Hunter and Hunted

by S.F.

He stood in the shadows, staring at the one thing he always wanted but would never get.  Sure, he could take it, but it would never truly be his.  He wondered if it had been anyone's.  He wondered if it had ever been Fox Mulder's.

Dana Scully moved from the dresser to the small bathroom adjacent to her bedroom.  The eyes, unknown to her, continued to watch--watch as the door closed behind her, listened as the water ran into the sink and a cabinet slammed closed.  The eyes opened wide as she walked back out, clothed in a sheer white silk nightgown that stood out against her pale skin and flaming red hair.  The eyes followed as she threw her suit from that day into the closet and then crawled in bed.  The ears listened to her breathing deeply as she fell asleep.

Alex Krycek shifted slightly in his hiding spot.  He was used to staying in one place for long period of time, hunting his prey and waiting for the time to finish a job.  But that was a long time ago, in what was for all purposes a different life.  Now, he was back with his former employers but he no longer performed the dirty work.  They had others for that.  He had moved up in the world of the Consortium.

Alex had always gotten what he wanted.  Even as a small child, if someone had not given him a toy or a cookie, he had taken it without caring what they thought.  It had always worked and he had never felt remorse, until now.  Now, he was having second thoughts--he never had second thoughts.

His focus was drawn back to his quay as it shifted on the luxurious bed.  He could make out her form and shivered as she sighed in her sleep.  He wondered if she ever dreamed--and if she did, what was it of.  Sometimes he fooled himself that she dreamed of him and didn't wake up screaming.  He often wondered if she dreamed of his adversary, Fox Mulder, and if she enjoyed it.

He still wasn't quite sure what he was doing in her apartment. When he had first come here to her home, he had been intent on one purpose--to make her his.  Now, when he would have been able to do so, he couldn't.  At least, not yet.

So Alex Krycek sat on his haunches and stared at the sleeping FBI agent, wondering about his past, his future, himself.

He had been responsible for much of what had happened to this woman over the past four years.  He had played an essential role in her original abduction, and from that had stemmed numerous other trials and tragedies.  Knowing what he knew now, if he could have chosen a different course, one that would not have affected her so, he might have.  But one couldn't change the past, no matter how much one wanted to do so.  And so he was stuck, remembering his role and then trying to forget.

He didn't think he loved her and he knew she could never love him.  She knew too much about his actions--about what he had done to her and Mulder.  He knew she could never forgive that, but sometimes he succeeded in fooling himself for a time into thinking the opposite.

If asked, he would probably say he wanted to take something that Fox Mulder could never and would never have.  That for once, he would be better than that man who considered Alex the scum of the universe.  Then Alex would remember that, if he asked right, Fox could indeed have Dana Scully.  Then Alex would start to believe the things that he knew others thought of him, and Alex would begin to hate himself.

That was why he had come here that night.  He had been sitting in his darkened apartment, thinking of his past.  He had grown more and more depressed as the late afternoon turned to dusk and so he had come to her apartment, seeking an action which would finally prove he was better, stronger than Fox Mulder.

But now that he was here, he couldn't make himself do it.  He saw her laying there, still so innocent after everything she had seen and done.  Unlike Mulder or even himself, the bitterness and resentment had not yet consumed her.  Even when she thought she would die from cancer (and Alex had known about that and anxiously consumed every morsel of news about it), she had not succumbed to the ultimate killer--anger.  Because Alex Krycek knew from personal experience that once that happened, you lost your soul and everything else inside yourself.  And he didn't know if he wanted to be the cause of that for Dana Scully.

He looked at her and she turned over to face him, as if reinforcing his restraint in action.  Suddenly, he feared that she would awake and see him there, crouched in his hiding place.  His heart raced in his chest, fearful of what she would do.  Her closed eyes seemed to burn into him, freezing into place.

He had no idea how he would get himself out of this situation. Before he had had a change of mind, he hadn't worried about escape.  Then, he had believed she would be in shock, unable to react as he fled into the night.  He had not considered any other possible action on his part, so he had not planned alternatives.

She turned over again and sat up and Krycek's heart stopped. But she didn't turn on any lights and headed straight for the bathroom.  He stayed still, transfixed by the woman in front of him.  It took him a few seconds before he realized that this would be his chance to escape.  He stood up, determined to head for the door and away from her.  But he couldn't walk more than a step.  His legs were asleep from the position he had been in and he was frozen to the floor when she walked out of the bathroom.

Dana Scully didn't scream when she walked back into her bedroom. For a moment, she thought it was Mulder, hiding from the light in her apartment as he had done so many times.  But it wasn't Mulder.  As recognition dawned on her, she grew frightened.

Krycek.

"Krycek."  It was more than a whisper, less than a normal tone of voice.

He looked at her, frozen in place.  She wondered how long he had been there and, more importantly, why he was there. She wanted to look around her room and try to find her gun, but she couldn't take her eyes away from the man across the bed from her.  Then, she remembered that her gun wouldn't save her, since it was in the kitchen on the table next to her purse.

She didn't know how to react.  She tried to pull herself up, make herself more than her small 5-foot-4 frame.  She knew what Alex Krycek was capable of and didn't underestimate his ability.  She didn't know what he wanted or why he had waited in the shadows to get it.

"I don't want to hurt you."

She felt slammed backwards by his words, as it here had been a physical blow to accompany them.  But there hadn't been.  Alex Krycek was still standing across from her and hadn't moved since she had entered.  She looked at him, questioning him with her eyes.

He repeated it.  "I don't want to hurt you."

She finally choked out a response.  "Why are you here?"  Her voice sounded odd, stilted, to her own ears.

Now he was the one with a look of terror on his face.  "Please, just let me leave and we can both forget this.  It'll be like it never happened."

But she couldn't let him leave without telling her why he was there.

"I…I never thought you hated me, Scully.  You always defended me against Mulder.  I know you don't like me, or the things I have done.  Sometimes, I don't like them either. But you always saved me from the worst of his anger.  I…I… Please, just let me leave."

She looked at him, sensing that he really felt what he said. She didn't feel that way, what she felt was pity and revulsion, but she didn't want to say that in case it made him want to hurt her again.  Now, all she wanted was to get him out.

"Fine, go."

He looked at her, as if failing to comprehend.

"GET OUT, KRYCEK!"  She shouted it at him, trying to make him understand.  One more minute of this and she would have to physically eject him.

He looked at her, deep into her eyes.  "Thank you."  He said it as he made his way to her door.  She followed him out of the bedroom and down the hall.  Her eyes watched as his hand grasped the brass of the door knob leading him out of the apartment and back out of her life. As he stepped through the entryway, her ears heard him say it again. "Thank you."  And he disappeared, as mysteriously as he had come.

End

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