exactly what Mulder was.

When he pulled into the parking garage, he was struggling against the urge to walk up to his apartment, pick up the palmtop computer and use it to ream Mulder a new one. Play nice? Why the fuck should he? Maybe if he played it right and messed with Mulder's head efficiently enough, he could sell them exactly what they deserved, a piece of worthless junk.

He double-checked the locks on the car's door before heading for the stairs.

Something was moving in the shadows.

Krycek slipped behind a concrete pillar and froze, willing himself to be silent and invisible. Wonderful. He'd spent too much time profiling Mulder, and now he was so into the mindset that he had started to pick up his sloppy habits. Just great. Someone had trailed him home. Inevitable, really.

They needed the palmtop. They couldn't risk violence back at the restaurant. If they'd killed him there, they might never have located it. Now, back in his apartment block, it didn't even matter that he'd not led them to his door. They could order an emergency evacuation using the CDC or FEMA for cover and search the place top to bottom without a moment's delay.

The thought made him smile. Amateurs. They'd followed him inside. All they'd had to do was log which building, and they could have driven straight past without him ever spotting them. Easy then. It would only be one car. Four men tops, and probably not even that.

All he had to do was grab the palmtop and get away. They hadn't won anything yet.

He edged forward, listening for any sound. How patient were these guys? He knew they were stupid. But were they patient, or were they going to need to get it over with, presenting themselves as targets like over-eager sitting ducks?

A car pulled in through the gates and Krycek got his answer. The man he'd seen in the shadows tried to use the new arrival's engine noise as cover and started to run to the next pillar, looking to improve his angle on Krycek. A second man offered covering fire from the driver's seat of a dark sedan.

Alex was sure of it now, these two were simply not good enough. He ignored the covering fire, sensing that the range and the awkwardness of the shooter's position would render him ineffectual. Krycek pushed forward, took aim and fired at the running man. The man's run turned in an instant into a dead weight tumble that deposited the body messily between two parked cars.

The car that had just entered the garage discharged two people. A linebacker and a redhead. "FBI. Hands in the air."

Great timing.

The other shooter chose that moment to drive out of the lot, losing the car's open door as he turned too hard past a concrete wall. Really great timing. It was bad enough that he'd picked up Mulder's sloppy habits, now he'd inherited his luck as well.

"Put down your weapon."

Krycek turned around, furious, but he did as he was told. There was no point testing the nerves of Agent Nicholson. Nor the temper of Agent Scully.

Palms forward, he walked slowly towards them. "We've got to get it and get out of here."

"It?" Scully's excitement obvious even through her professional calm.

Nicholson acted as if there was nothing to negotiate. "Hands behind your back, you're under arrest."

Alex made no attempt to comply, just kept talking. "The communications device. They'll be back. With more men."

The words went directly from Krycek's mouth to Scully's brain, she took her decision in an instant and there was no doubt in her voice. "Mike." She caught her partner's eyes as he turned toward her. "Check on him," she waved at the unmoving body between the cars. "Call it in. I'll catch up with you."

She nodded at the tilt of Nicholson's head that asked if she was serious.

She motioned to Krycek to head for the stairs and they ran. Krycek listened to the familiar survival mantra playing through his head that ordered him to worry about later, later. Right now, they needed that palmtop.

Later, he could make sure that it was his and not theirs. Later was another opportunity.

The car journey was conducted in silence, the computer sitting awkwardly behind Scully's back as she drove.

Krycek understood her reasoning. It was the only place she could find that was safe from any sudden break for freedom he might make. It was also at less risk of being flung around in the car. She was being careful.

He watched the way her spine seemed to curve around the unit, as if she were caressing it. He wondered what that meant, if it meant something, or was he just seeing things that weren't there.

Of course, the palmtop's location had created other problems. Scully's gun looked like a damned uncomfortable lump in her jacket. Awkward to reach as well, and she'd need to use her left hand. All the time in the world for him to get away. But she was right of course, he wasn't going anywhere without the palmtop.

The telephone call with Skinner had been terse. Had it been any agent other than Dana Scully addressing her Assistant Director in that way, Krycek assumed she'd be on insubordination charges the next day. Well, any other agent except Mulder, perhaps?

Still, the conversation that he'd listened to had sounded very much like she was the one giving the orders, despite her use of the word "Sir" after demanding an urgent meeting. It was obvious that Skinner had taken it as an order; his only question had been, "Where?"

It had been Alex Krycek who supplied the venue.

Which was why as they approached the gym, Krycek was confident that Skinner would already know just who he was meeting.

Krycek could supply only a startled smile as Scully opened the discussion with her boss with an urgent appeal for a safe house. Such a formal-sounding request, for such a seat-of-the-pants ride. Still, if that helped them cope, who was he to argue? If the safe house didn't meet his standards, it wouldn't stand much chance of keeping him in.

"I've spoken to your partner, Agent Scully."

Krycek marveled at the formality, was it for his benefit or was this some little role-play thing they had going? The color drained from Scully's face and her gasp said it all.

Skinner quickly recovered from the slip. "Nicholson. Agent Nicholson called in the shooting."

"It was self-defense, sir."

Skinner nodded, stiff-necked and with so many questions in his eyes. "Nicholson agrees."

"Good."

"There's also the matter of the weapon." Skinner turned to Krycek. "I'm assuming it's illegally held. We may need to pull strings."

Krycek decided it would be a good moment to join the party. "Actually, it's registered to Dana Scully. A precaution. Sorry," he added, as he heard her low grumble of irritation.

"Let's go."

A Bureau fleet car wasn't the ideal vehicle for a quiet journey to invisibility, but it would have to do. There was always later, Krycek reminded himself. Lots of opportunities later, so long as he played it right.

The hotel had nothing much to distinguish it, apart from the name over the door and a fairly crowded parking lot of recent, well cared for cars. It was fleet car heaven. Krycek saw the board in the lobby welcoming the meeting of victim support group organizers and looked at Skinner. Skinner nodded, "I'm due to speak here later."

Good one. Maybe Skinner was a player. Maybe a Bureau fleet car was invisible.

They had scarcely even mentioned what might happen next. That had been left for the moment when they were safely behind closed doors.

Scully hugged the computer protectively as they walked to the two- bedroom suite they'd taken.

When he first saw the unit, Skinner had looked torn between throwing up his lunch and slamming Krycek into another wall. Krycek was gratified that he suppressed both reactions. He didn't blame the man for being a little testy about such things. But the sooner they let go of the past the better their chances. Well, the better Krycek's chances anyway.

By the time that they reached the suite's living area, Scully was struggling not to run. Only fierce control allowed her to place the palmtop on the table with the same delicacy that she might have laid a baby in its crib.

"How does it work?"

"Don't touch that!" Krycek screamed out his command as her fingers shifted toward the power button.

Scully pulled back her hand as if she'd connected with hot coals and swallowed.

Krycek moved to stand just behind her. "It's set to destroy itself if it's tampered with."

He wondered if they believed him. Not that it mattered. Neither Skinner nor Scully were going to gamble on a thing like that.

"Show me."

Krycek worked quickly, making as many mistakes as possible and correcting them with the surreptitious dexterity of someone whose life might depend on not being too easy to read. The screen turned gold.

Scully bit down angrily on her lip. "Why did you disconnect?"

Mulder had had plenty of time to respond. Krycek shrugged apologetically. "Maybe he can't reply right now."

Krycek felt the room grow cold as the air buzzed around him, a hazy storm of fear and doubt suddenly building. Scully turned away, clenching her hands into tight fists as she escaped into her bedroom.

Krycek shook his head as she pulled the door shut. "She expects too much." He started to shut down the unit, but then his eyes caught on the icon at the bottom of the machine's display. "He's left a message."

Skinner moved to get Scully back, but Krycek waved for him to wait until he'd checked the contents.

After only a couple of seconds, Krycek nodded. "Let's get this on your PC. It's for her."

Skinner took a long deep breath, exhaled slowly and came to look over Krycek's shoulder. The screen was a mass of words, he picked up only the occasional phrase. 'Disruption of hydrogen bonds between base pairs... The role of re-engineered plasmids... Modified DNA replication prior to meiosis...'

Skinner grumbled out his commentary, "I think we can safely say it's for Scully. But who the hell wrote it?"

"Well, it's coming in via Mulder." There was no need to say more.

Skinner had brought his presentation for tonight's meeting on his portable so Krycek hooked up the palmtop to the parallel port. The right lights started to flutter and the data was quickly transferred. Krycek smiled as the unit flashed that the task had been completed successfully. Encouraging Skinner to take the PC back with a wave, he talked amiably. "Easier to work with it on there, better screen and she can get a printout."

"Sure," Skinner mumbled impatiently, snatching the PC away the instant Krycek disconnected the link.

Scully barely looked at Skinner when he knocked on her door. He presented her with the PC and told her which file to view. Her eyes were too focused on the machine to see his nervousness or his hope. She thanked him and quickly disappeared again.

Turning back after a few seconds spent staring at the closed door, Skinner started to prowl. He rubbed at his forehead, pushing his glasses away to make it easier to drag thumb and forefinger over his eyes. Trying to push the bad thoughts away.

Krycek sat, the one calm place in the middle of the swirling storm. "He can't always respond. They knocked him out for days after he killed some of them."

"Killed?"

"Killed, murdered. You'll have to ask him."

"You said he couldn't move."

"That doesn't seem to be a problem."

"Then why doesn't he..."

"Kill the rest? You'll have to ask him."

"No. Not that... Surely he could threaten... Something."

Krycek's laughter was snorted, short and muffled. Wasn't it great to have geniuses playing on your team? "He doesn't 'do' anything. When they knock him out, he prefers it. When he killed those three, they knocked him out for longer. I wouldn't be surprised if he started killing them just so they'll keep him under."

Krycek grinned at Skinner. Skinner was keeping his eyes judiciously away from the screen and making it very clear that he considered himself both Krycek's jailer and the guardian of good taste. He didn't want Krycek to play voyeur either.

"I think we can safely say that the link is up. Let's give them a bit of space."

Krycek shook his head. "It's tuned to me. No alert Alex in the room, no keypad connection."

Skinner snorted in an angry lungfull of air. His authority had been challenged over and over again, and this time it was one time too many. He called Krycek's bluff and his cool cover cracked. "Let's test that theory."

Skinner moved to grab Alex by the arm, clearly grateful for an opportunity to burn off some energy by dragging Krycek from the room. Krycek avoided Skinner's move, and pulled quickly away. "Sure."

They were only about six feet from the unit when Scully's horrified scream stopped them in their tracks.

Skinner looked down at the screen. It carried only one line of text, blinking furiously as it screamed its message back at him - Disconnected.

"I did warn you."

The challenge was too much. Skinner threw his full weight behind the blow that caught only Krycek's prosthetic arm. But fake flesh or not, it was delivered with enough momentum to knock Krycek off balance. He recovered his poise just in time to break his fall with a clean slam to the ground.

Scully was between them in an instant, glaring in disbelief at Skinner even as she addressed her words to the man on the floor. "Get him back."

"No can do. Security lock-out. Twenty-four hours before I can try again."

Skinner didn't say a word, just stood shaking his head at what had taken place, cradling his now-stinging fingers with his other hand. His rage reared up again as Krycek's words suddenly hit him like a blow to the gut. He shifted his eyes to the body on the floor and was ready to follow up his earlier punch before he felt the restraining arm of Dana Scully fold around him.

"No." She was angry, but she was also well aware of the lesson. "We're going to have to learn to work together."

So, the enigmatic Dr Scully was also the pragmatic Dr Scully. Krycek knew that he shouldn't be surprised. She'd bent the rules for Mulder; she'd challenged her science and her faith to stay in the game. She could bend some more now, to see if there was an advantage in keeping him close.

He felt a sudden, unfamiliar burst of admiration. He needed allies, needed them badly. Scully might only offer temporary and conditional support, but even that was not a gift to be discarded lightly.

He pressed himself to his feet, offering Skinner a glance of understanding and commiseration as he did. Oh yeah, there would be payback. Alex Krycek wasn't the type to take a grudge to the grave, especially when it could be avenged so much sooner. However, there were more urgent matters right now.

He turned his attention to Scully, then nodded toward the coffeemaker and offered his services. A demonstration of both his single-handed dexterity and the need for clear heads.

By the time the coffee was on the table, the temperature in the room had dropped. Each of them took a seat and pretended to ignore the palmtop computer with its now blank screen, sitting like some ghostly guest of honor at the head of the table.

Krycek was careful not to smile at the machine. Voice-activated on-off controls were hardly the cutting edge, but rigging "sure" to mean "disconnect" certainly helped preserve the magic.

If they gave it to the Lone Gunmen then they'd maybe see the trick. But Scully wouldn't dare, not if every keystroke might be the equivalent of pushing an auto-destruct. Krycek could appreciate her dilemma.

Scully stared at her reflection in the coffee's surface, took a single sip and cleared her throat. "What did he mean - disconnected his ears."

Skinner closed his eyes as Krycek started to speak. "They disconnected everything. That's their term, not mine. His term as well, now. He's got no control over his body and he can't feel anything coming back from it. They did his eyes and ears, too, but they wired his sight back up."

She swallowed, reached for that word again. "Disconnected?"

"Oh, don't worry. They haven't chopped off his head or anything. He said it was an injection in the spinal fluid. Autonomic systems are functional. Voluntary systems and pain receptors are not."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask?" Krycek was now the only one of the group with his eyes open. "Besides, what were you going to do about it?"

"I could have said something."

"He can do 'sorry for himself' without your help."

Scully's features tightened, the need for a restrained response bringing a blush of red to her cheeks. Skinner opened his eyes and looked at Krycek, dry mouthed against what was being said.

Krycek himself was a mass of tension, nervous energy waiting to be burned off, but with the adrenaline diverted into fueling snapped and harsh replies. Even so, he was still in better shape than the other two. He broke the uneasy silence, "So what did you learn from him?"

She ignored the question. "How does he control the keyboard?"

"Keyboard? Oh. Right. No keyboard. I fitted an implant behind his ear before he left."

Skinner was back on his feet and threatening to do damage before the sentence was complete.

Krycek glared up at him but made no other move, deciding to preserve the charge of adrenaline a little while longer. "Haven't you caused enough trouble?"

The sound of Scully's clenched fists thumping into the table shifted their attention to her face. "But that's not why they took him, is it?"

"No." Alex's reply was delivered with a confident tone that belied the fact that he really had no idea.

"Tell me everything you know."

Krycek settled down for a late night of talk.

Skinner had to leave to speak at the meeting but made sure that Krycek knew that he planned to return, and then cuffed him to the metal frame of the closet.

Krycek ensured that his expression was both challenging and resentful as he looked at Scully. "This is working together?"

She shrugged. If there was an alternative, then it clearly wasn't obvious to her right now. "Sorry. I can't risk losing," she waved a hand at the silent computer. She didn't mention Krycek himself. It was taken as understood that she now believed him to be part of the same package.

"So I'm under arrest?"

She ignored the query. "24 hours before we can try again? I need to be ready. I want to know everything you know, whatever he's told you."

Krycek beckoned for her to throw him a pillow. If he was stuck here then he might as well make himself comfortable. What he'd learned from Mulder would take a lot less than 24 hours.

In fact, she could read the transcripts of their discussions in what? Ten minutes tops. Even allowing her a few minutes brooding time. He almost smiled at that. Now, if someone was entitled to go broody, maybe it was Dana Scully. He kept the thought to himself.

Sadly, bringing the unit back to life now, when he'd promised a 24- hour security shutdown, would rather spoil his credibility as a maker of threats. It would also be an unnecessary demonstration of the use of its archive.

Besides, this method would allow him the opportunity to put his own spin onto some of the exchanges. Maybe even throw in a few things that weren't strictly the whole truth. Preserve the mystery. Play on her weakness for Mulder, and her darker fears about her partner's character.

But first there was something Krycek needed to know for future reference. "How did you follow me, without me spotting you?"

"Nicholson planted a transmitter on your car while we were talking in the office."

"And I thought he was just being polite by giving us some privacy." He approved of his new ally; it was just a shame she was only on loan. "Mulder can see again now, but he's never told me what he can see."

"Why did they do that, take his sight away and then give it back?"

"Maybe as punishment for the murders, maybe just for more testing. He's not sure himself. I thought we might lose him then."

"Murders?"

Krycek shook his head. "His description, not mine. He killed three of them."

"Is that why they did that thing, paralyzing him with the drugs?"

"The disconnection? No. They did that as soon as he got there. The work they're doing on him is pretty nasty, apparently, but they needed him alert so they could re-educate him. Again, that's his description. Brainwash maybe. He killed them just by thinking about it."

Scully's lips tightened against the impulse to say impossible.

Krycek carried on for her. "I'm not sure what he is now. Sometimes he sounds almost like Mulder. But another few months - I don't know what we'll get back."

She nodded, not in agreement, but in recognition of the validity of the statement.

The first thing Scully saw as she opened her eyes the next morning was the blank screen of the palmtop computer. Her wake-up yawn turned into a sigh of relief. Another morning, another day since Mulder had gone missing. But at least today she knew he was still alive.

She'd taken one of the bedrooms and the palmtop had spent the night with her. She'd slept with it tucked under the pillow on the empty side of the bed. Krycek had taken the second bedroom. Skinner had spent the night on the too-small couch in the living area, and had served as both a buffer zone and armed guard between Krycek and the machine.

Scully sat up and listened carefully for any tell-tale noise drifting through the door. She could hear voices. That was a good sign, she decided. Even if it was just the TV, it was still a good sign. Skinner wouldn't be watching TV if Krycek was on the run.

Pleased with her analysis, she turned her attention to the logistical problem of how to get showered and dressed without taking her eyes off the unit.

Her body decided to take the timing out of her hands, betraying her with a demand to go and deal with other problems. It always hit her like this, coming just a few minutes after she woke up. She'd yet to resolve whether it was simply morning sickness, or just the moment each day when she remembered that Mulder really was missing and the weight of it had spread from her brain to her stomach.

Both men were staring in her direction as she entered the living room. Krycek looked vaguely amused, Skinner looked guilty. To her boss's credit, he quickly turned his face away and acted as if he was engrossed in the morning TV news coverage. Krycek had no such qualms, he just kept watching, even as she placed the palmtop back on the table and picked up the waiting glass of orange juice.

She flushed a little under the scrutiny and from the idea that one of them had decided that coffee wasn't what she needed right now. She took her first sip, relishing the fresh taste in her mouth, even though it would do nothing to ease her stomach. "I need to go into the office."

Skinner turned to study her again.

She chose to answer the unspoken question. "I want to do some research on de-afferent trauma and the operation of muscle relaxants, among other things."

"You're not going to find the drugs listed in any edition of the PDR."

Scully didn't reply, so Krycek carried on talking. "If you really want to help him, you could start looking at the studies done on the use of sensory deprivation during torture."

Skinner shifted uncomfortably as Scully's face whitened. He threw her the offer of a distraction. "De-afferent?"

Grateful for the hiding place of scientific terminology, Scully ignored Krycek and turned toward Skinner. "It refers to a failure of the somatosensory system, the thing that gives you feedback on limb position. Conditions like sensory neuropathy and some spinal injuries can cause it."

Krycek nodded. "Nice that you've been able to disconnect, too. I guess you won't be needing me until, what - 6:30 tonight?"

Scully frowned, she hadn't really thought about that. Obviously the palmtop would travel with her, but did she really want Krycek there too? Wouldn't he just attract all the wrong sort of attention? Maybe it was safest to split up the pair. "Six. Here?"

The men shrugged; it seemed as good a place as any.

"If there's a problem - leave a message at the front desk."

Mike Nicholson looked wary as Dana Scully walked into the X-Files office. Scully could see his point but couldn't really think of anything to say that would make it any easier on him.

"Is that the thing that Krycek had?"

She nodded, still uncertain of whether the correct way forward was to offer an apology, an explanation, or nothing. She said nothing.

"What does it do?"

What she'd give now to be dealing with some jerk as her partner. Perhaps not another Peyton Ritter. Maybe just someone who she could lie to with equanimity, a Jeffrey Spender perhaps, or perhaps not. But preferably someone who really didn't have the brains to be sharing her workspace. Nicholson wasn't so easy to ignore.

She tried to keep it vague. "Nothing, right now. I'm just looking after it."

"And then?"

She couldn't reply, and this time Nicholson remained silent, too. When she finally looked up at him, his jaw was tight and his lips shifted as if he was working his way back up to speech. Despite the fact that at first sight the men had little in common, his expression reminded her so much of Mulder, that it hurt to see it.

She owed him something for yesterday. "It can link us to Mulder. But it needs Krycek to drive it."

"And we've lost him?"

"No. No. That side's ok. I need to do some research."

"Anything I can do?"

She'd almost forgotten; the man was here for a reason, not just as her conscience. "I could use someone with knowledge of sensory deprivation and brainwashing." She pulled in her chin before adding a supplementary question. "And anything you can find on places that might be experimenting with it. Maybe if you looked for..."

Nicholson nodded. "Places employing researchers with published papers and doctoral theses in sensory deprivation and disorders, labs with isolation facilities. Security clearances disproportionate with the official work at that location. That kind of thing?"

She nodded and looked quickly away, almost guilty that she still couldn't truly believe in something she thought she knew. She blocked the reaction. Even Mulder had said that this was her job. She was allowed to look for him down here, and not just assume that he was in the unsearchable "out there."

Every investigation needed a list of possible suspects. Mulder had once told her not to be so exclusive. All possibilities, however extreme. And, however mundane.

Content that she was doing the right thing and with the alarm on her watch set to remind her when it reached five, she set to work. She worked with the palmtop safely lodged between her PC's keyboard and its screen, its presence both reminding her of her reasons and comforting her with its presence as she started to search.

She checked at the hotel front desk. There had been no messages.

Would Krycek actually show up? She shivered at the question before answering it in the affirmative, a process that she'd repeated a hundred times that day. This was Krycek's meal ticket and, if he were to be believed, his mission.

The suite looked unoccupied. The lights were off. Not surprising. After all, it was only 5:40 and still broad daylight. But she could hear no sounds either. No TV. No talk. Still, it really was only 5:40 - the two men simply hadn't arrived yet.

Another hour and they could try the link again. Another hour and she would be talking to Mulder.

As soon as she stepped through the door she realized just how wrong her assessment had been. It seemed like only a fraction of a second, but it might just as well have been forever. The voice said not to move, the gun against her head emphasized the point. She felt the hands that came forward to remove the precious palmtop from her fingers. She couldn't see the hands, her eyes had clouded over instantly with some mix of horror and shame.

The gunman held his position, the cool solidity of the Glock unwavering as it rested at her temple, no hint of compassion or hesitation in the weapon or in the muttered words of the man holding it. "Steady. Don't do anything you'll regret." New York accent, perhaps? It was a little hard to tell from so few words, so soft in their delivery. She recognized enough to hear the voice of a man who both knew his job and meant business.

The only thing she could do was blink, she fluttered her eyelashes until a man with a blond crewcut came into focus and she could see him work. He did a swift check to make sure that he had a real live piece of hardware and not just some pile of junk in a computer's carrying case. He put the palmtop down on the table and Scully realized that it was back in exactly the same position as she'd placed it herself, the night before. The last time she'd spoken with Mulder.

She felt the gunman's left hand unfasten her holster and remove her gun, felt the way his right hand never lost interest in threatening to blow out her brains.

The man with the crewcut returned and quickly hauled Scully's hands behind her back and then pulled her across the room to where he could finish the job by looping the handcuffs around the closet's frame. The same thing that Skinner had used to imprison Krycek the evening before.

The sudden thud of a noise from outside the door got Scully's instant attention, and she made sure that every ounce of her adrenaline and frustration went into a piercing scream of, "Help!"

The gunman snapped out his reaction. "For fuck's sake, shut her up."

Before the order was even half spoken, the other man had his hand clenched firmly across her lips. He was not pleased. "We should just have shot her."

"Those aren't the orders."

A few seconds later and Scully was gagging against the bunched-up heap of Kleenex he'd pulled from the bedside table and jammed into her mouth. He completed the job by adding a short length of duct tape.

"When you're quite ready," complained the gunman. He cautiously opened the door and scanned the corridor. "It's clear, let's go."

"What about Krycek?"

"Later. I'm more worried about whoever was out here just now." He sighed, looked from side to side again, then shook his head. "Fuck it. Move."

The other man picked up the palmtop and both of them ran, leaving Dana Scully to choke on furious sobs and to try not to suffocate.

The welcome committee comprising Carver and three of his senior colleagues was pleased to see the men return on time and with their precious cargo intact. After the embarrassing incident of Krycek's escape just the day before, another failure could have been disastrous. At least for Carver's reputation and maybe for something more.

Carver was rather less pleased to hear that they had failed to collect Alex Krycek. That could make things a little awkward later. A captive Krycek might have been useful. A dead Krycek at least couldn't have caused any trouble. A Krycek free to run could be a dangerously loose cannon.

Still, Carver was not going to allow a detail to spoil his enjoyment of a battle won. The palmtop had been the primary objective and they had brought it safely home. With all the caution of a bomb disposal specialist, he delivered the unit to his technicians.

The men in his lab were familiar with the device, of course. All of the small crew of scientists and engineers had at least seen the interface drawings and had worked with the software emulation of the unit before.

Only one of them had ever seen the real communications device and he'd actually helped to build the prototype of this unit. But even he had never seen the matching human implant. At least, not an implant in working order. He'd seen them after they'd been removed from bodies. They all knew enough to know that both the body and the device seemed to die if you removed one.

Carver looked at his expert assistant. "Same technology?"

"Looks it." The white-coated figure moved his hand away from the freshly-exposed electronics of the unit to reveal a tiny dancing ball of rapidly changing kaleidoscopic light. A spider's web of gold wire appeared to be holding the ball captive, and was actually pinning it to the more prosaically earthly computer that lay underneath.

Carver smiled at the happy news. It was really just a matter of finding out what control codes Krycek was using and they'd be home free. He suggested that they make it snappy.

Carver's favorite scientist disappointed him by failing to respond right away. The man's brow crinkled before he spoke and, when it finally came, his speech was hesitant. "We'll need time. Krycek may have modified it, there may be time bombs rigged, boobytraps and even viruses."

Carver just repeated the order to make it snappy.

Book III

Silence was not golden, at least, not as far as Fox Mulder could tell. If it had a color, then it was probably the same one as pins and needles. Though he wasn't quite sure what color that was.

He had suspicions, thought that perhaps it would look like the off-station broadcast image of a TV set, a random mess of black and white squiggles in a tangle of dancing dots.

The silence in his head wasn't even silence. The sounds rolled around, hissing and drumming and whistling. Sometimes, if he listened hard, he could almost catch hold of the rhythm for just long enough to tempt him to try to make out the tune. Then it would sink, suddenly dip away and vanish before he could pin it down.

There were other things. Disconnected did not mean unaware. Having no actual sense of what was happening to his body, not knowing its movements or its position, didn't stop his brain from making inferences.

Consciously, his brain could assert that it had no reason to offer news of burning fingers or cramped toes or itching underneath the skin. But that didn't stop his subconscious mind from busily feeding him lies and misdiagnoses based on the absence of valid sensory data. Logical analysis made no impact on the incessant chatter.

This pain, if pain was the word, didn't sear like a gunshot wound. It didn't pound like a dehydration migraine in the middle of a viral fever. It didn't make him bite his lip as a distraction from coughing up maggot-ridden lung material. His thoughts drifted back to where he'd started. Pins and needles then.

Yeah, he concluded. Something like pins and needles - vague, low level, but all the time, and all over his body.

His captors had been disappointed that the disconnection process hadn't met with his approval.

Their logic was impeccable. Without the disconnection, the reaction to the new blood streaming in from carefully upgraded bone marrow would be too severe. He'd be in too much pain to remain usefully conscious, certainly in too much distress to hear a word that was being said.

The disconnection was essential. Surely he didn't want to prolong the proceedings unnecessarily by failing to run the physical and the psychological tasks in parallel?

Mulder had replayed that statement over and over again without ever getting past the response that his views on the project's duration were irrelevant, because he hadn't consented to any of the "tasks."

Which was not an answer to their question. A fact that they reminded him of before returning to their own impeccably- scheduled, optimally-managed, carefully-recorded, fully parallel program of work.

What the brief flash of debate had done was raise another question in Mulder's mind. Why hadn't he asked Krycek how much time had passed? He was guessing at weeks probably, months maybe, but even those assumptions were just based on what scraps he knew about Scully's life.

She was at work, she'd been assigned a new partner, she'd rearranged the office, and she'd done some sort of deal with Krycek. Then she'd what? What had happened next?

His mind flashed on that nightmare conversation with "a friend, an ally." Who the fuck was that?

Scully wouldn't have given up the link, whatever the link was, without a fight. Krycek, then? Had Krycek double-crossed her? But then why hadn't the mystery man asked Krycek to act as a go-between or, at least, to handle the introductions?

Mulder's thoughts strayed back into the danger zone. Had he put Scully in more danger by asking for her? He'd cursed himself for making the mistake at the time - horrified by his stupidity in mentioning Scully's name when he didn't even know who he was talking to.

He squelched the morbid suggestion. Surely, anyone who knew about him would know about Scully, too. All he'd done was - he stumbled for the word - reminded, yeah, that was it, he'd reminded them about her.

He sighed at the sudden lethargy that overtook his thoughts, recognizing the sense of calm as chemically induced. The monitoring system was impressive, their response times spectacular. The first hint of unhealthy emotion and the drugs successfully slammed it out of him before any lasting damage occurred.

Oddly, he couldn't bring himself to be offended or hurt by that. Almost smiled at that idea, knowing that such tolerance was itself part of the rosy chemical haze. Even so, he was genuinely grateful that he wouldn't be accidentally killing anyone or anything for a while. He let the haze carry him back into unconsciousness.

The link intrigued him, despite his experience of it being way too up-close and personal. Its ability to transmit and receive, between wherever it was transmitting and receiving, was presumably a technological masterpiece.

The voice had at first sounded almost mechanical, possibly cybernetic, certainly synthetic, not really human at all. Yet, it was the only human thing he'd heard in how long? Since they'd disconnected his ears so he couldn't hear the groans and the babies crying?

When Krycek had activated it for the first time, Mulder had actually tried to search for the source of the new voice. The fact that he was only able to move his eyes had rendered the search pretty much useless. Even if the speaker had been in the same room, he probably wouldn't have been able to see them.

It hadn't taken him long to conclude that a physical search would have been useless anyway.

The words arrived in his head accompanied by some sort of low, itchy warning tone that rumbled beneath his ear. In fact it was probably that unscratchable itch that had made him take the robotic voice as something real.

Real? It was real, wasn't it? Not just some fabrication his brain was generating to keep him amused? That his captors were generating to keep him amused?

He knew they couldn't generate the words themselves, not the actual detail and color of the conversations. But, perhaps they could trigger them? Maybe they had needed to inspire him to fantasize about human contact as another stage in his psychological softening-up?

Yet, if those conversations were just invented monologues, fantasies of his own creation, why imagine Krycek as the initiator? Why finally imagine talking to Scully, only to lose her an instant later?

Scully had challenged him on something like that before, told him that in seeing a monster, he'd seen only what he wanted to see. He recalled asking her why she thought he might want to see a thing like that.

The idea tingled. Maybe now he was only hearing monsters in the dark. Monsters in the light, actually, because it was never dark in here.

When he first arrived, he'd been so naive that he'd actually tried to answer some of their questions. There was one time, when he was asked if there was anything they could do to make his stay more comfortable, that he'd answered with a request. Maybe they could turn down the lights a little so he could sleep?

They'd, helpfully, turned up the current in one of the electrodes spiking into his skull, and an instant later his eyes had gone gray. He hadn't repeated the mistake.

Anyway, finding monsters in the dark, or in the light, was his business. Had been his business. Would be again? He heard the pitter-patter turn to a thud, felt his heart rate rising and closed his eyes, counted to ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty.

He waited for his body to calm, determined to suppress his reactions for long enough to follow his thoughts through to a logical conclusion, without the monitoring systems panicking and the IV lines blasting him full of instant relaxation.

The doubt was there and would have to remain, because there really was a fundamental problem. If the conversations were real, why did the aliens let him keep talking?

Even if the conversations were fabricated, then he was still going to find it hard to kill them off. Just thinking sane thoughts about reality didn't banish insanity and delusions so easily.

Perhaps he should ask them? But every question that he'd asked so far had been greeted either by a non-answer or by the kind of response that only a tired and cynical three- wishes-granting genie would consider fair.

Anyway, he wasn't really sure if he wanted to know the answer. A bit like finding out today's date, then? Maybe there were some things he wasn't ready to handle.

If weakness was inevitable, then at least complete hopelessness remained a choice. Mulder reminded himself of that and tried to feel grateful for the gift of awareness and the ability to use his brain.

Disappointed by his failure to do so, he looked for something positive and turned his attention to his visitor, noting irritably that he had no idea just how long the technician had been at work. He wondered how he could justify paying so little attention to this tiny world of his. Decided that he couldn't.

The thin gray figure was apparently busy. It was hard for Mulder to judge as the shadow flitted around the edge of his field of view, but it did look like he was doing something purposeful. Sometimes, Mulder suspected it was something involving his body in some way. Though the distinction, between being touched by long gray fingers and being handled via electrodes, needles and drugs, was logically redundant, it somehow still mattered.

Sometimes it was less frustrating to close his eyes and ignore that anything was happening at all. And sometimes, he needed to know. "What are you doing?"

The technician hesitated before replying and Mulder tried not to close his eyes. That impatience had been one of the changes he'd felt, even the smallest of delays waiting for a telepathic response seemed like forever.

The technician finally replied. "I'm maintaining your cardio-vascular system."

Well that was nice to know. "Why?"

"So you won't die."

Mulder tried not to react, tried to edge the conversation back in the intended direction. "What do you hope to achieve by my survival?"

"The plan."

"What plan?"

"You'll understand after you've completed the program."

"Help me to understand now."

"Not possible. Your emotions will interfere."

"I'm listening."

"Your progress charts say that you aren't ready."

"Try me."

"You killed three of my colleagues for trying."

It was hard to argue. Oh, he wanted to, would have loved to ignore the righteous indignation that was already building in his brain, the quickening of his pulse and the sense of his blood pulsing harder through his veins. Would have loved to argue, or at least to try and explain or even apologize. Didn't get the chance.

The technician moved along the bed to peer down into his captive's eyes, he made sure that Mulder was listening before he spoke. "You see what happens?"

Consciousness faded fast and Mulder never did get the chance to reply.

There was something close to pleasure in the sensation of closing the link. So gratifying to visualize it as slamming down the phone on the unknown contact. His new-found friend.

It was something he could control. Just about the only thing he could control.

He felt the buzz at his ear again, tried to move a hand to scratch at the location. Felt a few seconds of frustration threaten to tumble him back into dark despair as he remembered that not only were some itches unscratchable, but some hands didn't move.

He'd tried to be rational about that, forced himself to think about people back in the real world living their lives despite paralysis, despite terrible injuries and illness. Experiencing far worse pain and with even less hope of escape.

Somehow, he couldn't quite summon up the unbiased analysis needed to consider himself fortunate.

"Fox."

He hated them calling him that, but then he'd hated every other name they'd tried to address him with. Thoroughly scientific, they'd shown him their analysis of his brainwaves. They had proved conclusively that he preferred to be called Fox.

His assertion that he preferred to be lying on his couch in his apartment watching his TV was dutifully recorded even as it was discarded as redundant information.

Annoyingly, they were probably right about the Fox. "Mulder" brought too many memories of Scully and real life. "Mr." made him think of the men who played this game, those who had the presumption to use terms like friend and ally. Identifying himself as "Agent" relied on him assuming an air of authority that he couldn't feel right now.

Besides, they'd probably called him Fox last time he was here.

"You should answer us. We have to log it when you don't."

Mulder swallowed down the tiny gurgle of laughter that tickled the back of his throat. Was that a threat?

"It suggests that you aren't making as much progress as we'd anticipated."

Anticipation was both wonderful and dangerous, Mulder knew both faces well. He knew that he ought to reply. Couldn't think of anything to say.

"Fox. You have to keep your eyes open."

That caught Mulder's attention. Was he being given a direct order? It was hard to tell. The lack of inflection or pressure in the words as they arrived silently in his brain gave no clue beyond the words themselves.

He ought to make sure. There was no point in playing the silence game if the stakes were going to rise. "Why?"

"Today's work requires that you watch some images as we speak. We could go directly to the visual cortex, but I believe that after last time, you indicated that you preferred to retain your eyesight."

It was scarcely a choice. It was certainly not something on which he had ever wanted to express a preference. His eyes rebelled against him for an instant, closing up even more tightly than before. He forced them to open.

The screen directly over the bed played its familiar pattern of swirls, a soft gentle spiral intended to lead him towards the learning trance that his teachers preferred. He told himself to stop fighting, just tried to let it go and listen to the words.

"Procedures for the reactivation of DNA. We will now examine those critical DNA strands that were disabled during human development due to the damaging side-effects of their use in under-evolved species."

The screen switched from aimless swirls into a slow flyover across chemical bonds gliding ever closer, before finally narrowing in on a tiny block of the elegantly unraveling double helix. The voice guided him into the picture.

"Ideally, re-enabling of these structures would be done slowly, perhaps returning only one feature to the genetic makeup in a generation, allowing the changes to be consolidated and absorbed. This work is ongoing."

Mulder watched the oddly familiar image of the deoxyribose molecules lining up to greet their pyrimidine or purine bases. Had he seen this before? As a kid perhaps? Before the name on his file had become Sam's name?

"Re-activation of a feature within a select group of individuals followed by their re-integration into normal human society would permit the necessary changes in political and social infrastructures to take place without conflict or unnecessary loss of life. Fear of the unknown and of the unique should not be underestimated. Human culture remains primitive."

Mulder recognized the DNA strand before the screen had the chance to flash to a model human brain and show exactly which changes in electrolyte potentials would follow from its activation. The animation was jazzily effective, replete with the sort of aggressive graphics and flutter of pulsating color that would have been the envy of The Learning Channel.

Visual reinforcement, they'd told him, seemed very significant to humans. The style was familiar to them, and therefore easier for them to relax and learn. Mulder felt no comfort in the familiarity, just the same dread that he was being told something that might be important. Or maybe worse still, something that wasn't.

"Fox. Your attention."

The teacher didn't have to make the threat more explicit. Mulder blinked to force his eyes back into focus.

"The present situation is far from ideal. We are compelled to massively accelerate the change. Unless they are handled with vision, the processes that are being perfected here could create massive economic and sociological dislocation. Damaging to an extent that might, itself, be a factor in the destruction of the species. Or, in its easy assimilation."

As the images dissolved into walk-throughs on a sequence of chemical reactions, Mulder knew he ought to keep his vision fixed firmly on the screen and the commentary in his head.

He knew he should be listening and learning, that his feelings and opinions were irrelevant to this. It was important that he act like a sponge and just stick to mopping it all up. The analysis and response could come later, if there was a later.

He understood that it was his duty not to jump directly over the gathering information stage to go straight to the imaginary scene where he shared it with Scully.

It was just so hard to concentrate. How did that friend and ally steal the link from Scully and Krycek? Perhaps he should be mopping up whatever came down that line, too?

"Fox. I have to log this failure. You have to learn not to waste time. I'll restart the session immediately."

Mulder kept his eyes on the swirls on the screen, bit at the inside of his cheek to try and maintain his concentration. He tried to let it all go, tried to let the spirals draw him in.

Part 2/2

Drifting slowly up into consciousness, Mulder tried to focus on the sensation of breathing. What he tried to ignore was the feeling of helplessness that was making even breathing feel like an immensely complex and barely remembered procedure.

The first thing Mulder recalled with any clarity was that he'd been de-facto responsible for slamming the link down on that man, whoever he was, and he hadn't even had the pleasure of slamming it down himself.

The connection had been dropped by default as a veinful of drugs had swept him down the rabbit hole. What if that act, an act that wasn't even an act of rebellion, just of helplessness - what if that hurt someone? Hurt Scully?

Scully, who was already seeing doctors. Or was that just some psychological song and dance routine designed by Carver to show that he was in charge? After all, it couldn't be true. Scully, pregnant - how? And if it were true - why?

Even as the thought hit at full force and breathing became impossible again, he could sense the white heat of his reactions cooling, the sharp edge of his anger becoming blunted. He knew what was happening.

They weren't going to even give him time to take a shot at trying to get himself back under control. Sickened by it, resigned to the nothingness, he fell back into the cotton wool of dreamless sleep.

As usual, he had no way of knowing how long he had been out for the second time. Even as he woke up, he was aware that he wasn't truly awake. He hunted for what it might mean, waded through cotton candy and molasses looking for an explanation before concluding that they were trying to avoid another bounce of the Mulder mood-swing yo-yo.

This time they must have put him on a trickle dose of some sedative to try and stop him from instantly boiling over. It seemed to be working. He had to hand it to them. Their grasp of human biochemistry looked pretty hot from where he was lying.

"Agent Mulder."

Who the fuck was that? Mulder rolled the words around in his head and might have managed to sob out a laugh if he wasn't being held quite so firmly in the twilight zone. Who the fuck was Agent Mulder - he didn't seem to be at home right now. And who the fuck would ask for him? Wasn't his pet name here "Fox"?

He tried blinking a few times to clear sleep gum and moisture from his eyes. Failed. He frowned harder, squeezing down his eyebrows to assist his attempt to blink more effectively. He was careful to ignore the pang of reaction that tickled at the edge of his thoughts as he tried and failed to lift a hand to wipe his eyes.

The Alien Bounty Hunter stood tall and self-assured at Mulder's bedside. Not too close, clearly mindful that if he stood much nearer, then Mulder would see only a jacket button or a pocket flap.

"Agent Mulder."

"Hmph." The dryness in his throat didn't assist his ability to form words. Though actually, since they'd cut off his hearing, he'd found himself not saying much, knowing that it would probably be too quiet, too loud, too ill-formed. It had been more pragmatic to talk mind-to-mind.

That was when he realized that he'd heard the Hunter speak. Really heard him. They'd reconnected his ears. Uncertain what an appropriate response would be if he were someone not drugged to the point of near-complete indifference, he tried speech. "I can hear."

The croaky voice encouraged one of the technicians to come to his side and quickly supply a few aerosol droplets of something that tasted like sticky water. Saliva, Mulder noted, hating the thought but still grudgingly grateful for the instant soothing the liquid supplied.

The tall figure resumed the conversation. "Then hear this."

This time Mulder was able to swallow the reaction more easily.

"Your personal problems are of no interest to us. But we will not allow them to interfere with the project."

Really! Mulder closed his eyes, felt hysterical laughter bubble under and fade out without ever reaching his mouth. Mused over the amount of interference he could possibly be offering by lying disconnected on a bed constructed from some sort of easy wipe metal and plastic.

He was interfering with their project? His heart bled for their plight.

The Bounty Hunter's features softened into something that might have been a smile or, more likely, a sneer. "You doubt it?"

"I find it hard to care."

"You should. The offspring will be geniuses, their telekinetic skills will be extraordinary, they will read minds. They will change the world."

"I think I've read a book like that."

"You doubt it? You've felt those skills within yourself."

Oh, to be able to run and hide. Or at least to turn away. Or even to just shake his head in disbelief. He did the only thing he could; he closed his eyes again. "And my role?"

"Has never changed. Your father prepared you; we are only completing the work. The children will still be children, they'll need authority. Role models, if you prefer."

This time the humorless half beat of laughter broke through and Mulder almost choked on the unfamiliarity of the sound and the dryness in his throat. The technician drizzled in extra drops of saliva from the spray bottle. "I'm not the man you imagine."

"Don't disappoint your friends."

Mulder said nothing, didn't even bother to reopen his eyes, just listened to the Bounty Hunter's footsteps as he left the room.

The technician checked instrumentation and connections before dispatching Mulder's body on the stationary equivalent of a ten-mile run.

Offspring that would change the world?

Mulder tried not to care, focused on the magic of disconnection; tried hard not to think about friends, and role models, and babies, and fathers, and preparation.

He was especially careful not to wonder about how or why Scully might be pregnant. Carver could be lying. But if Carver was telling the truth, what then? He pushed the idea away.

The technician wiped a tissue over Mulder's eyes before leaving the room. Its silent human occupant abandoned to his own carefully restrained and medicated thoughts and the entertainment provided by the low whine of distant machinery.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, round the top and start again. Mulder kept his mind fixed on the business of not allowing an emotional response to the actions he'd just performed.

Some poker players are born, others are made. Mulder had concluded a long time ago that he fell into neither category. His abilities to play the game, such as they were, stemmed from something more deep-seated. He was, after all, a natural born survivor.

Survival skills were something he possessed in abundance. He'd probably inherited them, which seemed somehow appropriate.

He had them all, the full set ready for any eventuality. Mental, physical, emotional - he'd never even really tried to dodge the hits, he'd always just taken them and learned to roll.

It was only when he'd had to try and make the same judgments for someone else that he'd seen that his skills were seriously flawed. Apparently, not everyone enjoyed the same kind of luck.

People seemed to get hurt if they got too close to him. A lot of ghosts had pointed accusing fingers in his direction. The idea of adding Scully to the list was too frightening to contemplate. And a baby?

Playing poker was not something that he would ever have considered doing for pleasure and the game he'd just played had been no fun at all. The stakes were too high; the bluffs too strained for comfort, the opponents were too much of an unknown quantity and the cards were just too unpredictable.

He looked back over the chances he'd chosen to take with Carver, replayed the moves and tried to feed them into his personal scorecard.

If he got out of here, Scully was going to kill him. That was a given.

What Mulder wasn't too clear about was why he'd asked for Krycek as link man, rather than Skinner. Maybe it was just that he liked to imagine Skinner as one of the good guys? And he was scared that good guys might come last?

Maybe it was some kind of optimism about the future, maybe he wanted to imagine Skinner defending him from Scully. He allowed himself a secret optimist's smile at the idea. He could only hope that they wouldn't combine forces.

Krycek then?

Right up until the moment he'd told Carver his terms, Mulder had been unsure about the plan. But as soon as he said it, he knew that it was the least worst solution. The idea of a best solution really hadn't ever come into it.

It would be easy to lie to Krycek. There would be no qualms or misgivings about leading him astray or into danger. If the time came, then it would be easier to use Krycek and his ambitions than to use Skinner and his guilty conscience.

Only self-interest would interfere with Krycek's reliability. Misplaced compassion wouldn't block any information. It sounded easier to sift the words of someone, like a Krycek, clearly acting for himself than to try and second guess someone, like Skinner, who might think he was acting on Mulder's behalf.

Krycek's experience as an assassin might be vital. Whether for use against Carver and similar friends or for use against the results of an unwilling genetic experiment.

Mulder pushed the darker thoughts away, mindful of how much louder the drumbeat in his ears was already sounding and still anxious to remain conscious. Whatever became of their plans for him to become a role model, there was always a way out. It was just a matter of using it before it was too late. Krycek might be a necessity.

Mulder waited for what seemed like a very long time before he tried to connect again. A painfully long time.

He tried the link. When he felt nothing coming back, he tried not to panic.

He tried to focus better, perhaps he was missing something just by running a little too emotionally hot. After all, the voices were very quiet, hard to distinguish against the mass of noise in his brain. Plus, hearing through his ears again was still a novelty, maybe that had made it tougher.

Perhaps they'd pumped some more drugs in? He could tell that if they were drugging him, then the chemicals were feeding in at a very low level. But, maybe that was possible, and perhaps even at some very low dosage, they'd left him a little insensitive to the signal?

In his head, it sounded like he was shouting, almost screaming. That was probably a bad idea. He forced himself back to silence and tried again. But there was still no sense of contact or even any assurance of a transmission sent. Certainly, he was fairly sure that there was no anesthetically calm, synthesized voice responding to his words.

Worse still, he couldn't even pick out any sensation of his words travelling and echoing back. No sign of that odd echo, the thing that had convinced him that he was talking via a machine. The ill-defined whisper that had reassured him that an answering service was in place when he left messages for Krycek.

Had his captors taken the ability away? Had Carver been the wrong man to bargain with? Was this how Carver bargained?

Sweet oblivion oozed into his brain and the questions he was asking stopped abruptly without any sign of answers.

It could have been hours later. Days? Minutes? Mulder really had no way to tell.

Time didn't seem to matter here.

The light level never changed. The background noise never varied, though sometimes other sounds cut in as punctuation marks.

A bump, or a scrape, a scream or a wail, but Mulder had never discerned a pattern to them. Time appeared to be on continuous loop.

In Mulder's case, unconscious wasn't even different enough to conscious to be reflected in any physical message, no needs to speak of, no gurgling of intestines to respond to, nothing.

He was never hungry. His body didn't change. They were keeping him clean and exercised. Sometimes, when he curled back his top lip he could feel just the first glimmers of stubble emerging, but they vanished as soon as the next technician visited.

He guessed that time had passed. Took measured breaths. Tried again.

Book IV

Even slumped against the wall, arms crossed in petulant disbelief, Mike Nicholson was still an imposing figure. Krycek could feel the pent-up energy, rippling in waves from across the room.

Maintaining her distance, not only from Krycek and Nicholson but also from the situation, Dana Scully's lips remained tightly sealed. No pretense of greeting or welcome, just a calm evaluating gaze that Krycek suspected might freeze the balls of lesser men.

A couple of weeks ago, Krycek had trailed two of Carver's goons from an edge-of-town hotel, and he'd been anticipating this moment ever since. In fact, he'd been busily preparing for it. There was just a little more work to be done, some by him and some by them. Which was part of the reason he'd accepted an invitation to visit the basement of the FBI.

Krycek smiled. "You don't seem very pleased to see me."

The stony silence was answer enough. Krycek kept things moving. "They need me. Don't they?" Scully looked as if she might respond, so Krycek quickly made his point. "And so do you."

Scully spat out a reply. "They want you to contact them."

"And you're their go-between?" There wasn't an answer, despite the fact it looked like she was working on one. "You just get to play mailman and then you're expendable? What will Mulder have to say about that?"

The clouds in Scully's eyes were telling Krycek a story. There was something going on here, something more than her simply relaying some order from Carver. "What DID Mulder say about that?"

"Ask him."

"If we're going to work together." Krycek paused to enjoy the way her mouth drifted open; even tight-lipped reserve needed the occasional pressure relief. "Unless you prefer I go elsewhere?"

It was a rich baritone voice that gave the reply. "Don't tell us you've got friends. I've checked the records, you've got shit."

Tact, Krycek noted, wasn't Nicholson's strong point. "I've got something you want."

Scully responded to that. "And you're willing to share?"

"You've got something I want."

She lifted her chin to beckon a reply. Krycek waved vaguely around the room before starting his list. "The Bureau. Resources, access, backup."

"Skinner will have to..."

"Skinner will approve."

"What do you need?"

"Let's start with a little history. How did they get the computer?" Not that he couldn't make a good guess, just that it would be nice to fill in the blanks.

Scully led him through her version of the events at the hotel. The story of the two heavies who'd taken the palmtop; a rather more professional outfit than the guys who'd made the original attempt against him. The way they'd left her bound and gagged, now there was a scene for the imagination.

Halfway through Scully's account, Skinner arrived in the office, analyzed the situation and settled in to listen. When he heard the subject matter he joined Nicholson in slumping against the wall. Skinner had found Scully handcuffed to the bedroom furniture; he'd arrived just in time to stop her from choking on a mouthful of Kleenex that had been used to create a gag.

When Skinner took over the story, he explained how he'd lost a critical couple of minutes getting to the room. He'd been relieved to see that Scully was only just ahead of him on his arrival at the hotel. He'd spotted her entering the lobby just as he pulled into a parking space. If he'd gone straight to the room, then he would only have been a minute behind her.

If Skinner hadn't been almost at the bedroom door before he'd remembered that he'd left his phone in the car. If he'd just poked his head into the room to announce his arrival. Well, if wishes were dollar bills, easy to be a millionaire.

Krycek's mind flashed back to the night before the theft; he'd spent it at the hotel with Scully and Skinner. Skinner's angry disbelief when the link to Mulder closed down on Krycek's voice command, though they'd hadn't realized that he'd closed it deliberately. Scully's resigned determination to make the best of things.

That night, as Krycek watched and waited for them to decide on his fate and that of the palmtop computer, he'd come to a conclusion. It was inevitable; Carver and his cronies were going to steal the palmtop; Skinner and Scully were going to lose it. His priority had to be to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.

Krycek had been doing just that as he trailed Carver's goons away from the hotel. It was important that it was Carver's people who took it. If they'd been from some other faction, it could have been a problem. There were limits to how many Jokers there could be in a pack without making the game impossible.

Which was why Krycek already knew most of Mike Nicholson's story from that evening. When the innocuous Ford sedan had overtaken him, it had come out of nowhere. Krycek had leapt for the reassurance of his new Sig Sauer. When he realized that the heavy in the car was one of the good guys, as they liked to term themselves, Alex couldn't believe his bad luck.

Mike Nicholson really ought to be working undercover. How much were the Fibbies paying him? He'd caught Krycek twice now. How? Nicholson was supposed to be a desk jockey, wizard of the computer disk, despite the fact he looked like he could go a few rounds with Tyson.

Krycek could still recall the horror and disappointment on Nicholson's face when he realized that Krycek didn't have the computer. What he'd discovered since had confirmed Nicholson's status as someone useful.

Krycek brought himself back to the present by focusing on Scully's eyes. "You've spoken to Mulder since then?"

"Carver asked me to."

"Asked?"

"His people collected me from my hospital appointment."

Great tactic. Scully wasn't going to turn a hospital into a shooting range. Particularly as the chances were that she was pleased, or at least willing, to be taken by them. They, after all, could get her closer to Mulder.

Krycek waved for her to continue. She glanced at Nicholson for an instant, presumably having second thoughts about having allowed the new boy to join in the meeting. Nicholson looked away, shifting his weight as his jaw tensed. The movement reminded Alex of Mulder. Presumably it had the same effect on Scully, because she cleared her throat and carried on talking.

"The link was up. They'd been talking to Mulder. Well, trying to."

That was all to be expected. Carver's scientists had broken in, past the first layers of the computer's defenses. Mulder had proved more problematic. Scully had been chosen to lure him out. "So, they needed you to get him talking?"

"They thought so."

Thought so? Mulder had been offered a chance to talk to Scully and had turned it down? Why? Just how bad a state did that mean Mulder was in? "But they were wrong?"

Scully's breathing looked labored, her gaze unsteady. Krycek wondered if she was going to pass out. Certainly, if she hadn't already been sitting, he was sure she'd have tumbled over.

Skinner's discomfort was visible in the set of his shoulders, in the vague anger that radiated from him. For an instant, Krycek wondered if the AD was going to cure his frustration by attempting to hit him again, but instead Skinner turned towards Nicholson. A determined look and a, "Could you give us a few minutes," completing the dismissal of a clearly furious but unarguing Nicholson.

It was a treat to see. Krycek chose to enjoy it. He waved a hand towards the door as Nicholson vanished through it. "Did you really want to piss him off?"

Skinner scowled but said nothing; Scully simply turned her face away. Krycek marked up another point on his personal scorecard. The trouble with trusting no one was that it tended to affect the ability to make new friends.

Scully's reply was taking too long, so Krycek increased the pressure. "If I'm going to see Carver, I'm not going in blind."

"Mulder asked for you."

Oh.

Of all the Jokers in the pack, maybe Mulder was the biggest Joker of them all. Krycek licked his lips, suddenly aware of how dry his mouth had become. "How did Carver take that?"

"He said there was no deal." She took a deep breath and swallowed. "Then Mulder closed the link."

"And Carver couldn't get it back? How long ago did this happen?"

"Two days ago."

It was sweet to hear that Carver needed him, shocking to hear that it was at Mulder's instigation. But, it was almost too good to see the way that Scully was focusing on her breathing, trying to keep it even. As if by keeping her lips parted but without letting her features move, as if by keeping her breaths shallow, she actually remained in control.

Skinner's hands had closed into tight fists, his body was pulsing with each angry breath he took.

Oh, this was good, so good that Krycek could almost smell it. It was easy to see their defeat as his triumph. Important to take pleasure in success, whatever form it took. In fact, if he could bottle it, it was a sure-fire guaranteed best seller. No wonder power was an aphrodisiac.

Enjoyable as the scene was, Krycek had to move on. "Ok. I'll go and see Carver. Has he given you a time, place?"

Skinner shook his head, a slow, reluctant movement. "He said he'd call me."

"Stall him. We're going to be busy." Krycek emphasized his point by moving swiftly to the door, pausing only to suggest flat shoes to Scully.

Nicholson was still in the corridor, pawing the ground like an angry bull. Krycek couldn't help but admire the fact he'd stuck around rather than stormed off. Where did you buy that kind of blind loyalty?

The warmth in Krycek's goodbye was absolutely genuine. He didn't even feel offended by the irritation in Nicholson's scowled reply.

Krycek returned to the apartment he'd borrowed the night before. Presumably, if someone set their mind to it, they could make a case for breaking and entering, but it wasn't as if he'd actually stolen anything. A little electricity, a few phone calls, a couple of cans of beer. Other than that, he would be returning the place pretty much just the way he'd found it.

The owner, whoever the owner was, probably wouldn't even notice that, while he'd been away on his business trip, his apartment had had an overnight guest. Unless of course Carver's hoods ever traced Krycek's movements and turned over all his stopovers looking for clues. But if that happened, that was hardly Krycek's fault, now was it?

His mind turned back to more important matters.

Why would Mulder have asked for him?

Since when had Mulder had the patience to keep his mouth shut for 32 hours?

Questions, questions. Speculation had the power to exhaust him. Krycek returned to basic principles. Timing was everything and he had decided that from now on, he would be controlling the timing. Which meant that everything would have to stay on hold until he was ready.

Ready was looking a million miles away. He studied the lump of electronics on the table and sighed. If only he had Carver's resources, the things he could do.

Still. Handle this situation right and maybe he would soon have Carver's resources.

Meanwhile, he did have access to the Bureau's. They had the skills he needed, even if they didn't have the knowledge to make sense of the task he was setting them.

Krycek made a final call from the apartment's phone and couldn't help but smile. If the owner did spot that the place had been occupied and asked the phone company to check their records - what on earth would they make of a call to the FBI?

On his return to the Hoover Building, Scully and Nicholson met him like an Honor Guard. Before he'd even reached the elevators, they were on hand to escort him directly to the electronics lab.

Agents looked their way, staring for an instant before moving back to their own business. Krycek could imagine the image they presented. Nicholson - tall, dark and heavy. Scully - small, pale, a mix of soft curves and hard edges. His imperfect shadows standing in close formation, one on either side. He wondered if Scully recognized the jacket as Mulder's.

Scully kept the introductions simple. "Agent Farrell."

The electronic specialist shifted his focus from the circuit diagrams on the desk, moving only enough to peer up at them through a mess of blond hair. "The AD called my boss. What do you want?"

Krycek smiled and put his hand in his pocket, smiled more broadly as he noted the way Scully and Nicholson's hands shifted as if they were preparing to draw their weapons. What the hell did they think he was going to do?

He was gratified by Scully's exhalation of surprise as he pulled out a jewel box. Just the right size for a wedding ring, perhaps? Would she ever see one of those? And he smiled again, perversely pleased by the delicious irony of this being Mulder's jacket.

"Relax." He opened the box to reveal a small, perfectly cut crystal, and slipped it onto a tissue to safely add it to the clutter on the scruff's desk. He noted the title on the circuit that the engineer had been studying before their arrival: Novel Bomb Timing Circuits. He made a note to grab a copy later. "It's just an implant."

"It's not."

Krycek sighed at Scully's indignant reply, turned to her with a look of indulgence and pity. "You've got a DOD unit, probably a C&C1279. You can believe what you like, but this didn't come out of any labyrinth under the Pentagon."

"Where did you get it?"

"I removed it from a host. Trouble is, they autotune to the host DNA, useless afterwards."

The engineer cleared his throat. "And I'm supposed to do what with it? Whisper abracadabra?"

Scully's attention was elsewhere. "When you say host - you mean some person."

Krycek shrugged, and assumed Scully's question was rhetorical. He looked down at the blond, kept his voice soft but added an hitherto absent level of menace. "We need to make it appear as if it's not been deactivated, so it looks like the real deal."

The man with the circuits swallowed, responding to Krycek's voice. "What do you need?"

The next morning Krycek could declare his preparations complete. He'd had to fight his own impatience to stop Skinner from arranging the meeting sooner. He was desperate to know why Carver needed Mulder so badly. Timing was everything. If Carver was asking for him, then Carver was in real trouble.

When he'd seen Scully at the office, Krycek had expected to hear that Carver had tripped one of the many booby traps that he'd laid in the computer. But equally, he'd expected to hear that Carver had his technicians working on the problem and was merely curious about the price of technical support.

What he hadn't anticipated was Mulder's apparent role. Was Scully lying, had she done some sort of a deal with Carver to draw Krycek back out into the open? Surely she wasn't that good an actress.

Why was Skinner being used as another go-between? Wouldn't it be safer for Carver and his cronies to be known to as few people as possible? Or maybe that interpretation was just plain wrong. Maybe the more people he involved, the more like a top dog Carver looked to the other players.

If Mulder had simply refused to talk to Carver, surely Scully would have been enough to change his mind? Mulder would actually want to talk to her. What then? Unless some misguided sense of gallantry had made him judge that avoiding her, would keep her safe.

Krycek re-checked the device in front of him for eye appeal. It wouldn't survive close inspection, but then what would? The fake receiver, cobbled together from a de-activated implant removed from a freshly-dead test subject and a tiny fiber-optic bundle set to shiver with colored light.

It didn't have the eerily unnatural shimmer of the real deal. But then normally no one would be able to see it, and it would pass a casual inspection if someone did open the palmtop's casework and look inside.

All he had to do now was smuggle it safely into Carver's lair. Krycek slipped the unit into the padding he wore over the stump of his left arm. Even when they decided to search or confiscate the prosthesis, as some of the more suspicious types tended to do, not many had so few qualms they'd insist on seeing the naked truth of the amputation.

The alternative hiding places were even less aesthetic. Krycek cast an eye toward the bathroom before convincing himself he'd gone for the right option. If they checked the bandages, they'd check those other places, too.

Deep breath and calm again, at least as calm as he could realistically expect to be. He picked up the mobile phone that he'd stolen only a couple of hours earlier and called a private number at the FBI.

Skinner sounded angry. "Where the hell have you been? Carver's been..."

Dumb, dumb, dumb. Krycek groaned his irritation. Skinner's casual broadcast of their contact's name was just another example of how dangerous it was to work with amateurs. No matter. So what if Carver's rivals did overhear how close Carver was to the prize, maybe it would up the price.

There was no need to publish details of the rendezvous though, he placed the emphasis on the cryptic and hoped that Skinner would take the hint about the need for caution on open lines. "I'm going for a work-out." He hit the disconnect without any pretense of a goodbye or any further acknowledgment of the plan.

The gym was a good place to work out a few kinks. Krycek resented the fact that he wasn't going to be able to use the venue again. He'd come to enjoy it in recent weeks, but now that it was on the official list of Krycek haunts - well, there was no point in pushing his luck.

Instead he relaxed into the rhythm of his own heart rate as it increased slowly with each steady press against the weights.

The room was full of well-built bodies, but it wasn't hard to spot the new arrivals as the odd men out. Loose fitting jogging pants did nothing to conceal their trades. Having disenteangled himself from the weight machine, Krycek made a slow approach. "So, is that a gun in your pocket?" He let his voice trail off, not bothering to conceal his amusement.

The man with the blond crew-cut growled an incoherent complaint. The second man refused even that acknowledgment. "You're wanted."

Krycek's smile broadened. "So, it's not a gun."

The crewcut lurched toward him and Krycek pulled quickly back, waved an admonishing finger. "He's expecting me to be intact."

"Don't push it."

Krycek nodded and followed Carver's goons back to the changing rooms. A quick shower and back into his clothes and he was ready to go. Champing at the bit, actually. Though they didn't need to know that.

He noted their disdainful gaze as he pulled the expensive leather jacket over his useless left arm. Mulder's jacket, he noted, suddenly vaguely amused at what the agent might think of being the victim of petty theft. Borrowed, he decided. Mulder was welcome to it, just as soon as he was in a position to use it again.

Krycek's smile faded, he nodded crisply at the two men. They led the way to the waiting black sedan.

Part 2

Carver was not pleased to see Krycek. Krycek accepted that as another point he'd earned. Only a few days ago, Carver had treated him with no more respect than a pesky wasp buzzing over his personal picnic. He had now officially reached the status of unwelcome but necessary intrusion.

"You wanted to see me?"

Carver's first response was a sharp inhalation. His second was a smile, bared teeth and a threat in his eyes. "I've been looking for you since our first meeting. I feel we got off on the wrong foot."

That was one way of putting it. Krycek hesitated, unsure whether to continue with his planned full frontal assault or to play the game of false politeness that Carver was suggesting. He looked around the room and saw Carver's entourage. Carver was already struggling to hold these people together, and was unlikely to forgive or forget if Krycek chose to humiliate him further.

Krycek opted for conciliation. "How can I help?"

Carver's features relaxed. "I'd like to talk with you about Mr Mulder."

"Of course."

A nod of the head from Carver and the room emptied. Carver waited until the doors were shut before turning his attention back to Krycek.

Krycek took the initiative. "He's stopped talking?" He took the beat of silence as an adequate reply. "By choice?"

"Apparently."

"Why?"

Krycek realized he'd asked one question too many as the fire returned to Carver's eyes. "Get the link open. You'll be well rewarded."

"And if I fail?"

"Don't."

How easily Carver had lapsed into making threats. Surely, Skinner with his well-known soft spot for Dana Scully made a more suitable target for manipulation if all Carver was looking for was someone familiar for Mulder to talk to?

Unless Mulder really had been the one who'd done the choosing? Just as Scully had said.

Krycek acknowledged Carver's warning message and let him lead the way to a windowless room with heavily fortified doors that housed the palmtop computer.

If he let his imagination run a little, he could almost see Mulder asking for him, a kind of macabre bluff designed to test the psychology and limitations of Carver and his pals. But whatever had happened, had happened days ago. And Mulder hadn't broken the silence? Since when had Mulder had that kind of patience? Or that kind of ruthlessness as a playmaker?

Krycek gave the unit a cursory once-over. The communicator was stone dead. Not possible from Mulder's end of the line. At least, not as far as Krycek was aware. He suppressed the urge to smile at his good fortune.

He looked up at Carver. "This could take a while."

Carver nodded and pointed out the video surveillance cameras conveniently located around the room before leaving Krycek to the solitude. Alex heard the heavy clunk of metal as the lock closed.

It struck him then, in the dead silence of the soundproofed cell with its harsh white lights, that this must be a taste of Mulder's world. Unconsciously, he ran his hands over his thighs, brought the fingers of his right hand up to stroke along the contours of his cheek, underneath his eye, outlined the top ridge of his ear. He sighed, marveling at the easy pleasure such innocent movements had supplied. Not quite like Mulder's world then.

The blink of the video camera brought his musings to a halt. First things first, he switched the computer back to life, making at least three slow errors for every fast correct keystroke. The screen flickered to gold.

A quick check on the last entry in the archive, three days old now, just a few lines back. "I only talk to Alex Krycek."

Imagine that. Fox Mulder had mentioned his full name, and the computer had obligingly behaved according to its programmed response and switched off as soon as the session was complete. What a wonderful coincidence. Things really couldn't have gone better if Alex had written the script himself. Mulder had made a threat and an Alex Krycek pre-configured computer time-bomb had ensured that the threat had stuck.

Mulder would be climbing the walls by now. Not literally, of course. At least, not unless they'd connected him up again. Imagine that, Mulder had become a ruthless poker player without even trying.

If only Carver knew. Well, Alex wouldn't be the one to tell him. He waved a hand toward his favorite surveillance camera. "I need some help in here."

A couple of minutes later and two heavies had arrived to unlock the door. "I need access to the lab. I can't activate the unit unless I make a couple of modifications."

A couple of crackly conversations over what looked disappointingly like CIA standard issue headsets and mikes, and Krycek was in the elevator. He hugged the computer protectively under his arm. The goons at his side rested their hands quietly on their shoulder holsters. Just making a point - he might be a valuable asset, but he was definitely not a colleague.

Krycek checked the faces of the lab staff, no one he knew among them. And, he was pretty sure, no one who had more than the most basic knowledge of the device. "We need to shock it back to life, to reactivate it."

The most senior of the team stepped forward, shaking his head. "I think we need to get Professor Lamb back in."

That was the last thing Krycek wanted. "No need, I've done this before."

The security guard was already talking to Carver, who had arrived almost at the same moment as Krycek. "Lamb has been informed. He'll be here later." He turned to Krycek. "You know what you're doing?"

"Absolutely."

Carver gave his order to Lamb's nervous second-in-command. "Watch everything he does."

Krycek felt a tingle of delight race along his spine. Good news then. The watcher wasn't confident. Probably had the theory but not much practical experience. Ideal really, nothing like a little close magic and sleight of hand to trip up a scientist. And once it was done, they'd swear they'd really seen and understood it all.

Krycek offered a running commentary on what wire was being connected to what pad and why the temporary shift would be adequate to reset the device. "Think of it as pulling the leads on the battery. It's like a cold start. It blanks the device."

The scientist nodded slowly, taking in the image without absorbing the fact that Krycek's actions had little to do with his words. Certainly the switch, between the powered-down implant suspended sleepily above the circuit board and the dead implant with its personal light show that Krycek had carefully smuggled in, was invisible. Despite it happening with a cluster of scientists and guards watching from only a few feet away and one scientist standing right over him and seeing nothing.

As the light show started up, everyone smiled and started breathing again. Even Carver couldn't suppress his reaction. "Let's get this back upstairs."

Krycek shrugged apologetically to his eager audience. So, they weren't deemed sufficiently trustworthy to be allowed to witness the unit in action? Ah, the joys of working for secret societies.

Ideal from Alex's point of view, of course. Sleight of hand was more impressive with an audience, but his heart rate had to be well over a hundred now.

"You seem a little tense, Mr Krycek."

"I'm worried about Mulder." Not the whole truth, but at least enough of a possible glimmer of the truth to put a doubt in Carver's mind. After all, Carver had no idea why Mulder had asked for Krycek. Not that Krycek had a much better idea himself.

Carver's silence was all Krycek needed to confirm that he'd struck the right note. The slight sheen of sweat on Krycek's forehead had not betrayed him as anything more than someone who might worry over Mulder. It was Carver himself who looked uncomfortable now.

When they got back to the room, Carver paced as Krycek went through the motions of starting up the unit again.

Krycek waited a few seconds after each line he typed. "No reply. He may not be able to."

A barked "keep trying" and Carver quickly left the room, locking the door as he went.

Better, much better. Now to put the archive to the test.

Krycek mused over what Carver and his Merry Men would enjoy. Well, he was dealing with an audience of the dull and the deadly. Perhaps a little tale from the primordial swamp? They'd imagine it was the output from hours of tough persuasion and gentle coaxing from Krycek and it would distract Professor Lamb and God knows how many other members of the science team for hours, days even.

What he needed now was a little window-dressing to wrap around the story. He cast his mind back to carefully memorized conversations and started to type. Viewed from the camera footage it would look just like he was simply typing the questions. The fact that he would also be hoping to hit the right control keys to bring Mulder's words back from the archive would hopefully be invisible. Just as long as he made the leaps into the unit's archives look convincing, it might work.

Krycek leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. The whole thing had taken less than two minutes, but from the pounding in his chest, it felt like he'd just run a marathon.

Had he made any mistakes?

Trying to recall enough of the details of their previous conversations to call up just the right bits of the archive and slot them in at exactly the right moment had been agony. Trying to make it flow like it was some kind of conversation, however disjointed, had been terrifying.

If Carver found out what he'd just done, then no way was he going to allow him to leave, even temporarily. If he knew that Krycek had just recalled things from the archives rather than actually spoken to Mulder, then the deception would send him beyond furious. Angry enough to kill. Instant justice. Despite any consequences for the link.

No doubt about it. If Krycek didn't get out of here tonight, with the communication crystal he'd so carefully retrieved and had already hidden away, then he would probably die here.

Still, with any luck, he'd done enough. He'd find out soon enough if he hadn't.

The solid clunk as the door unlocked, changed Krycek's diagnosis from soon to now. Carver stalked in an instant later. "You spoke to him? Why didn't you inform me right away?"

"He couldn't talk for long. I didn't want to interrupt him. He had a file he wanted to send you."

"A file?" Carver's eyes brightened, a glint of icy pleasure.

"Some stuff about DNA modification, something about pre-human history. He was telling me about it last time we talked. A couple of weeks ago. He's had it waiting for me." Krycek shrugged. "I guess it's yours now. Got a disk?"

Carver waved a hand at the camera, demanding that some unseen lackey bring forth the necessary item.

"What else did he say?"

"Nothing."

"The cameras picked it all up, there's no point in lying."

"I just meant there's nothing of interest to you."

"Show me."

Krycek swallowed, as if he had something to hide. Which of course, he did. "Sure. Actually there is something you should know."

Krycek assumed Carver's growl was an order to keep talking. "There's a coded message for Scully. He'll expect a response next time." Krycek pointed at Mulder's words.

"It doesn't look like code."

"Trust me. I'll go and see her, get her reply, there won't be a problem."

"He said we were to leave her alone."

"You are."

Carver frowned and started to pace. "Why you, Mr Krycek?" Krycek could almost see the wheels turning inside Carver's head, knew exactly where he was coming from. "You're a hired assassin. You killed his father. You would have killed her. I've seen the orders. I've seen the payment records. Why did he choose you?"

Krycek smiled for an instant, a little sad, a little melancholy. "Mulder's not quite the straight... arrow you imagine." He looked up at Carver again, a barely overlong blink of green eyes used to confirm some unspoken message.

Carver's confusion was gratifying. Krycek never ceased to be amused by how easy it was to manipulate these so-called leaders. A little innuendo here, a little misdirection there. Amazing. Afterwards, of course, they'd claim to have suspected it all along, or better still, known but kept silent for some strategically valid reason of their own.

What Carver was imagining now, Krycek could only guess at. He ignored the sudden urge to apologize to Mulder. Mulder. Hell, yes. Mulder. The longer Krycek was stuck in here and pretending to communicate with him, the longer it would be before actual communication could restart.

When he'd suggested to Scully that he wasn't sure how much of Mulder would be left, when or if they got him back, he'd been only partly teasing. Right now the part that hadn't been teasing was shouting worryingly loud in his head. Another reason for getting out of here right now. "I need to go and visit Agent Scully."

"You're going nowhere."

Shit. The news wasn't even a surprise. It was expected. Yet, the stab of panic that suddenly assaulted his brain and twisted his guts was as strong as if this had been some bolt from the blue.

Krycek steadied his thoughts and his voice. "He won't be pleased."

"We'll see." With those words, Carver rose from his chair. He took with him a floppy disk containing Mulder's words from a couple of weeks ago and the palmtop computer itself.

Krycek groaned as the door slammed shut. "You might at least turn the fucking lights off."

So they did.

If life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Alex Krycek had tried to incorporate that into his philosophy. Some days, it almost worked. He used the darkness to catch up on some much needed sleep. After all, there wasn't much else he could do.

What a way to treat a colleague. Fuckers. Of course, he knew that it was nothing personal, psychological softening up never was. The idea was that in the morning, one of Carver's crew would arrive bearing coffee and breakfast, offer him the opportunity for a refreshing shower, maybe even suggest he might enjoy a little sleep in a real bed.

First, Carver would smile and talk about getting to know him better. Then Carver would ask him what the current charge was for cooperation and whether he'd prefer his payments in cash?

Best to let them think it was working. What would be fair? A fixed price for the job, maybe a million, maybe ten million? Or a day rate perhaps, maybe a hundred thousand or so. And a fucking bedroom, a bathroom, a change of clothes, three decent meals a day and as much coffee as he could handle.

He wondered if his casual innuendo from the night before about Mulder's relative straightness or otherwise had changed the price. And if so, in which direction.

His memories slipped back to Mulder and his complaints about the too-bright lights and the silence that wasn't silence. Sensory deprivation was a powerful ally in gaining cooperation. Krycek decided to do a few exercises to remind himself that he, at least, still knew how to make his own body feel something.

Part 3

Carver looked ready to explode, apparently still angry at the price that Krycek had suggested.

Krycek couldn't really understand it, given that it didn't actually matter. Krycek knew that neither he nor his heirs would be allowed to keep even the money that had already been moved electronically to an offshore account as an "act of good faith." He recognized that, according to Carver's current plans, he wouldn't even be allowed to live for long enough to count it.

Maybe the cost to Carver's personal credibility of talking to Mulder was starting to look higher than the potential benefits that might accrue? Accrue to Carver, of course. There were times when even Krycek almost forgot that the prime motivation for these people wasn't some great world vision involving the survival of humanity. It was some tacky little power-play between thugs and bureaucrats operating way out of their depth.

Carver's voice was clipped and harsh, lacking the calm arrogance of previous encounters. "Get it working."

"What did your people think of Mulder's notes?"

"Not your problem. Just do your job."

Krycek watched the screen go back to gold. Good news. If they'd done a close inspection of the unit and discovered the fake communicator then Carver wouldn't be wasting his time standing here. Presumably Mulder's notes had kept Professor Lamb and the others fully occupied.

An hour seemed like a suitable length of time to try and fail to talk to Mulder. Carver's breathing became more labored, his steps as he paced the room in tight circles falling more heavily. But while Carver showed signs of impatience, he showed no interest in leaving.

Good. Krycek steadied his own breathing, ran his recollections of previous replies from Mulder through for one final time, and hoped that his memory of the archive was up to the task of a live public performance.

It was baffling. Truly baffling. Baffling and sickening. Carver wanted so badly to talk to Mulder and Carver had no fucking idea who Mulder was. What Mulder was.

Did they really imagine that Mulder shared their view of the world, that he wanted to join their club? That he cared about becoming a bargaining counter or even a power-broker in their hierarchies and their in-fighting and their factions? How easily they were taken in by the silk ties and the Armani suits, mistaking a love of beauty for an ignorance of ugliness.

Maybe the fact that Mulder had apparently chosen silence for three days had confirmed his status as a favored son of the conspiracy. Ironic if it had.

Carver's ranting didn't stop. Where was Mr Super Cool conspiracy boss now? "You provoked him."

"Provoked? I told you, his message to Scully needed a reply. From her."

"You're still saying it was some kind of code?"

Krycek offered a single, curt nod of the head.

"You fucking useless piece of shit. If you don't get him talking."

What the fuck was that? A threat? Carver should stick to threatening his lab staff. How the hell had Carver risen through the ranks of anything? Krycek knew the answer. Keep your mouth shut in public; stab people in the back and dance on their graves in private. It was the keeping your mouth shut element that had always given Krycek the most difficulty.

Krycek stood his ground. "I need to talk to her. It's the only way."

"I'll have her brought in."

"And if the coded reply from her is something he doesn't want to hear? Like that you've dragged her back in here. And he cuts us off again?"

"Shit." Carver mumbled expletives under his breath as he stabbed restless fingers against the desktop. "Ok, you can visit her. You'll have an escort."

"They'll need to stay back. He told you not to go near her."

"Don't fail."

"Understood." Krycek had no intention of failing. The fact that his definition of success differed from Carver's was just another example of how necessary it had been to learn that lesson about keeping his mouth shut.

Krycek had been supplied with a car by his "employers." A shiny black number with a phone installed. As far as Krycek was concerned it might just as well have been fitted with blue flashing lights and a siren. Not so much a car as a liability.

The phone call to Scully had been pre-arranged. The call had been a definite, only its timing had been unpredictable. If he'd ever doubted the wisdom of the choice he was making, Carver's nervous anger had convinced him anew. Carver wasn't even going to win the faction fight he was currently engaged in. Even by the conspiracy's low standards, he simply wasn't good enough.

"Dana?"

"Yes, hello."

"We need to meet. He's got a message for you."

"Where?"

"Your place."

"Fine. See you around 6."

Excellent. Krycek smiled up at the windows of Scully's home and headed indoors. She had given him over an hour. It ought to be enough to confuse the men that Carver had sent to watch over him.

An easy break-in later and he was inside Scully's apartment and trying to ignore the sudden flash of deja vu as he walked into her living room. He switched on a few lights, pulled down a couple of blinds, turned the TV on loud and set the coffee maker to work.

With the scene set, he made a quick departure via a bedroom window. Turned left and followed the line of shadows between the trees to the dark blue rental car parked just a block away. The keys were waiting in the exhaust.

By the time he reached the airport, Scully was already standing in line at the wrong check-in. So far, so very, very good.

Nicholson was in the coffee shop, two cappuccinos on the tray in front of him. He welcomed Krycek like a long-lost brother and tucked the white ticket envelope into Krycek's pocket as he released him from the bear hug.

"Careful. I may need my ribs."

Nicholson grunted in response before asking the big question. "Where is it?"

"Safe."

"If you let her down..."

"What's it to you?" Krycek raised a hand to block the reply. The question had, after all, been rhetorical. "Still trying to pay back Mulder?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"It's my duty as an American citizen to help the FBI."

"Where is he?"

"On an alien spaceship. Don't your colleagues tell you anything?"

Nicholson growled in irritation. "Why did he choose a slimy piece of shit like you?"

"You think you could have got the unit out of there?"

Nicholson's fingers continued to beat a tattoo on the dining tale, but their dance was becoming heavier, more audible now. Krycek pushed forward a gloved hand to quiet them. Nicholson reacted in an instant, enveloping Krycek's fist with his own and starting to squeeze. He retreated a second later, mumbling the inevitable, "What the fuck?"

Krycek smiled as he withdrew the harsh plastic that now constituted his left arm. "Protecting Mulder, costs."

Nicholson stared back at him, lost for words. Krycek rose from his seat and bade him farewell, "See you."

A brief visit to the men's room later and Krycek was on his way to a rendezvous at a crowded gate.

"Mouse blond suits you. Is it your natural color?"

Scully scowled as she turned to face him. He quickly pulled her into his arms. "Come on, Mrs Hardy. You've got a job to do." Acknowledging his words, she attempted to feign relaxation, stiff and unnatural but presumably the best she could do.

She took a step back, looking at him intently, smiling sweetly, her voice dropping to a seductive murmur for her reply. "Don't ever touch me again." She upped the wattage of the smile to something beyond sweet. "Your hair's not much to write home about, either."

He leaned in to whisper in her ear and was gratified by her shudder as she tried not to flinch away. "My hair? You supplied the wig."

With Special Agent Dana Scully traveling to New York accompanied by her partner Mike Nicholson, Mr and Mrs Hardy were free to enjoy a trip to the parking lot and another change of rental car.

"So who's traveling with your partner?" It was worth calling Nicholson that, just to see the way Scully's mouth drifted open to let her breathe again.

"A friend."

"Female, I hope? I was worried it would be Frohike."

She ignored his suggestion. "How did the meeting with Mike go?"

"Perfect. He got us center-stage on two security cameras, nicely melodramatic greeting, the obvious way that he slipped me the ticket envelope. The way he made it look like he was trying to hide it. You really don't deserve him."

Scully swallowed in acknowledgment. Krycek turned his attention back to the road ahead. He was surprised when she started talking. "Have you spoken to him?"

Ah, him. For Scully, there could only, possibly, be one him. "Without you?" She gave a gasp of irritation and Krycek took pity or maybe advantage as he spoke again. "I haven't had time. The sooner we get to the hotel the better."

She nodded at the blur of movement outside the window and closed her eyes. Another hour or so and they would be in Atlantic City. Then, they'd see.

Scully's hands shook with panic as she tried to keep on typing. Krycek rested his fingers over hers. "He's gone. But he'll be back. He was just surprised. He'll go away, process it, think up some questions to test us out. Then he'll be back."

"But if he thinks we're just hallucinations?"

"Then we'll still be a hell of a lot more interesting to him than the rest of his fantasies."

Skinner's laptop PC had been easy to adapt to the task. Krycek had prepared the way a couple of weeks earlier when he'd downloaded the palmtop's control files as well as Mulder's description of human pre-history. It would have been a much tougher memory test if he hadn't. Being this well prepared, Krycek found it easy to see himself as a boy scout. He almost laughed at the idea.

Scully glared. "What?"

"Just wondering about Mulder's fantasies."

A final exasperated sigh from Scully and she was on her feet and walking to the phone. A moment later and she'd ordered room service, chicken salad for one.

This time it was Krycek's turn to look exasperated. "We're supposed to be acting like a couple."

To his surprise, Scully was smiling when she turned back to him. "I am. Ask Mulder."

Perhaps he would. Meanwhile, a little bit of distraction was in order. He switched the TV to CNN, settled back in his chair, and filled his eyes with visions of fashion parades on the New York catwalk.

Scully sounded genuinely puzzled. "Why are you watching that?"

Krycek shrugged. "I'm trying to see if humanity is worth saving."

Part 4

The bed rocked under Krycek's weight. He turned down the TV a little, just enough to check that the shower was still running. It was. He checked the time again. Over half an hour now.

Maybe he should be generous. Perhaps he could announce through the bathroom woodwork that he was heading out to jog a few laps of the motel parking lot and give her a more comfortable place to grieve in private.

Not easy to break a woman like Dana Scully. Doubtless, given sufficient time and space, Scully would pick up the pieces and put herself together again. A couple of hours in hiding now and she would be back on her feet and acting as if she was ready to fight.

Hard enough to lose Mulder. But to have some ghostly shadow of Mulder calmly try to take her child from her, without so much as a softening word? Too hard to face an audience, right now.

Krycek had always wondered if it would be Mulder who returned, or one successfully reprogrammed by them. He resented the thought. He'd hated Carver and the others for the way they'd expected miracles, or at least a winning edge from Mulder. Yet, here he was, repeating their mistake.

Bemused by the dying embers of the hope and idealism that he'd apparently vested in Mulder, he saw no good reason to act with gentlemanly respect toward Scully. He did, however, turn the sound back up on the TV. What he saw a few minutes later on the headline news was well worth the effort.

He was up on his feet in an instant and banging on the bathroom door.

"Hey!" He paused, listened for a response, knocked on the door again. "Scully. Get out here. Mulder's just made an appearance on CNN."

Cursing the absence of a VCR with a good freeze frame, he started to channel surf, looking for more news programs, pausing as he arrived at the Fox news summary but finding only the wrong camera angle on their coverage. "Scully, move it. They'll probably re-run the item on the hour."

She'd stopped running the shower. She'd be out in a minute. Whatever Scully had been doing in there for, he checked his watch again, whatever she had been doing for the last hour, it hadn't been showering. It wasn't as if she was going to need to fuss with her hair. He heard the click as the door unlocked and kept his mouth shut, a vague attempt not to scare her away.

The door opened, she kept her head down and her back to him as she walked in some kind of sidestep to the chair. "What are you talking about?" So pale that voice of hers, so tired, so broken. She swallowed and Krycek almost swallowed in sympathy.

"Just watch."

"Tell me."

"I think I've just seen him. In a news item. About a fire at a building in DC."

"What? Is he? He can't be. We were only talking to him a few minutes ago."

An hour and an half ago actually, but who's counting? Krycek took pity on her panic. "Looks like he's a witness, not a victim."

The news station went into their hourly headlines and Krycek saw what he was looking for. "There, second row back."

"What? I didn't see.."

A VCR would be useful. Never mind, she'd pay more attention next time. He shushed her, determined to pick up every word of the item, even if he wasn't expecting much information.

"Suspected terrorist attack... Motives unknown... Cancer research organization... Professor Alastair Lamb among the dead... FBI investigating."

Lamb? Someone had attacked Carver's crew. And Carver? Was he there, too? Dead, too?

What the hell? Well, it had been obvious that Carver lacked what it took to win, but even Krycek hadn't expected him to lose this quickly. Unless allowing Krycek to steal the communicator had given the final push to Carver's opponents. Surely not, surely if it was just a push against Carver they wouldn't want his scientists dead, they'd simply take over their contracts?

And Mulder?

What the hell would Mulder be doing there?

Getting his face on the evening news?

Scully was right, in a way. They hadn't spoken to Mulder so very long ago. In fact, they'd probably been talking to him at just about the same time that the news footage was being recorded.

Which meant that either they hadn't spoken to Mulder or that wasn't Mulder on the TV or that Mulder was now free, but still chose to communicate using the implant. He almost laughed at that, realizing that having all those options available simply meant that he still had no fucking idea what was happening.

Scully sounded like she was choking, like she was struggling for air as well as looking for moisture to speak. "You're saying he was stood outside there, watching the body bags coming out?"

Got it in one. Krycek nodded. "I guess you'll need to contact Skinner."

They haggled over the contact details. It was a pleasant distraction from trying to think about the implications of what had been done or to speculate on what was happening now.

Their next attempt to contact Mulder by using the communicator failed. Whether he was unwilling or simply unable to respond was just another unknown to add to the steadily growing list.

It was another half-hour before the news item ran again, and this time it ran without the background shots of the crowd. Scully didn't even get a glimpse of Mulder. Whatever. She'd just have to take Krycek's word on that positive ID.

Skinner's word too, as it turned out. Krycek hadn't been the only person who'd spotted Mulder in the crowd scene. Skinner's next words in the phone conversation had a ring of inevitability. "I won't be able to keep it quiet. Mulder's disappearance got a lot of coverage. His reappearance is news."

It was. Only a matter of hours later and it was television news. A black and white image of a very young looking Fox Mulder taken from his Bureau record posted for comparison purposes next to the video camera images of a bronzed, healthy and satisfied-looking onlooker at the scene of a terrorist attack.

Krycek decided Scully might as well hear the way his thoughts were moving. "We should get back to town. If Mulder's there."

Scully's knuckles were chalk white against the burning red of her cheeks. She said nothing.

Krycek took up the thread again. "Carver's dead. We should go back."

"Who killed him?"

Krycek sighed. Who indeed? Another faction of the conspiracy, perhaps? Yet why kill Lamb and the others, why not just a simple execution of Carver? The aliens then? Mulder? Or were those last two actually the same thing now?

Whoever had done it was either not a threat, maybe just a new name to negotiate with, or else they wouldn't let a little detail like a side-trip to Atlantic City faze them. There was no doubt in Krycek's mind that the aliens could home in on the communicator, and pick them up any time they wanted. Did Scully see it that way?

He remembered that he hadn't answered her question and shrugged a reply. "Whoever did it could find us if they wanted to."

She responded by raising her chin, her skin taut with useless energy, her body sagging, worn out by her own imagination and fresh hope.

Silence was not golden. At least, not as far as Alex Krycek could tell. Three days had passed, three days and nights of waiting in Mulder's apartment for someone or something to contact them. Three days of living with Scully and whichever of her allies was currently on duty. It was Mike Nicholson's turn to haunt the place today.

Krycek had even imagined at one point that Mulder might show up, but he'd carefully avoided thinking too much about that.

Another 72 hours of silence from Fox Mulder. Maybe this really was a new, improved Fox Mulder. One who could play the game right to the limits. Maybe Fox Mulder was already dead.

If he was dead, maybe that was for the best. Maybe he wouldn't want to live like this. It crossed Krycek's mind that if they ever met again, it might be best for everyone, including Mulder, if he put him out of his misery. Perhaps that was why Mulder had asked for him as his go-between?

Go-between? Mulder hadn't spoken more than a couple of dozen words since Krycek had reopened the line. All those risks he'd taken to snatch it back from Carver. For what? So Mulder could prove again what a useless, ungrateful bastard son of the conspiracy he really was?

Maybe if he kept thinking about it for long enough he wouldn't need to convince himself that death was the kinder way out for Mulder. Maybe it would be the only way out he would even consider offering him.

Krycek played again with the cool smooth lines of the Sig Sauer. Weighing it, checking it for easy balance, he locked aim on the target of the TV screen, enjoyed the sensation of his finger itching to squeeze back. As his favorite news item appeared, he forced himself to put the gun down and pay attention.

"The FBI's search for a missing agent has taken on heightened significance in the light of an arson attack that killed eighteen men and three women in Washington on Tuesday. The FBI says it is investigating a number of possibilities, and that Special Agent Fox Mulder, who disappeared in mysterious circumstances two months ago, could have key information."

Krycek raised a cup of coffee in salute. The reporter's next sentence nearly caused Krycek to spit a mouthful of the stuff straight back out.

"We've learned through sources within the FBI that Agent Mulder was working undercover a little more than a year ago. It's understood that he was recruited by a terrorist organization and participated in their activities. That operation led to the deaths of several civilians, including a bank employee and a number of movie goers."

Krycek turned to look at Scully. She looked nauseated. She obviously recognized the story.

"Agent Mulder was caught on CNN cameras immediately after the attack and on security footage inside the building taken earlier in the day. It's understood that he has made no contact with the Bureau and that his whereabouts remain unknown."

All of this was coming hard on the heels of the other exposures of Mulder's rather idiosyncratic record. Those reports included Krycek's own article for the Enquirer in which he'd told them about the alien abduction. Followed, of course, by Krycek's own debunking report to the Star that had explained just how much trouble Mulder had been in with the FBI accountants and with his own unmarried, pregnant partner.

How was Krycek supposed to know just how much more dirt was waiting to be dished? More than enough, apparently. He looked back at Scully. "It looks bad."

She shook her head vehemently, replied through gritted teeth. "He was talking to us when it happened."

"We can't prove that. Nothing that would stand up in court. Even if we did, it wouldn't constitute an alibi, just that he could do two jobs at once." Besides, was she really sure that she wanted "that" Mulder, the one who had talked so calmly about the baby not being hers, to be the real thing? Maybe she would prefer an avenging angel?

Anger and despair warred across Scully's features for an instant before resignation took their place. "The priority is to find him."

Ah, yes, of course. Scully the pragmatic. Krycek couldn't help but admire her focus. Equally, he couldn't resist the urge to pull her strings. "Sounds like we'll have to stand in line."

Nicholson was prowling, just about colliding with the walls of the apartment, certainly making the place look very small. It was Krycek who cracked first. "Sit the fuck down."

Nicholson turned round fast, looking as if he was considering whether Krycek's request represented a sufficient excuse to launch into a demolition. He stopped himself an instant later, professionalism blurring the angry edge of his movements. The agent shook his head and moved towards the kitchen, offering fresh supplies of coffee as he walked.

The set-up was irresistible, so Krycek obliged. "You need more caffeine?"

Nicholson's hand fumbled with the handle as he opened the kitchen door but he kept on walking.

Krycek turned his attention back to Scully. Her head was tilted skywards, eyes closed, rotating her head gently and working on her breathing exercises. He noted the stiff way she stretched, obviously struggling against an aching back. Probably not even the pregnancy's fault; he hadn't been feeling much different himself.

Hours of computer searches and hours of sitting around had left him a mass of pent-up tension without any physical outlet. Maybe he should go back to the gym? He'd have to do something soon. Patiently waiting for someone else to make a move wasn't really his thing.

Even if Mulder did get free, how the hell were they going to find Mulder before the FBI did? It had been one thing when the Bureau had been apathetic, but now they had a stronger motive and were aided by an enthusiastic and suspicious media.

Skinner walked in through the front door just as Nicholson returned from the kitchen. This was getting ridiculous. Didn't they have homes to go to? Even if someone did want to make contact, what were the chances of them wanting to make contact with four people? A long way poorer than with just one.

Scully looked expectantly at Skinner, and Krycek shook his head in dismay at her apparently endless ability to hope. He wondered exactly what it was she was hoping for.

"Mulder's going to be put on the FBI's wanted list. Consider as armed and dangerous. Approach with extreme caution."

Krycek had to respond, said it with scorn. "Approach who?"

"If they find him." Skinner tensed, breathed a little more deeply. "When they find him."

"Where the fuck do you think he is? You saw him get taken. Have you forgotten?"

"He was seen in DC."

Krycek was on a roll now. Denial was one thing, but when it got in the way of doing the work it was a luxury they couldn't afford. His own doubts and hesitations vanished as he spoke. "Not Mulder. The Bounty Hunter was seen in DC. He torched Carver and his goons for interfering."

Nicholson took advantage of the silence that followed to ask a question "Bounty Hunter?"

And Krycek laughed, couldn't help it, didn't even see why he shouldn't do it. Nicholson had been sitting in Fox Mulder's apartment all day listening to him squabbling with Scully about whether she thought Mulder had really been there for the arson attack. And Nicholson had no idea why there should be any shadow of a doubt!

Krycek snorted in the last of his laughter, and glanced up at Nicholson, even as he directed his words towards Skinner and Scully. "Mushroom man, huh? Keep him in the dark and feed him shit?" He focused on Nicholson again. "Alien Bounty Hunters. They do the aliens' enforcement work; keep their own troublemakers from exposing the project."

"And he was helping Mulder?" Nicholson was struggling for something, reaching for it. "Or are you saying he coerced Mulder?"

Alex could have started laughing again, but decided that Nicholson deserved better. "The Bounty Hunter can morph, transform his features to look like anyone. Anyone. Even Mulder."

Nicholson studied the other faces in the room. No one was laughing now. No one even seemed likely to argue. He pushed his hands into the solid wood of the chair back. "You're serious?"

There wasn't any need to respond, so Krycek turned his attention back to Skinner. "You really think Mulder would do a thing like that?"

Skinner shook his head. "It doesn't matter what I think. If he's found." His thumbs pushed under his spectacles to squeeze away the strain. "We've got to try and warn him. If someone else finds him first. If he resists arrest. I..."

"You're a fucking Assistant Director of the FBI and you're telling me you can't keep him safe from your own trigger-happy men?"

Skinner leaned against the wall, suddenly exhausted.

The softness of Scully's voice forced the room to attention. "Then we'd better find him first." She waved at the communicator currently masquerading innocently as Skinner's laptop.

The silence was oppressive.

The update from the Lone Gunmen did nothing to lift the mood. Extensive analysis of the video tapes from the day of the attack had shown that only a man who looked like Mulder had been filmed wearing Mulder's clothes. Analysis of video footage from the days after the attack had shown no sign of Mulder or his clothing.

The stealthy monitoring they were conducting of Mulder's favorite haunts had yielded nothing. From his favorite take-outs to his best loved bars, to his preferred jogging routes through the streets, they'd done what they could to seek him out with personal or electronic surveillance, but without success.

On a broader perspective, nothing of interest had come up on the satellite scans or through the monitoring of DoD radar alerts. The world was apparently business as usual. Indeed, the fact that it was a slow news day was just making sure that Mulder's picture was continuing to make its presence felt on CNN, little scraps of new color gradually arriving to spice up the presentation.

"So." Krycek eased back in the chair, impressed as well as amused by the latest TV revelation. "A dozen dead in a movie theater, a bank employee, a couple of their own men executed and all Mulder got was a dislocated finger! I didn't know he had it in him."

Scully had to leave the room.

Krycek looked across at Nicholson. "Having fun? Still think Mulder's worth rescuing?"

Nicholson folded his arms and said nothing.

Part 5

Gone in 60 seconds. Scully was running before she'd even left Mulder's apartment. Skinner was the next out of the room. Krycek followed at a more leisurely pace, poking his head around the front door merely to confirm that Scully had taken the stairs and not stuck around waiting for the elevator.

Krycek pulled the door shut again and smiled at Mike Nicholson. "Not joining the party?"

"Three's a crowd."

"Besides which, someone needs to watch over me and the computer?"

"Naturally."

"You think she's going to be interested in talking to him again?"

"I'm giving her the option. And him."

"Ah. Mulder. Of course. You think he'd treat you any better than they do?"

"Not your problem."

"Right." Krycek drawled. "You owe him." Then faster, allowing the first tickle of irritation to creep in. "You don't even know him." Then softer, almost apologetic. "Scully hardly recognizes him. I'm not even sure that I know him anymore."

"I know enough. They've got Mulder and they're fucking with his head. You think I should walk? Maybe that's what you would do."

"I'm still here."

"Yeah. That's the bit I don't get."

Krycek's eyebrows quirked an acknowledgment. "Let's try him again."

Shit.

All Alex Krycek needed. Mulder the code-talker meets Mulder the whiny-assed little prick. How the fuck was he supposed to get anything meaningful out of that?

Nicholson's voice boomed out across the room, finally catching Krycek's attention. He spun around to face him. "What?"

Nicholson waved his hands in a conciliatory calming gesture, which just infuriated Krycek all the more. Krycek's fingers folded into a fist. "Fuck you." He paced. Tense beyond reason or care, just about up on his toes and preparing to run.

He slammed the prosthetic hand into the wall, amused for an instant by the fact that he apparently still had the control not to do damage to real flesh. Then angrier still because the noise it made as it hit its target was the sound of plastic cracking. Fuck it. Fuck Mulder. Fuck the lot of them.

He turned back to face the computer and instead saw the brick wall barricade of a mean looking linebacker. A time to explode? Throw the high voltage switch and erupt properly. He didn't. Shaking his head, he turned away, angry that Mulder had made him lose his cool. Furious that it had occurred in front of Nicholson.

Did Mulder know the sort of power he had? He'd made Scully cry. He'd got Carver killed. He'd made Skinner feel helpless, done a better job of it than a veinful of nanites had. He could even get Alex Krycek angry. Fucking angry. Plastic wrist-joint breaking angry.

And Mike Nicholson still thought he was worth talking to? Shit.

It'd be comical if it wasn't so fucking pathetic.

Krycek sucked in the last of his adrenaline to store up as fuel for another time, threw back a dismissive hand. "He's a fucking asshole."

Nicholson twitched back to attention, then instantly relaxed, recognizing that Krycek's mood had changed. "What took you so long?"

And Krycek shook his head and didn't laugh, but came oh-so-fucking close. "Guess my memory's fucked."

Nicholson took a deep breath, his jaw tensing as he recovered his poise, and Krycek saw the way his fingers flexed and didn't want to see that and be reminded of Mulder. Krycek almost smiled then, murmured discordantly sharp words. "Why are you here, Nicholson?"

"I've been a hostage, too."

Krycek nodded, slow, pessimistic. "Yeah, I read that, and that Mulder's profile got you out. Does he know?"

Nicholson shrugged. "I've never met him."

"Shame, he could have used some friends while he was..." The word hung on Krycek's tongue. Alive. Dead. What was Mulder now? "While he was here." Krycek nearly lost it again at that. Who was talking in code now? "I've gotta get out of here."

He did, really did. Away from Mulder's couch, Mulder's TV, Mulder's fish, Mulder's fucking miserable existence. Why hadn't he just taken the money back at the Watergate Hotel, the first time Carver had offered it? Bought himself a fucking yacht and headed for the clear blue water and the shimmering horizon.

Should have saved his energy for dancing on their graves. Everybody's grave.

He didn't want Mulder's apartment and he sure as hell didn't want Mulder's life. What the hell was happening to him here?

As for Nicholson? He was becoming a problem, too much like having a conscience as a shadow.

Hell. Krycek studied the four walls of his new prison. He was in hell.

Skinner's arrival was a welcome break from what was rapidly becoming so addictive and compulsive a task that Krycek wondered if it qualified as automatic behavior. Watching CNN news, every hour on the hour, was not a very productive or satisfying use of time. But what other option did he have?

Perhaps Skinner could provide a little entertainment? Krycek tested the water. "I spoke to him again." Skinner swallowed and Alex paused to enjoy it, before adding. "He's losing it."

"What did he say?"

"He's worried about the baby. He doesn't trust himself not to lose himself to them."

"Sounds reasonable."

"It's the way he says it."

Skinner tilted his head and it looked like a demand or maybe an order, and Krycek could almost remember standing in his office, with a bad haircut and a worse suit. Another flicker of a memory closed in, Mulder's tense little smile before he pulled some new stunt so far out of line that it was just as well that Skinner was already bald.

Krycek nodded, almost affectionate. "He told me that I might have to stop him from carrying out their plans."

Skinner's head shifted again, and his hands spooled open in a gesture that suggested that he thought that sounded like a reasonable idea, too.

Reasonable? Skinner thought it was a fair response? Krycek sighed before continuing. "He thinks I may have to stop Scully, too."

Skinner's gaze faltered, and Krycek was relieved that at least that idea was just as outrageous as it had seemed to him.

Which left open only one question. Where exactly was Scully?

Skinner looked vaguely embarrassed as he tried to fill in the gaps between Scully's sudden dash for freedom and now. Krycek was well aware that he was only getting part of the story.

Interesting to note that Scully had allowed Skinner to drive her home. Worrying to hear that she had accepted the need to eat a real meal, and to get a proper night's sleep in her own bed. How low did she have to be feeling to agree to that? Not surprising, really.

Absolutely predictable though that she had agreed to take a night off, only because Skinner had told her that he would be spending the night at Mulder's, guarding the computer. Skinner took a deep breath, drawing his shoulders square and sent Nicholson home.

"Cozy. Just the two of us." And Krycek tried not to resent the way that they could take shifts, could find a time to breathe among it all, wind down enough at least to take a shower and find a change of clothes without keeping one eye on the computer. Whereas, he was just one man alone.

Skinner had even taken over the management of the TV remote control.

Krycek's eyes tracked Mulder's fish as they dipped and dived through their tiny universe. Was it true that they had no memory? That every frond of artificial greenery was discovered afresh, over and over again. And the jokey journey of the plastic spaceship as it bounced up and down thousands of times a day, was it still a joke for them?

Prisons came in many shapes and sizes.

Mulder's bedroom was no better. Too quiet. Too soft. Too little to distract Krycek from its absent owner.

In the morning, Scully spoke softly and carried a big stick. Krycek admired her nerve.

She spelt it out for him. Asked. No. Demanded, that he get Mulder on the line.

Krycek had to remind her that it didn't work like that.

It was the first of many such non-conversations.

When Skinner arrived for the evening changeover, they'd already tried and failed 18 times. Just about every half-hour. Scully's expression had scarcely changed. Dogged, Krycek decided.

Krycek was considering a breakout of his own. Only the fact that he had absolutely no idea where to go was stopping him.

Realization had taken a few days to dawn. No one was coming for the communicator. The Carver debacle had scared off the rest of the conspiracy wannabes. No cash offers. No goons with big guns. The only people who wanted to talk to Mulder were here in this room.

And even Krycek couldn't remember why.

Skinner, damp-eyed and restless, was roaming the apartment, making the space look even more cluttered. Powerless to intervene or act, Skinner tried to explain just what might happen if things didn't work out.

Mulder was now solidly positioned as the prime suspect in a multiple homicide. If he was released by "them," then it was important that "we" knew exactly when and where. If Mulder was found by the wrong people, if he panicked or ran when strangers tried to restrain him, then Skinner couldn't guarantee a happy ending.

Krycek sighed. "Tell us something we don't know."

To Scully, the words were apparently just a reminder of how limited their options were. "Try again."

Mulder's bedroom was quiet, a safe haven really. While Skinner and Scully bickered and brooded over who needed sleep more and whether they had homes to go to and who needed to be in the office in the morning, Krycek had made a decision of his own. He went to bed.

While the decision had been easy, the reality of falling asleep was not so straightforward. Mulder's words tumbled over themselves, disconnected clues in a crossword puzzle without a grid to place them in.

Yet, there was a pattern. Somewhere. It nagged at him, tugged his sleepy brain away from rest.

Maybe he was looking too hard for cryptic clues. Maybe Mulder was telling it exactly as it was.

What if it was true? What if communicating with him really had opened Mulder's mind to "them." It was consistent. Mulder hadn't had much information at first, but he had talked. The more he'd talked to "them," the more he'd talked back to us, even to Carver.

Had he felt himself slipping under their control? Did he feel his control slip a little more each time the link opened? Had he discovered the principle during those days of enforced silence when Carver had lost the connection and Krycek hadn't yet restored it? Was that why they'd allowed him to talk all along?

Speculation was hopeless, pointless really. What were his chances of explaining it when Mulder couldn't? Mulder could just be off his head.

Krycek slithered deeper under the covers, forcing his body to consider sleep even though his brain wouldn't. Something had to give, and it wasn't going to be him. Mulder could be gone for months. Could be gone forever. When would it be time to move on? When Mulder stopped replying completely? How many days of silence would be enough to declare it over?

Maybe he should stop thinking about Mulder at all. Maybe the silence that had fallen over the other conspirators since Carver's death was indication enough that the game was up.

Hundreds of times before, he'd considered grabbing the computer and making a run for it, and had only rejected the move because he couldn't come up with a destination. Maybe he should just cut his losses, leave the communicator to Scully, and walk away?

Scully's dismay, when Krycek dropped the link after just two tentative requests for Mulder to respond, swiftly turned to anger when he confirmed that he would do the same at the next attempt to make contact.

He watched her as she paced, rising up on the balls of her feet like an angry cat, her back arched and her neck tense. She demanded an explanation, hissing ill-tempered threats and growling promises to make him pay for all his sins.

With the leather jacket he'd borrowed from Mulder's closet to keep him company, Krycek announced that he was going out.

Scully moved to bar the doorway, drawing her weapon to reinforce her threat.

Krycek shook his head, frowning as he pushed past. "Lucky I like you. That kind of move could get you killed. See you later."

He understood her frustration, of course he did. He even acknowledged that there was something very appealing about the idea of shooting your way to compliance and cooperation. Still, she had to learn that such unconsidered outbursts had a price.

His original intention had been to take a short stroll, grab a little breakfast, pick up a newspaper and wander back. A brief respite from the sensation of being under house arrest, even when, consciously, he knew that he was free to walk whenever he chose.

Now he had to come up with something else to do with the rest of the day. What was it to be? Something for which someone would pay cash? He shook his head, knowing that that was just fantasy. Mulder was interfering with his thoughts, nagging at him, snapping at his heels every step of the way. Serious work on a day like this would be a recipe for disaster.

Enough, today was going to be a holiday.

He came up with a plan, of sorts. The gym. The one that he'd assumed was out of bounds. Not anymore, no reason to think that anyone would be interested. If they couldn't be bothered to show up at Mulder's, why stake out anywhere else? Losing his celebrity notoriety had its advantages.

His body would enjoy the workout. He stretched in anticipation, felt heat build in one shoulder, a reminder of just how many knots his muscles were tying themselves in. Got to keep moving. He shivered against the double meaning and pushed open the doors to the gym.

The exercise had been good for him; his spirits had risen with every weight he'd pressed. He was ready for the welcome committee that had assembled in Mulder's apartment.

It cheered him to see the mix of confused emotions in their eyes. Anger and relief warring, as the group looked for the most appropriately insulting epithet, the most brazenly implausible threat.

Good. They'd need all that adrenaline to deal with what he was about to tell them.

"We have to let Mulder choose when to talk."

Scully almost choked. "He's not in a position to choose. If we don't make him talk -"

"Make him? Got some new threats up your sleeve?"

"He needs us."

Krycek scowled, and headed for the kitchen. This was not a conversation for an empty stomach. He rifled through the contents of the refrigerator and sniffed back the sudden laughter that rose in his throat. If Mulder were to walk through the door right now, he'd assume he was in the wrong house.

All that food and nothing to eat. What the hell, maybe he should turn around and head straight back out through the front door. Had he been living on this crap? Had he really been so fixated on the Holy Grail of talking to Mulder that he'd even forgotten to eat? Or at least forgotten to look at what he was eating.

Bee pollen?

Whatever. Krycek smiled at the heavyweight hovering in the doorway. "Yo. Mike. Having fun? They feeding you this shit, too?"

Nicholson nodded. "Why? You considering a trip to the restaurant at the Watergate?"

Was that what he was considering? Why? It would only be out of petulant malice if he did. "Chinese. 4 on the speed-dial."

Krycek made a quiet return to the living room and was rewarded with a vision. Scully was leaning forwards on the couch, resting her hands on her knees, eyes closed. Skinner was whispering softly in her ear and stroking her back.

"Not disturbing anything, am I?"

Skinner gave a frustrated gasp as Scully pulled sharply away to sit up straight and try to act alert. Skinner stood up, suddenly uncomfortable at his proximity to her and the presence of an audience. He cleared his throat and focused on Krycek. "Open the line to Mulder."

"It's not a good idea. He seems to think that talking to us makes him lower his guard."

"Did he say that?"

"Not precisely."

"Then let's ask him. Direct question. One word answer."

Part 6

"As I said. He doesn't want to talk."

Skinner slammed the flat of his hand into the wall. "It might just be the wrong moment."

"We've had days of wrong moments. Do you see a pattern emerging?"

"Look, Krycek. If you want to give up, then go. Just tell us the command sequence and go. You've got everything you wanted from us. Face it, no one's going to show up here waving a blank check under your nose."

They were telling him to face it? Right. Like they were facing it? Krycek grabbed the TV remote and tuned the rest of the room out.

A few hours later and Alex Krycek was feeling better than he had for weeks. Better than he had since the link to Mulder had gone live. A little fresh air, a little exercise, a meal of his own choosing, and all topped off with a few beers.

Skinner's question was a fair one, but redundant. He'd asked himself the same question hundreds of times without getting past the idea that if he walked away, then he wouldn't know what he was missing.

Passive resistance, then. From now on, he was working to his own timetable. He rolled the cool beer across his forehead to ease the tension pain that was building. Maybe he was kidding himself, maybe the timetable was Mulder's.

Krycek woke up the next morning with the sort of ache in his shoulders that reminded him why he really shouldn't sit around all day. One little trip to the gym and he was hurting. The last couple of weeks had been like some kind of voluntary journey into sensory deprivation.

No more.

The sound of voices in the living room caught his attention and he concluded that the time was right for a grand entrance. The sight that greeted him nearly sent him straight back to bed.

God. The expression on Frohike's face was a sight to behold. Did the fact that he'd just emerged from Mulder's bedroom make matters worse? Krycek himself had been amused by the insistence on neutral territory, guards around the computer, and the overly polite refusal of preferential treatment that had led to the situation where Scully had rejected the bed in favor of a cozy tete a tete on the couch with A.D. Skinner.

Her problem. Her choice. Krycek smiled, Mulder would be outraged. Frohike already was.

Frohike was sizzling. "You can leave now."

Krycek tossed an, "I know," over his shoulder and made his way directly to the kitchen.

Scully's voice had an edge of triumph. "He means it."

Krycek tried to read between the lines, but decided not to let it distract him from the more urgent matter of making coffee. Realization struck as soon as he walked into the living room and looked at the computer; Byers was typing. Fuck.

How? The question must have been audible, though Krycek hadn't said a word.

Scully replied, more than just an edge of triumph now. "We worked it out."

Nothing like stating the obvious to make the adrenaline buzz. How many hours had they put into recording the right keys to push? Krycek studied the room, keeping Frohike in his peripheral vision as he did. The video camera lens would have been effectively invisible, but for the catch in the Frohike's breathing as Alex moved over it. Amateurs.

Amateurs? So what did that make him?

Krycek ran quickly through his options. It made him exactly the same man that he was this morning, but without the burden of listening to Dana Scully's whining about calling Mulder. Good.

He smiled, wishing them luck with a shaky movement of the head. "Has he replied?"

Frohike didn't like the mockery. "We've only just started."

"And if I'm right?" Even Byers turned away from the computer to look at Krycek. Krycek let his voice drop - low, fast and insistent. "She didn't tell you, did she? Mulder doesn't want to talk, he thinks it makes him easier to control."

Scully was the quickest to react. "He's alone, he's prey to every doubt, every fear. He's losing us, losing himself."

"Right now, losing himself might be the kindest thing."

His audience growled angry mutterings about Stockholm syndrome, brainwashing and sensory deprivation.

And he found himself wishing that they'd tell him something he didn't know. Funny how the same facts could lead to opposite conclusions. But then hadn't that been the story of Mulder and Scully's partnership? He blinked hard to clear his thoughts. Actually the story of their partnership had been of how conflicting opinions could still allow unity in action. The exact opposite of what was happening here.

Krycek spelled it out. "The best thing that could happen to Mulder is that they discard him as untrainable, wipe his mind, pour a bottle of bourbon down his throat and ditch him on the Beltway."

There was only the briefest of delays before Scully arrived, standing right in front of him, spitting venom. "And then some cop tries to arrest him? And what if he panics?"

Yeah. Well. There was that. But shouldn't she have more faith in the cautious wisdom of American law enforcement? Still, there was nothing Krycek could do to stop them, especially since Nicholson had just arrived to offer professional backup. It was all up to Mulder now. With any luck Mulder would just ignore them.

Which was just what Alex Krycek decided to do. They weren't going to ruin his day. He was going out. One smile and a teasing shake of the head as he left the apartment. "Later."

When Krycek arrived back that evening, the only things that had changed was the mood of the protagonists and the name of the duty guard. Skinner was back, Nicholson was gone. The Gunmen and Scully were still huddled over a computer screen trying to come up with a cunning plan to tempt Mulder out of his silence.

The air was stale and so were they.

Krycek opened the window. It wasn't as easy to deal with them.

Skinner looked as if he wanted to pick a fight. "Why are you back?"

Krycek shrugged. "Free phone calls, free cable, can you think of a better place to stay?"

Was Skinner going to throw him out? For an instant, Krycek thought that he might and was grateful for the distraction. When Skinner lapsed back to apathetic disinterest, Krycek bowed to the inevitable and asked the question he knew they expected to hear. "Has he replied?"

They looked at him, and he could tell from their irritation that Mulder had said nothing. He resisted the desire to cheer or scream that he had told them so. After all, perhaps it was just that they'd caught Mulder on a drugged-into-oblivion day.

He headed to the fridge; at least they hadn't drunk his beer.

On the second day, Krycek was ready to talk himself. He'd actually started to wish he could will Mulder into talking, just for long enough to tell them to shut the fuck up.

At least he had the gym, food, drink, the TV, a shelf full of books and a fish tank to distract him from their incessant cajoling and nagging. What did Mulder have? Fuck all. Krycek almost felt sorry for the stupid bastard.

They were so sure of themselves, so dogged in their pursuit.

Every hour, on the hour, they tried again.

Dana Scully's one-sided conversation with a computer had been underway for 5 minutes before Krycek heard her gasp. He groaned, knowing what it must mean and dutifully headed over to watch the screen.

They argued, fast and furious at first, tapering down with tiredness to slow and repetitive.

How long before it would be right to try again? Who should try again? Where could they get an expert in de-programming?

Krycek found the debate hard to believe. "What? You think the Moonies have got him? What if he's just telling you the truth?"

"Then, he doesn't have to face it alone."

Was there any common ground? Any possibility of unity?

Only if Mulder stopped talking.

Which he did. They responded by organizing a timetable. Nagging would be strictly limited, at least two hours between sessions. Even Scully would be scheduled to spend some time out in natural daylight.

Krycek was less impressed by the other element of the Scully care plan. She was told that if she insisted on staying at Mulder's, then she must take over his bedroom. Only Krycek and Scully voted against the proposition.

A week passed.

Now what? How much longer? Scully would probably keep the pressure on until she had the baby. A clean break would be possible then, duty done, new worries taking precedence over the old.

The Gunmen had already retreated, only one Gunman a day now.

Skinner hovered, but the FBI expected its ADs to show up for work, and he did. Outside of office hours, Skinner would take Scully's lead.

Which left Krycek. Who had no masters, no guide and no deadline to meet, but who felt apathy and defeat snapping at his heels. No matter how hard he tried to make it all add up and fit into some master plan, he could see no rationale for staying here. He knew that he would have to leave sometime. Just, not yet.

It was on the tenth day that Mulder spoke again.

Book V

The suite was far too large for one and far too comfortable for the one in question to accept as reality.

Not that Mulder felt comfortable. The sudden return of sensation had sent him into information overload, and his brain had responded by throwing his body into spasms. Arms wrapped around his knees, he'd curled up as tight as he could, shaking until exhaustion and pain had carried him into unconsciousness.

When he woke up a few hours later, he was alone. That was the only thing that wasn't a surprise.

The bright white lights were missing, replaced by an orange glow. An orange glow that seemed to be the product of diffused light arriving from one wall of the room. He turned to face it, snorting in a startled lungful of air when he felt his body move, rather than just his eyes.

Violent shivering overtook him, stopped his eyes from focusing well enough to identify exactly what he was seeing. But he understood enough to know that the remembered shock of sensation had been sustained through his latest bout of unconsciousness. Terrified that it was a dream, he closed his eyes and tried to feel.

As the shivers tapered off to something more manageable, he reopened his eyes - tentative, dreading that the action might be enough to wake him up for real.

It was a bed; he was in a bed. Its mattress springs were giving a little as he shifted. His eyes were confirming his body's feedback; his brain was giving him permission to hope. The orange glow appeared to be sunlight flowing in through curtained windows

So what if every joint and sinew was burning? Why care that every muscle was pulling to contraction before releasing, involuntary twitches rippling through his body from head to toe before fading out. Skin itched and screamed, like the sting of poison ivy alternating with the numbing tingle of an electric shock.

It felt real. So real that if it was just a lie, then it was surely over. If he woke up now, death or madness would be a heartbeat away.

He'd known that it was coming. They'd told him that he was ready, and he'd agreed with them. They'd told him that they planned to reconnect him and then send him back.

But he hadn't expected to wake up in a suite at the Watergate Hotel.

The shower hurt, water droplets slamming into him like a hail of darts. No matter. It was a good hurt, building his confidence in this new reality. Not easy to handle. He had to rest his head against the tiles to stop the room from spinning, before finally giving in, and sitting in the bath to complete the process of washing his hair.

Drying himself, with what logically he knew had to be a soft, plump, fluffy towel was like scrubbing at raw skin with a scouring pad. Far too rough a treatment. So he used the towel only to dab the water away, letting himself dry in the free air by cautiously walking around.

He dared to look at himself then, let his eyes study the man in the mirror. It didn't feel like him, but it was him, or close enough to be at least familiar. A little heavier perhaps, a little more muscle around the neck and shoulders, a little less angular maybe. His skin glowed, warmly golden.

Truly he was viewing the product of optimized exercise, diet and UV levels. No skipped meals, no too busy days, no hours of burrowing through microfiche in small town libraries.

Judging by the stubble on his chin, he guessed that he'd been shaved maybe 24 hours ago. Consistent with his view that when things had happened, they'd happened fast. Though even that theory was based on an assumption about beard growth that might not be valid.

He snorted at that. Everything was based on assumptions. He was even assuming that he was in the Watergate Hotel just because the headed stationary and magazine said that he was. What could be easier to fake than a hotel suite? Time to check-out and move on.

The wave of panic rolled over him again, just as it had every other time he'd tried to act on that instinct to go home. Back to his apartment, back to Scully, back to life. He'd been told not to do that. He'd told himself not to do that; it was just that he kept forgetting.

Hardly surprising, he couldn't even remember how to stand in a shower and wash his hair without falling over. Why should he remember how to handle more abstract things?

Almost inevitable that his sense of balance was screwed. Prolonged weightlessness alone could do it. Add to that, whatever game they'd played with his ears, his eyes, his body. He stopped adding things to the list. It was enough. There were enough reasons for the physical symptoms.

So what was the reason for them dropping him off here, rather than in the woods where they'd found him? Or if they were bothering to bring him back to DC, why not take him back to his apartment? Or deliver him directly to a hospital? In fact, why the haste? From lying disconnected on an alien ship to fending for himself in a hotel room in what, he stroked his chin, in less than 24 hours.

Because he was ready.

Ready.

And he was here because it was a safe place to get his bearings and be invisible. Because no Federal arrest warrants accusing him of killing 21 people in an arson attack would come crashing through that door.

He should turn himself in. Get it over and done with.

No.

Not before he'd spoken to Scully and Skinner. Not before he'd had a shave. Not before he'd found his clothes. Not before the constant low-grade panic had stopped buzzing through his body and not before his skin had stopped prickling like someone was pouring ice-cold, fizzing coke onto his sunburn.

And definitely not while his head was still spinning.

He thought of another reason for the dizziness. How long since he'd last eaten? He found the room service menu and dialed. They welcomed him as Mr Hale.

The phone was tempting his fingers to dial again. He pulled them away. Skinner, Scully, the Gunmen, his apartment, any place he could think to call, anyone he wanted to talk to was out of bounds. Any calls he made would lead the FBI and who knows who else directly here.

He needed to be stronger for that, mentally and physically.

It had been his own choice, he realized that now. They'd asked if he was ready, and he'd said yes. They'd asked if he needed time to adjust, and he'd said that he'd rather just go.

Cold turkey rehabilitation.

Which was ok.

He heard the knock on the door. Room Service.

Clothes? Too many things to do, one thing at a time. He headed back to the bathroom and wrapped the robe around himself.

He could acknowledge it then. He hadn't been left in an hotel room to "fend for himself" - he'd been left in a good hotel with everything he needed to get other people to do the "fending" for him.

Money?

Ok, that could wait. He could tab the tip as well as the food.

He asked for the food tray to be delivered directly to the table, sensing that his balance was barely adequate to keep himself upright.

With the room empty again he made his way to the food, lifted the lid from the plate and almost keeled over. Everything was hypersensitive, not just his skin. The brief whoosh of steam hurt his eyes; the smell of garlic and chili almost made him gag.

Maybe he should have gone for the cheese sandwich and saved the fantasy food for later. Maybe the coffee wasn't that bright an idea either.

He could almost hear Scully trying to fuss over him. He could imagine himself arguing with her, even as he did as he was told. He remembered a dislocated finger and her hands folding over his. His eyes shifted to the phone again and he had to force himself to look away.

Flat 7-Up might be a safer option; he poured the can into the glass and left it to get warm.

Great. Just great.

He started laughing, amazed that he still had it in him to be angry and frustrated about anything. Given where he was 24 hours ago, it seemed like he had very little to complain about now. Laughing made him dizzy and breathless. He flopped back down on the bed, leaving the whole mess until later.

When he woke up, everything was at room temperature. Gloomy but realistic, he ordered turkey sandwiches. It seemed appropriate somehow.

The misfiring nerves had lost a little of their prickliness. Without his whole body screaming for attention, individual body parts were now making their presence felt. His head hurt, he was shaky, cold and hot, his stomach was cramping. OK, that was all OK, no problem, just dehydration and low blood sugar.

Sighing, he looked at the food and drink on the table and accepted it for what it was - medicine. It didn't have to taste good. And in honesty, it didn't. He just needed to get some liquid past his sandpaper dry throat.

Then he'd have to get hold of some toothpaste, and a toothbrush, and a razor.

One thing at a time. For now, he focused on sipping a little more water and keeping it down.

That one task carried out to the best of his admittedly, limited ability, he tried to work through the list of things he needed to do before he was truly "ready" for anything.

He checked the closet and was not disappointed, the clothes he was wearing the night he was abducted were neatly folded on the shelf, still in their hotel laundry bags. Such a leisurely way for them to have disposed of any trace evidence. Not that he'd anticipated there being any. Just that he might have felt qualms about putting the clothes on if he'd thought there might be anything.

Like the qualms he'd felt about stepping into that shower and washing them off his body? Not that he could do that, not that he would ever be able to do that.

He leaned heavily against the closet, his fingers clinging on to the wooden doorframe for balance, suddenly absurdly grateful that he still thought of them as them. He breathed in carefully, sensing the rapid acceleration in his heart rate and knowing that his body couldn't handle it.

"Our fates are entwined," they'd told him. And he'd believed them. Still did.

The great thing about a place like this was that you could order almost anything from room service. He wrote a shopping list. He just hoped that Mr Hale's credit card could take the strain.

He forced himself to drink another glass of water before going back to bed.

When he woke up the room was dark. The first time he'd known darkness since they'd reconnected his eyes. Even when they'd been disconnected, it hadn't been real darkness, more like a glowing back projection screen on which they could run any movie they chose.

His throat tightened and he had to fight the panic. His hand shaking as he remembered that he could move. He reached out to the wall and scratched his way along the surface until he found the light switch.

Breathing out, he blinked and looked in disgust at the fingernail he'd just cracked. Disturbed by that trivial warning about his lack of ready-ness, he tried to ignore it. He focused instead on the more mundane frustration of not having any scissors. Why had they let his nails grow so long, yet shaved him at least once per day?

Ah, that was the giveaway. When he curled his lip back, he could have felt any facial hair, could have used it to gauge how many days he'd been on the ship. Fingernails? He couldn't have even seen them.

Mulder was glad that he was lying down. When the wave of nausea struck, he was relieved that all he had to do was roll onto his side and keep very still.

He'd been taken more than three months ago, he knew today's date from the newspaper he'd had delivered to the room. He'd halfheartedly tried to piece together a timetable of events since the abduction. It was pretty much impossible to know. How long had it taken Krycek to set the link up? How long had Carver held the unit? How long between Carver losing the communicator and Carver being killed? How long since he'd last spoken to Scully?

No way to judge it. Waiting took forever. Drugged sleep took no time at all. He'd just have to ask them. Soon.

He wondered if he could make his thoughts go quiet for long enough to send a message over the link, surely the only safe route out. Of course, his thoughts were only part of the problem; he also needed to block out everybody else's thoughts.

Mostly, that was easy. The mass of people were going about their lives, doing their jobs, washing their hair, eating their food, watching their TVs. The difficulty came with the ones who were doing it while screaming in pain or crying out in anger. Years as a Federal Agent hadn't deadened his reaction to other people's distress, and years as a profiler had just sharpened his instinct for danger.

Truly, he couldn't hear himself think.

His thoughts flashed back to the voices that "they" had used to talk to him, when they'd come in on their favored route, mind to mind. So calm and uninflected. Mulder understood it now, the words had to be enough. Because emotions swamped and overwhelmed, emotions had to be removed.

And how had he sounded to them?

No wonder they'd kept on drugging him into oblivion.

The memories surged through him, couldn't keep them out, no matter how hard he tried. Emotions could kill. So little distinction between the thought and the deed that he'd killed three of them without even realizing what he was doing. Oh, he could scream about self-defense, howl about being a hostage, but in the end, he'd learned an ugly lesson.

Had the assassin who'd killed Carver and his crew thought of it as murder or was it just another day at the slaughterhouse, destroying the human animals like so many unwanted cattle?

Shaky at the clash of memories and ideas, he tried closing his eyes and was rewarded by feeling the bed swim beneath him. Bad move. Cautiously, he reopened his eyes and was relieved to feel the spinning sensation slow down. OK.

Got to keep trying. Got to be ready. Got to talk to Scully. Got to be practical about what he was capable of doing.

Fine. Something to eat. Something to drink. Another shower. Get dressed. Start acting like a human again.

He eyed the TV set. Much as he liked the idea, he hadn't actually been able to hear the thing last time he switched it on, too much other stuff clamoring for the same circuits in his head. Fine, that would be another milestone. He'd just add it to the list of things he'd fantasized about and was planning on doing, like eating chili, drinking coffee, and talking to Scully.

Bile rose in his throat and he was forced to hold onto the doorframe to stop himself from crashing to the floor. Ready? What a fucking joke.

Soon, soon would have to be soon enough.

He caught another glimpse of the phone and it was tempting him to do something, something suicidal. He went back into the bathroom, and carefully closed the door on the danger.

When he woke up the next morning, he felt less tired but no more ready. Physically, he was on the mend. His body, that yesterday had seemed somehow blurred and incoherent, was slipping into focus and becoming, at least, predictable.

With a list of mundane objectives and by keeping each task simple he could even get some things done. Trivial in every case, yet when taken together, they represented a move back to reality.

Sighing as he eased himself out of bed, he knew he ought to give himself a break. If they had dropped him off at the hospital, then no one would condemn his rehabilitation steps as unworthy. To keep clean, fed, watered, and to coax his body back to movement would be accepted as a full-time job.

Here, listening to the babble of strangers' thoughts, with other people's crises and complaints hissing through his brain, he felt useless. Without other people to say that it was OK to need more time, it was hard not to feel like it was already over.

Like he'd already lost.

He had, hadn't he? Already lost. That was why he was back here.

The sudden shortage of air made his head spin. Time to lie down and curl up again. He deliberately lay on his side so that he could study the phone. Let fantasies about calling people on it hypnotize him, if not to calm, then at least to stillness.

Something buzzed past his ear, like a stealthy mosquito keeping just out of his line of sight. He turned, chasing the noise, but the noise followed him.

Ah, he was ready then.

Part 2

The decision about readiness had been taken out of his hands and he was glad of it. He returned to working on those mundane, little steps. Thought positive thoughts, like how he would have enough time to shave and get dressed properly before they got here.

Focus. He closed his eyes and tried to blank everything out, but only succeeded in triggering another dizzy spell. Shaky and breathless, he needed to keep moving, little steps. One at a time. He succeeded in washing his hair without the need to sit down in the tub.

With a few minutes spare, he switched on the TV and tried to understand what the voices were saying, channel surfed until he found something with a plot he could follow. Women's soccer. He shrugged, maybe one day he'd work his way back up to basketball.

Too soon, he heard them coming.

Scully, pensive but eager. Skinner, taking her lead, apparently literally as well as metaphorically; Mulder could feel him tiptoeing behind her. Did Skinner ever actually tiptoe? An idea so incongruous that he almost laughed.

The Gunmen, anxious. He could see their point. They didn't know who they would be meeting; they were right to be suspicious. And Krycek, Alex Krycek, joker in the pack, all fizzing adrenaline and no plans. Well, that would soon change, Alex could think on his feet.

Someone else? Someone new. Nicholson, perhaps? More puzzled than any of them.

He wondered about that Federal arrest warrant, the likelihood of murder charges that would be hard to shake. What had Nicholson thought of that? Had Scully's faith won him over? Had her surface shell of skepticism stopped her from sounding convincing?

Soon enough.

Heart beating faster, louder, he opened the door. They were less than ten feet away.

Like the opening of a blast furnace, suddenly he was being swept away by their energy. An overload of emotions hit and he stumbled away from the door.

Head spinning, he coughed out an attempted greeting and pulled back into the room, rested his weight against the desk and tried not to collapse. It had been bad enough when room service made their deliveries, but he'd always been careful to try and stay deaf to them as they moved. And they'd obliged by moving swiftly, without placing demands on him - well trained.

The six people who marched into his room were definitely a crowd. A loud and discordant crowd. Angry and confused and so fucking loud.

Focus failing, he concentrated on not falling over. It was hard to see individual faces, their features were all jumbled up like they'd escaped from some Picasso print. They looked so old, so tired, so much like something was eating them away.

Scully stepped forward, bright damp eager eyes. Her hands open and outstretched in a gesture that should have felt like a greeting but made his body recoil in panic. She flinched at his response and her chin quivered, her forced, yet honest, smile fading into a look of pure anxiety.

Stand still. Stand still. Stand still. He screamed at himself to pay attention and to try not to do any more damage. As if he'd ever be able to do that.

As soon as she touched him, his head spun and the contrast with other times was too much to take. Last time he'd heard her thoughts, they'd been her, nothing more. Last time he'd touched her, he'd relished the contact. She tried to pull him closer, he felt her arms fold around him, the softness of her hair under his chin, smelt her life and warmth. He gasped at the shock of impact.

She staggered back an instant later, her hand shifting protectively towards her stomach, her eyes going wide in alarm. Mulder took the opportunity to inch further away, making sure the desk chair now stood between them.

Dread and panic, a cacophony of noise and impossible emotion. Mulder looked quickly around the others as they stood in stunned silence, shouting so loud and so incoherently inside his head that he wouldn't have been able to hear them even if they had decided to speak.

Skinner moved forward, and gently pressed his hand against Scully's arm, a forewarning that, unless she moved of her own free will, his next action might be to drag her further away. She got the message, retreated to sit on the edge of the couch, her eyes fixed on Mulder's face.

The last place Mulder wanted to look was into Scully's eyes. Scanning the scene, he hunted for something a little less frightening to focus on. He saw Mike Nicholson, the calmest place in the room. Angry and confused, the same as the others, but without the emotional investment to make it hurt.

More importantly, underneath that confusion and anger, there was something else. Nicholson ultimately looked more curious than distressed, and that was a much friendlier place to visit.

Mulder tried to respond to Mike's curiosity. "I am him." Fuck. That was smooth. Talking about "him." He chased round his brain looking for the better phrasing. Me. He. Him. Mulder. Them. Too much meaning for too few words, too easy to read between the lines of too direct a response to the question he'd heard in Nicholson's thoughts.

The room was getting even rowdier and he knew they'd heard too much in his words as well. He tried to keep locked on Nicholson.

"I'm not a morph." He almost laughed as he heard Nicholson's follow-up question coming in loud and clear, despite the crush of background noise. "Yes, they really do morph."

Nicholson mouth moved, but he said nothing.

Mulder nodded. "I can hear you."

Mike Nicholson shook his head, a little stunned, definitely uncomfortable, but ready to roll with it. Mike decided it would be better, for his own sanity and maybe for the people in the room, if he asked his next question out loud. "Did you kill those people?"

"No."

"Prove it."

"I can't, can't prove anything."

"Morphs?"

"Not even them. Scully's seen them, so has Krycek."

Skinner intervened, threw his words down like he was playing the trump card. "Eddie Van Blundht."

"He's been destroyed." And Mulder flinched again, backing away from the sound of his own words and their betrayal of who he ought to be, who he'd been. He tried again. "Van Blundht was murdered, at the hospital. His records have been destroyed."

"When?"

Mulder shrugged, shaky. How long ago had they told him that? Days maybe. But recent, much more recent than the death of Carver's crew. Not long before they'd returned him.

In the absence of a reply from Mulder, Skinner started tapping in numbers on his phone. Mulder concentrated on his breathing and tried to force the noise in the room down to nothing more than a loud annoying buzz. Almost succeeding in turning it into a kind of white noise, a whitewater roar in which none of the screams were distinct enough to be audible.

Skinner addressed his words to everyone. "My secretary is checking." He looked back at Mulder. "Why?"

"Why not?"

Anger in the air, white light and a percussion of fury. Mulder tried to look at Nicholson but the pain in the room erupted and billowed heat, like the flash of an explosion, flaring up too close for comfort.

Mulder pushed his fists against the top of the desk, hoping that the physical reaction might block the mental one. He curled his fingers tighter and was rewarded by the sensation of another nail cracking as shaky muscles finally cooperated and gave him what he needed.

It would be a hell of a lot easier if they could hear his thoughts. He kept breathing, shallow but even, built up the energy to speak. "You're right, Walter. Eddie could have given us a starting point for a defense. They are clearing up the known genetic anomalies. He's in the X-Files. It made him an obvious priority."

"To whom?"

"Them. The other faction."

"And which faction do you belong to?" Scully's voice was ice and fire.

And Mulder's determined efforts to keep her thoughts at bay crumbled like a pack of cards as he failed to block his ears or his mind in time. His body froze, making it almost impossible to breathe, his head pulsing with new panic.

Scully ran towards him, but he reacted fast enough to throw an arm forwards to warn her off. She stumbled to a halt as if she'd hit an invisible brick wall. Palms open, her body said the words her mouth never would, she pleaded against the rejection.

No mercy, he kept the barriers up against her.

His eyes chased over the faces until he found Krycek's. Krycek was alert to the tension, recognized that something was going to have to give. Alex was beginning to make plans. Krycek looked carefully at Mulder then glanced over at Skinner's laptop computer resting by the door. Mulder blinked an acknowledgement. A sharp intake of breath from an old enemy and Mulder knew that his message had been received and understood.

If they, the them out there, had asked him his intentions before returning him to DC, he wouldn't have known the answer. He still didn't have an answer. Instincts, emotions and intellect were pulling in different directions. Years of training and duty as an agent, warred with months of indoctrination as a hostage, and were slipped into the blender of decades of him, the man inside.

There were patterns in the mix, streaks that could mean something or nothing but which he knew would vanish if he just let the brew keep spinning. There was no steadily clearing picture, just more inponderables, that appeared and disappeared in an instant. Was there a right answer, a right thing to do, or just a right now?

Right now. All Mulder knew about himself was that emotions were unsteady and his instincts were not his own. It would be so easy to bury himself in Scully's trust. So easy to hand her the choices that were impossible for him to make. To give her responsibility for his future as well as that of the new life growing inside her.

In the silent stand-off that followed, the noise of the group's thoughts surged and swelled in Mulder's head and he let them in, a formless sea of other people's emotions drowning out his own responses. Only Mulder didn't flinch when Skinner's phone buzzed back to life.

Skinner walked to the window, cupping his hand over the phone in an illusion of privacy. "And that's confirmed?...The same team?...Right."

When he turned back to face the room, Skinner's eyes immediately locked onto Mulder. Mulder didn't look up, just kept studying the floor and his bare feet with their overlong toenails.

"Mulder." Even Skinner's most insistent AD-delivering-an- order voice didn't force Mulder to lift his head. Skinner changed tack, his voice taking on the authority of an interrogation room. "Agent Mulder. Where were you yesterday morning?"

Where? Here maybe, but asleep? There maybe, but comatose? "I don't know."

"Who told you that Van Blundht was dead?"

"They did."

"This room became George Hale's two days ago. I repeat. Where were you at 9am yesterday morning?"

Mulder shook his head, lacking any reply beyond the one he'd already given.

Scully took up the slack. "Sir? Can you tell us anything?"

"Van Blundht was one of six men who died in a fire in the records' office of the hospital. As of today, the prime suspect in that case is Agent Mulder."

"Why?"

"He signed in as a visitor less than an hour before the fire. The accelerants used were the same as in the attack on Carver's lab. There's security footage of Mulder leading Van Blundht away from his room. One of the staff remembered Mulder from previous visits. The media don't have the story yet."

Skinner directed his next words firmly back at Mulder. "Give me one good reason not to call your location in."

Mulder rocked slightly on his feet. "I didn't do it." He took deep breaths, struggling against the sudden shortage of air that was reminding him just how far from ready he really was. His head was starting to spin again.

Even Skinner didn't believe him. What chance did he stand with anyone else? Skinner had seen the abduction. Or maybe that was it, if Skinner could believe that Mulder had been taken so easily by them, maybe he could also believe that this returned Mulder was not the man who'd been lost.

Hell. Mulder's deep breaths were turning into rapid gasps for air that wasn't arriving fast enough to help with the lightheadedness he was feeling. He didn't even blame Skinner. Couldn't do really. He'd had the same idea himself.

Skinner tried to offer him an escape route. "Another morph? Why frame you, Mulder?"

Because they could? "I told you."

"Right. Because one of the factions wants you. For what? What do they think you'll do?"

"Be a voice, in places they can't go. Protect the modified humans."

"Genetically modified by them."

"Genetic throwbacks." Mulder almost laughed, though he knew he shouldn't. "They say they are just switching on the extra features that were part of our original specification."

Scully was mercifully inquisitive and Mulder was grateful that she wasn't going to insist on feigning disbelief or disinterest, despite having this audience in the room. "Such as?"

"Eddie could morph; Gibson could hear people's thoughts; Modell could force his thoughts on other people."

"Modell?"

"An experiment. A warning they'd say. Of how ill-prepared we are for the changes."

There was an uneasy stillness as they considered it. It gave Mulder an unwelcome freedom to think above the roaring waterfall of their thoughts.

Of course, he was only telling them, the story that "they" had given him. He was just parroting back the threats and warnings that had provided the cold heart of their reeducation messages. They'd blasted him with their plans and their logic, over and over again, and it felt so real. More real that sitting in a hotel room.

Was it possible to drown in fresh air? It certainly seemed that it might be. And maybe that would be for the best, because at least then he wouldn't be a variable in the equation any more. No more worrying about whether he was a plus or a minus in some much bigger picture, just a zero, fading into oblivion.

Zero. That was always an option.

Scully moved forward again and Mulder retreated, waving his hands ahead of him to brush her away. She stopped in her tracks, her eyes openly begging for his attention now. He lifted his face to look at her and the loss and emptiness in his eyes made her take a step back.

Skinner surged up to Scully's side, brushed a protective hand over her arm, glared at Mulder. "What the fuck's going on?"

Mulder stared back at them, unfocused, rocking slightly, clearly unsteady on his feet. Unsteadier still in his thinking. "I can't be near her. I need time."

Scully folded an arm over her stomach, flinching as if she'd just taken a punch. A gasp. And another. Until short staccato gasps became a shudder and her reserves of strength crumpled and the briefest of shakey whimpers escaped her lips.

Skinner wrapped an arm around her, drawing her closer. Frohike moved forward, and took up position as a guard between Mulder and Scully. Byers stepped in too, adding his weight to Scully's human shield as Skinner tried to persuade her to move further away.

She didn't move, shrugged out of Skinner's grip, threw her elbows out from her sides to warn would-be comforters away. Her eyes remained fixed on Mulder, looking for some truth. "How?"

The question made sense to no one except Mulder and Scully. Mulder tried to answer, Scully deserved an answer. After all, the baby was inside her. Mulder's words were intended just for Scully. "She can hear me."

Scully shook her head, rejecting and accepting it at the same time. It could be true, literally true, vibrations and sound could travel through the placenta. But that wasn't any sort of an explanation for the acrobatics performance that was now underway inside her body. She tried not to shake too visibly, but the violence of the assault was leaving her no choice.

Breathless, she edged back, working by feel rather than sight until she found the couch again and tentatively sat down. Almost immediately, even that was too much, and she had to let herself lie back, almost curling up onto her side as she did.

Five angry men turned toward Mulder, only Krycek retaining any real distance from the lynch mob frenzy that was building. Krycek took advantage of their distraction to pick up the laptop computer and head for the door.

Mulder sensed their need to act, felt the way their adrenaline levels were surging as they looked for something positive to do. They weren't going to get the chance. He lifted his hands in an abrupt, angry gesture ordering everyone to stay back. He walked towards the shivering body of his partner.

Skinner hadn't moved since Scully had pushed him away. He stood now, frozen in place, his hand finding its own way to his holster.

Byers tried to block Mulder's path, but Mulder didn't pause, and Byers couldn't follow through with enough force to make his resistance anything more than just a gesture.

Nicholson, who had also stepped forward and certainly could have followed through, paused instead, deciding to hover over the reunion rather than to stop it. He waited, content to stay alert and ready until he got an order from Skinner, or a signal from Scully.

An instant later and Mulder was sat on the couch, next to his partner, leaning into her space. He tried to block out the sound of the other men, sensing that it would be futile to ask for privacy or even demand a little faith that he wasn't going to tear her to shreds.

Why would they have faith? They didn't even know for sure that he wasn't the arsonist. They didn't even know for sure that he wasn't a morph

Impossible. There was no right way to handle this. Even in his most lucid and imaginative dreams, he'd never resolved it, never found quite the right words. He certainly hadn't anticipated having an audience. Though perhaps that was for the best.

With or without an audience, there would be no right way. Fuck it. Like it mattered what they thought. He slid along the couch until he was almost behind her, curving his body around hers, folding her into his arms, nuzzling into her neck. "I'm so, so, sorry."

His fingers stroked across her belly, soothing them both. If he let the white noise of the other people in the room wash away his own consciousness, he could freewheel. He could start begging her not to hate him. Beg her not to want him to stay.

Time drifted away. She stilled, the tension draining, her body becoming quiet, her thoughts calming to the point where he could hear her. Hear her sounding like someone who sounded like her.

He could also hear her demand that he get the onlookers out of the room. It didn't matter to him. His thoughts hadn't been his own for weeks, months. What did it matter if they heard the things he was willing to say aloud? It mattered to her. He had to clear his throat before talking to the assembly. "Scully wants some privacy."

More noise, in his ears now as well as in his head. A babble of confusion as they tried to argue but weren't quite competent to form a united front.

Mulder rose to his feet, pulling Scully to sit upright, ready to carry her if necessary away from the couch and into the bedroom.

Skinner sounded like an Assistant Director of the FBI, taking charge, "I don't think that's wise."

Mulder ignored the warning and drew her up into his arms.

Skinner moved forward. Mulder realized that he was ready to intervene now and looking only for the method least hazardous to Scully. Skinner was already cursing himself for failing to keep Mulder away from her. He prepared his voice to howl out an order to put her down, but Scully just buried her face closer to Mulder's body, hiding herself in him.

Skinner stiffened at her move, then tried to understand it. "Agent Scully?"

She drew in a deep breath, but it provided her with only the smallest volume of sound. Barely audible. "Please."

Nicholson was the least involved and perhaps because of that his voice had a clarity that Skinner hadn't quite delivered. "We'll be right here."

Mulder half-smiled, pressing his nose into Scully's hair as he felt her thoughts buzz with a little pride at how good a temporary partner she'd chosen. He mumbled into her ear. "Yeah, good choice."

Part 3

Inside the bedroom and with the doors closed on the group outside, Mulder could pretend that the rumble of their thoughts was just the sound of too many TVs, playing too loud, through too thin walls.

Carrying her was a foolish move. The dizziness almost caught up with him before he reached the safety of the bed. He'd loved the thought of it and the feel of it, what pounded at him now was the sickening reality that he'd done it despite the risk of hurting her. A trivial hurt compared to the rest, but it nagged, announced itself as a symptom of some much deeper problem.

The men in the outer room were arguing, trying to keep their voices down, even as their anger flared. Despite their clamor, he could hear Scully clearly now. Through a haze of blood red anger and soft blue emotion, he could hear her. Confusion and fear and so much trust and it hurt to listen to her like this and not to be able to explain properly.

And he wasn't sure which question she wanted answered first and which ones she didn't want answered at all. So he waited until she was willing to say it out loud.

She cleared her throat, whispered the most painful of words. "Who is she, Mulder?"

The children will still be children. That's what they'd told him. Should he destroy that for her as well as him? "A baby." He paused, struggled with the words. "You'll know what to do."

"Will I?"

Oh God. He scrambled through his thoughts, looked at the mass of contradictions he found there and didn't have an answer. Except the ones they'd given him. And he couldn't bring himself to say their words. "Just love her."

"Where will you be?"

"Not here."

She cried then, as a hundred unadmitted fantasies crashed into the wall and shattered. Cried for herself, and a baby, and a man, and a world that didn't know enough to cry for itself.

He held her, wishing that he could tell her that he needed only days or weeks to make it right, that she need not fear his absence, that he would soon be back at her side. He wished that he could tell her that it would take just one word from her, that he only needed her instruction to make him stay.

But he couldn't lie, and he was glad of that because maybe that meant that somewhere deep inside, he was still himself. And maybe that meant he could be himself again.

Mulder didn't have the words that could kiss the hurt better, nor the moves that could promise her a happy ending. He wrapped himself around her, molding his body to hers. He nuzzled into her, taking comfort from the silk of her hair against his cheek, the smell of her that he'd remembered so clearly even when other sensations became impossible to imagine. He stored up the sensations for the drought ahead.

His hand folded over hers, caressing her fingers, his thumb stroking across the soft skin he found. Guilty, he recognized his acts for what they were, self-comforting gestures in the face of her pain. Relaxing a little, only as he realized that she seemed to be drawing strength from him, just as he did from her.

When he thought she could hear him again, he lifted his hand to touch her face. "They think I'll go away, lick my wounds, and that because they're right, I'll go and work for them."

The tiny gulp of sound from her was an order to keep talking. His fingers swirled through her hair, pushing it back behind her ear so he could stroke her cheek more easily. "I'm useless to them as a zombie. That's why they let me go."

And as a wanted man?

This time, he ignored the fact that she hadn't said it out loud. "If it comes to it, they'll loan me a morph for the trial."

"God." Her squeak of reaction could easily have been the start of a hysterical cough of laughter, but exhaustion took even that escape from her. She struggled with her breathing and finally mumbled the rhetorical question. "But only if you're a good boy?"

"If I'm a good boy."

"And will you be?" She stroked the back of his hand as it shifted to rest against her belly.

He swallowed. "What? And break the habit of a lifetime."

"Not even for this?"

"Especially not because of this. She's going to be special, Scully."

"Then stay."

"And do what they want?"

"There must be something..."

"Not yet, not until I know it's me who's making the decision. If I stay here, it'll be in jail."

"Unless you work for them?"

He left the answer unspoken.

She was struggling for breath, but kept talking, sensing that it might be her last chance to keep him close. "I'll come with you."

He buried his face against her neck. "I don't know who I am. What I might do."

"I know you."

Ah, if only that were true. She'd known him. She might yet know him again. But she didn't know him now; he didn't even know himself. Didn't know if he could be turned against her by them, if her needs contradicted theirs. Didn't know if his thoughts could kill. Didn't know if he could ever be a force for good in the life of that baby she carried. Didn't know what good meant.

He whispered his words, hoping that he could find a way to explain enough. Knowing that it would be better if she came to the conclusions for herself. "Why do you think they let me go?"

"Because, they don't need you any more."

He smiled, almost chuckled at her optimism. "Because I'm ready." Deep breath. "They say that I'm smart enough to see things their way. That I'll cooperate, become a spokesman for them. And." He paused. Almost started laughing. After all, it was pretty funny. "And be a mentor for the children."

"Including her?" Her words were faint, but sang loud in his ears.

"Yeah."

"But you won't?"

"That's the trouble. I would. Right now, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And it's so hard to walk away."

"But?"

His body tensed and he felt an angry kick to his hand where it rested on Scully's stomach. Calm, calm, calm, he told himself. Calm, calm, calm, he told the new life in her belly. The baby stopped struggling, he could hear her snuggling down again. "But, I will."

He wanted to explain it, but he didn't have the words. Maybe if he could find his most dispassionate voice, his best disguise, his most clinical psychological terminology, then just maybe, he could tell her. Quote chapter and verse on the problems encountered by hostages, about the ease with which sensory deprivation destroys boundaries, undermines the sense of self.

After months of having not only every physical sensation, but every thought and emotional response monitored and controlled and firmly regulated, he couldn't trust his instincts or his reasoning. It hadn't just been his body that had been forced to accept their restraints, in the end he had accepted them, too. Stayed quiet and listened, been impressed by their logical argument about how a more resilient and talented human race would be a better ally for them.

Moreover, there had been a perfect synchronicity about it. Tougher, brighter humans, all senses and powers turned on and tuned in, would clearly be a more dangerous enemy to an alien opposition who would prefer to view human bodies as hatcheries or slaves.

If he let them jail him for that massacre at Carver's office, for the deaths of Van Blundht and the others at the hospital, then he would die in prison. It would be the easiest thing in the world to make a de-facto execution look like the inevitable mis-adventure of a pretty-boy Fed who'd strayed too far from the guards' protection.

That is, if they bothered to do anything. They might do nothing, certain the Court case would run their way.

Might live long enough to see Scully and the baby though.

He flinched at that, angry with himself for this last indulgence. Why did he decide that this meeting had to be face to face? Why not just drop off the face of the planet and disappear. What on earth had possessed him? Why the hell had he suggested that she come here?

Why do this now? Why not wait until he was really ready, until he could explain himself properly, until he knew what he had to do? However many months away that might be. He shivered. Maybe because that "right" time might not be months away, it might be never. Panic sat only skin deep in his body and it simmered there now, he could feel his blood pressure rise, his heart rate surge.

"Mulder?" Her voice was soft, tentative. In pain.

Alarmed, he responded in an instant. "Are you OK?"

"The baby."

He forced his thoughts to slow down, and felt the violence that was assaulting Scully from within.

His mind flashed on an image from his days in the ISU, profiling a slasher who'd sliced open pregnant women in a grotesque parody of a caesarian section. The idea assaulted him, leaving him short of breath. It didn't help Scully either; the new blast of pain that followed was forcing gasps and whimpers through her lips, growing, building toward some nightmare crescendo.

Calm, calm, calm. Scully was shaking now, taut with the effort to keep still and not scream. He shifted on the bed, maneuvering Scully's body so that she faced him and then slid carefully down her torso until he could press his ear gently to her belly button.

Within seconds he could feel the fetus's battle subside. Scully could feel it too; she started to breathe normally again. She spoke in a whisper. "Is she sick?"

Anything but. "No, no. She's angry, upset."

"With us?"

"She doesn't understand."

"I don't understand."

Mulder sighed, a little shiver of a laugh as he moved position again, resuming his previous place of honor, resting close behind her in the bed. What could he possibly say?

The child was already responding to his emotions. She got angry and, untutored, took it out on Scully because Mulder was upset. What the hell would she do if he went to jail? What the hell would she do when she grew up?

What a fucking mess. And the only way out was to work for them because they were his best chance of building a defense in a court case, and more importantly, his only chance of protecting himself or anyone else from the others. How fucking convenient! Cute of them to blame it on the "others." What if there weren't any others?

Welcome to a brave new world. A life based on knowing fuck.

Except he did know that if he didn't calm down soon, Scully would be in agony. He had to get away from here, get his emotions in check. Learn how to think clearly again. Weigh up the months' worth of story that he'd been told. Test it if he could. And he couldn't do that here.

A rumbling behind his ear and he scratched back at it, irritated by the distraction. Then realized what it was.

He sat up abruptly, startling Scully back into action. She immediately tried to follow him, but was forced to lie down again as the baby renewed its struggles.

Time to go? Why the hurry? Another few hours, another few minutes. What could it matter? He tried to clear his head and concentrate. Suddenly knew. Oh God. "Did you phone anyone before you came here?"

Scully's words were forced and strained, and were somehow the truth, yet not the whole truth. "No."

"The Gunmen." He tried to focus in on the idea. "Fuck. They hacked into the hotel records and found out who was on the guest list for this room. Right?"

She groaned, nodded the barest of acknowledgements.

Mulder started to roll off the bed. "There's a Bureau team on its way."

"Oh God." She held on tightly to his hand, sensing what was coming next, but trying to deflect the argument to more solid ground. "We won't leave you in there. We'll find a way. Find a defense. You don't need them to defend you. Maybe there's another Van Blundht. Maybe one of his kids."

And lead them to another bunch of innocents to kill? No way. "I've got to go."

"Mulder."

He drew her to him, knowing what had to be done. He met her sad, impossibly blue eyes with the briefest of smiles. Stroked his fingertips across her belly and was grateful for the peaceful response of the life inside. In the stillness, Mulder leaned forward, pressed his forehead against hers, wishing that he could let her know all he thought and all he felt.

Scully sighed, and there was no pain in the sound, just understanding and trust. And he had to gulp for air then, because that made his next act harder as well as easier. There was so much warmth in her touch, as their breath mingled and she tried to give him her faith. So much hope in her heart as she tried to wish him a safe journey and a safe return.

And he wondered again why he was leaving and why she was staying. It was not right that it should end like this. It wouldn't end like this, he wouldn't let it. And there was such power in knowing that she would still be here, because she wouldn't let it end like this either.

He pulled back slowly, the hardest move he'd ever made. His body, a stubborn deadweight as he struggled against weak and uncooperative muscles that couldn't believe his brain was serious in its orders.

Infinitely slow, he rose up to his full height and forced himself to smile. And suddenly it seemed right that he should smile, because he was doing only what had to be done and Scully had given him her permission. She might not have agreed with his decision, but she'd accepted it, understood that it was his to make.

His eyes, clear and bright, looked down on her and there was so much love, so much left to say and this was not the time. "I won't say goodbye."

She tried to smile, but didn't quite make it. She sucked in her tears. "Nor will I."

He smiled again as he walked to the bedroom door and the men who'd waited outside so patiently, or more accurately so impatiently, almost walked straight over him. All was well.

Perhaps it was not the right choice. But he'd live with that. Hindsight was apt to be the best and harshest judge, and its judgment would be final. And that was OK, because he could see no further than his next move. And perhaps that was fortunate, because maybe what lay beyond that move was a terror that could paralyze him if he saw it too clearly.

Krycek would be waiting for him outside. Mulder would insist that the laptop be left behind, somewhere safe, for Scully to find. And there was no way to know what would happen next. Except that this way, there might be a next. Lousy odds, but... The shark dies if it stops swimming.

Skinner, Nicholson, and the Gunmen stepped eagerly to Scully's bedside. Scully played her role to the hilt, drawing and holding their attention with her damp eyes, careful movement and quiet words.

A lingering last look over a snapshot scene taken from a different life and a final deep breath.

He tore his gaze away, drew energy from it, wanting to believe in one more extreme possibility.

Another swim, then.

And Mulder was gone.

All Done, Bye, Bye.