I rapidly turn toward the sound of my name, my arm outstretched, gun cocked.  Ready to kill whoever has dared enter our sanctuary from the outside world.

I almost squeezes the trigger until, at the last moment, I realizes who it is that has spoken.

"Missy?"  I whisper quietly, all of a sudden crumbling to the bathroom floor, weeping.  Grateful that it is not Mulder who has joined me in the apartment.  Yet, almost hoping it had been, so that I would finally be able to go to my love.

All it would take is one bullet.

"Yes, Alex.  It’s me."  She replies quickly, moving to my side and ignoring the weapon, as she places her arms around my shaking form.  I drop my arm and lean into her, allowing her to hold me, while I finally let go of the pent up anguish I have tried so hard to keep under tight control.

"Let it out, Alex.  Let it out.  She would not want you to be suffering this way."

I cry into her comforting shoulder for a few minutes more, as she runs her hands through my dark, slightly damp hair, trying her best to alleviate my pain.  Yet, not really knowing how, because she is suffering herself.

"It’s not fair, Missy!  Why her?  She was my angel!  She never did anything to anyone!  Why couldn't it have been me?  I am the one who has committed heinous acts!  Not her!"  I achingly plead to her for answers through my tears.  "It should have been me!"

"Stop it, Alex!  Just.  Stop.  You are not a bad person.  You have only done your job.  You have done nothing wrong!  Only what was necessary to protect those that you love.  To protect her!  Do not wish death upon yourself!  It won’t help out anyone, and she would be sorely disappointed to hear you state such a desire."  Missy declares, though I can see she is at a loss as to whether or not she is getting through my anguish enough to hear her words.

The statement she makes only causes me to sob harder.  Not something I am exactly used to doing, and certainly not in front of anyone.  Soon, I realize where I am, as well as who I am with, and I pull away from her.  My forgotten gun dropping to the linoleum floor, while I raise the ring I hold in my other hand- toward her-so that she may see it.

"Protect her?"  I mock, angrily.  "Don't you understand, Missy?  I failed!  I failed to protect her!  If I had done my job and protected her, she would be wearing this ring!  Not lying in a fucking box under…"  I am unable to finish my sentence, my mind not allowing me to visualize where my dearest now lies.

"Aleksei.  You did everything you could for her.  Fox, he too, did all he could.  No one could foresee what would happen.  No one knew that she would die the way she did.  If we had, I know you would have done everything in your power to stop what happened.  But it did happen.  Therefore, now we must move on, for it is what she would want us to do.  What she would want you to do."

I drop my head against her shoulder, in despair.  "I can't do that Missy.  I should have seen the attack coming!  Damn it!  It.  Was.  My.  Job!  Now, without her, without them, there is no reason for me to continue living.  She was, they were, what made me whole!  Now I feel like nothing more than an empty husk, simply running through the motions of breathing.  I have nothing to live for!  Not anymore."

"Yes you do, Alex.  You have yourself.  You have others, too, if you will only believe me.  Trust in me."  She pleads, working desperately to make me hear her.  To understand what she is implying.

I gaze up at her, into her pale blue eyes.  Eyes so damn similar to those of my lost love, and I quickly shut my own again.  My fear of falling apart once more in front of her almost too much to bear.

She understands my reaction.  She cares about me.  More than she would ever admit, even to herself, but she comprehends too, if it had been her beloved whom was buried today, she would not be as put together, as I fight to pretend to be.  She would unarguably need a room with special padding in order to sustain herself for the rest of her days.

She reaches up and places her hand on mine; the one holding the beautiful ring of platinum, and I can tell by her touch that her soul aches for mine.  For what I have lost.

The woman who had offered to give up her own career as an agent, a mighty feat, so that we could settle down and have a family.  A sacrifice I had never asked her to make.  Not for me.  But a decision which she had wanted to make, for not only the sake of our child, but also for my own.  She had loved me deeply, and that was all that had mattered to her, my happiness.

Fresh tears fall, as I remember the joy and consequent loss of our child.

My Katya had informed me of the happy news a mere three days before her death!  On the same night I had asked for her hand.  The night I had promised her I would let go of my position as an undercover agent for the CIA.  Allowing us to move on.  To start anew and live happily ever after.

Now, while sitting on the cold floor of their bathroom, I recognize that I will not be able to keep yet another promise I had made to her.

My promise that I would never take another's life, outside of self-defense.

Missy watches me, worry very evident across her pretty features.  Features so akin to those of her dearly loved sister's.  She is fully aware of my history, as she is the only one Dana had confided in.  The only one she had trusted enough to know about her love for me, and everything associated with that, including what I do for a living.

That is, until we met Monica.  At which point, Dana and I welcomed her to the fold and the three of them became like sisters.

She must recognize what I am thinking.  She must see it with the sudden clenching of my jaw.  Yet, she does not seem to mind.

"Some promises must be broken."  She whispers into my ear, hoping that her quiet words will ease my broken heart.  In fact, if truth be told, I have the feeling she wants to join me.  She wants, more than anything else, to aid me in his desire to find retribution, if I am reading her expression correctly.

“I want to kill my sister's murderer myself, Alex.  If only I could convince Fox.  Convince him that it is the right thing to do.  Had Dana's faith not allowed for it?  An eye for an eye?”  She quietly questions.

She slowly removes her hand from mine, as I unexpectedly ask, "How is it that your mother did not find this here?  It was out in the open.  In plain sight.  Yet, your mother didn’t take it.  Why?"

She blinks at me, knowing that I am asking a valid question.  One that must be answered, and answered honestly.  No matter what the consequence of her answer may be after she confesses.

"She did see it.  I asked her to leave it for you."  She pauses, gathering her strength.  Not because she fears me, but because she knows I will not like what she has to say.  "I told her, Alex."

I whip his head back up from her shoulder where I had been staring at the ring, the ring that had represented our future, and peer at her.

"You told her what, Melissa?"  I inquire, my eyes alighting with a fire she seems to be glad to see.  A fire she had apparently feared was lost.

Like it has appeared to be lost from Mulder’s.

I care for this woman as much as I would if she had been born my own sister, but I am still wary.  Not necessarily because of her, but more, because of whom she is involved with.

"What did you tell her, Missy?"  I ask again when she doesn’t answer immediately.

She pulls away from me, leaning her back against the door jamb.  "Everything."

I fall back against the side of the tub, grasping at it, and then stand.  All the while, I stare, aghast.  I hurry away from her, only to feel the back of my knees hit the toilet and I once more take a seat, plopping down with a graceless thud onto the lid.

"Everything?"  I repeat quietly.  Quite stunned, and suddenly very afraid.  Again, something I am not used to feeling.

"Yes."  She replies softly, gazing straight into my haunted emerald eyes, undeterred.

"Why the fuck would you do that?!"  I scream at her.

She must certainly understand my apprehension, for she is not stupid.  However, I can see that she is also not convinced that what she has done was necessarily a bad thing, either.

“Ever since the death of our father, our mother has become ever more interested in the lives of Dana and me.  Interested enough to want to be close to us, while still knowing that certain aspects of our lives may not be easily explained away.

“After Dana’s death, I felt that I would need to rely on this aspect of our mother.  Especially if she is going to be able to help you, and Fox, get through the tragedy of our collective loss.

"I felt that she needed to know her daughter had not died a lonely, sad woman, Alex.  A woman married to her work, while holding no hopes for the future of her personal life.  She needed to know that Dana was happy!  That she was in love.  A woman who was planning a life for herself, for a family of her own.  With a good man."

I clutch Dana's ring in my left hand, while covering my eyes with the other.  Refusing to look at her, as her words sink in.

"But why would you tell her everything?  Why not merely mention that Katya was in a loving relationship?  No names!  Damn it, Melissa!  How am I supposed to do what needs to be done, now, if your mother knows who I am?  What I do?"  I finish quietly, barely able to continue speaking through my shock.

Appreciation is a hard thing to gain from a man like me.

“You can’t do what you want to do, alone.  I will not allow it.  Whether you realize it now, or ten years from now, you need us, Alex.  You need Mom, Fox, and me.

 "Who you were Alex, is irrelevant.  Who you are now is all that matters.  Don't you understand?  Mom will not hold your history against you.  We all, in some aspect, have skeletons in our closets, but those we love, who love us, accept those too."

I listen to her words, understanding, yet fearing the truth in them.  I have never had a family before.  Only myself, and then my precious Katya.  Not until she had told me of our new baby on the way, have I ever held out hope of ever having a real one.  Complete with beautiful, screaming kids.

Yet, that chance is now lost.  So what am I to do?  Basically move on; become a member of her family anyway?  Without her?  The idea is ludicrous!

On the other hand, to simply turn away from Melissa, my only solid link to my Dana would almost surely kill me, too.  Even if she does come as a package deal.

"She was heartbroken.  For Dana.  For your baby.  For you.  It bothered her, to no end, that you were unable to attend the funeral, as you should have been able to..."

"Missy, you know I couldn’t do that!  Not with everyone there!  Skinner?  Mulder?!  Hell, even John and Monica would have been stunned if I had shown up!"

"You didn't let me finish, Alex.  Mom felt you should still have been there, despite their presence.  Because you were her fiancé, you had the right.  Who gives a damn about them, at that point?  That is all she meant.  However, she understands the logistics, even if she does not like them.  Besides, John and Monica are your friends."

"It was best I stay away.  I could not have done that to Katya."

"Done what?"  She asks, and I can hear in her tone that she is clearly puzzled.

"Caused a scene at her funeral.  How do think it would have looked, Missy?  Not only my presence in the first place, but also for Mulder to find out that I am a friend of his other two partners?  Talk about a conspiracy.  Jesus Christ!  He would have an absolute shit, if he knew that!"

Melissa simply looks at me, nodding.  As much as she dislikes it, I know that she does understand my reasoning.

"There is something else I must tell you, as long as I am making confessions here."

I gape at her a moment, then smirk.  "Don't tell me.  You finally confessed to Mulder."  I reply, almost jokingly, trying to dissipate the tension I feel before it devours me.

"Yes."  She firmly admits.  "I did."

I stare at her for a long time, unable to comprehend her simple statement.

Her admission of the impossible.

"Bad joke, Missy."  I respond, quickly swallowing down the lump in my throat to keep from vomiting the bile that is slowly creeping up from my empty gut.

“I fully appreciate how you feel, Alex, having seen the same look of shock cross the handsome features of my husband last night.  However, I was forced to tell him.  To finally bring the two of you together.  If not during Dana's life, at least because of her death.

“She and I had planned to do it soon, anyway.  Have a dinner or something.  Anything.  As long as it was someplace quiet, where she could finally tell Fox about you, and clear the air.

“Just because she is gone, doesn't mean that I should not fulfill her wish.  Her hope that you could be friends.  If only Fox would see the truth.  The truth that you have always been working to help him in his struggle to fight the evil known as the Syndicate.

"You did this for Dana?  Why?!  You know how fearful she was about what Mulder may or may not have done, should he have found out the truth!  How is telling him doing it for Dana?  Don't give me that crap, Missy!"  I retort angrily.  Much too stunned to say anything more.

"Damn it, Alex!  It is what she wanted!  It is what we wanted.  Her and I, both.  We had been planning on a quiet get-together.  We wanted to move on.  Frankly, we were tired of the lies, and our own deceit.  We wanted to do whatever was necessary to get you and Fox talking.  You are on the same side!  Damn it!  I have been hiding your relationship from him for four years!  He is my husband!  Dana and I couldn’t do it anymore.  Especially not if the two of you were going to be married and having a baby!"

"I'll bet he just jumped for fucking joy at the news, too."  I reply sarcastically, too numb to allow the mention of my dead child to penetrate my mind too much, all the while fingering the platinum in my hand.

After a few awkward moments, she looks up at my sneering face.  At first I want to simple relent, but then I remember that she has a happy home to go to, and I have nothing.

"Actually, apart from his initial shock, Fox did admit that he is, in the very least, willing to hear what you have to say."  She tells me, hoping beyond hope that I will agree to a meeting, despite the look on my face.

"He said that?"  I inquire, as I continue to stare at her, unable to believe that she may have, single-handedly, accomplished what I was trying to find a way to do myself.

Tell Mulder everything.

"Yes."

"Melissa?"  I ask, slowly moving from my position on the toilet, and rising to walk toward her.  Staring at her closely.  Curiously.

"Yes?"  She asks, softly, looking at me squarely, interested as to why I am gazing at her, as if I were looking for something.

I am.  I peer straight into her eyes, wondering if I can find the explanation there, as to what she has done.  "What the fuck drugs are you on?"

She gasps.

"What?!  I haven’t done drugs in years, you asshole!  You know that!"  She responds, beyond pissed.

I sink back against the wall, looking away from her guiltily.  "I was not asking to hurt you, I was asking…well?  Fuck.  Because I think you would have to be on something to be able to...to…"  I pause, looking for the right words.  "To not only tell Mulder about me, but also have the damn guts to tell me that you did."  I admit, as I return my gaze down to my palm.

"I’m not afraid of you, Aleksei Nikolai Krycek.  So stop giving me your Secret-Agent-Bad-Ass attitude!  It’s bullshit!  It didn’t work on her, and it most certainly will not work with me.  I know you’re hurting.  Trust me; there is no one alive that could understand your pain, as much as I do.  Except maybe for Fox.  Now, I’m not here to start an argument with you, Alex.  I am here to help you.  To try, if it is at all possible, to keep you from going out and getting yourself killed.  Dana would not be too thrilled, if she were here, to know that I allowed you to go out there, alone, when you don't have to do so!"

She then turns her head away from me, apparently unable to tolerate the sight of me at this moment.

I rip my own his sight away from the treasure in my hand in order to stare at her.  Trying to decipher the true meaning of her words, hoping that I am wrong in my assessment of what she has said.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Melissa."  I retort, finally looking away from the side of her head, to stare at her feet.

"Alex, I..."  She starts, turning to look at me once more.

"Don't."  I implore her, looking back up to meet her gaze.  "I’m well aware of how much it bothered Katya that you and she were unable to have the 'cozy dinner with family' routine, because of me.  I know, more than you could possibly understand, how badly she wanted to tell Mulder about us.  I had to deal with the pain of seeing her crestfallen face, every fucking time she opened the God damned front door.  Only to find you, alone, standing behind it.  I know she wanted to tell Mulder.  Fuck, there are times I wanted to tell him!  Times I just wanted to get it over with.  To make him accept it, and then see us as a couple.  To deal with it and move on.

“However, I couldn’t do it.  Not only because it would jeopardize my position, but because I was also fearful of what that Pandora's Box would bring, once opened.  Yet, now that she is dead, you think I still can have a relationship with the two of you?  How can I do, now, what I could not do when she was alive?"  I ask, not wanting to tell her of my own plans.  My plans to include Mulder anyway, even if Mulder does detest me with every fiber of his being, and even if it would go against the oath I, myself, had taken.

My country before my own life.

"Because now you have to.  You need Fox, Alex.  I know you realize that.  Otherwise, why would you be here?  Yes, you lived here, but why else?  You came for that tape.  You came for the only proof you need, didn’t you?  You came here so that you could get your evidence.  To show him.  To convince Fox.  Well, I simply helped it along.  He is willing to talk to you, Alex.  Don't start thinking that simply because she is gone that I am, too.  You need us, just as we still need you.  We want to help you."

"Don’t tell me what I do or do not need, Melissa!  You cannot help me!  I’m not going to have your blood on my hands, too!  I. Will.  Not.  Therefore, how about we just fucking forget that I was here today, and I will simply fade to black.  All right?  I will creep back into the pit of darkness that she saved me from four years ago, and do what I do best.  Because I am going to avenge her death, Missy.  Alone.  Whether you like it or not, is not my concern.  Killing the fucker that took her from me is all that matters!"  I again turn away from her, the mere sight of her resemblance to my Katya, even when angry, twists the dagger in further.  I can scarcely breathe.

"The fucker that took her from us, Krycek."

Missy jumps at the sound coming from behind her.  Fearful for a moment, then realizing who it is, I watch in stunned silence as she relaxes.

Then I, startled too, glance up at the figure in the doorway with a look of combined shock and resentment upon my pained face.

God damn it!  Why didn't I hear him come in the fucking house?

"I used my key."  He replies, as if reading my thoughts.

“Figures.  Now that she is...”

I grip her ring in my hand and reach out; retrieving my gun from the floor near my feet.

"Alex.  There is no need for that.  I’m not here to do battle with you, no matter how much my instincts tell me to blow your head off for lying to me all these years."  He states quietly, almost dejectedly.

"Well, yippee fucking skippee.  That just makes my day now, Mulder, it really does."  I retort sarcastically, placing my weapon into its holster.  "Though it’s nice to finally see you grace our home with your “caring” presence, I think I’ll be leaving now.  I’ve got what I came for."  Standing from my seat on the toilet, I wait, none too patiently, for the Mulders to allow me to pass.

"Alex, please?"  Melissa begs.  "Let's all sit down and talk.  It’s what she would have wanted."

"God damn it, Missy!  Don't you think I know what the fuck she wanted?  I know everything she wanted!  All her hopes and dreams!  All of her fears!  I’m well aware, too fucking aware, of what she wanted!  But it doesn’t matter!  She is dead!  They are both dead!"  I shriek, collapsing again, up against the glass of the shower door.  With the fight suddenly leaving me, I place my head in my hands, all the while clutching onto the band of platinum, as if it were a lifeline to my crumbling sanity.

After a few tense moments, I can feel as Mulder walks passed his wife to confront me, the man whom, until yesterday, he thought his “Scully” had hated as much as he does.

“Krycek, please, just listen to me.  You need to just listen.  Okay?”

Practically against my own will, I peer at him through my eyelashes, and scarcely nod.

“Learning the news from my wife last night of my partner's double-life had been quite the shock to my already beaten down system.  I will admit that much.  Yet, as I listened assiduously, as she recalled to me how Scully and you came together.  I could feel myself relenting.  She told me about how the two of you had fallen in love with each other.  How you have, for all intents and purposes, lived with Scully for the past four years, in secret.  She also confessed to me that you two were going to be married.  How she had been with child.  Your child, Alex.

“Of course, I had looked at my wife as though she had grown another head.  I could not believe that I had never seen, even a hint, of what she revealed to me.  Not once had Scully slipped up.  Not once, could I recall her ever sneaking out of the office to make a phone call in private.  Or making an excuse as to why we couldn’t meet here to talk about a case.  Not once had she ever told me that she couldn’t leave town on only an hour's notice.

“Not once, Alex.

“Everything had always appeared normal.  I was the married one, while she was the one going home to an empty house.  Or so I had thought.

“It shocked me, beyond words, to learn of her years-long charade.  And, not simply because she had been so damn good at hiding her relationship from me either.  But because, I realize now, I would have done the same thing as well.  Do you understand, Alex?  If I had found myself to be in her place…If I had found myself to be in her place, I would have, without any hesitation, done anything and everything to protect the one I love.

“Even if it had meant being two people.

“In listening to my beloved wife, Alex, I came to understand.  Though it pains me immensely to comprehend that Scully, after all our years spent together, as not only partners, but family, did not trust me enough to divulge her secret to me, I understand.

“You want to know something else, Alex?  The fact that I had not been mad about it all shocked the hell out of me, too.  That I felt our trust had not been broken by her deception surprised me very much.  Because I knew why.  I would have done the same thing, Alex.  The exact same thing.  For Melissa.

“Now here I am, at her request, standing mere inches from the one man I never would have imagined could be the one to catch the heart of Dana Scully.”

I almost laugh at the expression on his face, as he watches in stunned silence as, I, the elusive and debonair CIA Agent Aleksei Nikolai Krycek, fall to pieces against the glass of the shower door and slip to the floor.

“Jesus, Alex.  Are you okay?”

“What were you expecting Mulder?  For me to shake your hand, and smile?  This is not about you.  It was about her.  You are merely a piece of the puzzle of our lives.  She was…was…the glue that…that held me…me…toge…together!”

"Come on Alex, you need to get a grip."  He states, the psychologist in him springing forth, as he reaches out to lift me from the floor.

"Fuck you, Mulder.  Why the hell do you care whether or not I have a 'grip'?"  I rejoin, not even bothering to put anger into my voice.  I am too fucking tired.

"Because Scully cared.  Come on, now, stand up."  He says, reaching down to place his right arm around me; lifting me to my feet, completely surprised when I don’t protest.

Missy walks over, wrapping her arms around the other side of me, helping Mulder to practically carry me through the door-sideways-to the queen size bed.

Setting me down, they carefully move away from me.  I imagine they don’t really know what to do now, or what to expect.

I swiftly remove my gun; blindly thrusting it at Mulder, butt first, clearly startling the man.

"Here!  Do it!  Now!  Here is your fucking chance, Mulder!  Kill me!  Please?  Just..."  I pause, looking up and into Mulder's eyes, starting to feel the numbness of my emotions fade, yet fighting it with every bit of strength I have left.  I like the numbness.  I need it.  It is my friend.  It keeps me sane.  "Fucking!  Kill!  Me!  Please!  Put me out of my fucking misery, so that I may be able to go to her!"  I beseech through my now free falling tears, finally giving words to what I want most.  My desire to be dead.

Like her.

Copyright ~ 2002 - 2005 ~ TDAP