Summary: Set at the end of One Son, when Krycek sees Marita for the first time since the last time. Krycek/Marita, R.

Reunion

By Josafeena


Rating: R for language and sexual references
Spoiler: 2 Fathers/1 Son
Category: Vignette, kinda
Summary: Set at the end of One Son, when Krycek sees Marita for the first
time since the last time.
Disclaimer: They don't belong to and never will so I'm just borrowing them,
no harm was done to these fictional characters in the making of this story.
Author's Note: The look on his face when he sees her is just priceless. Too
many emotions to choose from. This is the product of watching that episode
too closely for possibly Fanfic threads. Big, no, Huge thank you to Kris
for being such an excellent Beta!



They had the foetus. Everything was fucked up now.

Alex Krycek stormed down the corridor amid the rush of the panicked
evacuation. His fist clenched at his side and a deep frown was set solidly
on his forehead. He hated this feeling of helplessness that threatened to
suffocate him. It felt like there was nothing more to do but stew in his
own inability to change what had happened. He was in dire need of shooting
someone or something, preferably Old Smokey, for leaving him in such a
state.

"Krycek!" The hushed voice called him from a doorway, awakening him from
his dark frustrations. Jeffrey Spender hid in the shadowed entrance, his
eyes wide and frantic. "I'm trying to get out of here."

"What are you talking about?" Krycek drew closer to the nervous agent.

"We can't get past security. They won't recognise my authority to remove a
patient."

Curiosity for who Spender wanted to take out of this prison drew Alex to
peer inside the room. He blinked at the sight that met his eyes. All he
could do was gape at the shadow of Marita Covarrubias who faltered under his
gaze, unable to look him in the eye. His lover, his partner, his betrayer,
his fault - No, he wasn't guilty about what had become of her. But he could
never wish the horrific oblivion of the black oil on anyone, least of all a
woman as vibrant and beautiful as she had once been. Her blonde hair hung
lank and greasy around her particularly angular face. All the colour and
vitality had been bleached out of her features. The brightest colour was
the red of her completely blood shot eyes.

"My father did this to her, she wants to tell her story." Spender implored
him, placing a hand on his arm.

Krycek pulled away in disgust, realising how little Spender knew of what was
happening around him. "Sorry sonofabitch." He muttered. "You don't get it
do you? It's all going to hell. The rebels are going to win." He looked
to Marita, knowing she was the only left who would understand him. "They
took it."

"They took what?" Spender asked naively.

For once Marita met Alex's eyes, mirroring the anxiety he felt. She opened
her chapped, pale mouth to speak but only a croak came out.

He walked away, lost in his own futile anger. Footsteps behind him made
Alex turn. They were following him, Spender supporting the barely mobile
woman. 'Alex just kept walking, fuming to himself. He considered telling
them where to go, but when it came to hopeless causes like this one he just
couldn't turn his back. After all, he still hadn't given up on recruiting
Mulder for the resistance yet. Marita may have stabbed him in the back but
the least he could do for her was get her out of this hellhole. He was
grateful for the discreet distance they kept.

At the desk the guard wanted to give them trouble. The blue uniformed man
got up from his desk and stood in the entrance.

"They're with me." Alex stared intently at the guard, fixing him with an
icy glare.

The security guard coughed, ushering them through the metal detector.

Outside, Alex held the door open while Spender helped Marita into his car.
She was so frail. The walk out of the facility had completely worn her out.
Her tired, reddened eyes drooped shut.

She had been put through a lot. He had been reading reports from this
facility only a few days ago, little had he knew who that information had
been gleaned from. He gave her one fleeting apologetic glance before
retreating back to his car.


* * *


Alex had paced around his apartment for two whole hours, swigging the most
expensive malt whiskey he could find, and twirling his gun around his
finger. He would blow some cash on a hooker if felt at all inclined for sex
right now, but he didn't. His nerves were shot. He couldn't decide whether
to wait for the black oil to seep under his door, or to just shoot himself
now and get it over with. Thoughts of the oil gave him the shivers, but he
had never been the suicidal type, it went against his well-honed survival
instinct.

The decision was made for him when Spender the Elder took the liberty of
informing him of what had happened at the base. Alex had never known the
Smoker to be poetic, but his lurid description of the elder being surrounded
and incinerated by the Rebels was a little too graphic.

"I wanted you to know, Alex, in case you try anything stupid. It's just the
three of us now." The old snake told him.

"Three?" Alex rubbed his forehead, his hands still trembling with shock.

"You, me, and Diana Fowley. A triumvirate, if you will."

Alex wanted to laugh. Diana was only alive because she gave good head.
That left only two.

"Listen to me, Alex. Now isn't the time for heroics or maverick action on
your part. We should be pooling our resources, working together." The drag
of air between chapped lips, hissed over the phone. "Can I have your
agreement, Krycek?"

"Sure." Alex sighed, disconnected the call. He didn't really want to
listen to the old fart wheeze on about cooperation. It was bad enough that
he had been the only one to survive, but to have to listen to him and agree
with what he was saying was that little bit worse.

Alex lounged in his large leather armchair, watching the first images of
burnt black corps, as captured by CNN, then soon enough they were being
shown on every channel. He muted the newscaster's speculative theories.
They were assuming the burnings were cultist mass suicides, though some of
the smarter networks actually did some research and pulled up similar
footage from a year ago when the rebels had started their bonfire spree. He
still couldn't believe the Elders were all gone. He wasn't sorry - those
old pricks had left him out in the cold on this one, and look what happened.
And then there were three. Spender, Fowley, and him, the last of the late
great Syndicate. He held up his glass to the flickering images on the
screen, to them, and their ill fated plans.


* * *


Alex fiddled with the skeleton key, fitting it into the lock. He opened the
door to Spender the Younger's apartment. The news of the Agent's death had
come to him that afternoon via Assistant Director Skinner. He wasn't
surprised at the Cigarette-Smoking Man; he never took failure well, let
alone betrayal.

"Jeffrey. Is that . . ." She stopped in the door to a bedroom, unspoken
words on her lips.

"He's not coming back." Alex told her quietly. "His father . . ."

She turned away before he could complete his rehearsed explanation. Limping
back into the bedroom, stiff and pained like a walking corps.

Alex wasn't sure why he stayed. He had come to tell her Spender was dead.
That done there wasn't any reason to hang around. He took her place at the
doorway and watched her turn her back on him to stare out the apartment
window. "Are you feeling better?" He asked, half expecting a snide comment
about how he was responsible for her condition.

She sighed, turning to face him. Light from the window fell on her face,
revealing just how awful she really looked, however her eyes did seem less
bloodshot. "I feel dreadful." She rasped.

"You don't look so good yourself." She gave him a weak half smile.

He rubbed his unshaven face. "I've been awake for three days, what'd you
expect?"

"You never did sleep well during a crisis." She whispered to the room.

He pressed his tongue into his cheek, not wanting to let a retort slip out.
She was right after all. He remembered a year of sleepless nights in Hong
Kong.

Her slight frame leaned delicately on the wall; noticeably more delicate
than it had been last time they met. "Maybe you should rest for a while."
She suggested.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

She sneered, her prissy nose wrinkling at the bridge. "Like I'd have the
energy to try anything. And I mean anything." So her sense of humour hadn'
t been sucked out through a tube.

He looked back at the door. The smart thing to do would be to walk out and
not look back, but the spacious double bed beckoned to his aching shoulders
and weary feet. "Maybe just for an hour or two." He stepped closer to the
bed, slowly sitting down on the edge to take his shoes off. Fully dressed
he lay back on Jeffrey's bed. She was right; there wasn't anything she
could do to him that he wouldn't be able to fight off. He believed they had
come to an understanding of sorts. They were on the same side now, and had
probably always been. It would be nice, just for a little while, to lie
here, with someone would knew what he knew, who understood what his life
was.

Marita wandered to the other side and cautiously lay at his side.

He looked over at her, a little surprised that she would want to get so
close to him again. The black bags under her eyes explained it. Her
eyelids were drooping, but she held them open long enough to give him a
sorrowful glance, before closing them on the wetness that threatened to
spill out and embarrass them both. He cringed at his own inability to say
something comforting, but what could he say that would make everything
better? This woman had hurt him more than any other and he couldn't seem to
forget it. Seeing her in pain, in torment, softened his heart, yet it was
pride that kept him silent.

Alex gave a loud tired yawn and shifted in the bed. "Smokey's boy sure had
a comfortable bed." He mumbled sleepily.

"He was very kind to me." She whispered, curling up under the covers. "I
don't think there was a selfish bone in his body."

"There sure weren't any smart ones."

"Don't speak ill of the dead, Alex." She scolded, making him feel guilty at
once. Jeffrey may not have been the wisest spark in their ragtag bunch but
he didn't deserve to die for that. Alex knew all too well what it was like
to pay for your naivety.

He rolled over and propped his head up on his arm, facing Marita. He
started to imagine what kinds of tests they would have put her through. So
much about the oil was still a mystery; the information they would have
gotten from testing her would be invaluable . . . . He stopped that train
of thought before it went further. The kinds of scientists the Syndicate
hired were cold, unscrupulous, and had no regard for the feeling of their
subjects. No matter what they could have learnt from her, she didn't
deserve to be tortured like she had.

Her eyes were upon him in seconds, a confused frown dancing above them.
"What are you thinking about?"

"I . . . I was just remembering what it was like . . . after the oil." He
had to make a special effort not to shiver.

Her face darkened. "At least you didn't have to go through their
experiments afterwards."

"No, Spender just locked me in a silo for a few weeks." He scoffed.
Sometimes he thought he would have preferred the tests to that horrible
period spend driving himself insane, in that pitch black, filthy, enclosed
space. So much time spent trying to convince himself that the wall weren't
closing in on him, that he was being buried alive, that sooner or later
someone would get him out of there. The shiver finally shook him up and
down his spine. He wouldn't look at her but he felt her large eyes staring
at the side of his head.

"What did you do after?" She asked in a hoarse whisper. "How did you . . .
how did you get your life back?"

He could hear the terror in her voice, the painful idea that she couldn't
turn herself around after all she had endured, and he remembered that exact
feeling when he'd been liberated from the Silo. He was nothing but a
ragged, skin-and-bones shadow of his former self. He recalled standing in
front of the mirror, shaking like a leaf, thinking the image before him was
that of a World War Two concentration camp survivor. It had been such a
long struggle to regain his health, to get himself back on track and to
banish the black oily demons of the North Dakota from his mind, but he
managed it all the same.

"I went into hiding." He told her. "I looked after myself, and took a long
look at my priorities in life. Of course, at that time my priority was to
get revenge with the old men, but it sure kept me going." He finally drew
his eyes to meet hers. "You'll do it Marita, you're strong, and you're not
half as dumb as I was."

She gave him a small smile. A smile that made her weary, sickly face light
up.

"You know you can't stay here." His croaky voice rasped.

"I know." She sighed. "Spender was talking about bringing me to his Aunt's
home in Maine, she's a nurse."

"I'd scratch that plan." He stretched his back, rolling his stiff shoulders
and settling himself into the bed.

He watched her eyes drifting closed. Her breathing, though interrupted by
the odd cough and sniffle, became shallow and rhythmic. Seeing her fall
into peaceful slumber, made him feel glad she'd survived the oil. He wanted
to see her get better. He wanted to see her back to her calculating,
conniving, treacherous self. Maybe then they could work together. He could
use a good ally against the black-lunged bastard and his bitch.

Krycek let his eyes rest for what he thought to be about an hour. When he
awoke, Marita was still slumbering at his side. He got up and pulled his
shoes back on. He didn't want to be there when she woke up. There were too
many complications for them to stay together. She needed care, he needed
freedom. She would get back on her feet without him; all he had to do was
wait.


The End