TITLE:  World Without End: Book Two (8/?)
AUTHOR:  Rachel Anton
E-MAIL:  RAnton1013@aol.com

xxxxxx

About eight years ago I met a woman in a bar at 
O'Hare International Airport who told me her name was 
Susan.  She was pretty and I was lonely, on a layover 
between California and New York.  It was a very busy, 
insane time in my life.  I barely had time to 
breathe, let alone seek out sexual partners.  Susan 
came on to me pretty blatantly and I was just tipsy 
enough to let my defenses down long enough to invite 
her back to my hotel room with me.

We had sex and it was pretty good.  Not a life-
altering experience but it passed the time while I 
was waiting for my flight and gave me the brief 
illusion that I was achieving human contact.  Then I 
fell asleep.  That was my mistake.  She was still in 
the room.  Don't know how that happened.

I woke up to the sound of shuffling papers.  She was 
going through my bag.  In retrospect, she was 
probably looking for cash.  I was pretty well dressed 
at the time, silk and leather and all that, and she 
looked like a K-Mart kind of gal.  But I was guarding 
some pretty dangerous secrets.  I was being pursued 
by some pretty dangerous people.  I thought maybe she 
was working for my enemies.  I thought...No, I didn't 
think.  I reacted.  I shot her in the head.

In my most recent recurring nightmare I am standing 
over Susan's body, watching the blood drain out of 
her forehead as her face slowly morphs into that of 
the woman sitting across from me right now.  The most 
disturbing thing about the dream is the way I feel 
watching her die.  Not the horror one would expect 
but rather an almost perfunctory regret.  A great big 
cosmic whoops.  Similar to the feeling I got looking 
down at Melissa Scully's corpse.  Wrong sister.  
Whoops.  Better haul ass.  Of course in my waking 
hours that incident haunts me as a near death 
experience might.  A near death experience that one 
doesn't recognize as such until long after the fact.  
Like when you're in a car accident, one caused by 
your own stupidity, clumsiness, recklessness, 
whatever, and maybe you hit your head or something 
but it's not too serious and you get home and go to 
bed and wake up in the middle of the night and go 
"Shit, I almost killed myself."  I've been doing that 
every day, for years.

There was a brief period of my life when I was at 
peace.  When colonization began, when the world 
outside was losing all remnants of sanity and 
stability, I was slowly stabilizing internally.  
Finally there were no more secrets, no reason to 
murder a woman who decided to go through my 
belongings.  I was free.  It was liberating, seeing 
everything going to hell and knowing that I would be 
okay.  Better than ever.

I kept that peace, that freedom, for quite a long 
time.  I lost it when I fell in love with Dana.  When 
I realized that there were more secrets to keep, more 
parts of myself that needed to be forgotten.  I want 
her to love me for all that I am but I know that she 
can't.  She knows it too, which is why she won't let 
me talk to her about things like this.  I live in 
fear of the day she remembers who I used to be.  She 
can never accept it, but it is a part of me.

I've lost the peace and the fearlessness but I've 
gained so much.  I suppose terror comes with any 
goodness in a person's life.  The terror that you'll 
losethat goodness.  My father told me it was always 
better to be poor rather than rich.  A poor man only 
has envy to worry about but a rich man lives in fear 
of the world.

Sometimes, though, sometimes I realize that the good 
outweighs the bad.  At moments like this.  Moments 
that my nightmares can't touch.  But even now, 
sitting in the cafeteria and watching the woman I 
love scarf down a sloppy Joe with a smile on her 
face, there are some things I can't forget.

Dana is a really messy eater.  I don't always notice 
it but  it's hard to miss the saucy globs on her chin 
and the mystery meat under her fingernails today.  
You'd think she was the one with only one hand to 
work with.  It's the cutest thing in the world.

She notices me staring at her from across the table 
and raises a curious eyebrow.  She'd think I was the 
biggest sap ever if I told her what I'm thinking.  
Either that or she'd think I was criticizing her 
dining habits.  So I don't say anything but continue 
to watch surreptitiously around my own lunch.

One of the things I've discovered since I've fallen 
in love is that being in love makes you feel the 
exact opposite way a normal person would feel in any 
given situation.  A normal person would think this 
was pretty gross and probably find another lunch 
companion.  But I've never been a normal person and 
now I'm pretty much certifiably insane.  Good thing 
we don't have a loony bin around here.

"So, what are you working on today?"  I ask and she 
waves her hand dismissively in front of her face as a
response.

"The usual, you know..."  she shrugs.  I guess that I 
do.  I've been trying not to think too much about it.  
I've been avoiding asking her about it.  But the fact 
is, Mulder's been spending every day for the past two 
weeks in that tiny lab with her and I can't stop 
wondering, worrying.  She doesn't talk about her work 
as much as she used to, doesn't share the details of 
her days quite as easily.

She told me he found out about us although she 
doesn't know how.  I knew he would.  I knew she 
wouldn't get the chance to tell him.  I'm not sure 
why it makes such a tremendous difference to me 
although I can see why it would piss him off.  I 
guess I just wanted her to be proud of it, something 
to present to him as part of who she is now, not 
something she has to bury like a dirty little secret.

Anyway, it doesn't matter now.  He knows.  I asked 
her how he took it and all she said was "well".  What 
that might mean is anyone's guess.  One thing's for 
certain though.  He's not leaving.

We've managed to avoid each other for the most part 
and when we do see each other we barely grunt in 
acknowledgment which is why seeing him stride 
purposefully across the cafeteria towards our table 
is so completely shocking to me.

At first I'm afraid that he's got some "important" 
thing or other to discuss with Scully and that he'll 
drag her back to the lab before she can even finish 
her lunch.  But he doesn't.  Instead he looks 
directly at me and asks, "Scully, would you mind if I 
talked to Krycek alone for a minute?"

Dana looks as taken aback as I feel and slightly 
terrified as well.

"Would you mind?"  he asks, shifting his gaze to her 
and affecting some kind of revolting whipped puppy 
expression.

"Um..."  she looks up at him and back at me, fear 
definitely the predominate emotion in her eyes now.

"It's okay," I tell her, not particularly wanting her 
in his presence if I can help it.  She nods slowly 
and untangles herself from chair and sandwich, 
backing towards the salad bar but continuing to watch 
us with every step.  I suppose she thinks she's being 
subtle, hiding behind the soup buckets like that.  
She'd have made a terrible spy.

I wonder what she's expecting.  A junior high 
lunchroom brawl maybe.  As much as I'd like to sucker 
punch the bastard until his face turns blue, I vowed 
to myself that I wouldn't let myself lose control 
like that again.  Especially not in such a public 
venue.  I refuse to have my authority undermined by 
that black-blooded, pathetic mutant.

"So listen, Krycek, I wanted to talk to you without 
Scully because..."

His eyes dart around nervously and he spots her 
watching us and focuses on her for a minute.  He's 
still standing over me, looming like some kind of 
albatross.

"Why don't you sit down?"  I ask but it's not really 
a question.  He does, bringing us eye to eye.  I push 
my tray away, not wanting the remnants of my lunch 
between us.  For some reason the congealing sloppy 
sauce feels like a weakness.

He sighs and shuts his eyes and I notice that his 
skin has turned a sickly shade of green.  He's quiet 
for a ridiculously long time and if I had a watch on, 
I'd be staring at it.

"Mulder, what's the problem here?"  I finally bark 
out, a bit louder than I intended to.  His eyes pop 
open and he looks like he's just been roused from a 
nightmare.

"Krycek, look I...I know that you and Scully have 
a...special situation here..."

Well, looks like the nightmare has only just begun.

"Special situation," I repeat, uncertain that I've 
heard him correctly.  We find ourselves staring 
across the table, each silently daring the other to 
clarify.  He breaks first, clearing his throat to 
diffuse the tension.

"Anyhow, for reasons I have yet to comprehend, she 
seems happy with it."  He looks down at his hands and 
adds quietly, "With you."

Damn straight, mother-fucker.  Knee-jerk reaction 
which I struggle to keep from showing on my face.

"So, um, I think that we need to come to some sort of 
understanding."

"What kind of an understanding?"

"A...a truce I guess you'd call it."

Truce?  Are we at war?  We haven't even spoken in 
almost a month.  Cold war maybe.

"What would that entail exactly?"

He looks confused and glances over at Scully again, 
as if he were seeking out her assistance.  Did she 
put him up to this?  Perhaps.  More likely though, 
he's doing it to impress her, because he thinks it's 
what she wants.  Show her what a big man he is.  In 
any case he doesn't seem to have put much thought 
into this because he doesn't have an answer at the 
ready.

"I just...I think that we need to act our age here, 
Krycek.  Not like a couple of teenagers competing for 
her attention."

He leans back in his chair with a self-satisfied 
expression, waiting for me to snap, to become that 
teenager.  I won't give him that.  As adept as he is 
at bringing me to that place inside, I will never 
show it.  It's a constant struggle.  I suppose that's 
why I've been avoiding him to this degree.  I'm not 
sure how to explain what he does to me.  I guess it's 
sort of similar to the Johnny Birch situation.

Johnny Birch went to my elementary school.  He was 
the coolest kid in the 5th grade.  All the girls 
showed him their underpants at recess and he could 
eat worms without wincing.  I idolized Johnny Birch 
and he thought I was a piece of crud, not worthy of 
being wiped from the soles of his penny loafers.  I 
followed him around like a goober, copied his style 
of dress, his irritating Euro-trash syntax, 
everything.  Nothing was good enough for him though.  
He went to a different junior high school and I ended 
up being pretty popular myself once I got away from 
Johnny.  But he had a girlfriend at my school and 
sometimes he'd come and visit.  Whenever he was in 
the building it was like a force field of dorkiness 
overcame me.  I reverted to my groveling, loser self 
and had to spend lunch time in the restroom, hiding 
from my peers lest I completely humiliate myself.

Long, stupid story but it's the best analogy I can 
come up with at the moment.  Mulder brings me back to 
a time when I killed people for going through my 
shit.  He brings me down.

"I've got no problem with that, Mulder but you've 
gotta understand something here.  Things are 
different.  She's different.  You can't expect your 
relationship with her to go back to the way it was."

"I...I know that.  She seems...happy," he winces 
around the word again but adds, "That's all I care 
about.  All I ever cared about..."  and then looks 
off at a distant spot on the wall.

"Well then we don't have a problem, do we."

"No I, uh, I guess not."

I wait for him to leave but he lingers annoyingly.

"You're a lucky fuck.  I hope you realize that," he 
finally says.  This is an interesting truce.

"I don't need you telling me that, Mulder."

He laughs and I realize how defensive and snappy I 
sound.

"Relax, man.  This is what I'm trying to tell you.  
You don't have anything to worry about."

"I just want you to understand that this is serious.  
It's not a game to me.  I love her."

Mulder makes a disgusted, constipated face and chews 
the inside of his cheek.  I don't know why but it 
felt really good to say that to him.  Finally.

"I realize that.  I...I love her too," he sputters 
and I feel like pummeling him again.  "That's why 
I...I'm willing to let her go."  How generous of him.  
How kind.

"I don't think you've got a choice."

He stares blankly at me for a second and then nods 
pitifully.

"Look, I...I'm not asking to be your best friend 
here, Krycek.  I just think that, for her, we should 
try to be civil to each other."

He stands up and extends his hand and I don't have a 
choice really because I think everyone in the place 
is watching us by now.  I shake his hand briefly and 
the place goes deathly silent except for a small "Oh 
my God," emanating from somewhere near the salad bar.

I can't help but chuckle at that.  Mulder sits back 
down and people start talking and moving again, 
crisis averted.

"Look, I'm willing to work with you here, Krycek.  I 
mean I want to help in any way I can."

"*Any* way?  How do you feel about being a test 
subject in the bioweapons department?"  I'm only half 
joking.

"So you guys are really trying to develop a 
biological weapon here?  You think that's a good 
idea?"

"It's the only way to get rid of them, Mulder."

Even he's got to realize that.  He doesn't seem to 
though.  He's getting that constipated look again.

"Get rid of them at what cost, though?"

Is this part of our truce too?  Does shaking his hand 
give him permission to question everything I'm doing 
here?

"At any cost."

"Do you realize how dangerous this is to your group, 
Krycek?  To the people developing the weapons, the 
children who are living here..."

"We're taking the necessary precautions."

The whole point is to develop a toxin that *isn't* 
dangerous to *us*.  Of course if we're successful, 
Mulder would certainly be at risk.

"I just wonder if you might end up destroying 
yourselves before they even get to you."

"Well, what do you suggest, Mulder?"

Why is he still here, talking to me?  I think our 
"truce" would go over a lot better if we just kept on 
avoiding each other.

"I dunno, Krycek.  Look, I'm not trying to antagonize 
you here.  I'm just wondering what your overall plan 
is."

"Overall plan?  Mulder, I'm just trying to keep this 
place going.  To keep these people alive."

Short-sighted perhaps but it takes up virtually all 
of my time.

"You're working for the rebel aliens aren't you?"

The distaste in his voice is a palpable presence.  I 
can hear the accusation, unspoken but overwhelming.  
Most of the work we do for those bastards involves 
murdering people like Mulder en masse.

"You think that's gonna help you, in the long run?"

I have a sudden and vivid memory of finding out that 
Mulder was "dead" all those years ago.  I remember 
feeling angry, remorseful that he wouldn't be able to 
show up at my door and tell me how much better he 
could be running this place.  I remember feeling like 
his death had taken away a bit of my hope.  God, what 
a fucking idiot I was back then.

"It's helping us now.  They're giving us the supplies 
we need."

"For how long though?  I mean do you really trust 
them?  Do you even know why they're using you to do 
their dirty work?  It's not like they couldn't do it 
themselves.  And much more efficiently."

Does he think I haven't thought about these things?  
That I'm some kind of mental incompetent?  For God's 
sake, it's not like we've got a plethora of choices, 
here.

"So how do you think we oughtta get the stuff we need 
to live, Mulder?  The food faeries?"

"You've got a farm here, Krycek.  I think you could 
do all right without them at this point."

"Until they kill us for turning our backs on them."

He's talking again but I can't listen anymore.  I 
need to tune out for a second and try to get myself 
together.  There's this ringing sound in my ears, the 
beginnings of a hellish headache I'm sure, and the 
old phantom pain is back for the first time in 
months.  He's making me physically ill.  God if it 
weren't for Dana, he would have been dead on arrival.  
I take a few deep breaths and shred the napkin on my 
lap into a million and one tiny strips and start 
listening again.

"...so I'm just wondering if maybe you've become a 
little complacent here.  Used to the status quo, you 
know?  I mean it makes sense.  You've got a great 
thing going here and of course you want to keep it 
that way.  All I'm saying is..."

"I *know* what you're saying, Mulder."

Now please stop saying it.  God, where the hell is 
Dana?  Still at the salad bar, waiting for the 
foodfight
to start I suppose.  I wonder how much she's told him 
about her own work here.

"Dana's been working on forming an alliance with some 
other groups we know of with similar interests," I 
decide to tell him.  Serves two purposes really.  
First of all it's sort of a change of subject.  
Second, it's something involving Dana and he wouldn't 
dare criticize it.  Maybe if he sees her complicity 
in the "overall plan" he'll shut up and leave it 
alone.

"I know, she told me about that.  I think that's a 
good idea.  Especially if you guys can all get 
together and do something for yourselves instead of 
the rebels."

God, where does he get off anyway?  Criticizing me 
for working for the rebels when he's been spending 
the past six years doing paper work for the goddamn 
colonists.  I hate him.

"Maybe you should start by figuring out why the 
smoking s.o.b.  has been letting you guys carry on 
for so long.  I know someone who might be able to 
give you some information about that."

Jesus, is the room pounding or is that my skull?  
Where IS Dana?

"And who might that be?"

"Marita."

"Marita?"

I don't know whether to laugh or spit.  I laugh.

"I think you can trust her, Krycek.  And I think she 
knows a lot about them."

"Yeah, she's really good at making you *think* she 
knows a lot.  She doesn't know anything.  And if she 
did, she wouldn't tell me about it.  And anything she 
might tell me would be a lie anyway."

I have been meaning to question her though, 
nevertheless.  She's been pretty coherent lately from 
what I hear.  I need to figure out what the hell to 
do with her.

"Well, that's my suggestion anyway.  I think she 
could help you.  You're the big boss man around here 
right?  You could make her talk, King Krycek."  He 
makes a familiar smart-assed face and picks a tater-
tot off of Scully's tray and pops it into his mouth.

"She's coming back you know."

"Yeah, well, she doesn't like tater-tots anyway."

"Yes she does."

He laughs and finally, FINALLY, stands up and starts 
to walk away.

"You know, for someone as fortunate as you are, 
you're pretty uptight," he tells me as he passes me.

I feel something on my head and start to swat, 
thinking it's some sort of insect.  Then I realize 
it's Mulder's hand, ruffling my hair.

"You oughtta try smiling once in awhile," he says 
jovially.  I have a gun strapped to my boot.  I could 
shoot him in the back right now as he's walking out 
the door.  It would be so easy.  If only...

"What the hell just happened here?"

If only this woman wouldn't cry if I murdered him.

She sits down next to me this time instead of across 
and takes my hand in hers.  I feel like pulling her 
into my lap and squeezing her so tight.  I don't want 
her to go back to the lab.  To him.

"I'm not sure.  First he wanted to be my friend and 
then he wanted to tell me everything I'm doing 
wrong."

She chuckles and shakes her head in a mixture of 
amusement and disbelief.  I wonder what it would take 
to get her to tell me what I'm doing right.

"Hey, you wanna go home and take the rest of the 
afternoon off?"  I lean over and whisper in her ear.  
I give her my best "fuck me" look but really I'd just 
like to crawl into bed with her, wrap myself around 
her and have her touch me, hear her tell me that she 
thinks I'm the best thing since sliced cheese.

"I can't, Alex.  I'm kind of in the middle of 
something.  In fact, I should be getting back."

"You sure about that?"  I try again, kissing her neck 
this time for emphasis.  She leans into me and sighs, 
with arousal or regret I'm not sure.

"Mmmmvery."

She turns to me for a brief kiss and then she's on 
her feet and on her way out.

"You did a good thing today, zhivotnoye," she tells 
me and then she walks out the same door Mulder went 
through five minutes ago, leaving me with a pile of 
uneaten tater tots.

xxxxxx

End Chapter Eight