Imbroglio: Part One

by Jessica Zyvarek Taylor

I learned there are troubles of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead and some come from behind.

But I've bought a big bat.  I'm all ready, you see.
Now my troubles are going to have troubles with ME!

(From Dr.Seuss' "I had Troubles in Getting to Solla Sellew")

The apartment was dark when he arrived.  He'd been hoping for something different.  He'd been hoping she'd be home.  But she wasn't and he told himself that he should have expected no more.  Out of options, and completely lacking the strength to go somewhere else, he let himself in, barely closing the door behind him before he collapsed.

The pain in his side was excruciating, and the bleeding showed no signs of letting up.  Considering how far he'd managed to get, he knew the wound wouldn't have been fatal if he'd been able to go to a hospital.  Unfortunately, a hospital was out of the question, so he'd turned to the only other thing he could think of: Scully.  She'd help him.  He hoped she'd help him.  He hadn't counted on her to not be home.

And as he sat on the floor of her apartment, the wall behind him being the only reason why he was even still able to sit up, he realized that she probably would have refused to help him even if she had been home.  Precious moments slipped by, the blood not even slightly stopped by the cloth he'd pressed against it, and he began to fade in and out of consciousness.

There was no way for him to tell how long he'd been sitting there since he didn't feel strong enough to lift up his arm and look at his watch, and he couldn't actually remember what time it had been when he'd been shot, so it really wouldn't have made any difference.  He just hoped that someone would get to him soon enough to help him.  He'd never really considered death much before, although he didn't understand why, as he'd had so many brushes with it in the past.  Perhaps it was because he had always expected a quick and violent end to his life, rather than listening to the sounds of other people's lives continuing on as usual while he sat on the floor in the apartment of a woman he barely knew and who probably wouldn't help him anyway.

After a while, he couldn't remember where he was, or even why he was sitting on the floor.  And after a few more minutes, the amount of time he spent unconscious seriously outweighed the time he was lucid.

Of all the thoughts that drifted in and out of his head, there was only one thing he could absolutely remember.  He was sorry.  Not sorry for the way he was going to die since he knew he deserved it, although he couldn't really remember why, but rather for the way he'd lived.  A bad set of circumstances had led him to a bad choice, and that bad choice had led him to countless others, each more impossible to escape than the one before.  But now that he was huddled on the floor bleeding to death, barely able to think at all, let alone think straight, he was sorry.  Sorry for everything.  And he wanted to live long enough to tell someone other than himself.  And for some ridiculous reason, Dana Scully seemed to be the one person he really wanted to apologize to.

And that was why Alex Krycek was passed out in her hallway.

Part One
An hour later…

Shuffling the packages in her hands so that she had a free hand, Scully barely noticed that the doorknob was wet.  She didn't turn on the lights either, choosing instead to drop everything on the couch and head to the kitchen for a glass of water.   If she'd bothered to investigate the mysterious liquid, she would have discovered his blood on her fingers.  If she'd bothered to turn on the lamp, she would have seen the unconscious figure slumped down on her floor.  She didn't.  She'd had a long day, she had brought a good deal of work home with her just so she could leave the office, and she was hungry.  She'd managed to lose her wallet at some point during the day and hadn't eaten lunch.  It was just not a good day for anyone.

Especially not for the man who'd just drifted back awake.  He knew it wasn't a good sign that he couldn't feel any pain, but he was still just as happy to be rid of the pain.  He could hear someone moving around and he prayed that it was Scully rather than someone else who had chosen to break into her apartment.

She continued moving around her kitchen, trying to postpone actually having to deal with the work she'd brought home with her.  She closed her eyes, leaned back on the counter, and was about to enjoy her glass of water.  That was when she noticed the blood on her hand.  Setting the glass on the counter, she wiped her fingers together, knowing it was blood, but not knowing where it had come from.  She brought her hand up to her face to check if maybe the nosebleeds were back.  But her face was dry and she retraced her steps to the door, where she remembered the wet doorknob.  She pulled it open and confirmed the source of the blood.

Her heart started to pound when she realized it could have been Mulder.  He'd still been working when she left the office, but she had stopped to pick up her dry cleaning.  It was possible that he'd beat her home, although there was no reason for him to be there.  Unless he was hurt.  She walked down the hall to the bathroom and upon finding no one there, tried her bedroom.  Nothing.  The phone began to ring, distracting her momentarily from her search.  She answered it, praying that someone was calling to explain this to her.

"Hey, Scully, it's me."

Her heart slowed back to its normal rate once she heard his voice.  At least he was fine.  "You weren't here earlier, by any chance, were you?"  She didn't want to drag him all the way to her apartment for nothing.

"What?  No.  Would you like me to come over?"  She knew he was grinning, and she could imagine the suggestive leer on his face.

"No, I was just wondering."  She stopped for a moment, trying to think of a convincing reason she would have asked so that he wouldn't worry.  Since she couldn't think of one, she decided to change the subject.  "You didn't see my wallet today, did you?"

"I can look around for it, but I haven't seen it.  Is something wrong, Scully?  Why did you think I'd been there?"

Damn him, she thought.  He always knows, even when he doesn't.  "Nothing's wrong, Mulder."  Mere denial would never convince him, but she was too curious as to where the blood had come from to think of anything to get his mind off it.  "You can come over and check if you like."  Of course, if he took her up on her offer, she'd have to figure out where the blood was coming from  and make sure there was no more of it anywhere.

Which returns us to my earlier question, would you like me to come over?"  The suggestive tone was still there, but there was a concerned edge to his voice.

Look, Mulder, you're not convinced that I'm fine and nothing I say is going to convince you, so while I don't particularly want to see you since I've just spent eleven hours with you, you might as well come over now before it gets too late."  She hadn't meant to sound quite so annoyed, but being exhausted and having a long night ahead of her sucked the civil tone out of her voice.

He was silent for a moment, which immediately made her feel guilty for saying anything.  He couldn't help worrying about her.  She kind of liked that he worried about her.  Sometimes.  Not right then.  "No, no, Scully, if you're sure…"  He sounded so dejected that, had they been in the same room, or state even, she would have hugged him.

"I'm sure I'm fine, but you're not.  So how about you come over and pick up some dinner on the way?"  She smiled to herself, thinking that, even after working with him all day, the prospect of ignoring all the work they had to do, eating dinner, and watching a movie would definitely lift her spirits.

She knew the momentary pause was just him waiting for the smile to fade enough that he could speak.  She'd managed to hit on the exact thing he'd wanted to hear.  It was so rare that she figured him out that she wanted to pat herself on the back.

"OK, I'll see you in a little while."

She put the phone back down, completely forgetting what had caused her to meander back to her bedroom in the first place.  Switching on a few lights on her way back to the living room, she was suddenly reminded of it when she saw Krycek sitting on the floor.

She grabbed her gun and had it aimed at his face before it even occurred to him that she'd seen him.  He knew he was in trouble, but there wasn't much more damage she could inflict.  The worst thing she could do right then would be to let him live the little amount of time he had left in pain.  He wasn't scared, but he flinched all the same when she started yelling.

"What the hell are you doing here?  Who sent you?"  She waited for a millisecond, not really expecting him to answer immediately.  "Talk, Krycek, or I'll shoot."

Come to think of it, he didn't really want another bullet hole right then.  He raised his hands, trying to show her that he wasn't armed.  He was, but he had no intention of using the gun on her.  He leaned his head back, too tired to hold it up, and let his eyes slide shut.  She was a doctor, she should be able to figure out reasonably quickly that he didn't pose much of a threat to anyone.  If she didn't, then he'd die sooner.  At the sound of her voice, though, the shock gave him the strength to look at her again.

"Jesus Christ!"  He had forgotten that there was blood all over his hands.  Oops.  He watched the color drain out of her face, saw the almost nonexistent hesitation when she entertained the idea of letting him die, and then stared as she dropped to her knees beside him.  He let her push him down, until he was stretched out on the floor, giving her a good view of the wound.  She stood up, heading back down the hall, scaring him for a moment, when he assumed it meant she was just going to let him die.  His eyes closed again and he didn't care that he was too weak to say anything.  If she was going to let him die, he wasn't going to regret not apologizing to her.

He heard her coming back into the room, and opened his eyes long enough to know he couldn't really see very clearly.  She sat down next to him and began some kind of medical treatment on him.  He couldn't feel it anymore, so she could just as easily have been hurting him as helping him.  He closed his eyes again. As far as he could tell, which wasn't saying much, she was going to help him. Several minutes later, he felt her hand on his face and forced himself to open his eyes.

She looked concerned.  Or maybe she was just gloating.  He couldn't really tell.  "You should have gone to the hospital.  Why the hell did you come here?"  He had never been so unsure of the tone of a person's voice before in his life.  His eyes closed again.  It was too exhausting to keep watching her.  Besides, he didn't really have the ability to speak right then anyway.

He was falling asleep again, and he was aware of the fact that he might  not wake up.  And he wanted to know if she was going to help him or if she was going to sit there and watch the helpless assassin die on her floor.  He had to know, so he would know whether to hate her or not when he died.

His grip on her wrist was so light that she never would have felt it if she hadn't been looking at him.  He wasn't in good shape, and unless she got him to a hospital quickly, he wouldn't be in any shape at all.  She looked at him, trying to figure out why he'd reached for her.  She didn't understand what he was doing there, but she knew he couldn't possibly hurt her in the immediate future.  He was slipping unconscious, but he was fighting it for some reason.  Probably the same reason he was holding onto her wrist.

She leaned down toward him.  "What?"  She should hate this man.  And she did.  But she was a doctor and no matter what he had done she couldn't let him bleed to death on her floor without at least trying to help him.  She wanted him to be in perfect health before she shot him in the face.

His hand slipped off her wrist as he gathered the last vestiges of consciousness to open his eyes and look at her.  She was just watching him and he took that to mean there was nothing she could do to save him.  But she wasn't gloating, that much he knew.

She was leaning over him and willing to listen to him.  He couldn't believe it.  He tried to talk, tried to verbalize that he was sorry, but the words wouldn't form.  He couldn't say anything, but he was almost successful whispering.  "Sorry."  It was all he could get out.

But it seemed to be enough.  Her hand stroked his cheek and he could have sworn he heard her voice falter when she replied.  "It's OK.  We're going to get you to the hospital and you'll be fine."

She may have said something else after that, but he didn't know.  He'd said what he'd needed to say and she'd forgiven him, as far as he could tell.  He closed his eyes and let the darkness swallow him.

She watched his eyes slip closed again and his hands dropped from her wrist.  She had no idea how long he'd been there before she'd gotten home, and she didn't know if there was anything anyone would be able to do for him at that point.  She rocked back on her heels and stared at him for a few minutes.  What was he doing there?  He'd apologized for something, and although she had no idea what particular thing she was referring to, or if perhaps he'd managed to do something even dumber that she wasn't aware of yet, he had seemed to honestly regret whatever it was.

She was reaching out to wipe some of the blood off his face when she noticed the gun.  It was tucked in the side of his jeans.  Disgust rolled through her as she looked at the man before her.  For all of two minutes, she'd forgotten that he was a killer.  She'd forgotten all the things he'd done to her and Mulder.  But he was still hurt and there was no way she was going to sit there and watch him die.  Whether he deserved it or not, she wasn't going to make the decision to let him die.  It wasn't her place.  And when Mulder got there, he was going to argue with her about it.

Knowing that Krycek was in no shape to walk to the car and that there was no way she could carry him, Mulder was the only option.  If she called an ambulance, they'd have no way to escape from the hospital.  Besides, if she and Mulder were there, they could convince the hospital staff that it had already been reported to the police and maybe get out of there without having to answer too many questions.  But she would have to convince Mulder to help the one man on earth he wanted dead most of all.  She winced and reached for the phone.

She told him in as few words as possible that he should forget dinner and get to her apartment immediately, traffic laws be damned.  She heard how unsure his voice was when he agreed and, rather than have to answer his questions right then, hung up before he got the chance to ask them.  Knowing him, he'd surpass the speed of light to get there.  Which was exactly what she was counting on to save Krycek's life, as worthless as it might have been.

Scully opened the door slightly so she would hear him coming down the hall and have a little bit of warning, and also to keep him from seeing the blood before he saw her.  Mulder would panic first, regardless of the fact that she was fine.  And a panicking Mulder confronted with Krycek was a bad combination.  Then she sat back down next to Krycek, her training as a doctor useless at that point.  She wasn't a surgeon; there was nothing she could do for him.

He remained unconscious, but after what felt like a good portion of eternity, he started to shake.  Although he was taking chills, she watched as beads of sweat popped out on his forehead.  She started to get scared.  Even if Mulder got them to the hospital immediately, there was a very real chance Krycek wasn't walking away from this.  There was no chance that he would survive if she had to waste precious time fighting with Mulder.  Krycek's head turned to one side and then the other.  He was either having a nightmare or he was having convulsions.

Feeling helpless, and hating the fact that she was probably going to watch this man die in front of her, she moved to sit behind him and pulled his head into her lap.  She put one hand on the side of his face to try and keep him still, while the other patted his forehead with a towel.  She felt tears start to slip down her cheeks, silently praying that everything would be OK.  As she sat there waiting for Mulder, she realized the situation she was in was the exact reason why she'd decided to be a pathologist.  She didn't want to have to watch people die, didn't want to know that with all her training, there was still nothing she could do to save them.  She began to rock back and forth, wondering what was taking so long, and how Krycek was still managing to survive in the condition he was in.

She felt responsible for it.  She hadn't pulled the trigger or hurt him in anyway, but she still felt responsible.  Maybe she was to blame.   Because of the countless times she had wished that he was dead.  His eyes flickered open for a second, consciousness not quite with him, and he saw her crying over him.  He wondered for a moment if perhaps he was already dead.  But he realized he could feel where her hand was cradling his cheek and he knew there was still a chance.  And if there was a chance he would live, he was going to fight for it.  If only to repay the woman he'd hurt so badly, so many times, who was still human enough to cry because she couldn't help him.

By the time she heard footsteps rapidly pounding down the hall, Krycek had stilled again.  She checked his pulse with such regularity that her hand pretty much stayed against his neck.  But when she heard Mulder running down the hall, she moved her hand.  She grabbed Krycek's gun and slid it into the waistband of her pants.  It would probably be better that Mulder think Krycek hadn't been armed.

She heard him approach the door, his hurried footsteps slowing as he realized the door was open.  She heard him pull his gun.  This was going to be bad, she thought, worse than I imagined.

He carefully pushed the door open, looking past her in his first visual sweep of the room.  "Scully?"

"I'm right here, Mulder."  He relaxed instantly when he heard her voice, but once he saw the situation, he tensed right back up.  She heard the soft curse under his breath as he dropped to his knees beside her and surveyed the damage.

He looked between her tear streaked face and Krycek for several minutes.  "What happened?"

Her jaw dropped open as she realized what he thought.  He assumed that she'd shot Krycek.  That she was crying because she'd shot him.  "We have to take him to the hospital, Mulder, he's going to die if we don't.  We have to go now."  She hated how her voice sounded.  She sounded like she was panicking, which was completely true, but she was usually so in control.

His eyes flickered to Krycek and filled with disgust.  Krycek's eyes were opened slightly.  "Let him die, Scully."

This time, she was the one who closed her eyes.  "I don't have time to argue, Mulder.  He doesn't have time to argue."

Mulder's eyes turned back to her.  "He doesn't deserve time.  He deserves this.  Ever heard of poetic justice?"  She shivered involuntarily from the cold look on his face.  She knew he hated Krycek, but she firmly believed that Mulder was every bit as human as she was.  Too human to leave a man to die, no matter what he had done.

Krycek's head turned to the side, alerting Scully to the fact that he was conscious again.  Conscious and listening to Mulder saying that he was going to die.  She glanced down at him and lightly ran her hand along his cheek.  He didn't deserve to have to listen to this.  She looked back at Mulder, not appreciating how mad he was over her gentle caress.

"Either help me or get out of my way.  I'm not going to let him die if there's anything I can do about it."  She stood up carefully, trying not to jar Krycek as she moved out from underneath him.  She paused a moment to see what Mulder was going to do.  He just stared at her.  She glared at him and then went about trying to get Krycek off the floor.  "Come on, Krycek, help me out here."  She grabbed his hands and pulled him into a sitting position, understanding that the dead weight of an unconscious man was going to be harder to manage than she'd originally thought.  But it wouldn't be impossible, not considering how determined she was to succeed.  Not once she got him off the floor.

Mulder relented, seeing her struggle to lift a man who weighed almost twice what she did.  He didn't, however, miss the opportunity to inflict pain on Krycek.  After he'd pulled Krycek to his feet, Mulder slammed his fist into Krycek's side.  The side with the bullet hole.  Krycek's knees buckled, very nearly knocking him back onto the ground, almost pulling Scully down with him.

She braced herself on the couch, barely able to keep her balance with Krycek's unfamiliar weight resting on her side.  Krycek couldn't even hold his head up, let alone help Scully walk.  "This conversation isn't over, Mulder.  Not by a long shot."  She was already out of breath, and she hadn't even tried to go anywhere yet.  Thankfully, after another second, she felt the majority of the weight lift up.  She looked over, wondering if maybe Krycek had miraculously healed.  He hadn't.

Mulder said nothing as he placed Krycek's other arm over his shoulders and started walking.  As much as Scully couldn't walk away from someone in pain, Mulder couldn't walk away from her.  Scully respected Mulder's unspoken request for silence as they drug Krycek to the car.  He didn't want to have a fight with her in front of Krycek.  It was perfectly understandable to her.  She was glad that Mulder was helping her, especially since he was able to ignore the obvious hatred he felt for Krycek in order to do so.  Knowing that she shouldn't rock the boat, she bit her lip rather than comment when Mulder pushed Krycek into the back seat of his car and handcuffed him as roughly as was humanly possible.  Mulder looked back at her before he got in the car himself, the expression on his face almost daring her to comment.  She chose instead to busy herself with getting in the car.

Thankfully, Mulder drove relatively quickly and Krycek was still semi-conscious when they reached the hospital.  Mulder pulled into the fire lane in front of the emergency room and turned to glare at Scully, clueing her in on the fact that he had every intention of making her take Krycek in alone.  It was only because Krycek's life was in danger that she decided to blow up at Mulder later.  She signaled to the security guards by the door, holding out her badge as she did so.

They approached quickly, giving Scully strange looks as they recognized the stains on her clothes to be blood.  She hadn't realized she'd gotten quite so much blood on herself until she received their pointed stares.  She ran a hand through her hair, figuring it looked as bad as the rest of her, and then she started to explain.

"I'm Agent Scully.  We have a gunshot victim here."  The guards glanced past her and, once they noticed the third person slumped down in the back seat, one of them went back inside for a stretcher.  The guard that was left standing by the car had a distinctly uncertain look on his face.

She sighed, displaying her exasperation with how obviously against helping Krycek everyone was.  The guard cleared his throat and motioned toward Krycek.

"He's a prisoner, ma'am?"  She remembered the handcuffs at the same time as Mulder, who promptly tossed the keys in the general direction of Scully.

"He's not much of a danger to anyone, sir.  The handcuffs are just,"  She wasn't even looking at Mulder, yet she could still see the miserable grimace on his face.  "just, uh, policy."

She heard Mulder's softly mumbled 'yeah, right,' and she sincerely hoped the guard had not.  But just to torture her, Mulder turned around and spoke directly to the guard.  "Nah, he's not a murderer or anything."  The guard's gaze shifted between them, not knowing Mulder well enough to pick up on his sarcasm, but still able to sense the tension between them.

Luckily, before Mulder could inflict his unhappiness on anyone else, the other guard and a few doctors arrived.  They pulled Krycek out of the car and allowed Scully to remove the handcuffs before wheeling him inside.  She ducked back in the car momentarily.

"Look, Mulder, why don't you just go home.  This will take a while and I'll just call a cab when I'm ready to go."  She silently added a request for him to stop making a scene until they were alone.

He shrugged and revved the engine, causing her to step a little further away from the car.  "Whatever."  He didn't wait for a response before he let the car begin rolling forward.  Scully slammed the door and followed Krycek inside.  Let him have his temper tantrum, she thought, he'll get over it.

When she first tried to push through the crowd at the triage desk, no one gave her an inch.  So she tried speaking, a little too loudly, to no one in particular.

"I'm Agent Scully.  I'm looking for a federal prisoner that was just brought in here."  She didn't quite have enough time to finish the sentence before the crowd parted and a doctor stepped forward.  She smiled, and tried to pretend she didn't hear the whispers around her.

Thankfully, not that many prisoners showed up at the emergency rooms at once, so it was a matter of seconds before she was escorted down the hall and pointed to a room.  The doctor stopped her right before she went in.

"The attending physician will be right in, but I believe she has some questions about his medical history."

She sighed.  Oh, this was promising to be fun.  "I don't know anything of his medical history.  Unless he's conscious, you're just going to have to go with standard treatment and see what happens."  The doctor didn't seem too happy with her response, but it was all she could say.  It was true.  She didn't know anything about him other than his name, and she didn't know if that was even his real name.  She shrugged and opened the door.

The hospital staff hadn't done much with him in the few minutes she'd been away from his side.  But somehow, just seeing that he was getting the medical attention he needed, he looked a million times better.  He was hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor.  His heart rate was slow, but steady enough to comfort her somewhat.  She relaxed a little.  He wasn't out of the woods yet, but he was in considerably better shape than he had been passed out on the floor of her apartment.  He needed surgery, she knew, and performing surgery without knowing anything about his medical history could be a dangerous undertaking.  She knew that the bureau would probably have his records from when he was an agent, but even if they did, the records might be entirely fictional.  She closed her eyes and tried to steel herself for the fact that Krycek would probably die anyway, regardless of her attempt to help him.  She still didn't like it and she wasn't getting any closer to accepting it.

She stepped closer to him, not understanding why she reached out to push an errant piece of his hair back in place.  His eyes remained closed, his hands stayed still at his sides.  Only the beep from the heart monitor convinced her that he was still alive.

It was amazing, really, when she thought about it.  Sleep could have such a substantial effect on a person.  Looking at him, she no longer saw the murderer she knew he was.  He was just another person.  Just someone who had desperately needed her help.  And even though she knew he'd have absolutely no problem killing her, she couldn't understand how he could look so innocent.  He didn't look like the evil man who had done so many horrible things to her.  Especially in light of his apology earlier.  She wanted him to live long enough to at least clarify what he'd been talking about.  Of course, the trauma of thinking he was about to die and the blood loss may have contributed, but she didn't think someone could fake the look in his eyes.  She was positive that he'd meant it.  And she'd be damned if she didn't find herself forgiving him.

While she waited for the doctor to reappear, she pulled the stool closer to the bed and sat down, taking his hand in both of hers.  No one deserved to die alone, that much she knew.  And when he opened his eyes and looked at her, she knew he knew it too.

Once he'd opened his eyes, she expected the cold, unfeeling, and particularly frightening expression to reappear.  But it didn't.  He looked scared.  He looked like he had suddenly realized she didn't have any compelling reason to help him.

She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, removing any trace of feeling off her face.  Then she pulled her hands away.  "The doctors need your medical history." She turned away, not wanting to see his reaction.  He was good, she had to admit.  He had to be in serious pain and he was still able to keep up his charade long enough to get her to help him.  He was just manipulating her, she was sure of it, no matter how innocent he looked.

Things were growing progressively fuzzier each time he woke up.  This time, he couldn't remember where he was or how he'd gotten there or why exactly Dana Scully was even bothering to pretend to help him.  He wasn't sure of why she'd been holding his hand either.  Since he couldn't remember getting shot, and didn't even notice the pain in his side, he tried to sit up.

The simple act of trying to sit up was enough to effectively erase the desire to ever try moving again. He must have made a noise of some sort, because she spun around rushed over to him.  He was too weak to attempt to stop her as she put one hand behind his head and the other on his chest, carefully pushing him back down, supporting him enough to keep him from falling.  The hand she'd placed on his neck quickly retreated back to her side, but the other remained on his chest.

"You're not going anywhere for a while.  Certainly not by yourself."  Her voice was soft and familiar.  He didn't understand why she wasn't trying to wring his neck.  Although, Mulder was the one who was preoccupied with wringing his neck.  He wondered how long it would be before Mulder showed up and beat the shit out of him.  Hopefully that wasn't who Scully was waiting for.

The pain had subsided to a throbbing sensation and he was able to think.  Sort of.  He tried to remember what had happened, but it was all a blank.  Except for the image of her leaning over him.  She'd been crying.  Maybe she had shot him.  Nothing more came to him.  She'd been upset that he was injured.  And that made no more sense than the fact that she was holding his hand or that she was standing next to him with her hand resting on his chest.  He stopped looking around the room, which he'd finally realized was a hospital room, and stared up into her eyes.  Naturally, he couldn't tell what she was thinking.  In fact, her face was so ambivalent that he couldn't figure anything out at all.

After a few moments, she broke eye contact and started to turn away.  She might have been able to recall more about what was going than he could, but it didn't mean any of it made any more sense.  She felt his hand close over hers, holding it against him.  As completely inappropriate as it was, she realized the way he was holding her hand was the exact same way he would have been holding it if they were dancing closely.  She shook her head and tried again to move away.

He didn't let go, but she knew she could easily remove her hand if she really wanted to.  He knew it too.  "Please."  He didn't know what he was asking her.  He just didn't like not knowing what was going on or that he was obviously seriously injured or that he could end up there alone.  Whether she hated him or not, he knew he could trust her.  He relaxed the grip on her hand, but left his hand laying over hers.  He felt her hand start to move and he had to restrain himself from whimpering like he desperately wanted to.  And then, inexplicably, her hand flipped over, and instead of pulling away, grasped his back.  She wasn't looking at him and regardless of the fact that he knew it wouldn't help him understand, he wished she would look at him.  After a few minutes, he carefully shifted his hand and laced his fingers through hers.  She said nothing, just continued to hold his hand.

The doctor chose right then to walk in and introduce herself to Scully.  She started explaining what she was going to do and for all either Krycek or Scully knew, she could have been talking about the invisible elephant sitting under the stretcher.  Both of them were busy trying to figure out why they were holding hands with the other.

A pause a few moments longer than it should have been brought Scully's attention back to where it belonged.  She blinked uncertainly at the doctor in front of her and wondered when, exactly, the two nurses had joined her.  All three faces were waiting for an answer.  Scully looked back to Krycek, and realized that he was still slipping in and out of consciousness and therefore couldn't provide any assistance whatsoever.  She cleared her throat.

"I'm sorry?"  The doctor exchanged a glance with one of the nurses before she sighed and began her explanation anew.  This time, Scully listened, though only halfway because of the shadow being thrown across the doorway.  Someone was waiting outside the room and she hoped to God that it was Mulder.

The doctor was explaining the need for surgery to her.  And while she had no desire to listen to her explain it in the simple terms she was using, she didn't feel like telling her that she was a doctor herself.  Instead, she just nodded when she thought it was appropriate and squelched the feelings the mere touch of Krycek's hand was stirring.  When the doctor wound down her speech, she shrugged, trying to convince herself of her indifference.

"I don't know him.  I'm an FBI agent."  With another look at the still motionless shadow outside, she continued the lie.  "He's a prisoner.  I can't tell you about his health, maybe he can when he wakes up again."  She turned away, feeling guilty for telling a lie, and pulled her hand away from Krycek's, feeling even more guilty for doing so.  She pulled the handcuffs out of her pocket and slipped one around his wrist, the other around the metal frame of the stretcher.  As much as she wanted to trust that he'd come to her for forgiveness, she remembered that he was also trying to keep himself alive and that he was liable to vanish as soon as he was physically able.  She'd have none of that.  Krycek wasn't going anywhere until he gave her some answers, even if the answers raised more questions.

She turned back just in time to not miss the nurses confused expressions.  No doubt, they'd never seen an FBI agent holding a prisoner's hand before.  But then, she thought, they probably had never seen a prisoner quite so attractive before.  She chastised herself the moment the thought formed in her head.  Cold blooded killer.  That's what she needed to remember.  She looked towards Krycek one more time as they started to wheel him out of the room.  She saw his confusion at the handcuffs.  She saw him look to her to understand.  And she forced herself to look cold and unfeeling.

She was sorry she did, though.  The poor thing was already so confused and now, he looked positively horrified.  Scared out of his mind, terrified, hurt.  The hurt struck her most of all.  He had trusted her.  She usually took people's trust in her for granted.  What was there not to trust in a doctor and police officer?  But then, she knew he had not been lucky enough to spend time on the honest side of the tracks.  He was used to not trusting anyone, just like Mulder.  He'd reached out to her, and the more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that it was real, he'd trusted her, and she'd gone and betrayed him.  His face fell as she broke eye contact.  He looked like he was about to cry.  She hated feeling like she let people down.  Even if they were people she had no right to help in the first place.

She didn't follow the hospital crew as they took Krycek down the hall.  She'd just have to wait and see.  She was sure he was going to live, but she wasn't sure that he'd be real happy to see her later.  She hadn't had time to explain why she'd handcuffed him.  She hoped that once his head cleared a little it would make sense.  The only way she could get the doctors to take care of a gunshot wound without asking too many questions was by pretending that she was there in an authoritative capacity and that he was a prisoner.  And nobody in their right mind would leave a prisoner loose, no matter what shape he was in.  She had to keep playing along with her own delusion.

She tried to shake the guilt off by telling herself that he may well have been intending to kill her or Mulder or possibly both, but it didn't work.  She shouldn't have to explain her motives to him, considering their past.  The idea that Krycek was trying to change that, or at least start over with her, wouldn't leave her though.  Maybe something had happened.  Maybe he had changed.  It was possible for people to change, she knew, but she wasn't sure about a change that dramatic.  She stepped through the doorway, deciding that she'd undoubtedly find out later, and as a direct result of stepping forward with her eyes closed, bumped into the man that had been waiting for her.

Her eyes flew open when she felt hands close around her shoulders.  The instinctual fear rose up in the millisecond it took for her to realize that it was just Mulder.  Once she saw that it was him, though, her eyes closed again and she sighed.  Nothing like intense emotional distress to round out a perfectly miserable work day.  His hands stayed at her shoulders, gently squeezing the muscles there until she leaned her head forward and rested it against his chest.  He continued the massage for another moment before his hands slipped up to cup the back of her head.  He bent down and placed a light kiss on top of her hair and then slid his hands back down and rested them at her waist.

The impromptu embrace startled her, but she made no moves to end it.  Their fight had faded away, like all the rest of their fights, and all that was left was the two of them and Mulder's indiscernible messages.  She relaxed a little more, not caring about what he would think of her finally returning one of his advances, and allowed Mulder to support her weight.  It was so much easier to be with someone that it was OK to care about.  Someone safe.  Someone she knew would never hurt her.  After a moment she straightened up, dodging his eyes until she'd placed a little more physical distance between them.  He was safer to care about than Krycek, definitely, but he wasn't that safe.  She knew all too well that his tender caress got him out of answering for his flagrant trespasses on her friendship.  And the personality swings she was privy to, like the one this afternoon, when he'd gone from telling her to let a man die on her living room floor to holding her in the hospital room, were just a little too much to let herself become too open to.  And she also knew that his sarcastic remarks and friendly looks could turn into biting humor and cold glances a little too quickly to anticipate or prevent.

As if he was reading her mind, he stepped a little closer, obviously discounting her attempt to achieve personal space, and gently placed his hand on her arm.  "I guess Chinese is out, but I hear the cafeteria makes a mean lasagna."  She refused to look at him because she knew the grin on his face would be infectious.  And she was still harboring a grudge about the events in her apartment.

Twenty minutes later, they were sitting in the middle of the staff cafeteria pushing the mysterious substance of the day around on their plates.  Mulder was eating, sort of.  Occasionally, he'd scrape a partially edible chunk onto his fork and force himself to swallow it.  Scully, on the other hand, wasn't bothering with appearances.  She was carving out invisible, asymmetrical patterns with her plastic cutlery and her distaste was clearly reflected on her face.  She dropped the fork onto the plate, accidentally splashing tomato sauce everywhere, most especially her white blouse.  She grabbed a tissue and began dabbing at it, thankful for the distraction from the culinary disaster before her, pretending the blood stains hadn't ruined her shirt already.

"You know, Mulder, the only thing mean about this, uh, lasagna, if you could really call it that, is the fact that you're making me eat it."  She gave up on the stain and buttoned her blazer up over it.

Mulder's answer was to shrug and offer a half smile, but she wasn't looking.  So he settled on the next best thing.  An apology.  "Sorry."

He'd gone back to attempting to eat so he missed the surprised look on her face.  "For what?"  She hadn't really expected an answer, let alone an apology.

He reluctantly met her gaze and shrugged again.  "For the food, for,"  he swallowed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "for earlier.  I shouldn't have acted like that."  He wasn't the slightest bit sorry that Krycek had suffered.  But he was sorry that he'd let Scully down.

She shrugged back, looking back at the traitorous fork.  "It's all right.  It didn't matter what you said, not as long as you helped him.  Me."  She didn't want to talk about Krycek.  It was dangerous territory for her.  And it was even more confusing when she was with Mulder, the last person on earth who would ever understand her confusion.

"Actions speak louder than words, right?"  She was closing in on herself and he was trying to stop her before she completely shut him out.

She looked up at him and nodded.  It did matter to her.  It hurt that he had said no.  That he had offered even token resistance to helping her.  She didn't need to start a fight with him though.  It wasn't worth probing what she knew to be a sensitive issue with Mulder and possibly causing a huge fight with her partner over Krycek.

He reached across the table and laid his hand on top of hers.  She could read the sorrow and heartfelt apology in his eyes.  "It does matter, Scully."  He punctuated the sentence by squeezing her hand.  "I'm sorry.  It won't happen again."

She stared into his eyes for several minutes, until the contact began to unnerve her.  Pulling her hand away, she stood up quickly and walked to the garbage to throw out her dinner.  She could usually handle Mulder in one of his touchy-feely moods.  But with the strange emotions she was doing her very best to bottle up inside, she couldn't respond properly to Mulder and his invasions on her personal space.  Normally, he could touch her all he wanted, since it comforted him in some way, and it was safe because she would push him away and shoot him a look and he'd pretend to be wounded.  But when she was upset, and would take refuge in his advances, rather than discouraging them, he should know to avoid coming close to the line, thus preventing either of them from tripping over it.  Sadly, she'd become better and better at hiding things from him and this was not the first time he'd missed how upset she really was.  She wouldn't push him away if he hugged her or reached for her hand again.  She wanted the comfort.  And she wanted it from him.  At times like these, her analytical mind seemed completely detached from the rest of her.  It would whisper helpful tips in her ear, like the fact that since he wasn't aware of how upset she was, he wouldn't understand why she was pushing him away and he'd probably end up with a bruised ego which she'd have to soothe and that would defeat the whole purpose.

He came up behind her, completely misunderstanding her actions, and cleared his throat.  She turned around and watched him as he pretended to be unfazed by his own words.  "Look if you want to stay here and wait for him, just tell me.  I'll leave…"  He was assuming that she wanted to be alone, that she was mad at him.  Naturally.  Because she'd done nothing to convince him of anything different.

So she ignored the helpful voice in her head that told her it was bad to reach out physically when she was off balance emotionally and reached out to wrap her arms around his waist.  It was only a second before she felt his arms encircle her again.  She closed her eyes and let herself wallow in the wonderful sensation for a moment.  Then she moved back and shook her head. "No, please stay."  Her words were whispered and she had begun walking away by the time she'd finished, so she couldn't be sure that he'd heard her.

He caught up to her in a few strides and remained at her side, wordlessly conveying his agreement with the words she wasn't sure he'd heard.

For lack of anywhere better to go, they returned to the waiting room of  the emergency room.  At some point, Scully had become confident that Krycek would be fine.  She wasn't so optimistic about the situation though.  Krycek must have had a reason to approach her.  She knew that whatever that reason was, Mulder would do his best to undermine it.  She was tempted to tell him to leave again, to let her sort out what was happening herself, but she knew that would hurt his feelings unnecessarily and she honestly didn't need more friction between them.  Sitting in the plastic chairs staring at the soda machines with their shoulders touching, she came to one conclusion.  What she had felt when she was in the hospital room with Krycek had to have been caused by the fight she'd just had with Mulder.  When Mulder was angry at her, she always felt alone.  But this time, there was someone there for her to reach out to.  As cruel as it may have been, that had to be the case.  Surely, she  didn't feel anything more than pity for Alex Krycek.

Finally half convincing herself of that, she looked over at Mulder.  He'd been staring at her again, and under normal circumstances, she would have been angry.  But this time she couldn't blame him.  She'd been acting strangely.  He was worried.  She smiled at him reassuringly.  He opened his mouth to ask her a question, but it was drowned out by the voice of the doctor as she walked over to join them.

"Mr. Krycek is out of surgery and he's being moved to recovery now. We wouldn't normally allow visitors, but since you're FBI, and I'd hate to have any of our staff in jeopardy," Scully didn't miss the pointed look the doctor gave them, openly wondering what 'Mr. Krycek' had done.  "I'll let you know what room he's in as soon as they have him settled."  She paused for a moment, waiting for the questions.

Scully bit her tongue to keep herself from asking too quickly.  She had to retain the detached FBI persona as long as she could, especially with Mulder sitting next to her.  It bothered when she realized that she desperately wanted to know how he was, if he was awake, if he was in pain.  She looked at Mulder, who, as far as she could tell, was trying to telekinetically get himself a free Coke, and decided she'd waited an appropriately detached appearing space of time.

"What's his prognosis?"  Her voice was steady and level, giving every indication of professionalism.  She pressed her lips into a thin line, successfully hiding her smile at the doctor's answer.

"He should be fine.  Lost a lot of blood and he's going to have one hell of a scar from all tearing, but it should blend in nicely with the rest."  She smirked at no one in particular. This was not a run of the mill night for her.  "I'm Dr. Kelley.  If you have any questions, the nurses will be happy to page me."

She started to turn away when Mulder's voice stopped her, startling both of the women who were pretty sure he hadn't been listening  at all. "How long is he going to be here?"

Dr. Kelley flipped the pages in the chart in front of her and shrugged.  "I'd say a few days at least.  The wound does appear to be infected, so we'll want to wait until his fever goes down before we release him."  She pursed her lips and contemplated that impassive agents before her.  "I hope that won't be a problem?"

Mulder stood up suddenly, encroaching on the doctor's personal space, and then abruptly walked away without saying a word.  Scully stared after him, before remembering that there was, as usual, someone she'd have to make excuses to for Mulder.

She plastered her happy 'of course I understand his actions he's my partner' face on and smiled warmly, extending her hand.  "Dr. Kelley, thank you for your time.  Agent Mulder had an important phone call to return."  She shook the doctor's hand and, after being assured she'd be notified as soon as she could see Krycek, chased after Mulder.  She found him standing in a small pack of people immediately next to the entrance of the hospital, people seeking safe haven for their addictive habit that didn't care about the clean air rules of the hospital. The cigarette smoke forced her to cough, giving away a little sooner than she'd intended that she had found him.

He turned to watch her, with an almost aloof expression on his face.  She stood silently, waiting for him to break the silence.  He didn't.

"Taking up smoking, Mulder?"  While it wasn't unheard of for him to wander off without telling her why exactly, she usually knew at least part of the reason.  But this time she was at a loss.  She knew he hated Krycek, and probably the fact that she hadn't let the man die, but she got the distinct feeling this wasn't related to her first infraction on his trust.

He shrugged, giving her the impression that he had no more to say.  Just as she started to walk away, he spoke softly, making her have to step extremely close to him to hear.  "Are you going to stay with him?"

His voice and his words betrayed how close to the surface his emotions really were, but his face remained blank.  She looked at him for a moment.  "I don't think we have a choice.  They think he's a danger and if we vanish, they'll call the police."  And the police would know nothing about the incident, since there was no incident, and Krycek would be released. Depriving Scully the chance to ask him why he'd come to her and why he apologized.  That wasn't an option.

"Yeah, well, God forbid the little rat gets arrested and, gee, I don't know, maybe, PROSECUTED for his crimes."  She watched him clench his fists and start walking away.  She made a few steps to follow him before he turned around, the cold look in his eyes had returned, causing her to shiver again.  "I'll be back in a few hours."  Then he continued walking, leaving her staring after him.  It occurred to her right then that he'd been hoping the whole time that Krycek would die anyway.  And now that Krycek was going to be OK, Mulder was pissed at her.  She hung her head and walked back toward the door, hoping she'd be allowed to see Krycek finally.

It was a few minutes after she walked back through the doors of the emergency room that a nurse waved to her.  Scully knew her blatant unhappiness with life was plastered across her face.  The nurse looked uncertain, but told her the room number anyway.  Room 5703.  Scully thanked her politely and managed, somehow, not to sprint to the elevator.

The layout of the hospital was such that the room was at the farthest point away from the elevators possible.  She forced herself to walk slowly, surely the staff on the floor was aware of who she was and why she was there.  She realized distractedly that Krycek being handcuffed to the stretcher had undoubtedly raised some eyebrows in surgery.  The emergency room probably wanted their stretcher back.  She finally reached the nursing station of the area where Krycek's room was.  She told herself not to notice the hush that fell over the nurses, nor the stares as they followed her down the hall.  When she finally reached his door, she turned back and watched the onlookers suddenly scurry around for something to do other than look at her.  Mulder would have been proud of her surge of paranoia.  But Mulder wasn't there.  As she turned the knob and opened the door, she tried not to think about how much she wished he was with her, holding her hand.

She stepped into the room, unsure of what she expected to see.  Whatever it was she expected, though, it certainly wasn't what she did see.  Krycek was awake, staring up at the ceiling.  The IV was hooked up and dripping, the heart monitor beeping happily.  There was practically nothing notable about the room.  Except for the fact that the patient was handcuffed to the stretcher.

And he was still dressed in the same clothes he'd gone in wearing.  He hadn't yet looked away from the ceiling, so he missed the fury reflected on her face.  He was too busy concentrating on the fact that the pain had returned.  And it had returned with a vengeance.  He was clenching his teeth as hard as he could and trying not to think about it, but it still threatened to bring tears to his eyes.  He wasn't sure how anything hurt more than walking around with a bullet in his side.  Regardless of the amount of sense it made though, it was true.  He heard the door open and hoped that it was someone coming to  bring him some sort of pain reliever.  But nothing happened and for the life of him, he lacked the strength to look away from the spot on the ceiling tile.  His mind briefly turned to what he had decided had been a hallucination: Dana Scully.  She couldn't possibly have been there.  She couldn't possibly have been sitting in the hospital with him.  She couldn't possibly have fought with Mulder to get him to a hospital.  Scully wanted him dead.  There was no chance she'd take pity on him.  He'd just come to the conclusion that he'd blacked out and dreamed the whole thing up when he felt someone remove the handcuffs he hadn't even noticed.

The woman, he knew it was a woman because of the perfume, stayed out of his line of sight as she gently touched his forehead.  He closed his eyes and relished the feel of something other than the pain.  It must have been a nurse.  Maybe an orderly.  Her voice reached his ears the same time it occurred to him that a nurse wouldn't have the keys to handcuffs.

"I'll be right back." Her hand retreated from his face.  He opened his eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of her face, to assure himself that it was her, but she was gone.  He heard the door close behind her.  He squeezed his eyes closed and wondered why she waited until he figured out that it hadn't been a dream before she disappeared again.  Before he got the chance to remember that he hadn't told her he thought it was a dream so there was no way for her to know it, he heard her voice arguing with someone outside.

She was furious.  Absolutely outraged.  He was suffering.  He was in a terrible amount of pain.  It was amazing that he wasn't screaming.  But he wasn't.  He was in there, trying to deal with it as best he could.  He must have assumed he deserved no more.  But this was a hospital and they had no right to give him substandard treatment.  She grabbed the first doctor she saw and decided he looked guilty enough.  Then she let loose.  All of her confusion over her feelings for Krycek, all her anger at the possessive way Mulder was acting, all of it.  She'd be damned if someone wasn't going to produce some pain medicine immediately.  Of course, the first doctor claimed to know nothing of the situation.  He did point her toward someone else.  Someone else she recognized as Dr. Kelley.  She'd thought Dr. Kelley was merely the attending physician, but apparently Dr. Kelley was the surgeon.  And Dr. Kelley was about to be on the receiving end of Dana Scully not getting her way.

It was only a few moments before he heard the door open again and the footsteps of several people approached him.  He saw someone connect another bag of fluid to his IV pole.  Thank God, he thought, finally some pain killers.  He closed his eyes in anticipation of them, even though he knew it was going to be a while before he would feel its effects.  Just the thought that the pain was going to stop was enough to make him feel better.  He listened as the doctor, who he'd already deemed a complete bitch, started speaking angrily at another person.  He hoped for the doctor's sake that it wasn't Scully.  Should Scully refrain from killing her, he wouldn't have a problem with it once he was on his feet.  Since there was nothing to do in the meantime, he listened, and had he not been in quite so much pain, he would have been rather amused.

"Agent Scully, as I mentioned to you before, I do not want the staff of this facility to be endangered.  This man will receive care here provided we are protected."  Bitch, the word rolled repeatedly through his head.

"Dr. Kelley, I would really hate to have to report you for mistreating a patient because of a prejudice.  I'm sure an accusation like that would stand out on your pristine record."  Score one for Scully.

"Who-"  He heard something drop onto the floor and when she spoke again, her voice came from the crouched position she was in, collecting the papers.  "Did you remove his handcuffs?"  She sounded scared.  Had he been able to, he would have shot her a menacing look.  But for now, he'd have to trust Scully to harass her.

"The important call that Agent Mulder-"  His face fell at the mention of that name.  "received earlier informed him that Mr. Krycek-"  He winced.  No one called him that.  He wasn't used to being address with respect.  "has been exonerated of all charges."  He would have fallen down if he hadn't already been flat on his back.  "So unless you enjoy making an innocent man suffer-"  He couldn't believe that she was saying he was innocent, even if he knew she was lying.  "and you would like to have to deal with me at the end of an extremely difficult day-"  A force to be reckoned with, he mused.  "I would strongly advise you to treat him well."

She snapped the handcuffs in her hand, thoroughly appreciating the rare chance she had to play the intimidating FBI personality.  She wished she'd had a bigger audience.  But the doctor's surprised look was payment enough.  Scully went back to her sweet smile and watched as the doctor instructed the nurse to increased the dosage.  Then they both left the room quietly.  The smile didn't fade as she gloated at the closed door.

Triumphant, Scully turned back toward Krycek.  He was staring up at the ceiling still, but he looked a little more relaxed.  She saw the hospital gown the nurse had laid out and held it up.  "I think your shirt has seen better days."  It was true enough, what little bit of the shirt hadn't been covered in blood had been sliced through by the people prepping him for surgery.  He would have been just as happy to be rid of it, and the blood and sweat soaked jeans he was wearing.  But he felt suddenly ashamed and didn't want to strip in front of her.  He'd momentarily forgotten that, due to the hole in his side, he wouldn't be able to get his jeans off without help.  His face grew hot and he blessed the fact that he didn't blush.  The only thing he could imagine as being worse than him merely being horribly embarrassed was her knowing he was horribly embarrassed.

He didn't have to blush for her to see the embarrassment written across his face.  She knew that he'd have trouble getting the remnants of his shirt off in his condition, let alone the skin tight jeans.  Not that she particularly minded the skin tight jeans.  She smirked to herself, for once not admonishing herself for the thought.  "You know, I could always wait till the pain killers kick in and then do it myself."

She watched, amused when he turned away. The poor thing couldn't even sit up by himself and she was teasing him mercilessly.  She put the gown down on the bed and offered him her hand, helping him lift his shoulders off the bed a little bit.  With the sad state of the shirt, it took little effort on either of their parts to remove it.  And somehow, she managed not to gape at how nice he looked.  She suddenly realized that a good portion of the hours he wasn't chasing after or trying to kill her or Mulder were spent at the gym.  And with some pretty damn nice results.  Luckily, he either didn't notice or didn't comment on her appraisal.  She helped him slide on the gown, even leaning over him to tie the top of it shut.  Then she helped him settle himself back on the bed.

The jeans were definitely going to present a problem.  She was a doctor.  She could handle this.  But she knew he was terribly embarrassed and for some reason, for it incredibly endearing.  He was a tough guy.  And he was embarrassed.  She just couldn't help but smile.  She met his gaze.  He knew she was having fun at his expense.  And as strange as it seemed, he wasn't angered by it.  He was flattered.  He liked it.  A lot.  This had become a battle of wills.  He was going to wind up mortified no matter what he did.  If he let her take them off, he was sure he'd die of embarrassment.  If he told her that he didn't want her to do it, he'd be even more embarrassed.

He made his choice and reached down to unbutton the jeans.  Now it was up to her- she could take them off him or she could walk out of the room and send someone else to help him.  He'd thankfully passed the brunt of the embarrassment on to her.  He met her eyes and smiled back.  This game had gotten out of hand.  He wouldn't blame her if she walked out of the room and never came back.  He'd be disappointed, though.  He would have been bothered by that realization normally, but the medicine was starting to hit him and his mind was working slower than it should have been.

She stared at him for a moment, seeing the challenge in his eyes.  She wasn't about to save his ass and not get something out of it.  She smiled again, and mentally prepared herself to meet his challenge.  Even if it was as little as embarrassing him, she was getting something out of this whole scene.  The moment she reached for the waistband, she saw his face twitch the slightest bit.  He hadn't expected her to go through with it.

The glory of winning their little argument was enough to get her through the ordeal without letting her own embarrassment show.  By the time she'd folded his jeans up and covered him up with the blanket, she was sure he was having second thoughts on asking for her help in the first place.  But as she pulled the covers up to his shoulders, he caught her hand and squeezed it.  She met his glance again, not sure what he was thinking, not sure what she was thinking.  He smiled at her and kept his grip tight on hers.  She squeezed his hand back.  She didn't know what to say.  

He answered that question for her.  "How long are you going to stay with me?"

Did he look hopeful?  She couldn't tell.  It was easy to tell when he was horribly angry, but not easy to tell when he was feeling anything else.  And apparently right then, he was feeling anything else.

She couldn't tell what was going through his head.  He was laying there, his hand tightly gripping hers, staring up at her.  She was sure he was trying to convey something to her, but what it was remained entirely out of her grasp.  She placed her free hand on top of where his hand was holding hers and squeezed gently before sliding both of her hands away and letting her arms hang loosely at her sides.

"I'm not sure.  Visiting hours are almost over, they'll probably ask me to leave then."  She turned away, nervously fiddling with the buttons on her blazer.  It wasn't the answer he was looking for.  She didn't know what to tell him.  She didn't want to tell him that she was leaving as soon as Mulder came back for her.  She didn't want to leave as soon as Mulder came back for her.  But she was afraid to say anything different to him.  Sure, he was sending her messages that she, at least, was having immense trouble deciphering, but she knew it could all just be some sick game on his part.  He could just be playing games with her to try and amuse himself.  Maybe he thought anything was better than being trapped in a hospital with nothing to do and no one to talk to.  She looked up and caught his eyes again.  He wasn't even pretending that he wasn't watching her.  She shrugged.

He was silent for a moment, contemplating her indecisiveness.  When he spoke again, his voice was very quiet.  Timid and shy, like he was afraid of finding out, but still curious.  "Will you be back in the morning?"

She should have been expecting it, but she wasn't.  Her mouth dropped open as she thought it over.  She hadn't considered it before.  "Do you want me to come back?"

What he did next shocked her.  It was such an innocent gesture.  So sweet and unassuming and vulnerable that it brought tears to her eyes.  She had stepped away from him and was standing by the foot of the bed.  And he simply reached out his hand to her.  She was too far away for him to touch, so he was asking her to close the distance.  She stared, awestruck, at the sight of him, looking pale and tired and helpless, holding out his hand to her.  She didn't honestly believe there was a choice there.

She walked over to his side and hoisted herself up onto the side of the bed.  He wasn't in much of a position to move over by himself, but he tried.  She stopped him by placing one hand on his chest.  Once he'd stopped trying to move, she removed her hand and held his like he had asked.  He smiled slightly, thanking her silently for not denying his request.

His eyes started to slip closed, as a direct result of the medicine he'd been given, but he fought it.  He wanted to stay awake.  He forced his eyes to stay open.  She let go of his hand and ran her hand along his forehead and cheek.

"Shhh.  Go to sleep."  A combination of her soothing voice, the comforting touch, and the pain killers caused his eyes to droop a little more.  She reached for his hand again.

"I want to stay awake."  His voice was thick and she knew he was losing the battle.

"How's it feeling?  Pain easing up some?"  It would only be a matter of minutes before he was sound asleep.  And she knew that the moment he was, she would miss him.

He tried to open his eyes wide, but failed miserably.  "Thanks to you."  She felt his fingers lightly caress the back of her hand.

"You're welcome."  And he was.  She held his hand in between both of hers and watched him close his eyes.

After a few minutes of listening to his steady breathing, she thought he was asleep.  She continued to hold his hand, for some inexplicable reason just liking the way it felt.  But then his eyes opened again, blinking sleepily several times before he remembered what he wanted to say.

"I'd really like you to come back tomorrow."  Then he pulled her hand up and tucked it against his face, turning towards it so that she could feel his breath on her skin.  "I meant what I said earlier."  Then he closed his eyes and left her to ponder his statement.

She assumed he was referring to the apology he'd made to her.  "I believe you."  She left her hand resting against his cheek for quite a while before she leaned down and lightly brushed a kiss across his other cheek, watching him smile in his sleep.  She heard a knock at the door, and knowing it was Mulder, quickly let go of Krycek's hand.

Just before she reached the door, she looked back toward him.  He was certainly an enigma.  But he seemed to want to open up to her.  Knowing it would only be a matter of seconds before Mulder opened the door, she didn't hesitate as she walked back over to the bed and whispered to him. "I'll see you in the morning."  Then she opened the door to face Mulder.

It seemed to her that the few hours remaining in the evening were taking forever to go by.  She found herself looking at the clock every ten minutes, wondering why such an interminably long period of time had only been ten minutes.  Mulder had been mercifully quiet on the ride home, asking nothing, saying little.  She knew he was afraid to ask.  And truth be told, she was afraid to answer.  She knew Mulder didn't honestly want to know about her and Krycek holding hands.  Or that she'd kissed him.  It may have only been a peck on the cheek, but it was something.  Closer to Krycek than she had ever imagined voluntarily being.  Closer than Mulder would ever let her live down if he were to find out.

The only thing that he actually said was something to the effect of 'we have to notify the authorities.'  She mumbled back that they were the authorities and the conversation ended there.  Thankfully, he didn't demand that they go back and arrest him or that they go back and shoot him or anything else.  Maybe he'd become aware of just how mixed her feelings were and was trying to be extremely nice to her in order to compound the difficulty she was having with the situation.  It would make it harder for her to go against him if he was being so nice.  But when she thought about it, she really couldn't picture Mulder being so manipulative, at least not consciously, definitely not with her.  She closed her eyes and desperately hoped she wasn't just being blinded by her friendship with him.  She'd seen him manipulate other people, but her?  She couldn't let herself believe that.  Because if she did, Krycek would start to look more and more honest.  So honest that a manipulator like Mulder didn't hold a candle to him.  Something she definitely wasn't in the mood to feel.  Or to try to understand.

She decided that either anything Mulder was doing was completely unconscious or he trusted her enough to let her make her own choice.  Maybe he knew that she would think of the latter and hopefully the guilt alone would be enough to keep her mind off Krycek.  But no, she thought, that just points back in the manipulative direction.  And if she knew anything, and she believed that she knew something, she knew Mulder was probably extremely hurt over her actions and completely confused over her decisions, but he was sitting at home watching television and assuming he'd done something wrong.

She waited for him to call for quite a while, thinking he'd finally give and ask her why she was acting so strangely.  She was expecting a call from him, but she was still terribly afraid of it.  She didn't know what to tell him other than the truth.  At least, as much of the truth as she dared to tell him.  She'd seen Krycek sitting on the floor dying and the compassion she always had for victims of any crime welled up and spilled over.  She couldn't explain to him about how the innocent look on Krycek's face and his sweet gesture of extending his hand to her made her stomach flip over and her heart race.  The same way she couldn't explain how Mulder's own pathetic, beaten down faces made her go against her better judgment most of the time.  And as she sat there, absent-mindedly flipping channels, she once again reached the decision that Mulder didn't do anything to hurt her on purpose.  Things were, as usual, up in the air between them, especially considering their interactions at the hospital.  But their relationship was strong, as it always had been, and it would survive.

With that decision made, her mind shifted gears once more and returned to where she'd been trying to keep it from going.  She didn't understand why she was so confused and troubled by the events of the day. Whatever his initial reasons for being there, Krycek had turned to her for help.  As a result of deeply ingrained training and usually more carefully restrained emotion, she'd helped him before she had the chance to think of doing anything else.  And having the time to think over it, she couldn't honestly say that she would have made a different decision given more time.  She could safely and easily defend her reasons for taking him to the hospital.  But that hadn't really been the concern.  She could even stretch it to encompass why she had stayed at the hospital until he was out of surgery, that stretch wouldn't be at all difficult.  What she couldn't figure out, neither while it was happening nor after several hours of thinking about it, was why she'd gone to see him, why she'd insisted that he receive better treatment from the staff, and why she'd held his hand and kissed him.  She let her mind wander, not paying much attention to what she was thinking about or what she was doing, hoping that she would eventually stumble upon the answer.

A few minutes later, after fixing herself a mug of steaming hot chocolate, she moved from the couch to her favorite chair and wrapped herself in a quilt.  From her new location, she had a perfect view of where she'd found Krycek that afternoon.  She'd cleaned up the mess they'd left behind, threw out the ruined towel and rescued her rug from permanent blood stains, but she could still see him sitting there.  The image would not leave her head.  She'd found the blood on the door knob, which meant he'd been hurt when he got there.  It made her slightly more comfortable that he hadn't broken in first.  But knowing that he'd sought her out made the uneasy feeling return.  He'd known she would help.  That fact, in and of itself, wasn't surprising, she was a doctor after all.  But the one fact that did strike her as odd was that this man, who was for all intents and purposes a stranger, had though of her when he got shot.  Putting herself in his shoes, there were few people she would think of to help her.  Mulder, certainly, Skinner, possibly.  She thought briefly of her mother and then pushed the thought aside.  She wouldn't crawl to her mother's in that kind of shape; it would scare the woman to death.  And she knew only vaguely where Skinner lived, so that wasn't really an option.  Which left her with Mulder.  She knew if she were to crawl to Mulder then he would save her.  She wouldn't have to think twice.  And that conclusion made her reach the startling realization that Krycek thought of her in a situation where she would have thought of Mulder.  The man barely knew her, but he trusted her enough to go to her.  And with their history, he should have though he'd stand a better chance of being miraculously healed.

Unless he knew something she didn't.

Abruptly, she hopped off the chair and grabbed her keys.  As an investigator, she'd been trained to follow her instincts when nothing else made sense.  The same instincts that were telling her the whole situation seemed very very wrong.  And the investigator was not about to rest and drag herself through mental gymnastics until she had all the facts with which to properly berate herself.  The facts that only one wounded, sleeping, gorgeous man knew.  And for once, she knew exactly where he was for the evening.

She'd changed out of the suit she'd been wearing earlier, the one with blood and spaghetti sauce stains on it, but she wasn't dressed casually.  She marched past the guards at the desk, convincing them to not even bother trying to stop her without so much as a word.  She then proceeded to march right through the rest of the hospital, ignoring the hospital staff shooting her strange glances, wondering what she was doing there, but not bothering to ask.  Her face clearly reflected that she was on a mission and that she would not be dissuaded.  And the authoritative way she walked, emanating the feeling that she knew where she was going and what she was doing, convinced everyone to back off.

She knew where she was going and what she was doing, but she was growing more and more nervous.  Adrenaline, confusion, uncertainty, together it was enough to send her searching for an answer.  But once she'd reached the floor he was on, she was no longer sure he was going to give her the answers she wanted.  Still, rather than wait for whoever had taken over when Dr. Kelley's shift had ended, she walked into Krycek's room without hesitating.

It took her a moment to adjust from the brightly lit hallways to the darkness inside the room.  She closed the door quietly, noting happily that he hadn't yet been assigned a roommate.  This was not something she wanted an audience for, even if it was a complete stranger.  When she calmed herself down a little, she stepped forward, making sure she was as quiet as possible.  If he was asleep, she didn't want to wake him.

In the end it didn't matter how quiet she tried to be because after she'd taken another step forward, she heard his voice.  She knew she'd woken him and she recognized the fear before she heard his words. "Who's there?"  Even drugged up and half asleep, he knew hospital staff made an incredible amount of noise no matter where they went or what they did.

It made perfect sense to her that he was scared when she thought about it.  After she had left, someone had pulled the curtain halfway around his bed, obscuring the door from his view. And then there was always the little matter that had landed him there in the first place: someone had shot him.  Most likely, that someone had every intention of killing him and was probably none too happy that he had walked away.  And there was also the fact that, with the exception of a call button for the nurse, Krycek was defenseless.  He couldn't walk, wasn't armed, and had too much medicine coursing through his veins to fight.  Not to mention that the medicine, as well as the fever, caused a disconcerting fuzziness to settle over his thoughts.  All in all, she couldn't help but crack a smile when she pulled back the curtain and heard his sigh of relief.

The smile stubbornly refused to leave her face as she walked over to his side and spoke.  "It's just me."  It suddenly occurred to her that if he were to notice it was well after midnight, she would have achieved the miserable accomplishment of embarrassing herself.

Luckily, he just smiled back.  "Hey."  She fought the urge to close her eyes when he spoke.  She fought the urge to climb onto the bed with him and snuggle into his side.  There was something about his unguarded face and the sexy quality his half asleep voice possessed that severely limited her ability to reason.  And those very same elements prevented her from confronting him and demanding that he explain himself.

Again, he came to her rescue and didn't make her think of something to say.  "Could you hand me that other blanket?  I'm really cold."  She turned around, locating the blanket he'd been referring to, and then carefully draping it over him.  She moved as slowly as she possibly could without calling attention to herself.  She wanted to prolong the time she had with him and postpone the inevitable moment when he realized she didn't have anything to say, that she just wanted to see him.  She looked up as he mumbled his thanks and noticed the beads of sweat popping out on his forehead.  Without thinking, her hand darted up and felt for his temperature.

"God, you're burning up.  When was the last time you had Tylenol?"  She knew the answer before he did, but the question seemed instinctual.  He shrugged and let his head fall to one side.  She wanted to run out to the nurses and find out why no one was noticing that he was so sick, but she didn't want to get herself kicked out.  If she decided it was necessary, she could always dig some pills out of her purse.

His hand reached up and snagged hers, causing an odd sensation to run through her.  She certainly didn't understand what was going on, but she couldn't deny that she felt something when he touched her.  And whatever the something was, she liked it.  He let go of her hand after a second, but he continued to stare up at her.  Her confusion must have been evident, because he offered an explanation.

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable."  He shifted a little and she figured, had he been able, he would have started to pace.  He started talking again before she had the chance to respond.  "I know I've done some horrible things to you, but there are things you don't know about."  She leaned forward unconsciously to better hear his whispers.  "Things you don't remember…"  He looked straight into her eyes then, and she shivered as an incredibly strong sense of recognition surged through her.  He saw her shiver and reached again for her hand.  "Don't try to remember, Scully, you don't want to.  I don't want you to."

Her hand didn't respond to his, instead remaining limp as he gently stroked it.  The feeling of deja vu was too strong.  It was downright scary.  She'd never experienced anything like it.  His words intrigued her, and they both knew she'd stop at nothing to remember.  And even as she thought it, a memory surfaced: her lying in the bed, incessant beeping coming from somewhere, she could feel the fear all over again, and then she felt a hand close over hers, another cup her cheek, she could hear the whispered promise that he'd get her out of there, and although she couldn't see his face in the darkness, she knew who it was.

She jerked away from him, scared equally by the clarity of the memory and by the fact that she knew there were others.  She knew there was only one time in her life when either of them would have known the other and that she wouldn't want to remember.  And she didn't need to remember anything more right then.  "You bastard!"  She ignored the perplexed and hurt look on his face.  "You were there.  You didn't.. you knew… you…I…"  Her chin began to tremble with the force of the emotions.  She'd never imagined that she could be hurt so badly by someone she'd never really trusted.  But she had trusted him apparently.  She had only learned of his deception after she returned to work following her abduction.  But when she'd been taken, she hadn't known that Krycek was working for the other side.  Mulder had admitted to her some time ago that he strongly suspected Krycek of turning over her address to Duane Barry.  The very same man who had handed her over had been by her side promising to bring her home.  She could remember the feeling of trusting him, just in that one memory and the feeling of betrayal began to weigh down on her.  It wouldn't matter if she never remembered another second of it, she knew enough.

She brought her hand to her face to wipe furiously at the tears.  She remembered her brother's advice from her childhood when the girls at school had picked on her.  She could hear his voice echoing in her head and it caused her to try harder to stop crying.  "Never let them know, Dana, don't let see how much it hurts."  Such stereotypical big brother advice.  And so true.  She bit down hard on her lip, contorting her face until she finally won the battle.

He reached for her again and almost caught her arm before she yanked out of his reach.  She denied seeing tears form in his eyes, refused to see the hurt look, refused to acknowledge the horrid pain he must have felt when he sat up and grabbed her arm.  He kept a tight grip on her arm even as he slumped back against the bed, obviously spent by the effort.  A few heaving breaths later, he pulled her arm until she was leaning over him, forcing her to face him.

"Please, Scully, please.  I tried.  I didn't know what they were putting me up to or I never would have done it.  I didn't know what they were going to do to you.  Once I found out, I tried to stop them."  He held her arm firmly even as she struggled to pull away.  "I kept my promise, Dana.  I carried you out of there.  I took you to the hospital.  I called your mom.  I called Mulder."

Part of the rage chose that moment to give way to pain.  Perhaps it was because of the honesty in his words.  But mostly because she vaguely remembered being in someone's arms, too tired and too sick to hold her head up, being shaken painfully as he ran, hearing his voice frantically repeating her name, being too tired to open her eyes, and then not hearing anything.  She stopped fighting him and slumped down, resting her head on his chest.  His hand moved over the back of her head, caressing her hair, trying not to scare her anymore.  She tried for several minutes to stop the tears that flooded her eyes again.  But she eventually gave up, climbing up into the bed with him and letting him hold her.  She didn't want to remember anymore, but the feeling of laying next to him, of his arms being wrapped tightly around her, his breath falling against her cheek, it was all too familiar for her to deny.

She took comfort in that familiarity and fell asleep in his arms, repeating a pattern that she didn't even remember.

It was very early the next morning when she awoke.  The lights were still off and the thin sliver of light peeking around the curtains wasn't enough to see clearly.  She could see the outline of a person standing right next to the bed on the opposite side.  Her heart began to pound before she realized it was only a nurse checking on Krycek.

Once it hit her who she was curled up next to, she pushed away so fast she practically fell to the floor.  The nurse, a young woman who moved so carefully that Scully could instantly tell she was brand new, smiled sheepishly.

"I'm sorry, ma'am.  I didn't mean to wake you."  If her newness hadn't been apparent before, it was obvious then.  Hospital staff wouldn't let a mother sleep with her child, let alone a woman crawl into bed with a man.  Scully gave her a small smile and hoped she didn't look as flustered as she felt.

"It's OK…"  She trailed off, mentally correcting herself that it was actually very not OK.  The nurse mistook the pause and extended her hand.

"Angela."  Scully shook her hand lightly and then went back to tugging on the fabric of her shirt, a perfectly legitimate activity for someone as nervous as she was.  "Look, ma'am, I know it's against policy and all, but the nurse who has the shift after mine will be more than happy to point that out."

Scully waved her hand in the air and ran it through her hair.  "I really shouldn't be here, don't worry about it.  I really should be leaving so I can get to work."

Angela was not deterred and smiled warmly again.  "You two just looked so comfortable together"  Scully cringed visibly, but Angela was busy staring at the back of her hand.  "I just got married a few weeks ago…"  No wonder the woman looked deliriously content.  "I just know how much I love my Roger and I wouldn't let anyone tell me that I couldn't  stay with him if he was hurt."  Scully groaned under her breath.  She couldn't have looked *that* content sleeping in Krycek's arms.  He certainly couldn't have looked that content.  "When I came in before, you were sleeping and I told your husband…"  For some reason she didn't feel at all compelled to correct Angela's mistake.  "that you would have to leave and he looked like he was going to cry."  Maybe Krycek had looked that content.  Maybe it was all part of his sick plan to play with her mind.  "He asked if you could stay a little longer."  How sweet, Scully mused, I'm going to be sick.  "He said you had a stressful job and that you didn't get enough sleep."  Scully turned away from the bed in disgust, still feeling touched by the fact that he cared how much sleep she got.  "You guys make a great couple.  How long have you been together?"

Together or married was the first thing that crossed Scully's mind.  She didn't want to be rude to Angela, knowing that it would be nice to have someone she could consider a friend on the staff.  "Not that long."  The quiet reservation in her voice struck Angela as wistfulness.

"I thought you were newlyweds."  Scully could easily picture Angela's sentence being punctuated by a giggle.  She pushed up her sleeve and went to look at her watch before she remembered taking it off and leaving it on her bureau.

"Yeah, you could say that."  She stopped long enough for Angela to determine that the conversation was over.  "Uh, Angela?"  She waited for Angela to look up.  "Could you tell me what time it is?"

"Wow, it's almost six, I should be going."  Angela wrote one final note on the chart and then turned to leave.  "I'll be here until 7:15, but after that they'll probably tell you to leave.  It was nice talking with you."

Angela opened the door and walked away, leaving Scully staring after her.  It was weird how someone's mistaken perception could alter her own.  She could understand that anyone seeing two people sleeping together in a hospital bed would take them to be a couple, but newlyweds?  Had Krycek really looked *that* happy to be holding her?

She looked back at him, and realized that he didn't seem nearly so innocent anymore.  Even some of the boyish charm seemed to have faded.  He'd hurt her.  He'd hurt her terribly and she hated that she'd let it happen.  She was no longer sure that she shouldn't have let him die.  She wasn't so sure that it would have been a mistake.  It definitely would have helped her peace of mind.  She'd gone for three years not remembering her abduction and she'd decided that it was probably for the best, considering the things she'd since learned had been done to her.  All she could remember now was how scared she'd been, something that she'd felt before, and trusting someone to save her since she wasn't able to do it herself.  She couldn't believe it.  She couldn't believe any of it.

She slumped down in the chair next to the window and stared at the dingy curtains.  Maybe she could believe it.  Maybe she could believe him.  He'd been such a naive kid when they'd met.  He could have been convinced that Mulder and herself were dirty or something to that effect.  They could have appealed to his romantic patriotic notion of making a difference and helping his country.  Most people were susceptible to that argument at one time or another.  And she could see him, or anyone for that matter, realizing that he'd been lied to, as she had realized herself, and vowing to help fix whatever he'd done wrong.  Her mother had mentioned briefly the phone call that she'd received, saying only that it had been a man's voice, that it had seemed frantic and that she'd initially assumed it had been Mulder because of how worried he was.  And she could remember the first time she'd seen Krycek after the whole ordeal, when she'd shot Mulder in the shoulder.  She could still remember the look on his face after she'd pulled the trigger.  He hadn't run immediately.  She had thought he was just shocked that she'd shot Mulder, but now that she thought about it, it didn't explain his expression.  The way he stopped and looked at her before he ran off.  She'd never figured out why she hadn't shot him then, at least wounded him so that he couldn't get away, or why she'd stared at him and watched him run away before she crouched down to help Mulder.

Maybe part of her had remembered.  Maybe he wasn't as evil as she'd thought.  She'd hated him mostly because Mulder hated him so much.  And Mulder hated him because he'd been involved with her abduction.  So maybe if Mulder was to realize that Krycek had helped bring her back, then he wouldn't hate him.  And then maybe she wouldn't feel so guilty not hating him.

But before she had to answer to Mulder about her feelings, she had to answer to herself.  And that was what she was having trouble with.  She'd gotten mad when she first remembered him being there.  But if he was telling the truth, as she had a feeling he was, then it wasn't really all his fault.  Sure he could have shown up while she was in the hospital, but if he had and the men he'd stolen her back from hadn't killed him, Mulder would have.  And if Mulder hadn't, she probably would have.

Krycek had good reason to stay away from her.  He'd only turned to her in a life or death emergency.  And the whole reason she'd gone there was to find out why he'd done that.  Well, she thought, one question answered, eleven million to go.

Angela chose that moment to stick her head back in the half open door.  "I'm on my way out now, I just thought I'd let you know."

Scully's jaw dropped open for a second.  "It's 7:15 already?"  She hadn't realized that she'd been lost in her own little world that long.

Checking her watch, Angela nodded.  "Time flies, right?"

Scully stood up and reached for her coat.  She was going to be late for work and she wasn't looking forward to explaining why.  "Oh, Angela?"  She smiled when she realized Angela had been staring at her the whole time.  "Will you be here tonight?"

"Yeah, I'll be back at 11.  I guess I'll see you then?"

"Yeah.  Could you possibly leave the other nurses a note to call me if anything changes?  I mean, leave them my work number?"  She hoped Angela wasn't going to take too much of an interest in them because she'd learn relatively quickly that Krycek was single.  She held out a business card and didn't notice when Angela took it.  Was Krycek single?  He could have a girlfriend, or a wife even, somewhere.  She had a sudden flash of Krycek playing catch with a little boy in the back yard and suppressed the urge to laugh.  Yeah, right.  She just couldn't see Krycek as a dad.

She didn't notice when Angela walked away either.  She was too busy staring at Krycek, thinking about the fact that he probably knew everything there was to know about her and she didn't even know if Krycek was his real name.  She crossed her arms and stared for another moment before hurrying out the door.  She had other things to worry about for the time being, one of them being her jealous, outspoken partner who would undoubtedly have to know why she was late and that she was lying when she said she had car trouble and where she had been that she had to lie to him in the first place.

It was either because of the darkness of the room or her preoccupation with her thoughts that she also didn't notice that Krycek had opened his eyes and watched her as she put on her coat and left.

It was one of the longest, most confusing days she'd ever spent at work in her life.  Mulder was quiet and for some reason, his silence made her feel guilty.  She wanted to tell him about what she remembered, but she couldn't.  She felt like she had betrayed him even then, before she knew about Krycek's false loyalty, before she'd been told about how he'd helped them abduct her.  She felt like she should have known better even when she was confused and scared and helpless and she didn't like feeling like that.  She wanted to know more about what had really happened before she told Mulder and she hoped that he'd understand that.  And if he didn't, tough.  It was her life.  It was her memory.

The phone rang once and she practically jumped across the room.  It wasn't for her and after several minutes, her heart slowed back down to almost normal speed.  She stared off into space while Mulder spoke with whoever it was.  She even tried to listen once he hung up and talked to her.  She watched him, and seemed interested in what he was saying, but she wasn't hearing a word of it.  He pulled a file out of one of the drawers, pulled a few pages out of it, and then handed then to her.  She looked at them, through them really, but couldn't absorb what they were.  So she nodded and heard his voice continue to speak.  He picked up his jacket and headed for the door, and she finally caught something.

"..you at the airport."  He looked distracted for a moment, trying to locate his keys.  She tried to find the words to ask him what he was talking about.  But she hadn't found them by the time he located the keys.  Oh well, she figured, he'll have to call me as soon as he notices that something is amiss.  "Scully?"  She looked up and caught his eye.  "Two hours, Dulles?"

She nodded and watched him walk away.  She wanted to tell him no.  She wanted to tell him that she wasn't able to travel.  Hell, with the way her mind was working, or not working apparently, she wasn't exactly able to work.  She'd probably walk in front of a car at the rate she was going. Scooping up the papers he'd let her, she picked up her briefcase and headed home to pack, which she had decided was what she was supposed to do.

According to her most likely completely miscalculated time schedule, she had just over an hour left once she'd packed her bags.  Plenty of time to get to the airport.  Of course, she hadn't thought to ask for the flight number, the destination, or even the airline, but Mulder had probably given her all the information and she hadn't even noticed.  Well, when she was hopelessly late, he'd call her.  Probably.  If not, he'd fly off to wherever and she'd go back home and have the rest of the day off.

She checked her watch for the millionth time in five minutes and finally admitted to herself the silent thought that was running through her head.  If she hurried, she could stop at the hospital.  Her sluggish brain wasn't happy with the whole issue of hurrying, but she could do it.  Why she wanted to was beyond her.  She'd been so angry at him, and yet she'd still turned to him for comfort.  It disturbed her, but she didn't want to think about it.  She tossed her bag in the car and headed for the airport, choosing to make him worry.  He could suffer for a while and think she wasn't coming back.  Angela could think she was having an affair.  She could play games just as easily as he could.  Maybe if she disappeared for a few days and he was forced to stare at the walls for a little while, he'd be more appreciative if she ever went back.  Maybe he'd be a little more forthcoming with the details she wanted to hear.

By some magic stroke of luck, she walked through the door of the airport a fraction of a second after Mulder.  Falling into step beside him, she applauded herself for not having gone to see Krycek.  She was even able to comprehend most of what Mulder was telling her.  She wasn't quite able to come up with her own theories about the case, but she could point out huge holes in Mulder's.  The first time she did so, he started to defend himself, but then stopped and stared at her.

Then he smiled.  "I didn't think you'd been listening to me all day."  He picked an invisible piece of fuzz off her sweater, blatantly looking for an excuse to touch her.  "You seemed kind of distracted."  She ignored the almost hurt look on his face at his last word.

"I heard you."  She had heard him, she just hadn't been listening.

He grinned at her and she had the sinking suspicion that she'd done something earlier that gave away the fact that she wasn't listening.  "And here I thought my rendition of 'Twas the night before Christmas' was at least worthy of a raised eyebrow."  He smiled again and she managed to keep herself from smiling.  She had no idea when he'd recited that.  And he probably knew that.

"Maybe I just couldn't find the words to properly describe it."  There.  Vague enough that she wouldn't give herself away totally.

He stopped walking and sat their bags down on a plastic chair.  She quickly read the flight info and realized they were headed to Wyoming.  She sighed and plopped into the chair beside the bags.  It was winter, Wyoming would be cold and she had definitely not packed for Wyoming in January.  Chills ran through her at the thought.  She was going to freeze.

"OK, Scully, we're a half hour early here, 'fess up."  He sat down on the other side of the bags and stared at her.

"What?"  Her lack of sleep was catching up to her.  "What are you talking about?"

He frowned at her and she wanted to ask him if he'd honestly expected any different.  "Come on, Scully, I know when something's bothering you and this time I know what it is.  So just talk.  What's going on?"

She twisted sideways in the chair, folded her arms over the bags, and rested her head in her hands.  Trying to maintain her professional mask while her face was scrunched up in her hands was an interesting matter all together.  "I'm fine Mulder.  I don't know what you're talking about."

He made a face at her and she knew her dumb routine wasn't going to fly.  "Fine, then."  She looked up, surprised by the fact that he was going to drop it so easily.  It seemed to be the reaction he was looking for.  "So how is dear little rat boy anyway?"

She squirmed at the reference, grimacing so as to clearly convey her unhappiness.  "Mulder…"  The growl was fair warning.  He was treading on thin ice and she didn't really think she should have to remind him.

"How is he anyway?  Still drawing breath, I presume?"  She dropped her face back into her arms and mumbled.  Then she looked up to face him once again.

"He was alive last night and I would assume he is still alive this afternoon."  She didn't think the whole truth was called for in this situation.

"Was he alive this morning?"

Why did he seem to know she'd gone back to see him?  "Well, if he was alive last night and he's alive this afternoon, I'm going to make the logical jump that it was a continuous state."  He didn't need to know that she'd gone back and spent the night with him.  He just didn't.

"You went back to see him."  It wasn't a question.  She got nervous for a second but then decided he was bluffing.  He didn't *know* she'd gone.

"What makes you think that?"  She couldn't quite pull off snapping at him and acting annoyed at the suggestion.

"You weren't home last night, Scully.  You went back to see him, didn't you?"  He didn't sound like he was making an accusation.  He sounded like she'd told him she never wanted to see him again.

"Again, what makes you think that.  I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone last night, maybe I just didn't answer my phone."  Maybe she wouldn't have felt like answering the phone had she been there to hear it ring.

"When you didn't answer the phone, I drove over to make sure you were all right.  You weren't there."  He must have been completely sure of himself to admit that to her.

She made up her mind and lied straight through her teeth.  "I went to my mother's."

"You went to the hospital."  He was stating a fact.  And he was not happy about it.  Very very not happy.  "I drove to the hospital to find out.  I couldn't believe it when I saw your car there.  I couldn't believe you spent the night there."  She didn't bother trying to deny it, since he'd obviously watched her.  She was furious.

"How dare you."  It was all she could manage to say through her clenched teeth.

"You don't stay there for more than an hour when I'm in the hospital, and you stayed all night with him?  I don't get it."  His anger had given his voice a biting tone and the polite sound level of their discussion was quickly rising.

"You sat outside the hospital all night?"  Her indignation blinded her to the fact that she'd just given herself away.  The moment the words left her mouth, Mulder was out of his chair and seriously wishing he had something he could throw.

"So you did go see him."  Her mouth dropped open when she realized he hadn't gone to the hospital.  He'd just been guessing.  "You SPENT THE NIGHT WITH HIM."

She dropped her face into her arms as the eyes of everyone in the immediate area turned to stare at them.  She felt like she was in the middle of a bad soap opera.  "Mulder sit down and lower your voice."

He squatted down in front of her, placing his hands on the armrests of her chair, trapping her in front of her.  "You are hardly the person to tell me what is and is not appropriate.  What the hell were you thinking?"

His voice was harsh, but softer.  Still, the restrained anger made her shrink back against the chair.  She hated the fact that she couldn't really blame him.  As far as he was concerned, she had betrayed him.  But she hadn't.  He just didn't understand and she wasn't sure that she could make him.

"It's not something I can explain to you."  Her voice sounded scared, even to her own ears.  She knew that her entire relationship with Mulder could well be riding on this conversation and she didn't want to blow it.  "I just wanted to know why he'd come to me after he got shot.  It didn't make any sense."  Now that he was mad, she might as well be honest.

His hands retreated to his sides, but he remained kneeling down in front of her so she couldn't walk away.  She didn't like this side of him, she didn't like him bullying her.  But she wasn't really scared of him, just of how badly this was backfiring.

"Oh, but it made sense after you slept with him."

"I didn't sleep with him.  Knock it off."  He crossed his arms in front of his chest.  She didn't feel like playing word games with him.

He said nothing, just continued to sit there and stare at her, waiting for an answer.

"I went back to find out why he showed up in my apartment.  I mean, after I thought about it, I realized that I would have turned to you, not someone who didn't exactly want me alive.  When I got there, I started to remember something."

"Like what, that he was a traitor?"  His anger wasn't dissipating and she wasn't in the mood to really try to calm him down.  She was upset for her own reasons.

"Mulder, please.  I remembered something from the time I was missing."  His mouth opened, but words failed him.  The anger was gone though, replaced with blatant concern.

"What?  Scully, why didn't you say something?"  His hands moved to rest on her knees.  Knowing that he was no longer mad, she felt herself calming down.

"I was afraid of this.  I knew you'd get mad and I didn't want to start trouble."  She could see the apology written all over his face.  She hadn't meant to make him feel guilty.

"Scully…"

She cut him off before he had the chance to finish.  "I wasn't sneaking around to meet him or anything like that, Mulder.  I just wanted to get all the facts before I said anything." It was sort of true.  She wanted to understand why she felt drawn to Krycek and that was something she couldn't bring herself to explain to Mulder.

She hadn't realized how upset she'd become during the argument, but she could feel herself starting to shake.  His hands moved from her legs to her waist and then he pulled her towards him.  Three hugs, two days.  It seemed strange.  But she welcomed it all the same.  The stress fighting with him and the memories of her abduction was hard to withstand, and she gladly received Mulder's support.  She leaned into him for a moment until they heard their plane being announced.  She pulled away and ran her hands over her face.  She wasn't crying, but she was close.  He watched her for a moment before he stood up and grabbed their bags.  He slung one bag over his shoulder and held the other in his hand.  Once she was standing, his free hand reached out for hers.  She said nothing as she grasped his hand, relaxing from the mere contact.

She should have just told him in the first place, saved herself the trouble.  He'd been angry because he'd had to drag it out of her.  She understood that.  And now that he saw how upset she was, he was sorry he'd brought it up.  He didn't even need to apologize.  She knew and she forgave him before he asked.

He let go of her hand to put the luggage under the seat and made no move to hold it again.  She waited for the inevitable question, but was surprised that it took him so long to ask.  He was quiet until after they'd taken off and been served drinks.  Then he turned to her and stared at her profile until she looked at him.

"What did you remember?"  He had a blank expression on his face, waiting for her to tell him before he picked an emotion to emanate.

She shrugged.  It seemed to be the safest answer, but she knew it wouldn't be enough for him.  "Not much, really.  It wasn't even all that clear.  I'm not even sure it was real."

"You must have believed it or you wouldn't have told me.  You wouldn't have stayed with him for no reason."  His voice was soft and his eyes implored her to tell the truth.  But, as usual, he covered his feelings with humor.  "Unless you were really mad at me."  His grin didn't quite reach his eyes.

"All I could remember was being in the dark somewhere."  She looked out the window at the clouds.  "I remember being scared.  Terrified."  She felt his hand close over hers again.  "I could hear him talking to me, Mulder.  He told he was sorry for what he'd done."  His hand squeezed hers.  "He promised me that he'd take me home, that he'd save me from them."  She took a few deep breaths and continued when her voice was steady again.  "I remember him carrying me and he was scared, he kept saying my name.  He said he called you and my mom and told you I was at the hospital."  She glanced back at him, watching his eyes dart around, trying to process the information she'd given him.

It took a few minutes for the questions to formulate.  "Did he tell you that?"

"No, Mulder, I remembered that.  He told me that it was something I didn't want to remember and that I shouldn't try."

"But he put the idea that there was something to remember in your head."  He was so convinced that Krycek had never tried to do anything good in his life that he refused to hear what she was saying.

"I said no.  I went there because part of me knew there was something there to remember.  I couldn't let him die because he hadn't let me."  The last thing she wanted was another fight, but if that was what he was after, that's what he would get.

"Yeah and I'll bet the other part was telling you that it was his fault you were there in the first place."  He pulled the case file out of his bag and started reading it, pointedly ignoring her.

She grabbed it out of his hands and tossed it past him into the aisle.  "I guess you just can't believe that anyone other than you is ever doing the right thing.  Krycek certainly can't do anything that isn't wrong, and no matter what I do, I obviously get led astray all the time.  Well, I'm sorry that I'm human and my friendship is so taxing to you, but the only thing you can do about that is to stop depending on me and then see if I'm really such a drag."  He hadn't expected her outburst, but his shocked expression did nothing to calm her.  "I've got news for you.  You're not infallible, no matter what you might think.  And you're not always right.  This time, Mulder, you are dead wrong."

She crossed her arms and slumped back in her seat, ignoring Mulder as he bent down and put the file back together.  She glared at the couple on the other side of the aisle, who were staring unabashedly.  So the people on this flight were getting quite a show from the two of them.  But for once, she didn't care about the appearance.  She was furious and she got the feeling that Mulder was expecting her to apologize.  She wasn't about to.  Turning away from the other passengers, she looked out the window and kept her eyes fixed there for the rest of the four hours flight.  Mulder tried to speak to her once and she just ignored him.  It either wasn't that important or he didn't care to talk all that much because he dropped it and didn't try again.  They both respected the silence since it seemed to be the safest environment for them.

Evening found them registered in a motel on the outskirts of a tiny little town where the temperature was in the low twenties and snow flurries were falling.  The roads were deserted and the parking lot was empty.  It had to be the loneliest place on earth.  And it was rather fitting of her mood.  He had handed her a key and dropped her bag in front of her room before continuing down the hall to his own room.  And after taking a shower and pouting for a while, she found herself calling for DC information and asking for the number of the hospital.  And before she thought about what she was doing, she called the hospital, asked for the fifth floor nurses station, and hoped there was only one Angela working night shift.

Jet lag and not having slept much the night before had long since caught up with her, and she was yawning when Angela picked up the phone.

"Yes, hello?"  Angela's perky little voice snapped her back to reality.  A very very confusing reality.

"Angela?  Hi, this is Dana Scully.  We spoke this morning about… my husband."  She felt funny saying it, but it was the easiest way for her to explain who she was.

"Oh, yes, of course, how are you?"  Scully recognized the genuine kindness in the woman's voice and it settled her frayed nerves.

"I got called out of town on business and I just wanted to check and see how Kry- how Alex was doing."  No one on earth would call their husband by their last name.  At least, no one besides whoever Mulder would eventually marry.

"Oh, he was asking about you when I checked in on him earlier.  He wanted to know if you'd come by while he was sleeping.  I'll let him know you're out of town.  Actually, why don't I just give you the number and you can give him a call yourself.  I'm sure he'd love to hear from you." Scully could hear Angela flipping through something, presumably looking for the number.  A number Scully was relatively sure she'd never use.

"No, no, really, I wouldn't want to wake him and I should be back in a day or so.  I just wanted to check and see if his fever was down and how he's feeling."

It was either because she was talking, the phone connection was awfully loud, or he was just being especially quiet, but Mulder chose to wonder through the unlocked door connecting their rooms just in time to hear her checking on Krycek.  And rather than scream and yell and make a big fuss over it, he stood silently in the door and listened.

"Hold on, just a second and let me get his chart.  I just got in."  Scully smiled into the phone, only vaguely remembering that Angela couldn't see her.  "OK, here I've got it.  It looks like his fever went up early this morning, right after you left, but don't worry. that's to be expected.  Fevers usually rise during the day.  After that, it seems to be hovering ri…

Scully sighed audibly, happy that at least one thing in her day was going right.  "That's good, thank you."

Angela stifled a laugh.  "It looks like he's feeling better all around. Apparently he pulled out three stitches trying to reach the television remote."

Scully laughed too.  Anyone who was willing to inflict pain on himself to watch hospital, all reruns, all the time, television was probably in need of dire help, but it wasn't medical help that he needed.  Boredom was a good sign.  He was getting better.  She smiled to herself and sat back on the bed, resting her back against the headboard.  "Thanks, Angela.  I just wanted to check.  You'll call if anything changes?"

"Of course.  And if you'd like to talk with him, just call the main hospital number and ask for room 5307, that will put you straight through.  We do shut the phones off at ten, though, so keep that in mind."

She wished she hadn't heard that because, while she couldn't picture herself calling him up, just knowing that she could was going to taunt her.  "Thanks again.  And could you, um, could you just let him know that I called.  Only if he's still awake."  She waited for Angela to assure her before saying good-bye and hanging up.  One thing going right was all she needed.  She put the phone back on the bedside table and rolled over to pick up the papers Mulder had given her that afternoon.

It was a good thing she only needed one thing to go right because that was all she was going to get.  When she rolled over, she noticed the pair of legs in the doorway.  And looking up, she saw the accusing face attached to those legs.

To say he was angry was a staggering understatement.  She questioned that she'd ever seen him so angry.  There was silence for several minutes while she waited for him to yell.  But it became apparent quickly that he was beyond words at that moment.  A feeling of shame snuck up on her and made her look down.  She hated feeling like she'd done something wrong.  She didn't honestly believe that she had done anything wrong, but his disappointed face made her feel like she had.

She got up off the bed, feeling more equal to him once she was standing up.  So she'd called to find out how he was, she could explain that to anybody on earth other than Mulder.  But she was sure he wasn't that upset over her calling to check on him.  He was upset over her telling the nurse to tell Krycek she'd called.  And he had no right to be mad at her over it.  She was tempted to call the hospital and ask to speak with Krycek right then, just for the satisfaction of making him watch.  But it wouldn't achieve the desired aim of making anything better.  It would only serve to make everything worse and as much as she would like to prove that she was independent of his approval, it wasn't worth the resulting argument.  Especially not since she was already staring down an argument with him.

She gave him a little more time to decide to yell at her, but he said nothing.  She walked over to the door where he was standing and tried to close it, nearly succeeding before he reached out and stopped her.  She continued to push on it, knowing her actions were more convincing than simply asking him to leave.  But in the end, he won the battle of strength and she sat back down on the bed, crossing her arms and legs and refusing to look at him.

"What's going on here, Scully?"  Having won the door issue, he felt permitted to walk into her room and lean against the dresser.

She didn't look up, remaining where she was and looking irritated instead.  He could answer that for himself.  She was calling to make sure the man was living.  That was all.  And once she could convince herself of that, the she could work on convincing him.

"Earth to Scully.  I asked you a question."  He was standing the same way he would have been if they had been casually discussing a case.  Most of his weight was resting on the edge of the dresser, his legs crossed at the ankles, his hands braced on either side of his hips.

Her body language gave away just how tense the situation was.  Short of curling up in a little ball, there was no tighter any of her could get.  Her hands were clenched into fists, her legs shaking involuntarily.  She'd thought most of her anger had been spent in the plane when she'd snapped at him.  But she had to admit she was wrong when it surged back up at the mere sight of him.  Every word he said made it worse.  She wanted him away from her.  As far away as possible.

"Believe me, Mulder, I heard you.  I was just hoping that if I ignored you then you would go away."  Her tone was low, her voice clipped.  There was no way for him to mistake her anger for guilt.

Yet he did anyway, probably a conscious choice.  "Like maybe if you pretended that I hadn't caught you then I'd pretend too?"

She bit back the words that threatened to spill forth.  He was being annoying, but not particularly cruel.  She didn't need to start slinging mud.  Maybe she could just let him rant until it was out of his system and then watch him leave.  She'd had enough fights with him for one day.

"Scully? Are you going to answer me or just sit there and wait until I  walk away?"

"That was the plan, yes."  OK, so silence wasn't going to work.  Maybe she could just say the absolute minimum and then he'd get the message.  According to him she'd done something horribly wrong and she saw no point in trying to defend herself.  He'd never believe any differently.

"Well it's not going to work."  He chose to stay where he was, not exactly expecting her to give in, not expecting what she did either.

"Yes, well, I can see that.  Suit yourself."  She unfolded herself from the position she'd shrunken into and moved the papers off her bed.  Then she grabbed her pajamas and her robe and went into the bathroom to change.  She had just barely shut the door when he pushed through it.  "Get OUT!"

Somehow he managed to ignore the shocked look on her face.  "I'm not going to let you ignore me, Scully."

"I said get out, Mulder, and I meant it."  Still holding her clothes in her arms, she stepped forward, pushing Mulder out the door.  But he grabbed her arms and brought her with him, back into the main room.

"I'm not going anywhere until you talk to me."  He kept one arm on her elbow, holding her in front of him while he used his other hand to take the things out of her hands.  His movements were slow and careful and he gave no indication that he was still angry.  She couldn't help but stare at him.  After her hands were free, he took her arms once again and led her back to the side of the bed.  He sat down, not really giving her the option of moving away.  She settled beside him and stared past his shoulder.

"I don't get it, Mulder.  You're confusing me."  She hadn't noticed that his hands had ever left her until he ran them through his hair.  He caught her eye and held it for a minute before he looked down.

"I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have reacted like that."  He stole a glance at her in between his words.  "But you know how much I hate him."

"Maybe you shouldn't have snuck into my room."  Looking past him the way she was, she couldn't miss the way he nodded in agreement.  Then he got up and headed back to his own room.  He stopped when he was almost through the door.

"Maybe I just came by to apologize for earlier."  He didn't look back again.  After she grew tired of staring at the closed door, she changed into her pajamas and climbed into bed.  The whole ordeal had become too exhausting to think about any longer.

She hadn't been asleep for more than a few hours when the ringing phone woke her up.  She stared at it before she answered, not understanding why he hadn't knocked on the door.  It had to be Mulder, no one else knew where she was.  Finally, she picked it up.  "Yeah, what?"

"Get up, get dressed, get packed, I'll meet you at the car."  He hung up the phone, leaving her to stare at the receiver, hoping that it held some answers for her.  It  didn't.

She did as directed, grumbling unhappily to herself the entire time.  Her brain was only half awake by the time she reached the car.  She looked down at her dress pants and sweater and then back at Mulder.  He was sitting in the car, but she was sure he was in a sweatshirt.  She opened the door and was immediately rebuked.

"Where's your bag?"  Was he wearing jeans?

"It's in my room.  What's going on?"  She noticed at that point that Mulder's overnight bag was in the back seat.  And that he was definitely in jeans and a sweatshirt.

"Well, go get it.  The plane leaves in 45 minutes.  Hurry up."  He didn't bother to look at her while he turned off the car and took the keys out of the ignition.  He leaned his head back for a moment, opening his eyes momentarily to glare at her.  She shrugged at his closed eyes and went back for her bag, quickly changing into her own jeans and then returned to the car.

They drove in silence until they reached the airport.  Only then did she give in and ask.  "OK, Mulder, I don't get it.  Where are we going?"

He slammed the car door, glared at her again and started walking toward the terminal.  "We're going back to DC"

She asked him why, but he ignored her until they had boarded and found their seats.  Seats which were located three rows apart.  He stopped by her seat while the few other passengers were still boarding.

"Turns out the strange lights over the field were just the lights from a small plane.  The farmer's son was learning to fly without a teacher and didn't think anyone would notice him.  The local police caught him tonight, so there was no reason for us to stay."  He walked back to his seat, not waiting for her response.

There were about four other people on the plane, including the crew.  Scully stayed in her seat and turned around.  There wasn't anyone there who would be bothered by their conversation.  "We couldn't have stayed until morning?  We've already paid for the motel rooms and it's…"  She checked her watch twice to be sure of the time.  "3:45.  Did we get called back?" Maybe there was a good reason for them to be on a plane in the middle of the night.  Maybe he wasn't just torturing her because he'd been awake and he knew she hadn't been.  And maybe there was a good reason their seats were three rows apart.

"No one called us back.  I just assumed you'd want to hurry home to your boyfriend."  He made quite a show of putting on his headphones and turning the volume up on his walkman.  She made a face at him and didn't care that he made one back.  She flipped back around in her seat.  And then she started to wonder if they were going to resort to sticking their tongues out at each other before this was over.

Sulking amused her for the first half hour, paging through the in flight magazine took up another twenty minutes.  She pulled out her laptop and decided that she could play games as well as he could.  She hooked her modem up to her cell phone and sent Skinner an email, requesting a few vacation days due to 'an unusually high stress level associated with her working environment,'  carbon copied it to Mulder and then put her computer away. Skinner wouldn't deny her a couple of days and unless something huge came up, he wouldn't let Mulder run off without her.  So, while she was giving herself a few days to figure this mess out and let the fight with Mulder blow over, Mulder would be trapped in his office with nothing of any value to do and some good questions about her absence from Skinner.  She smiled as she drifted off to sleep.  Maybe the fight wouldn't blow over, but she was making him as unnecessarily miserable as he was making her.  He deserved it. And the best part about it was that Mulder wouldn't even know it was coming until he got to work and checked his email while she was still at home, sound asleep in her bed.

She felt moderately guilty a few hours later when she awoke to his gentle touch.  He was pushing her hair back from where it had fallen across her face while she slept.  She smiled, forgetting about the strange way he'd been acting, forgetting about the reason why he'd been acting so strangely.  She let him play with her hair for a moment, relishing the few moments without tension. They were still in the air, but he'd moved to the seat beside her.  The she remembered about their argument, the one where he was pretending to be a martyr and she was purposely hurting him, and she no longer welcomed his touch.  She jerked away from his hand before she could second guess herself.  He pulled his hand back immediately and actually looked like he knew he'd done something wrong.  But she knew him and she knew the only thing he was sorry about was that she wasn't letting his temper and mood changes slide.  She was holding a grudge too for once and he just wasn't used to it.

"We'll be landing in a couple minutes.  You should get you things together."

She folded her arms across her chest.  She'd put her laptop away earlier and she'd never even bothered to take her coat off.  He knew she didn't have anything out to put away.  He probably had something to tell her but when he ascertained that she was still angry, he decided not to say it.  She didn't answer him, choosing to turn away and stare out the window.  She kept promising herself that it wasn't worth it to argue, but whenever he started it, she fell right into the trap and argued back.  This time, she swore, his time he's not going to win.

End Part One
Continued in Part Two

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