Summary: She wasn't brave enough to ask. The Truth post-ep, Krycek/Marita.

Title: Free
Author: Elaine Duncan
Spoilers: The Truth
Category: Ma/Kr
Summary: She wasn't brave enough to ask.
Dedication: Everyone for making X-Files rock.

Why did he say no? Why did Mulder tell Skinner to stop interrogating her?

It was an answer she wanted--no, needed--to know, but a question that she was not yet brave enough to ask. Not here, not now, as she glided out of the makeshift courtroom, feeling oddly detached from the world. Not as she was leaving, leaving her mistakes, leaving this situation for good.

She probably looked sure of herself, but she damnwell didn't feel it as she slipped into her sensible pearl-tinted Ford Taurus and drove home. Home--a place she never really had, but she wished she did. Sometimes she wished she had someone to come home to instead of the cat she forced herself to get for loss of companionship.

At least the cat who she named Vaska was a source of amusement. She needed it.

So as she drove she thought. Not about the cat that had some major identity crisis, but about someone who she lost. What had she lost?

Everything, not just *him*. She had lost everything. All the things that mattered in her life were no more: she felt like she lost herself in all of this, and it was partially true for she would never be the same after the three-year hell in Fort Marlene. It still made her eyes well up when she thought about it--but her tears let loose when she thought of Alex.

He was gone.

It was hard to accept, even after a year. She was called, just said, "Oh, my God," and hung up. And she sat in her office with her head buried in her hands sobbing like a child who had lost her mother, father, sister, anyone. She had lost any consolation she had.

Marita stepped out of the car, and went inside. The cat was asleep on the window-sill, purring. That wasn't any consolation. Yet again, like nights before, days before, she walked to her bedroom, kicked off her shoes and sat on the edge of the bed, lamenting about what her life had become. She lost everything and now she had nothing. Once again she found herself crying hard, the tears unrelenting, running down her cheeks like a river. Yet again she would cry herself to sleep, but not just from loss: fright joined that. What if those who kept the Syndicate going found about her testimony? They probably would. It made her shake.

She wished he was here to tell--

"Don't cry."

She thought she heard it in her mind, thinking of it. She was going insane. Marita lifted her head, rubbing her face and wincing at the mascara stinging her eyes. But there she saw a figure standing there, repeating the words: "Don't cry." She stared, oblivious of the tears that still streaked her cheeks; it was mind-boggling. Here she was sitting on her bed crying over her dead love yet he was standing there right in front of her, clear as day.

"Wh--"

"Shh. Don't speak," he said quietly, and approached her. She opened her mouth once, twice, yet no words came out except something that sounded like a cut-off cry. He stood there in front of her, watching her with kind eyes, and added almost as an after-thought, "I was there. I told Mulder to make Skinner stop asking you questions. They would have killed you...and I couldn't bear that thought."

Her brain was not comprehending this. A ghost? What? What was it? Was it her mind or was it real? "What...Alex...you're..." she managed to get out, standing very slowly, shaking vaguely from the tears and the shock.

There was a very small smile that touched his lips. "Yeah," Alex said. "I am. But I'm here. Don't cry. I'm always here, dorogia. Don't worry--you'll be safe. I won't let Them hurt you anymore." A hand--his left, it was there now--moved to stroke at the tears on Marita's face.

"Oh, God," whispered Marita, staring at him with her wide green eyes like saucers. She wanted to hold him, kiss him, anything, and she reached out a hand and touched his cheek very gently. She asked no questions, letting her expression and still-falling tears speak words, and for some reason she wasn't suprised when he drew her into his arms and held her. She reached out for him...

And he was gone.

NOTES

1. I couldn't stand not seeing some sort of Marita/Krycek scene in here. The court room wasn't enough. I was spitting mad when she didn't see his 'spirit,' and got it into my head that (due to my sappy self) he could be her guardian angel. That night as I went to bed, almost asleep, the words came into my head and I began the story which I finished 21 May 2002.

2. The Taurus? Mom's car. The cat? Mine, Oliver, who really has an identity crisis. He acts like a dog and eats like a horse.

3. I'd like to thank all the actors and writers and directors and Chris Carter for making this show excellent... (well, the first few seasons). A big hug goes out to Laurie Holden and Nicholas Lea for portraying these two characters who I adore so damn well. Yes, indeedy.

4. 'Dorogia' is basically a sentimental word used in Russian which basically is equivalent to English's 'darling,' or 'sweetheart'. (Thanks to my RL friend Marina for telling me that.)