Dead Before Death by Fox's Gal

Title: "Dead Before Death"
Author: Fox's Gal
Category: Story, Mulder and Scully Angst
Keywords: Character Death
Spoilers: Demons, Tithonus
Rating: PG-13 ("F" word)
Feedback: Do I NEED to ask? Really? foxs_gal@bellsouth.net
Summary: The ultimate betrayal.
Disclaimer: *Sigh* Not mine. Never will be. Makin no moolah off of 'em. CC's da man. The poem is by Christina Rosetti. "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" is by the Eurythmics. None belong to me. I am making NO MONEY off of this.
Note: I usually am one of those people who don't "do" character death stories. However, I wrote another story called "Not a Love Affair" and I guess it just put me in a bit of a melancholy mood. I dunno.

She pulled the trench coat tightly around her as the cold, wet wind whipped her hair mercilessly. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, knowing that what was about to transpire wasn't only a bad thing, but something that sent tremors of guilt through her entire body. This was wrong. There was no two ways about it. She would have liked to have gotten up from her spot on the bench and walk away, never looking back. But something, that darkness that everyone has on their soul, perhaps, kept her melded to that spot.

She felt his approach, heard the now familiar scuffing sound of his footsteps on the concrete path behind her. She did not turn around. Instead, she fought against the smile that was threatening to curl her lips.

He sat down next to her, his short dark hair rifled by the wind. Amazing how he seemed tan, even in this weather. Not wanting to, she drank in the chiseled features of his profile. His lips were pursed in thought and his eyes were closed, his long lashes resting on the shadowed skin under his eyes.

There was a tense, pregnant silence as they two sat next to each other; barely touching, but worlds apart. She wanted to touch him; to send him some sort of reassurance that what had happened earlier had been out of her control. She wanted to tell him that, but she knew it would have been a deception. She should have shot him, but she hadn't.

And it had been a major topic of conversation between her and Mulder lately as to why she had not shot Alex. She hadn't even made any attempt to stop him from fleeing the scene. To say things had been strained between her and her partner… That was a grand understatement.

They had been on yet another unauthorized stakeout at yet another eerily deserted warehouse. The scenario was becoming too familiar for words for Scully. Mulder had thought that something was being housed inside the warehouse. Something that had to do with the chip that had been implanted in her neck so many years before. He was obtuse in his explanations, but that was nothing new. She expected nothing less from Fox Mulder. He saw some movement outside the open door and decided that that was the perfect moment to strike.

He was out of the car before she was even aware of what he had planned to do. She had followed, keeping him in sight the entire time. She saw a figure raise a gun to Mulder, so she had done the same. The words had passed her lips with such ease and familiarity for all of the times she had yelled them.

Unfortunately, the bastard she had cornered was the same one she had woken up next to that morning. She gazed in disbelief at the sight of Alex Krycek on the other side of her gun. She had imagined this moment so many times before. So many times in her dreams and nightmares, she had pulled the trigger.

That was before the night she had been up late working on yet another report. It had been nearly three in the morning and she had been in her bed, notebook computer on her lap, typing determinedly away about autopsies and toxicity reports and probable cause…

Her first thought had been that it was Mulder. He was probably hurt, drunk or possibly both. All the same, she grabbed her gun just to be safe. She had crept towards the door, hardly a menacing figure in her white T-shirt and plaid, flannel pajama bottoms. The loaded weapon at her side felt heavy and secure in her hand as she eased her way to the peephole in her door. She looked through and saw nothing, which was strange. Very carefully, she unchained and unlocked the bolt. Gun raised, she let the heavy wood door swing open noiselessly.

She thought the crumpled figure in front of her door was Mulder, until she saw that it had only one arm.

She had almost shot him. Her finger, covered in a faint film of sweat, hovered over the trigger. An inexplicable force stopped her. Whether it was conscience or the oath she had taken as a medical doctor, she would not kill him. Instead, she put down the gun and leaned down to place an experienced hand on his forehead. He was burning with fever.

"Why do they always come to me?" she muttered as she pulled Alex Krycek to his feet.

With the majority of Krycek's weight leaning on her, Scully had managed to nudge the door closed with her foot before shambling across her living room where she deposited him on the couch. She then straightened and blew her hair out of her eyes. Next she had to search him for any weapons. It would not do for her to miss work the next day only for Mulder to find her with in-skull air-conditioning, courtesy of their Russian friend.

She cast about her apartment for something to handcuff the man to, but nothing would do. There was nothing he couldn't move or get out of somehow. The only option available to her was to stay up with him until he was lucid. She had checked him for a concussion, and found no such evidence, so she decided it was safe to let him sleep for the time being.

Either that, or call Mulder. And something inside of her had been hesitant to make such a call. She ignored the twinge she felt at this betrayal. This was, however, something she felt that Mulder didn't need to know about yet. There was a reason Krycek had come to her. She'd call Mulder only after she found out what that one reason was.

She had brought her laptop into the living room where she deposited it on her desk next to her gun. It was bound to be a late night and she wasn't keen on falling asleep with a murderer in the room, so before continuing work on her report, she made a pot of coffee.

Scully had worked steadily until two in the morning before the form on her couch began to stir. He moaned slightly and shifted before rolling onto his back. He looked over at her, a muddled look on his face.

"That's what I was about to ask you. I found you collapsed outside my front door."

He had looked as if he was about to say something before he clenched his eyes shut in pain. His teeth were clenched and he grasped at his head.

She got up from her chair and knelt next to him, flashlight in hand. "Alex, Alex sit up." It occurred to her that she was calling him "Alex," but given the shape he was in…

After examining his pupils, it looked as though he'd been drugged. Scully thought back to a time when Mulder suffered from incapacitating head pain. And she had found out that he'd had a hole drilled into his head.

Immediately, Scully took a close look at Krycek's hairline. There seemed to be a small wound there, not unlike the kind resulting from Dr. Goldstein's methods.

He had stayed on her couch that night, and she had stayed awake for the most part; catching naps when she could, awakening at the slightest noise. That next morning, she had taken her first sick day ever since being assigned to Mulder. She had called him and recited a list of symptoms to him. She made it clear that she only wanted to be alone, and made him promise not to come by. Since it was Friday, she would see him on Monday, right as rain. He promised, and Scully thought that this was odd in itself. She was nearly sure he'd stop by anyway. But he hadn't, leaving her the entire day to figure out what was going on with the unconscious man on her couch.

As she sat next to him now on the park bench, she remembered the rampage of conflicting emotions she had felt as she made sure he was all right. The bitter, bitter anger with him for everything he had ever done to anyone she had ever given a damn about, began to mingle with another emotion. It appalled her when she realized that she was actually feeling sympathy for him.

Sometime that afternoon, he had woken up and she had been able to get some sort of answers from him. Whether those answers were true or not remained to be seen.

Apparently the men he worked for were finding him to be a dangerous, if still slightly useful, commodity. They enlisted Dr. Goldstein to repress many of Krycek's memories, essentially leaving him with a clean slate. The point of this was to retain his loyalty. The result was a man who finally felt the level of betrayal he had only, up until this point, stirred in others.

He still had had no explanation for why he turned up at her apartment. For as much time that had passed, neither did she.

Scully had no answers for anything that had transpired. She only knew that by Saturday afternoon, he seemed able to manage himself; but he didn't leave, and she didn't push him to.

The memory still brought a stain to her cheeks as she thought of him before her, strangely shy at the absence of his limb. He had, however, managed to touch her with his good hand.

And so, the affair had started. Her heart tore a little every time she found herself face to face with Mulder. She knew that she was betraying him. She knew that what she was doing would hurt him a thousand times more than anything else she could have ever done to him. So many times he asked her what was wrong, and so many times she gave him her standard answer.

She saw the hurt in his eyes as he realized that she was lying to him. But even a lie couldn't have hurt as much as knowing that she was sharing a bed with his--their--enemy.

It was all going so well until the fiasco at the warehouse. After that, hell had broken loose.

"What the hell went on out there tonight, Scully?" He paced the length of their office like a madman, his anger barely restrained. "You let him get away, for Christ's sake!"

She sat in her chair, hands folded on her lap. She was keeping her own emotions in check…and doing a damned better job of it. "You were in no danger."

"No danger? I was in no danger?! Alex fucking Krycek is staring down the barrel of his gun at me, I hear him cock aforesaid gun, and I'm in no fucking danger?"

"What? What is it, Scully? Can you shed any light on this? 'Cause I sure as hell can't."

He had turned his back on her then, staring at the wall lined with filing cabinets.

"You're alive, aren't you? We both are. Do you really want him dead? Do you need it that badly?"

Scully stood quietly and, swallowing against the lump in her throat, left the office.

He was right. As much as she wanted to deny it, as much as she wanted to ignore it, he was completely right. She had put them both in jeopardy.

Alex's words stung her, striking home in a distinctly uncomfortable way. Mulder had trusted her. Mulder had trusted her with his life as well as The Truth. He had bared his soul to her on more occasions than she cared to count. He had been there for her, holding her hand after that glory-seeking, wet-behind-the-ears, greenhorn of an agent shot her. He had been there when she was sure she was going to die. When she had given up on her life, Mulder had been behind her, prodding her to continue living. When she had lost the only daughter she would ever know, had it been Krycek next to her during the ordeal?

With Alex, she was nothing but alone. She was alone in bed with him, releasing six years worth of pent-up sexual frustration. While his very touch seemed to set her aflame, it was a glance from her partner that seemed to rip her to shreds. She was caught between two worlds: the Physical and the Psychological. She could not have both, and it was time to make a choice.

A painful pricking teased at her eyelids and she blinked rapidly. "Do I really need to say that it's time to end this?"

He laughed humorlessly. "I suppose that's what we get for trying to play both sides of the fence, eh?"

He nodded again, and appeared to be thinking. "One last time. Then, a clean break. What do you say?"

"You'd think not at all." She tried to smile at the joke, but it hit too close to home.

"So, what do you say? One last…excursion…before I leave you. Before you go back to Mulder."

Alex only shrugged. "It's clear to me. Don't know why it's not to you." He turned to her and smiled rakishly. "Come on, do you think I'm conceited enough to think that you actually think of me when we're in bed?" He brought his hand to the side of her face, his fingers weaving into her hair. "You're naked in bed, Dana. Completely."

He sat at his desk, reading through a report before printing it out and bringing it up to AD Skinner. His eyes would skim across the occasional spelling or grammar mistake, he would tap at the keys impatiently and continue the scan.

It wasn't like Scully to not show up for work. She would call. She would, at the very least, send him an email. She was angry with him, he was only too well aware of that. But they had been angry with each other before, had disagreed with each other's methods before…never before had either of them taken an altercation to such a degree.

His right index finger tapped lightly on the "J" key before he picked up the phone for the fifth time that morning. He dialed Scully's home number and, before it began ringing on the other end, hung up. She'd be along any minute now.

After reading through the report several more times, Mulder printed it out. As the laserjet whirred to life, he turned from it and focused on his desk. His eye fell on the phone yet again. He had told himself that he was going to give her space. He had told himself that he wasn't going to call her; that she probably didn't want to hear from him right then anyway.

In two strides, he was behind the desk and picking up the phone again. Again he dialed.

But this time, he waited. He listened patiently as the phone rang once…twice…three and then four times. Mulder set the phone back in its cradle before Scully's answering machine picked up.

The "Mail" icon in the bottom right hand side of his screen was blinking steadily. Mulder was somewhat disappointed to find that the email was from Frohike. Attached was a photo of K2, with a funicular leading up to it. He tilted his head slightly. Did K2 even have a cable railway? Somehow he didn't think so. He remembered reading somewhere that the mountain was roughly as high as an average aircraft flight. The note that went along with the photo suggested that there was so much conspiracy activity in the Himalayas since what went on in Antarctica, they should just put a funicular up there. It would save lots of trouble. The boys were planning on putting the photo in the newsletter as a bit of a joke photo.

He glanced at his watch again. The report was printed and both he and Scully were due in Skinner's office to give him their report. This just wasn't like her. It wasn't like her to… to…

He suddenly felt very sick to his stomach. Mulder grabbed the phone again, noting that this time it felt very slippery in his hand. He punched Scully's cell phone number in and waited as the phone rang…

Swearing under his breath, he phoned the AD and left a message with his secretary that Agent Scully was not in the office yet, nor was she answering her cell phone. And that Mulder was off to find her.

He grabbed his overcoat and keys, turned off the light and locked the door on his way out. "So help me God, Scully, if this is some fucked up April Fool's joke…"

Her car was parked across the street. Mulder wasn't sure whether that was a good sign, or a bad sign. It was entirely possible that she had overslept. Perhaps her phone line was being serviced…

He swallowed against the rising bile in his throat as he turned the key in the lock. The white door swung open on its quiet hinges.

"Scully?" His voice was barely above a whisper. There was no answer. The apartment was silent.

He approached her bedroom, his feet making muffled thuds against the carpeted floor.

His hand went instinctively to the weapon resting in its holster. His fingers touched on the butt of the gun as he neared his partner's bedroom. The door was slightly open. He pushed at it and it opened further.

For a moment, his entire body relaxed. Air left his lungs in an audible "whoosh." She was asleep in bed, lying on her stomach, hands resting under the pillow. Her head was turned from him and the sheets were pulled up only to the bottom of her back.

Mulder licked his lips slightly in embarrassment at finding his partner in what was going to be, when she awoke, a very embarrassing state. She'd kill him if he didn't wake her though.

He brought a hand to her shoulder to shake her gently--and drew back as if he'd been burned.

A sudden, sharp pain washed over him as the reality of the situation sunk in. He doubled over, trying to fill his lungs with fresh oxygen. However, the now evident scent of death filled the room. He didn't know how he missed it. Tears of disbelief blurred his vision as he sunk to his knees, still trying to breathe. His hands covered his face when he felt something greasy smear across his cheek. He looked at his hand--the same hand he had tried to wake Scully with.

It was slicked in oil. He gingerly brought it to his nose and was greeted with the sensual scent of patchouli. He looked again at the well-defined muscles of his partner's back and noticed now how the skin seemed to glisten, as if with sweat.

Covering his mouth with the back of his other hand, he left the room, closing the door softly behind him, as if not to disturb the one sleeping within. Mechanically, he withdrew his cell-phone from the pocket of his trench coat. The three digits he dialed were unusually loud in the silent apartment. When the operator answered, Mulder's mouth felt coated, his tongue felt thick and heavy as he tried to form the words.

My head is pounding relentlessly. I'm laying here on my couch, still in the suit from your funeral. There's a bottle of something that tastes distinctly like battery acid on my coffee table, and I'm drinking it. Doesn't matter how horrible it tastes, it's doing the job.

You've left me with quite the riddle, I have to say. But I think I've managed to pull it apart, layer by layer. And I think I now understand what was going on.

Just because I understand it, doesn't mean that I like it. For Christ's sake, it got you killed.

He told me that you had tried to help him. That you were hesitant to come to me because of him. Hesitant? Why? Jesus, Scully…did you not trust me?

Some of them want to use you,

Some of them want to get used by you.

So, which was it, Scully? Was he using you, or were you using him? If he was using you, I could very easily hunt that bastard down and make him wish he were never born. If it went the other way, I can only live with it. I can only choose to live with this horrible, never-ending ache until it decides to subside on its own.

I close my eyes against the alcohol-induced images dancing in front of me. My mind's eye is no kinder to me. I see you on your bed, peaceful as if in sleep. While I didn't see it then, I soon found out about the wineglass.

I see the coroner's report in front of me and I feel what can only be defined as both rage and relief mingle within me as the corpulent little man who did the autopsy--your autopsy--cowers, as if he's afraid that I'm going to rip him to shreds for the news he's giving me. You did not kill yourself.

He murdered you. He injected an air bubble into your bloodstream after completely relaxing and incapacitating you with a massage and some wine.