Lost

by Jessica Zyvarek Taylor

She looked down at the skirt she was wearing and cringed.  She couldn't believe she'd left the house looking like this.  Of course, had she at least been with another person she would have felt better, but she wasn't with anyone else.  The truth was, she didn't really have anyone to ask.  She only rarely kept up contact with her friends from college, most of whom were married now, and the one she'd actually spoken with had been busy.  She always had Mulder, but she wasn't about to ask Mulder to go out with her to pick up guys.  She wasn't sure that he would have gone with her, had she asked him out without the 'to pick up guys' clause.  All day, he'd been acting like he had plans.  Well, he'd been in a good mood, which in his book equated to his having plans.

She hopped off the stool she'd been perched on to straighten her skirt out and tug on the hem a little, hoping that it might actually grow. But as her feet touched the floor, she felt her whole body start to sway. Luckily, there was someone standing beside her that steadied her and waited until she'd safely made it back on top of her stool.  She smiled thankfully at him before he walked away with his giggling girlfriend.  She ducked her head and looked around, praying that no one had noticed.  She hadn't been aware that she'd drank so much, but when she thought back and tried to count, she realized that the last few hours had grown progressively fuzzier.  She looked back in front of her and noticed that bartender staring at her with his hand outstretched.  She felt her face grow hot as she handed over her keys.  Now she'd be trapped here until she sobered up. Or got drunk enough to call someone to take her home.

She picked up the glass of wine in front of her and drank the last few sips without pausing.  Giving in to the fact that the night had gone belly up in her face and that she did not want to remember the look on Mulder's face when he had to drag her sorry ass home, she put the empty glass on the counter and nodded at the bartender.  Three drinks later, she forgot why she had decided to drink herself stupid and stopped for a few minutes.   The guy she'd fallen on earlier returned, this time girlfriendless.  She let him sit down and make some jokes which she normally wouldn't have thought funny and found herself laughing so hard that she couldn't sit up straight.  In fact, she was laughing so hard she slipped off the other side of the stool. And this time, she was too drunk to even have a chance to right herself.

The guy she'd fallen on this time, actually lifted her back onto the stool before asking her if she was all right.  She wasn't even embarrassed this time and just nodded, hoping that he was still looking. Her hilarious new friend seemed mighty pleased with his ability to crack her up.  And he decided that she was too drunk to know what was going on, which made his plan much easier.

He stood up, and pulled her up as well.  She wasn't doing too well with this whole standing thing and she wasn't sure that the dance floor was where she belonged.  What she didn't know was that the dance floor wasn't exactly what this guy had in mind.  He had her out the back door before she realized it.  And it still hadn't occurred to her to worry until his hand clamped something over her mouth and her world went black.

Sighing, he hung up the phone.  She either wasn't home or she wasn't answering.  But regardless of what she was doing, he wasn't getting her on the phone.  So he flipped on the TV and sat on his couch feeling sorry for himself.

He spent the rest of the weekend feeling sorry for himself, and incorrectly assuming that he'd somehow pissed Scully off since she wasn't returning his phone calls.  So he didn't even notice that she was missing until Monday morning when she didn't show up for work.

A glass of ice cold water aimed directly at her face woke her right up.  And her pounding head begged her to shut off the music.  Not understanding why she'd left the music on so loud, how she'd gotten home, or who was throwing water at her, she reached for the radio.  Rather, she tried to reach for the radio.  Her hands ignored her commands.  And when she looked up to see why they were ignoring her, she realized that it was because of the handcuffs. The handcuffs connected to the bed.

Had she not been handcuffed to it, she would have jumped straight up.  As drunk as she had been, she couldn't figure out how the hell she'd gotten in this position.  Suddenly, the loud music stopped, almost relieving her headache.  She looked at the man kneeling by the side of the bed, looking hopelessly smug.  Just as her mind was beginning to process the fact that she knew this man, he spoke.

"You don't look so tough now, Scully."  The way he said her name made her squirm.

But she still couldn't place exactly who it was.  She looked down, realized thankfully that she was still dressed, but noted miserably that it was still in the outfit she couldn't believe she'd left the house in.  And after lying in bed for who knew how many hours, the skirt had twisted itself around her and was quite definitely way too short for her liking. As if reading her mind, the guy reached out and placed his hand on her knee, sliding it ever so slowly upward.

He laughed when she started to squirm and then pulled his hand away.  She searched his face, knowing she knew him, but not being able to place him.  "You don't recognize me, do you?"  He laughed again and sauntered out of the room.  His laughter echoed back into the room, making her want to throw up, but then she realized that it might not just be his laughter that made her feel that way.

Mulder waited as long as he felt was necessary for her to come strolling in late, saying she'd overslept or her car had broken down and she just hadn't thought to call.  Then he got in the car and sped to her house, praying that she was sick or something and had decided to sleep in. But he knew, almost too quickly, that her car wasn't there.  And when he opened the door and looked around, he knew she wasn't there either. Nothing, except the lights having been left on, was notably wrong, but still the apartment didn't feel right.  He had the same feeling that he'd had in her old apartment that night Duane Barry had taken her.  He couldn't describe the feeling other than to say that it just struck him that she was missing.  Somehow, he could always feel her with him and know that she as ok.  But this felt different.  He felt alone.  He didn't take more than three steps in the door before he sat down on her chair and wanted to cry.  He should have realized that she was gone sooner.  He should have known that no matter how mad she was, she would have returned his calls.

A few minutes into feeling sorry for himself later, he got up, determined to find her.  He saw the blinking light on the answering machine. Blinking one time more than he'd called her.  He pressed the play button and hoped that the other call would give him a clue to where she'd gone. Or where she was now.  He walked around the room, while listening to his own impatient voice apologize for whatever he'd done to upset her and ask for her to please call him back.  He listened to a woman's voice say she was sorry she'd missed her, but she hoped to catch up to Dana later in week, and leave her work number.  Mulder quickly wrote it down and dialed the number as he listened to the call he'd made earlier that morning, the one where he practically begged her to call just so that he'd know she was all right.

As the phone continued to ring, he prayed that this was a direct dial number because he hadn't even gotten the woman's name.  He listened to the voice mail message and decided that it as a private line.  He explained, roughly, who he was and that it was very important that she get back to him.  Then he proceeded to walk through the apartment, hoping to find something that might tell him where she'd gone.

Scully had wiggled her wrists raw trying to get out of the handcuffs before she gave up.  Giving up, she had to fight the urge to cry.  She was sick, thirsty, and being held prisoner by someone she couldn't recognize. Then he walked into the room, without what she quickly discovered had been a wig and a fake mustache.  And she found herself suddenly recognizing the man with the demented smile.

She couldn't even hide the terror, or the tears, that filled her as she realized that Mulder probably wouldn't find her this time.  She had this sickening feeling the that he'd done this not only because he wanted to kill her, but because he knew how much Mulder cared about her.  Because he'd been with Mulder, had watched Mulder go crazy, when she'd been kidnapped before.

He took a quick look around her bedroom, and was turning to leave when he saw a piece of paper sitting on one of her pillows.  He picked it up, thinking it was something she'd left there to remind herself of something. But when her cross slid into his hand, he knew this was on purpose.  He read the note, and found himself suddenly very afraid that he'd never see her again.  He stared at the words on the page and watched them blur from his tears falling on the paper.  The note simply read 'For you to remember her by.-Alex.'

He let the paper fall from his hand as he slid to the floor.  He cradled the cross in his hands like it was Scully herself.  He knew this time, more than ever before, that there was a very real chance that he'd never get her back.

It took him a few minutes to gather his strength to get up off the floor and try to think.  All he wanted to do was sit on the floor and whimper until she came back to make him feel better.  But he knew that wasn't going to happen if he didn't get up and do something about it.  He used the edge of his shirt to blot the tear stains dry on the paper.  Then he picked up Scully's phone and dialed Skinner's office.   He wasn't going to waste time talking to his secretary, or anyone else in the bureau.  He needed to get people out on the street looking for Scully and he wanted good people.

He could hear the concern in Skinner's voice when he told him what had happened.  Less than five minutes later, Mulder was standing in the middle of what had been an impeccably clean room, surrounded by agents basically taking the place apart.  He was still waiting to hear back from Scully's friend, but he knew that even if she had known where Scully was Friday night, she sure as hell didn't know where she was now.  He knew he had to call Margaret Scully, but he was putting that phone call off until later.  He couldn't wait too long or else someone else from the bureau would do it.  And that was a call he wanted to make himself.  Well, wanted wasn't exactly the word he was looking for, but words were generally failing him at that moment.

Suddenly exhausted, he slumped down into a chair and didn't look up as people continued to mill around him.   He ignored the person who sat down on the couch across from him.  He silently wished that the person would go away, since he wasn't exactly in the best mood to talk right then.  He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and pressed his hands over his eyes.  He wanted nothing more then to be dead. He'd let them get to her again and he'd given them a two day head start. If only he'd gone over Friday night to see where she was.  If only he'd checked Saturday morning.  What had possessed him to think that she would just stop talking to him for no reason?  He felt the tears rise up again and cursed himself for not being able to hide it in front of these agents.  These agents were his only hope of finding her.  He didn't have too much faith in himself to do the job.  He pulled his hands away from his face, giving up on his attempt to hide the tears.  There was no point. Everyone in the room knew he was crying anyway.  He was about to yell at whoever was sitting on the couch for doing nothing when he realized that it was Skinner.

He didn't even wipe at the tears. He knew there was absolutely no point in hiding this from Skinner.  Skinner knew him as well as Scully did. Or he seemed to.  And he knew how much this was shaking Mulder up.  Mulder looked at him for a moment, at a loss for words.  What could he say?  He hadn't noticed that she was missing all weekend?  What the hell was wrong with him?

Skinner cleared his throat.  "You said there was a note?"  Mulder handed over the note and watched as Skinner read it.   Skinner looked confused for a moment, and then noticed the cross hanging around Mulder's neck.   He knew this was probably killing Mulder.  "Alex?"  He couldn't think of anything they'd been doing recently with anyone named Alex.

Embarrassed, Mulder covered the cross with his hand.  He grimaced at Skinner before he answered.  "Krycek."

She had thought that if she at least knew who it was that was holding her prisoner, then she'd feel better.  But this was different.  This wasn't just some psycho out to get them because they were investigating something.  Krycek wasn't doing this to get famous.  He probably wasn't doing this to get money or anything normal kidnappers were after.  Krycek was after revenge and the thought of what he might do to get it made cold shivers run down her spine.  Once she'd recognized him, he'd pretty much stayed away from her.  It wasn't her own safety that she was worried about.  She knew that there was a very good chance that he was just going to kill her in the end, but she was positive that this was more an attempt to torture Mulder than to hurt her.  The only thing she had going for her was that Krycek would have to keep her alive to keep Mulder where he wanted him.  Krycek wouldn't be able to get anything out of Mulder if Mulder thought that Scully was dead.  But once Krycek had Mulder convinced there was no compelling reason to keep her alive. And she knew it.  And she wasn't in a position to do anything to help herself.

She counted herself lucky for the fact that Krycek didn't seem to want to do anything other than keep her from Mulder.  And right now, all she wanted was to be with Mulder.  But she'd settle for being anywhere except for where she was.  She wasn't really big on being handcuffed to beds in general, but she really despised it when she was handcuffed to a raving lunatic's bed and when that raving lunatic wasn't exactly a raving lunatic, but more of a really really pissed off postal worker type of guy. In the position she was in, she couldn't really tell what time of day it was or even what day it was.  There were no windows as far as she could tell and the lights were always on.  She could here the muffled sounds of talking in the next room and she was relatively sure that it was just the TV as opposed to real live people talking.  She didn't bother screaming, first off because it wasn't really her speed and secondly because she knew that it wasn't going to get her anywhere.  Even if she was someplace where people could hear her, she knew that Krycek would have her out of there before anyone would have time to respond.  She was helpless in the state she was in and all she could was wait. Wait for Mulder to come and rescue her.

And it wasn't a feeling that she cared for at all.

He had been expecting a phone call.  And he was expecting the threat.  But he had let his guard down after three days of waiting and finally fallen asleep.  And interspersed with the terrible nightmares with both Scully and Samantha begging for his help and his being unable to reach them, the noise of a telephone plagued him for most of the night. But since he hadn't slept in so long and because he'd drunk a little too much in his effort to be able to sleep to make sense of things, he thought it was just a piece of the dream.  He didn't think that it was real.  He let the phone ring for quite a while before he eventually woke up.  And by the time he did, the ringing had stopped.

She jerked awake at the sound of things falling.  It was coming from the other room, so she couldn't really tell, but it seemed to her that someone was throwing things.  She waited, hoping that she could figure out why he was so mad, praying that it wasn't her.  She didn't have to wait long before Krycek came storming into the room, looking more upset than she'd ever seen him.  Not that she'd ever really seen him upset.  Luckily, she hadn't had that much first hand contact with him.

Her phone came flying past her, inches away from her face.  And Krycek started ranting before she even had a chance to flinch.  "Why the hell isn't he answering the phone?"

From its resting place next to her head, she could hear the persistent ringing on the other end.   Why wasn't he answering the phone?  Was he all right?  Was he hurt, unable to answer the phone?  Didn't he want to find out if she was ok?  Krycek leaned over her, aiming to grab the phone. Scully tried as hard as she could to move away from him.  But her present position was stopping her from getting far, so her movements just served to upset him more.

He glared at her, his face barely three inches from hers.  "Scared?"

Upset that she'd already shown it, and determined not to slip again, she glared back.  His smug expression was really beginning to bother her. She wished she had her gun on her right then to wipe that irritating expression right off his face, once and for all.  The longer he waited for a response, the more she wanted to spit in his face.  But she wasn't really in a position where that would be wise.  Maybe after Mulder came and got her out of this mess.

Krycek had been trying to get her to flinch again.  Or maybe cry, if he was lucky.  He hated her.  And he wanted to make her miserable.  If only to make Mulder even more miserable.  The determined set of her jaw was serving only to irritate him.  He grabbed the phone and then slammed it into her cheek as hard as he could.  Pleased to see tears spring to her eyes, he smiled.  "Well, you should be."

She hadn't been expecting the strike.  She knew she should have been, but she wasn't.  And it hurt.  Her initial reaction to the pain was to cry.  But seeing his smile, she refused to give him the satisfaction. She forced her voice to sound sure, even though it was about the last thing she actually felt.  "Mulder's going to kick your ass when he finds you."

Krycek stepped back from the bed, shaking his head in a condescending manner.  "Mulder couldn't kick his own ass."  He started laughing as he walked away, but stopped abruptly before he reached to doorway.  "And he isn't going to find you."  Watching her face, disappointed that he wasn't getting anymore of a reaction, he continued.  "And if he does, he'll be too late to save you."

She waited until he'd left the room before letting a single tear roll down her face.  He was right, of course, Mulder wasn't real big on defending himself, or anyone else.  But the fact that Krycek was laughing at both of them and so sure of the fact that Mulder wouldn't find her until after Krycek was done hurt.  And when added to the taste of blood in her mouth and what she was sure was a gigantic bruise on her cheek, it was all a little to much for her to take right then.

Ten minutes after he'd given in and woken up, he was still staring at the phone.  He couldn't decide whether or not to fervently believe that the phone had actually been ringing.  He decided that it probably hadn't been, but he was awake now and he might as well wait for it to start.  He channel-surfed for a little while, then he got up and dug through his medicine chest.  Four aspirin later, he was thoroughly convinced that his headache might go away.  Eventually.  Just when he thought he was going to drift off to sleep again, the phone rang.

Grumbling, half to himself and half to the caller, he picked up the phone and put it to his ear.  "Mulder."  The caller didn't say anything.  Mulder knew the person was still there because of the noise from the TV in the background.  "Who is this?"  He felt rather stupid asking because he knew exactly who this was.

"Didn't you get my note?"  Krycek was laughing into the phone. For once, his plan was working.

Verbal clarification was all he needed.  "You son of a bitch!  I swear, if you hurt her-"

Krycek's laughter cut him off.  "Let's get one thing straight here, Fox.  I make the rules."

Mulder was about to rant at him some more, when he realized the full extent of what Krycek's laughter might mean.  He suddenly realized that Scully might already be dead.  It was not a thought that he wanted to entertain.  He knew that the minute he acknowledged that Krycek held all the cards, both he and Scully were in trouble.  He didn't know why Krycek was coming after Scully.  Well, Krycek had no better motivation than pure hate, but it seemed odd to Mulder that Krycek would suddenly act on his hate.

A whimper from the other end of the phone caught his attention. He had no reason to be sure, other than the feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he was certain that it was Scully.  He didn't think Krycek had anymore people lock up, and he was relatively certain that Krycek wasn't a cat lover, a cat being the only other thing that could produce the type of whine he'd just heard.  If she was whimpering, she was in pain.  But she was also alive.  "I want to talk to her."  He knew there was nothing useful he could tell her, but he just wanted to hear her voice.  And hearing her whimper wouldn't work the same way to calm him down.

"Didn't we just go over this?"  Krycek's words were punctuated by another sound, more heart-breaking than the first.  This one sounded like it would have been a scream, had there not been a gag across her mouth.  There was no gag, of course, but Krycek had simply sat down on the bed next to Scully and clamped his hand over her mouth.  The combination of his sitting a little too close to her and his hand painfully clamping across where a nasty looking bruise had formed was all it took to produce the desired attempt at a scream.  Krycek wanted Mulder to think he was hurting her.  Then he might be more willing to negotiate.  And he figured that since he was going to try and negotiate, he'd go ahead and ask for something absolutely ridiculous to start with.

Krycek heard the sharp intake of breath from the other end of the phone when Scully tried to scream.  He kept waiting for the outburst, when Mulder would lose it, so Krycek could pretend to get upset in return.  But, damn it, Mulder must be used to people taking his prized Scully away.  Mulder was pissed and practically hyperventilating into the phone, but he hadn't let loose with the expletives that Krycek had been expecting.  Disappointed, but not daunted, Krycek tightened his grip on Scully's face, reveling in the fact that the pressure he was putting on the fresh bruise was causing her to gasp in pain.  If he could time it right, he could have her in tears when he gave into Mulder's still unspoken demand to talk to her.  Krycek was sure that would push him over the line.

But, no matter how hard he squeezed her face, Scully refused to cry.  And Mulder was irritatingly silent.  Too annoyed to sit still, he pushed himself up off the bed, using Scully's face as leverage. She winced, but he'd already turned his back on her.  Krycek took a deep breath.  Mulder and Scully had been through this before.  And now neither of them was willing to cooperate.  "Ok, Mulder, I've grown tired of this. Good night."  He had no intention of hanging up, he just wanted to scare Mulder into talking.  This time, Mulder didn't let him down.

"Let me talk to her."  He waited, received no response, and panicked at the thought that he'd hang up and kill Scully.  "If you don't let me talk to her, I have no proof she's still alive."  He paused for another moment, hoping that Krycek's silence meant he was considering the request.

Scully had watched Krycek's face as he weighed his options.  She knew he was talking to Mulder.  She knew Mulder must have asked to talk to her.  And even though she knew that there was really no point in talking to him, since there was nothing either of them could accomplish through phone contact, she desperately wanted to hear his voice.  She knew her aborted scream had been loud enough for Mulder to hear.  She knew the thoughts that were running through his mind while he was trying to figure out what would make her scream.  She wanted to somehow let him know that even though she wasn't exactly happy, and apart from the fact that he hadn't given her anything to eat or drink since she'd been there, Krycek wasn't really hurting her.  She knew that didn't mean anything in the long run.  She knew that the master plan was still to kill her.  But she didn't want Mulder to run off and participate in some insane vengeful behavior that would likely only backfire in his face.  She was fine for the time being.  Mulder needed to know that.  And she needed to hear his voice. To know that he was coming for her.  To know that he wasn't going to let Krycek kill her.  Hearing his voice was all she needed to continue the facade of not being afraid.  Hearing his voice, hearing the strength of his conviction to find her, would give her the strength not to cry, not to give up.

She closed her eyes tightly, afraid that any moment Krycek would walk out of the room, taking away her chance to talk to Mulder.  Afraid that once he did, the tears wouldn't stop.  She wasn't expecting the phone to be shoved into her face at that exact moment.  Her eyes flew open and momentarily, her brain froze.  She couldn't think of what it was she'd wanted to tell him.  She couldn't think of anything.  "Mulder-"  She was surprised at how weak her voice had gotten in the last few hours.  She knew it was a combination of not eating and being scared and not having spoken much recently, but it unnerved her.  And if the sound of her own voice scared her, she knew what it had to be doing to Mulder.

"Dana-"  His words were lost in a jumble of syllables that she couldn't quite understand as Krycek pulled the phone away from her.  In the brief contact, she'd still managed to hear the terror in his voice. She wanted desperately to be able to go to him and put her arms around him.  He sounded like he needed someone to tell him everything was going to work out.  And even as she thought it, Krycek's growling voice interrupted her thoughts and she remembered that things might not work out.

"So, now you know she's alive."  He allowed the dramatic pause to stretch out longer than it needed to.  "Now all you can do is hope she's still that way when I call you again, if I call you again."  He had no need to make demands yet.  He had to make everyone realize that he wasn't a bank robber who wanted a helicopter and immunity.  He already had immunity.  There wasn't a person in the country that he couldn't destroy. He had power, albeit, not as much as he'd once had, but there were still people out there that feared him.  He was going to use that and drag all of this out much longer than anyone could imagine.  Hell, there wasn't even anything he really wanted, except to exact revenge on Mulder.  He was bored.  He wanted something to occupy his time.  And this was just the sort of thing that would do nicely.

Mulder held the phone to his ear long after the line had gone dead.  He knew he should call Skinner, or the other agents working the case, and mention that he'd been contacted.  But he didn't.  He gently set the phone back down in the cradle.  Krycek was a deranged lunatic. Well, he was probably deranged, but he wasn't a lunatic.  He was fully in control.  He wasn't calling out of fear.  He'd waited long enough to prove that.  He wasn't asking for anything. Mulder knew that he could probably get anything he wanted without resorting to theatrics like holding a hostage.  Krycek hadn't been hysterical.  He'd been calm.  And the calm had confirmed Mulder's worst fear.  This was just for revenge. But Krycek wasn't just going to kill her and run off.  Krycek wanted to play games.  He wanted to string Mulder along, proving that he was a formidable adversary.  Then, just when Mulder would seriously start to hope that he might get Scully back alive, he'd kill her.  And then Mulder would have the rest of his life to blame himself.

He knew that calling in and reporting the call was the best thing to do.  But he was afraid that someone would trace the call, and then, assuming Krycek was dumb enough to use a regular phone, attempt to confront him.  The only thing Mulder had going for him was Krycek's relaxed attitude toward the whole thing.  He wasn't ranting about the clock ticking, at least not yet, and Mulder was then afforded the freedom of time.

He'd had made his decision not to call.  And he seriously hoped that it was the right decision.  He hoped that by pretending not to be all that concerned with Krycek's threat maybe Krycek would give in.  He knew it was a long shot, but it was the only one he had.  He hoped that Scully would forgive him.  And then he started to hope that Scully would be alive to forgive him.

After he'd hung up, he settled down on the couch to go to sleep. He'd gotten his message across.  He was just playing games.  Malicious games, but games nonetheless.  He hadn't come up with exactly how he was going to do it.  But he would.  He had to come up with something really awful.  And something with his signature on it.   He wasn't about to be confused with your average run of the mill psycho.  He wanted to be feared.  Then maybe, just maybe, by doing their work for them, he could get his job back.  And stop running for his life.

Then it hit him.  The perfect way to get back at Mulder.  So he'd spent his life looking for his sister, right?  He spent his life convinced that she wasn't dead.  Maybe the best way to get to him was not to kill Scully.  Maybe he could just take her away too.  But Krycek wasn't going to lose her like Barry had.  Krycek was just going to keep her with him.  He didn't really like her all that much, and it would be a pain moving her around without getting caught, but it would be worth it.

A smile crossed his face while he worked out the details.  It was perfect.  And he could rest assured that no one other than Mulder would come looking for him.  The people he'd worked for had wanted to split them up.  And he knew that they would agree to let him go as long as he never gave Scully back.  It was perfect.  In more ways than one.  He'd exact his revenge.  And he'd be protected all the time.

Somehow, after the first few days of knowing nothing, he got used to her being gone.  He didn't reach for the phone and then remember that he couldn't call her.  He didn't stop to wait for her to catch up as he was leaving the office.  He didn't feel like he had to justify any of his actions to anyone.  It wasn't a feeling he liked.  But it was a feeling he got used to.  He recognized it from the other time she'd been gone and knowing what was coming made it slightly easier to take.

At least once a night, he'd find himself staring at the phone, expecting it to ring.  He was sure that Scully had her cellular with her. He could always call.  Most likely not get anyone, but he could still try. But then he would remember that his impatience might cost her life. Krycek was playing a game with him.  The longer he held out, didn't go crazy, ranting and raving and threatening, the longer Scully would live. And that was the only thing that stopped him.

Eventually, he stopped expecting.  He wasn't waiting for anything at all.  He knew that should he start to expect something, then something else would happen and he'd be let down.  He never mentioned the call he got.  Once when Skinner was grilling him, he had a suspicious feeling that Skinner knew about the call, and he almost talked. But he knew that having not said anything previously would get him in trouble so there was no way he could talk.  Period.  He had to claim to know nothing.  He had to pretend that he hadn't heard from Scully since before she'd disappeared.  And slowly, people stopped asking.  People had expected Mulder to announce it to the world as soon as he heard anything.  So when he didn't, no one thought anything of it.

Once again, he found himself digging through the drawers of his filing cabinet to find the X-File he'd hated the most.  The one with Scully's name on it.  And while he couldn't label her latest disappearance an X-File, it didn't stop him from opening it up and looking at it.

It had seemed like such a long time ago.  It had almost faded to the point where it almost seemed like a dream.  Almost.  But now, looking at dog-eared photograph of Scully's face that he'd stared at every night for those three months, he could remember even the smallest detail.  He could remember the panic when he'd heard her voice on the answering machine, he remembered the despair the day after she'd vanished when he couldn't offer Skinner any help in finding her.  He remembered the words he swore he'd tell her if he ever saw her again, alive or otherwise.  The very same words that he'd promptly forgotten he'd ever had any intention of mentioning as soon as she came back.

He felt tears building up in his eyes, tears of defeat that he didn't want to shed.  He glanced over at Scully's desk.  He hadn't touched it since the day she'd been kidnapped.  And now that he was sitting there in the dark office, the only light streaming in was from the fluorescent lights in the hallway, he could see her face as if it was happening in front of him. He closed his eyes and replayed the scene, the last conversation he'd had with her.

They'd spent well over an hour at lunch discussing, and arguing, the scientific inaccuracies of their last case.  The conversation had continued through the walk back to the building, the trip down the stairs and back into the office where the discussion had started.  Scully had continued to shake her head, refusing to believe what he was saying, even though he had been sure she was moments away from admitting defeat.  He'd brought up one final point, and thought that she'd give in.  But instead, she'd just smiled at him, one of those brilliant smiles that he was sure could power a third world country.  He'd never seen her smile like that, but he'd seen pictures of her.  He'd been so amazed that she'd finally aimed one in his direction that his jaw dropped open and he completely forgot what he'd been saying.  He'd known he'd looked stupid.  But seeing the perplexed look on her face at his apparent inability to process thoughts, followed by the blush on her face when she'd realized what had caused the bewildered look, had made it worth it.  He watched her sit down at her desk and try to hide her face from him.  Then he'd walked around to the side she was sitting on and leaned on the desk, blocking her view of the monitor.  She'd kept her head ducked down, he guessed she was waiting for the blush to subside, while he just stood there and stared.  Eventually, she gave up trying to hide her embarrassment.  She looked up and stared him in the eye, trying to make him move by the sheer power of her mind.  Once he'd gotten her to look at him, he'd simply winked at her and then walked away.  And when he'd come back from getting coffee, her face was still bright red.

A shrill ring jarred him back to reality.  His new reality.  Without Dana.  He felt the smile practically melt off his face.  It wasn't Krycek. It was Skinner.  And somehow, he knew about the phone call.  He was in trouble.  Lots of trouble.

Being tied to a bed and not having anything else to do Scully slept most of the time.  She slept whenever she possibly could.  The rest of the time, she sat there feeling generally miserable wishing that Krycek would die.  But then she'd be left there, handcuffed to a bed to die.  He occasionally shoved food in her face that she would refuse to eat until he literally shoved it in her mouth.  And he would uncuff her long enough to use the bathroom, but other than that, he didn't let her go anywhere.

And as unsure of time passing as she was, she knew that it had been too long for Mulder to not have come to find her.  She knew he had no idea where to look.  She had no idea where she was.  She could be in the apartment next to her own, or she could be halfway across the country. Or all the way across the country.  It all depended on how long she was out, but between the alcohol and whatever he'd drugged her with, she couldn't really form a good guess.  And Krycek's patterns were erratic enough to give her no indication of how long she'd been there.

Since the incident with the phone, Krycek hadn't said a word to her.  He'd spent most of the time in another room, but he'd wonder in every once in a while and stare at her.  It was beginning to drive her crazy.  She'd be sound asleep and still feel him looking at her.  He never touched her, except accidentally when he was trying to take off the cuffs. She had been terrified of him at first.  She'd seen his anger and hate when he was talking to Mulder.  But since then, he'd been remarkably placid.

And one day, she found the nerve to ask him why he was keeping her handcuffed to a bed.  Why he hated her and Mulder so much that he just wanted to torture them.  She'd watched his eyes turned cold and she was afraid that she'd said the wrong thing and that he was going to kill her right then.  But he'd simply walked out of the room, returning in a few moments with a key to uncuff her.

He sat down on the edge of her bed, carefully making sure he didn't touch her.  He waited until she sat up.  And then he began to talk. He told her about his childhood, about his parents, about how his mother had decided to commit suicide, but tried to kill him and his brother first.  He told her about how she'd shot him in the leg, but his brother hadn't been so lucky.  He told her about how he'd sat there for hours bleeding, watching his mother and brother die, before his father got home from work.  He told her how he'd joined the FBI to finally figure out what his father had really done and why it had resulted in the death of his mother and brother and almost his own.  But instead of getting any answers, he only found more questions.  And then the very same people who'd owned his father had approached him.  And where Mulder had endured the same pressure and resisted, Krycek had given in.  And he hated Mulder for having the strength to withstand it.  And as much as he'd hated Mulder, and her, for being stronger than he was, he knew that they always did what was right.  He knew that they were the good guys.  They didn't just leave people for dead, no matter how much they wanted to because it wasn't right.  And then he told how he'd been locked in that silo that they'd walked away from.  They'd left him to die.  And now he was getting even.

Seeing that, on some remote level, Krycek actually respected them, Scully knew that there might be a way out.  But she knew that even if he respected them, he was still trying to kill Mulder by keeping her hostage. He hadn't continued the story long enough for her to know that those very same men were after him now that he had attempted to refuse them.  She didn't know that his kidnapping her was a desperate last ditch effort to stay alive.  But regardless of what she didn't know, she felt herself start to sympathize with him.

Krycek hadn't really chosen the path he was on.  Mulder had had the strength to resist those men because he'd had something to live for- his sister.  Krycek's mother and brother were dead, and although she couldn't be sure, his father most likely was as well.  So he had nothing to resist for.  Nothing to lose by joining them, and his life to lose by resisting.  And although he seemed to have nothing to live for, he didn't have anything to die for either.

And he wasn't really hurting her.  Not anymore.  Yes, he'd been rough with her, hit her, when Mulder had been on the phone.  But he'd been trying to scare her only so that Mulder would be scared.  Since then she'd seen him avoid touching her.  Somehow, even though he was holding her prisoner, he wasn't really hurting her.  He knew Mulder loved her.  But she didn't think he knew how much she loved Mulder.  So she could believe that keeping her away from Mulder wasn't, at least in his mind, hurting her.  He wasn't trying to torment her, it was Mulder he was after.

And although normally the thought that anyone was tormenting Mulder would have driven her dangerously close to homicide, this was different.  She knew Mulder was hurting, the same way she was hurting, but at some point, she stopped thinking about it.  She could see the misery Krycek had endured throughout his life and she didn't want him to hurt anymore.  She'd never once entertained the idea of caring about Krycek. Not once.  Until it happened.

She felt herself reach out to the man who had been sitting silently on the edge of the bed, lost in his own horrifyingly miserable thoughts.  She was nervous and her shaking hands betrayed that fact.  But as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and began telling him that it was ok, she realized that he was shaking more than her.  The part of her mind that had been whispering Mulder's name in her ear the whole time, the part that had felt the sympathy rising up, was screaming at her to stop this insanity.  But the longer she held on to him, the quieter the voice got.  And by the time he'd reached out and held her, the voice had been reduced to almost silent whimpering.

She knew it was wrong to feel sorry for him, to care about him, but she couldn't stop it.  It was how she felt.  It was real.  And while she was holding him, she realized that the door out of the apartment was open.  She could see out into the hallway.  And she knew that if she made a break for it right then, she could get out before Krycek had even had the chance to realize it.

But instead of doing anything, she closed her eyes and continued gently talking to him, rocking slightly the entire time.  He wasn't just holding her prisoner anymore.  He had kidnapped her mind.

With every day that passed, Mulder wished more and more that he'd told someone about the phone call when it would have made a difference. He knew that every time the phone didn't ring, there was a greater chance that she was already dead.  Once Skinner had found out about the phone call, he felt even worse.  Skinner had done his usual rant on Mulder's inappropriate and possibly life-costing behavior and he had succeeded in making him feel even more guilty.  In truth, even knowing who had her and that Krycek had called didn't do anything to help them find her.  And once the investigating agents discovered that it was most likely a personal vendetta against Mulder, they didn't seem to be very enthralled with the case.

But Mulder knew that Krycek had no reason to keep her alive if the goal wasn't to torture him.  And this really was a perfect way to torture him.  He didn't know if she was alive or dead.  And not knowing was driving him crazy.

The only thought that kept him going was that he was sure, somehow, that he'd just know if she died.  Their lives had become so hopelessly intertwined that he could feel her within him.  Even though there were those times that he didn't have the faintest clue what she was thinking, he could always tell if she was mad, or in agreement with him. Or if she was scared.  He always knew when she was really scared.  It usually presented itself as a nagging knowledge that things just weren't ok.  But when she was really scared, he could feel the fear, as pure as he could feel his own fear for her.  He could tell the difference between his fear and hers because of one simple change.  Along with his fear, he always felt this pathetic helplessness and inadequacy because he knew she was hurting and he wasn't stopping it.  But with hers, it was just different.  He knew she trusted him totally.  She absolutely believed that he would get to her in time.  She was terrified only for the intervening time.

The worst thing he was feeling about the current situation was her lack of fear.  He could convince himself that she was alive simply because he could not go on without her, but he couldn't make himself feel that stabbing fear that wasn't his own, worsened by not knowing why she was so scared, but soothed by the trust she placed in him.  He couldn't trust himself nearly as much as she did.  He'd stopped feeling her fear.  And when he'd stopped feeling it, he'd stopped feeling the trust as well.  It seemed strange to him, to no longer have feelings that weren't even his own, and he tried to recreate them. But it didn't work.  They weren't her feelings.  He knew they weren't.  And it just didn't feel the same.

He could remember that Saturday morning, when the first touch of the nagging fear almost convinced him to call and check on her.  He'd felt it, growing as his own fear grew, in the time between his realizing that she was gone and the phone call.  He'd felt it strongly when Krycek had called him, seeming to almost echo when he heard her frightened voice on the other and of the phone.  And he'd continued to feel it, not quite as strongly, after he'd heard from Krycek.  But in the last few days, he'd felt nothing.  He didn't exactly miss it, since knowing how scared she was wasn't in the least bit comforting, but when he knew she was scared, he knew she was feeling something.  He wasn't sure if he was feeling nothing because she wasn't scared anymore or if she just wasn't thinking.

Both alternatives scared the hell out of him.  If she just wasn't thinking, she could be unconscious or dead or have been tortured to the point where she didn't know that she should be scared.  But if she wasn't scared anymore, Mulder was sure that the situation was much worse.  That meant she was sympathizing with her captor.  And that was just worse.  All Krycek had ever done was cause both of them misery.  What was there in his life that she could possibly feel sympathy for?  Mulder could only imagine how scared and helpless she must have been to actually identify with the man who was responsible for her sister's death.  Maybe Krycek hadn't ordered it, but he had pulled the trigger.  He had been hiding in her apartment, waiting to kill Scully, of his own accord.  And Mulder was scared of what could happen once Scully had been convinced that Krycek wasn't all that bad.  She'd already been through too much to have her sanity tested by Krycek.  If it was left up to Krycek, driving her out of her mind might be the most appropriate punishment for both of them.

Luckily, Mulder was able to focus more on one hopeful thought. Krycek hated Mulder, everyone knew that.  Why, exactly, Mulder didn't know or care.  But as far as he could tell, Krycek had no personal feelings towards Scully.  Scully hadn't done anything thing specifically to aggravate him, at least not before he'd killed her sister.  If Krycek only wanted to torment Mulder, maybe he wouldn't hurt Scully anymore than he already had.  Maybe he would only hurt her if Mulder didn't behave and do what he was told.  And while he knew that all the logical reasons in the world not to hurt Scully wouldn't make any difference to the little rat, it was still something to hold onto.  And that was how Mulder managed to rationalize not reporting the phone call.  A bunch of egotistical chauvinistic male agents threatening Krycek wouldn't do a hell of a lot of good.  In fact, it could well put her in even more danger.  And it was that argument that convinced Skinner to back down.

Even though it had worked on Skinner, Mulder at times had quite a lot of difficulty accepting it himself.  He repeated it to himself several times a day.  More frequently when he woke up in the middle of the night, with his heart beating too quickly and his mind filled with threatening and terrifying images.  And every time he even came close to believing that she might come through everything and be ok, he heard a little voice whispering that he should have mentioned the phone call earlier, when it might have made a difference.  But once he replaced the fear he was feeling with the guilt he was used to, he knew how to handle it.  Guilt was just so much more familiar to him.

But the night eventually came where nothing was helping.  His nightmare had faded away, but he was still breathing a little too quickly and his heart wasn't slowing down.  He'd tried to blame himself, but that wasn't working.  He hated knowing she was scared.  But knowing she was scared was better than thinking she was dead.  When he tried to feel something from her, anything at all, he felt nothing.  And he had tried every trick in the book to create those feelings.  Not knowing was definitely not better.  It was hell.

He tried getting up and getting water.  He tried watching TV.  He tried thinking about her.  He tried not thinking about her.  Nothing helped.  Frustrated, he switched off the TV and got dressed.   He had to get out of his apartment.  He could feel his connection to her slipping away and he was too scared to imagine what would happen if he lost the few remaining threads to that connection.  He needed to be somewhere he could feel close to her.

He couldn't remember driving to her apartment.  He couldn't remember getting out of his car.  But slowly, he became aware that he was sitting on her couch in the dark, holding onto the quilt he always used when he fell asleep there.  It smelled like her.  The room smelled like her.  But that wasn't enough.  Not even being in her apartment, surrounded by all her things made him feel close enough to her.  Close, but not enough.  Not nearly enough.  He questioned that he'd feel close enough to her if he was holding her in his arms.

He stood up and wandered back to her bedroom.  It was the only room in her apartment that wasn't impeccably decorated. This was as close to her as he could get.  Delicate figurines, about half of which were broken or missing chips of paint, were lined up across her bureau.  He guessed she'd had most of them since she was a child.  Behind  those, he could see her perfume bottles.  It struck him odd that there was more than one kind there.  Because there was just one scent that he associated with her.  He never even realized that it wasn't always the same.  He picked up the bottles, holding each one to his nose for a moment before trying the next.  And even though in his mind, she always smelled that same Scully smell, he recognized each scent as he tried them.

He recognized the one that she'd been wearing the last time he saw her.  Of course it had never occurred to him that that day was any different that all the others, other than that brilliant smile she'd offered him, but now that she wasn't there, every detail stood out in his mind.  He'd been arguing with her.  Not a malicious argument, but an argument nonetheless.  He was about to promise that he'd never argue with her again when it struck him how ridiculous a statement that would be. Arguing was the cornerstone of their relationship.  Followed immediately by trust.  But they'd argued before they'd trusted.  And he didn't want to not argue with her.  He never wanted to fight with her again, but he loved the arguing.  He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, realizing how stupid he looked, holding a ratty looking quilt in one hand and a bottle of perfume in the other, but there was no one there to care.  He held the perfume to his nose one more time before setting it back down.

He turned around slowly, surveying the room.  He'd only ever been in here once, and he'd been too sick to notice anything.  The pieces of furniture weren't all matched, but somehow, by being different, it made the room all the more comfortable.  There was a small pile of clothes tossed on the chair in the corner, stuff that looked clean and unwrinkled. It looked like she'd been looking for just the right thing to wear.  He scanned his memory for her mentioning anything about going out that night, but he couldn't remember anything.  Maybe she'd been looking for something to wear out with the same friend who'd left the message on her machine. He continued to look around, not so much looking as absorbing.  This was the real Dana.  The spotlessly clean and perfectly matched apartment wasn't her.  That was the person she told everyone she was.  But this was really her.  Not perfect.  But somehow better.  More comfortable.  He saw a book lying open on the floor next to the bed.  He knew it was there for when she had nightmares.  He knew she didn't have enough time on her hands to read regularly anymore.

He'd come here to feel close to her.  And it had worked, initially.  But now, all he could feel was an overwhelming sense of loss. He sighed as he sat down on the edge of her bed.  He just barely remembered the other time he'd been there.  When she'd gently put her arms around him and made him go to sleep.  He knew he'd been sick, and had only made it as far as he had for the promise that she'd take care of him when he got there.  And she had.  He'd closed his eyes for once in his life assured that there would be no bad dreams.  And when he'd woken up in the morning, he'd stared at the other side of the bed, before he'd noticed his gun was missing, before he claimed to not trust her, and wondered if the pillow and covers had been rumpled on the other side of the bed because she'd slept beside him. He closed his eyes, wishing desperately that she had, and praying fervently that some day she'd do it again.

When his eyes opened again, he saw something he hadn't noticed at first.  Sitting between the phone and the clock was another one of the small figurines from her bureau.  But this one had managed to get the special spot next to her bed.  He laid the quilt down and gently reached out for the figure.  He couldn't help but smile at it.  It was in much better condition than the other ones, and he wasn't sure if that was because she took better care of it or if it was just newer than the others.  But that wasn't what really mattered to him.

He'd willed himself not to cry, knowing that it wouldn't help, and hoping that he wouldn't need to cry.  If she was coming back, there was no need to cry.  And he needed to believe that she was coming back.  He needed to believe that she would always be there for him, like she hopelessly believed about him.  Mulder pushed back the covers and slid under the sheets.  There was no chance of getting any closer to her right then.  So he turned off the light and closed his eyes, still clenching the tiny fox in his hand as he drifted off to sleep.

After a few minutes, Krycek had regained some of his composure. He stood up and walked out of the room, leaving a confused Scully behind him.  She heard the front door slam, followed by a click as the deadbolt was thrown.  She didn't understand what had just happened.  But she knew she didn't like it.  She stood up slowly, afraid that if she moved too quickly the world would come crashing down around her.  She'd just given up what might have been her only chance to escape.  In favor of giving Krycek a pat on the back. What the hell was wrong with her?  She tried not to think about what Mulder would do if he found out.  If she couldn't explain this behavior to herself, she didn't stand a chance of explaining it to Mulder.  Although from the looks of it, she might never have the opportunity to explain it to him.

She walked the two steps to the door and pressed her ear against it.  She couldn't hear any noise, but that didn't mean anything.  He could have slammed the door and be sitting out there.  Or he could have left. He hadn't seemed particularly angry, until he'd slammed the door, of course, but again, that information wasn't going to do her a whole lot of good.  She wasn't sure what her aim was anymore.  She'd had the chance to escape and hadn't taken it.  So was she now going to try and escape since she'd have to work for it?  And if she opened the door and found him sitting on the couch, what was she going to do?

Ignoring her own questions, she reached for the doorknob.  It turned easily in her hand.  He'd left the door unlocked.  He trusted her not to leave while he was gone.  Or at least, not to be waiting inside the door, ready to run when he came back.  But it spoke volumes to her that he trusted her at all.  How could she leave when he trusted her not to? Krycek had trusted her enough to tell her the truth about his life.  And now he was trusting her to stay there.  She couldn't take advantage of the trust he'd placed in her.  Trust had come to mean a good deal to her.  It had always meant so much to her when her parents had trusted her enough not to check up on her that she felt incredibly guilty for doing something wrong, whether they ever found out or not.  She couldn't betray Krycek's trust.

She heard the little voice in her head start to chant Mulder's name again, trying to get her heart to behave and stop caring about what happened to Krycek.  But even as she obeyed the command to look around and assess her situation, she still wasn't sure that she'd leave given the chance. She slowly pulled open the door, knowing that Krycek was very unstable and liable to get mad at her for no reason, let alone her walking out to his living room and trying to run away.  She couldn't see him anywhere.  Nervously, she tugged on the hem of her skirt, which was still too damn short for her liking.  And having been wearing it for who knew how long, the wrinkled look of it left something to be desired.  But tugging on the hem gave her something to do with her hands as she began to wander around the room.

She found herself hoping that this wasn't where Krycek lived when he wasn't holding an FBI agent prisoner.  There was practically no furniture, except for an unpainted wooden crate turned on its side to hold the TV and a ratty looking couch that she was pretty sure had once been in someone's garbage.  A ripped and dirty wool blanket was tacked over the windows, effectively blocking out all the light except for the light provided by a broken lamp which was leaned dangerously against the couch. She could see a pile of what she assumed to be clothing tossed next to the couch, along with a few empty soda cans and moldy remnants of a plate of food.  Several days worth of old newspaper was stacked up next to the lamp.  Scully could just envision how quickly the whole place could go up in flames, but she wasn't convinced that making sure his apartment would pass fire inspections was her highest priority.

Disheartened by what she saw in the living room, she moved to the area that served as a kitchen.  The only thing she could find there was a phone.  She picked it up, almost happy to find the lack of a dial tone. She wouldn't have to explain not calling for help to anyone as long as the phone didn't work.  She leaned against the counter and gazed around the place.  The poor thing didn't have a stove or a sink or a place to put his clothes.  No wonder he hated them so much.  If she were him, she'd hate everybody too.

She walked back over to the couch and sat down.  She hadn't tried the door.  She was afraid to.  She knew that the lock was on, but she was afraid that it wouldn't pose any difficulty to break out.  And as much as she knew that she was being held here to torture the best friend she'd ever had, she didn't particularly want to break out.  She didn't want Mulder to go off on some chivalrous mission to avenge her kidnapping and kill Krycek.

To be continued in Lost 2

Like what you've read?  Send feedback

Main Page