By N. Y. Smith
minismith@aol.com
 

Homepage:   http://members.aol.com/minismith/
Date:       August 15, 1999
Category:   MSR/X/AU
Rating:     No more than R.  This section PG-13 for language.

Disclaimer: The story's mine (well, parts of it) and the characters belong to
them what creates them.  I receive no remuneration for this effort and intend
no copyright infringement.  Et cetera, et cetera and so forth.  (Don't you
miss great stars like Yul Brynner?)

Author's Notes:  Well, sports fans, here we are again.  I started this little
opus at the same time as Doppler Effect and just recently decided to work on
it again.  It contains some of the things I never said I'd do:  mytharc and
colonization.  Although I'm still maintaining my taboo on NC-17 material, it
may be the steamiest work I've yet written (guess I'll just have to get out
my Purple Prose Thesaurus!).  This is just the first of what I envision to be
around nine chapters.  I'll try to release chapters at least weekly and the
book jacket is up at The Minismith.  Let me know what you think!

Nancy
 

Deathsman's Meed
Chapter 1

    At first he didn't recognize her-haggard, pale,
 smoky voice reduced to a ragged whisper-
chained to one of those damn tables.  His
 horror must have shown in his face for she
 cringed, turned her head away.  Which was
 just as well for she wasn't on the agenda.  He
 had to find Cassandra before they did or things
 would, literally, all go to Hell.

    "Krycek," she cried weakly.

    Regret darkened his eyes before they were
obscured behind the closing door.

    But he had been too late-too late for
Cassandra, for that poor imbecile Jeffrey
Spender, for her.  After that debacle in the
hangar there was nothing to do but sift
through the debris of the lab for anything
that might be of assistance to the Human
Resistance in improving the reliability of
their precious vaccine.  Now that the
Grays had Cassandra, The Day would
come all too soon.  So he stirred in the
ruins of the lab, his curses echoing through
the empty halls.  They had trashed the
computers; nothing useful remained.  He
spun on his heel and walked cat-like
down the hall, intent on finding the exit,
but something moved, off to the right,
about 20 feet down the hall.  He
flattened against the wall, thumbing
off the safety on his weapon.  He crept
silently down the hall, ears straining to
locate any noise.  After about 10 feet
he could have sworn he heard a soft
gasp.  Another 3 feet and he heard
labored breaths unsuccessfully
concealed.  Two more feet and he
stopped looking and listening.  He felt
it; he felt her.

    Watery blue eyes flashed from
behind a file cart.  He pulled the cart away
and she shrived pitifully, balling up against
the wall.

    He holstered his weapon and held
out his good hand, "Hey, they're gone."  His
voice was soothing and his movements
measured and reassuring.  He leaned
down to take her hand and-

    She sprung, flattening him against
the opposite wall.  She ran, but it was
more of a hobble, and he caught up with
her easily.  She tried to claw him with
nails that had long ago been chewed
away.  "You left me, you son of a bitch!"
she railed.

    He grabbed her wrists, realizing only
too late that his prosthetic hand had closed
too tightly.  "Stop it," he hissed, "or you'll
break your wrist."

    Hatred still raged in her eyes but she
stilled.  "You left me," she accused.

    He flexed the correct arm muscle and
the prosthesis released its grip.

    Quick as ever, she applied the flat of
her hand to the side of his face.  "Bastard,"
she spat.

    "Bitch," he replied and smiled.  There was
a time when her actions would have been a
prelude to something much more
entertaining.  "Can you walk?"

    She shook her head, "Not far."

    "Just to the parking lot?"  He slipped his
good arm around her waist.

    She tested her weight against him for a
few steps then nodded.  They walked about ten
steps, "Wait.  I forgot something."

    He shot her an exasperated look.  "Where
is it?"

    She pointed to the file cart.

    He uprighted an overturned chair and
lowered her gently into it.  "This better be
important, Marita.  I'm not hauling-" He
stopped dead in his tracks as his eyes
found a small black box trailing rainbow
ribbon cable.  "Is that what I think it is?"
he said breathlessly.

    She nodded triumphantly.

    "You know what I like," he leered
appreciatively, wrapped his arm around her
waist again, and walked slowly toward the light.

    It was dark now and she could hear the
tarred pavement seams whap, whap,
whapping against the tires.  Sometime,
while it was still daylight, she'd changed
from the flimsy hospital gown into sweat
pants, socks  and a t-shirt that smelled
comfortingly of detergent and softener
and Krycek.  She could hear the wind
whistling through an open window.  When
soft green dashboard lights glowed before
her slightly opened eyes she realized that
her head was in his lap.  She shuddered.

    He laid his good hand on her hip.   "You
okay?"

    She tried to push herself up until the
lights started swirling and she crumpled back
into his lap again with a moan.  "Where are
we?"  Her eyelids closed out the swirling lights.

    "Pennsylvania."

    She turned on her back so she could look
up at his face, well, his chin.  "Where are we going?"

    Instead of answering his thumb made little
circles on her belly and she flinched.  "Sore?"

    She nodded and tried to close her eyes against
the memory of the "tests."  Gleaming tears escaped
from sunken eye sockets.

    "No more tests," he reassured, brushing the
tears from her wasted face.

    She nodded unsteadily and allowed the
noise from the tires to lull her back to sleep.  The
next thing she remembered was walking with
Krycek's arm around her waist, being lathered
and rinsed under warm water, then falling into
stiff white sheets.  And when the nightmares
came, as they always did, she tiptoed across
the narrow strip of greasy carpet and curled
up against the warm, strong man in the
other bed.  Once daylight finally pried open
her swollen eyelids she was relieved to find
her head still tucked into his shoulder, his
arm drawing her close as they slept.

    She burrowed deeper into his shoulder
and slipped her hand under the soft cotton
crew shirt he wore.  Taut but supple skin
glided beneath her fingertips.  She
luxuriated in the feel of it; she luxuriated
in the feel of this-bodies entwined and
completely relaxed.  This was new for
them.  Of all their previous encounters--
and they were all memorable-- there had
been a sense of business, of quid pro quo
like sharks stalking each other in the
shallows, coupling ferociously, then
parting impassively.  Sharks, the corners
of her mouth turned up slightly at the
appositeness of the comparison.  She
let his warmth wash over her like the
gentle waves off a Caribbean cay and
sleep swept over her again.

End Chapter One
minismith@aol.com
 

Chapter Two

    Fox Mulder drew a deep breath in a
valiant effort to ward off the soporific effects
of Agent Willoughby's report.  From her
seat between him and AD Skinner, Dana
Scully responded by sharply applying
the toe of her shoe to his shin.  He winced
and cut his eyes at her while her glassy
gaze remained fixed on some point
above Agent Willoughby's head.  Abruptly,
she covered her face with her hand and
bolted through the door.  Her startled
partner's eyes followed her path before
noticing the crimson dots on the white
paper agenda that remained where
she'd been sitting.  His look at Skinner
betrayed his terror and the AD responded
by dismissing him with a curt head-tilt toward
the door.  Skinner himself spent the remainder
of the day unsuccessfully trying to attend
to yet another meeting, another stack of
reports, another call from The New
Director.  Waiting for a call, the call,
from Scully or Mulder that never came.

    "The cellular customer you are
calling is not available at this time.  Please
try your call again later."  Walter Skinner
slammed the receiver onto the cradle
next to his alarm clock.  Again.  For
what seemed like the 100th time.  The
clock glowed 5:00.  "Shit," he growled
and stiffly climbed out of the bed and
into a hot shower.

    He called both Mulder and Scully's
numbers again on the way to work,
bypassing his usual stop at the coffee
machine to hurry to the phone so he
could try again.

    The desk chair in his office was
occupied; he could see it from the
hallway.  He didn't have to watch
long to identify the occupant, singular,
of the chair.  He was slumped, legs
askew, head supported by the arm
that was propped on the armrest.

    "I tried to call," the AD began but
stopped short at the terrified look he
received.  He slumped.  "How bad?"

    Mulder leaned his head back,
taking in a long, ragged breath.
"Terminal.  Three months, maybe four."

    Skinner dragged the other desk
chair to Mulder's side.  "Agent Mulder,
I'm very sorry.  I . . ."  He found no words.

    "When God wants to punish you
he answers your prayers."  He smiled
wanly, through red-rimmed eyes.  "Cancer
isn't the only thing growing inside her."

    He gazed quizzically at the younger
agent for a long moment until understanding
clouded his already gloomy expression.
He cast down his eyes.  "How far along is she?"

    Mulder licked his lips.  "Nine weeks."

    "What can I do?"

    The younger man opened and closed
his mouth several times as if words were
dammed up inside and he just couldn't say
them.

    "Where is she?"

    "GWU," he answered flatly.

    Skinner stepped into the anteroom
before summoning his agent, "Let's go."

    They had only gone a block down
Ninth Street before Mulder sat up and
pointed to a building, a bank, half a
block ahead on the right.  "Stop, there,
at the bank," he croaked, "please."

    Skinner complied wordlessly, waiting
until the younger man had returned, nearly
staggering, from the building.

    "Thanks."  He rubbed his thumb over
the black velvet box in his right hand before
opening it with a sigh.  "I promised myself
while she was gone before that when she
returned I'd put this," his index finger
caressed a tiny diamond circlet, "on her
hand and never let her go."  He wiped his
cheek with the back of a hand.  "But I
never got around to it.  I let things get in
the way.  And now . . ."  He turned his
face to the passenger window.

    The older man swallowed hard but
maintained silence as the passing brownstones
became a gray concrete parking garage
where he finally found a space.

    Again he made that sickening walk
down a hospital corridor knowing Dana
Scully lay dying.  Mulder ducked into
the restroom as they passed.  But he
continued onward, pausing to steel himself
for the grim sight he knew he'd find-Scully
in a darkened hospital room, pale, wan.  He
finally pushed against the door and reeled
at the bright sunlight that met him.

    "Good morning, sir," Scully greeted
cheerfully, her hair a coppery halo.  Her
luminous grin was a marked contrast to
Maggie Scully's thin-lipped smile.

    "Good morning," he choked, unable
to cleanse the shock from his voice.  He
walked rapidly to the bedside, extending
a hand to Scully's mother. "You look great."

    Dana Scully smiled widely, more widely
than he'd ever seen her.  "I feel great," she
patted the hand he'd rested on the sheets
with the hand that was tethered by clear
tubes connected to a large bag of clear
liquid.  "Did Mulder tell you?"

    Margaret Scully stifled a sob, which
her daughter ignored.

    "Yes, he did," the AD responded
unsteadily.  "I don't know what to say."

    "Congratulations will do nicely," she
replied almost shyly.

    Maggie Scully snuffled and bolted,
passing Mulder in the doorway.

    His eyes were still reddened but his
expression had brightened considerably.  He
manned the other side of the bed, planting a
quick kiss on his partner's forehead.

    "Congratulations on your good news,"
the older man said with as much warmth
as he could muster.

    "Thank you," she beamed.

    "Well," he said after an uncomfortable
silence, "I'd better be getting to work.  You
both take whatever time you need; we'll work
it out."  He scurried into the hall, nearly bowling
over Scully's mother.  He clasped both arms,
steadying her.  "How are you, Maggie?"

    She answered with a wan smile.

    "Me, too."

End chapter two
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Chapter 3

    She remembered little of the second day-just
the whine of the tires and the whump-kawhump of
the tarred seams in the pavement.  Somewhere on
the Ohio Turnpike it had begun to snow-flakes had
blown in with the cold, damp wind when Alex had
stopped along the side of the road.

    "What's wrong?" she remembered murmuring
when he'd pulled back onto the highway.

    "The snow was beginning to drift; I had to lock
the hubs for the 4-wheel drive."

    She mumbled something that indicated complete
understanding, or something like that, and then an
odd slushy, crunchy whine provided accompaniment
for their much slower pace.  She could feel the wind
buffeting the vehicle from the passenger side.

    "Where are we?" She pulled a lever and the seat
back uprighted itself.

    "Halfway between Cleveland and Toledo."  The
windshield wipers fought a losing battle against the
onslaught of tiny, but wet, snowflakes.

    The rear of the car began drifted sideways.  "We
need to get off the road," Marita gasped.

    "No shit."  He cut the wheel into the drift and the
car straightened out.  "I've seen nothing but NO
VACANCY signs for the last 10 miles."

    Onward they crept, slush slurping under the
wheels.  Darkness fell with terrifying rapidity and
the snowflakes swirled a blinding dervish in the
headlights.  Fear welled in his throat but he stowed
it away in his emotional bilge hold.  He heard a
small gasp from her then felt a hand rest ever-so-
lightly on his thigh.  For a moment he yielded to
its comfort before he relegated that emotion to
same place he'd stowed the fear.

    She squinted, "Is that a sign?  About 50 yards
up the road?"

    He searched the roadside, "Yeah.  Let's just
hope there's an empty room."

    "At this point I'd settle for a greasy sofa in a
warm lobby."

    The slurping under the tires gave way to an
eery silence as they plowed through undisturbed snow drifts.

    "Is it bad?" she asked.

    A tire spun, as if on cue.  "We can't go much
farther," he warned.  The hand on his thigh
twitched.  He was so startled he almost missed
the pair of round, red reflectors that indicated a
driveway.  He slid the Bronco into a parking place
in front of a clapboard building marked "Office."

    "Wait here," he instructed, reaching for the
key in the ignition.  He paused, "Don't go
anywhere," he ordered and waded through the
calf-deep drifts to the building.

    The curtain sheltering the barred window of
the wooden door parted the instant his foot touched
the porch.  "We're closed for the season!" a voice
boomed through the barely opened wooden door.

    "I need a room."  He stuffed his good hand in
his jeans pocket.  "The weather's too bad to go on."

    "Closed for the season!" the disembodied voice
barked again.

    Krycek tamped down the anger rising in his throat,
spying Marita in his periphery.  "Look, I'll pay you double
your peak-time rate.  My lady's just gotten out of the
hospital and I need to find a place for her to rest."

    Only an eye peeked around the door but Krycek
stifled a wily smile at the effect of his near-truth.  Then
two eyes appeared, framed by a weather-beaten round
face, held up by a wiry, string-bean frame.  "Fool thing-
taking a sick woman out in weather like this," the
scarecrow chastised.

    "We were trying to make it home to her folks in Idaho."

    The dark eyes squinted at the Bronco and its sickly
occupant.  Then the bony hand disappeared inside the
door and reappeared with a key dangling from it.  "Cabin 7."

    It was difficult for Krycek, keeping a straight face when
he knew he'd won. He jingled the key ring triumphantly and
jumped back into the waiting SUV.  The snow sploshed rather
than crunched beneath the tires for the 30-yard trek to the
largest of the clapboard cabins.

    "Can you walk on your own?" he asked as the
vehicle slid to a halt.

     She shook her head feebly and he flung open
the door, pulling her, not so gently, to the edge of
the seat.  She winced.

    "Sorry," he said apologetically.

    She responded with a weak smile, swinging her
legs into the growing drift.  Her knees buckled.

    "[Damn]," his command of the coarser elements
of his native language had not diminished with disuse.

    "[I'm sorry,]" she replied, her elegant White Russian
accent in sharp contrast to the guttural Siberian
inflection he used.  She shifted her arm from his
waist and hooked her hand over his shoulder,
taking her weight off the straining prosthesis.
Her sock-covered toes banged against the
risers of the steps that were too sodden to
creak.  Then the world turned soft and black
and the next thing she remembered was lying
on something soft but scratchy.  A bed, a
mattress, a bare mattress, the smell of musk
and machine oil, warm breath ruffling her hair
and, eyes the color of warm sapphires gazing
into her own.  And then, in an instant, the eyes
turned icy-blue-the color of the Bering Sea.

    "[You're back,]" the voice was as cold as the
eyes.  The bed creaked as he stood.

    "[Where are we?]"

    He peeked through threadbare curtains.  "[A
fishing camp.  That's Lake Erie you hear lapping
at our back door.]"

    A board creaked outside the door and, so
fast it was a blur, a pistol appeared in Krycek's
hand, hammer already drawn back.

    "Manager," a voice preceded a knock.

    "It's open," Krycek called cautiously, training
his weapon at the center of the opening.

    The windswung door revealed two figures, "The
old woman thought you'd sleep better on fresh
sheets rather than that bare mattress."

    "That's very kind of you," Krycek's weapon was
concealed as quickly as it had appeared, so
quickly that Marita wondered for a moment if she
had seen it at all.

    "Move inside so we can close the door,
old man," a voice scratched from behind the
lollipop figured-man.  She set a pot on the small
stove in the kitchenette and turned on the
burner.  "The stores are all closed so we brought
some soup and fresh milk."  She folded her
hands before her, apple-cheeked and snowy-haired.

    "Thank you," Marita said weakly.  "I'll get those
sheets on the bed."  She swung her legs to the
floor, but swayed too much to stand.

    "No, you won't," the woman replied as Krycek
caught his "lady."  "A woman just out of the
hospital deserves to be waited on hand and
foot," she stared pointedly at Krycek before
fluffing the snowy sheets on the mattress.

    "Is she okay?" the old man looked
askance.  "Do I need to get the doctor over here?"

    "No," the couple replied in unison.

    "We, uh," Krycek appeared reticent as he
cast about for a cover story, "we lost our baby
recently."  He grasped Marita's hand sympathetically
while she reacted sorrowfully to his
confession.  "We just need to get her home to her
folks.  Everything will be okay once we get her
home," he said earnestly.

    "Until then, she needs her rest," the old woman
patted the blanket smooth, then stood up.  "Let's go,
old man."

    "Wait," Alex offered his good hand to the
woman.  "Thank you, Mrs.-"

    "Jackson.  Martha Jackson.  The old man is
my husband, Tom, Mr.--"

    He held out his hand to the old man, "Arnold,
Kevin Arnold, and this is my wife, Winnie."

    Snowflakes managed to blow in despite the
Jackson's hasty exit.

    "Was that the best cover story you could
come up with?"  She glanced downward at her
ventricose abdomen, paling at the irony of the lie.

    He shrugged, "I do better when I've had a chance
to plan.  I wasn't exactly expecting to include a wife
in the scenario."  He stirred and sniffed the pot.  "Hungry?"

    "No," she groaned and tried, unsuccessfully,
to walk from the chair to the bed.

    Krycek caught her just before she fell.  "Besides,"
he grumbled, "if you don't eat, you won't get your
strength back and I'll waste all my energy hauling
you around."

    "I thought you liked hauling me around," she
murmured.  "Bastard."  Her eyes fell shut.

    He stroked his thumb along the gaunt planes
of her cheek and whispered,"Sweet dreams, bitch."

End Chapter 3
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Chapter 4

    Typhoon Bill Scully rolled down the hospital hall
pausing at waiting room doors like a storm seeking
landfall.  Casting his eyes about for the object of his
fury, he spied a lone figure, its back to the door,
slumped on the steps outside the entrance doors.  He
barreled through the whooshing doors, pausing
silently, rage building to a tempest.

    "Hello, Bill," the figure remained still, moving
only to drag on the cigarette burning in a trembling hand.

    "You sorry, son-of-a-bitch."

    "Yeah, that's me, although I'd really appreciate
it if you left my mother out of this."  He sucked
on the cigarette again.  "Have you seen her?  She's
glowing, Bill, bright as the morning sun.  Chattering
on about names and cradles and nurseries.  It's
almost enough to make you forget she's dying," he
said flatly, drawing a final taste, then tossing the
butt into the street where the wisp of smoke
withered and died.

    Then a hand closed about his arm and typhoon
Bill landed, jerking him up and pinning him back
against a square concrete column.  "It's your
fault," Scully's brother accused, further words
choked by the face before him.

    The eyes were haunted, lifeless, spiderwebs
of red netting the hazel irises.  The lids were puffy
and scarlet against the black, sunken sockets
surrounding them.  The skin was ashy gray, lips
almost blue, parting to beg, "Do it, Bill.  Beat me
senseless for everything I've ever done to your
sister.  Maybe then I can forget, even for an instant,
that all of this is my fault."  Tears coursed their
familiar tracks.  "Do it."  He swallowed hard.  "Please."

    Bill Scully stared into the haunted eyes,
recognizing in them every husband's worst fear.

    "Agent Mulder, are you alright?" a rough voice
called from the sidewalk.

    Mulder found his feet again and straightened
slightly.  "Yes, sir."  He dragged the backs of his
hands across his cheeks.  Darting a glance at his
boss, he pushed past his nemesis and the hospital
doors whooshed behind him.  Bill Scully turned to follow.

    "A moment, Commander Scully?"

    Bill Scully stopped, head hanging.  Walter Skinner
stepped around to face him.

    "I suppose your mother's given you her usual
complete report?"

    Bill nodded.

    "Then you know your sister will need all the
strength she can garner-from her friends, from her
family, but mostly from Mulder."

    Bill Scully snorted, "It's his fault she's going
through with the pregnancy.  His vanity takes
precedence over her health."

    Walter Skinner's fists itched to be applied to the
side of Bill Scully's hard head.  But he shook his
head instead.  "He asked, begged, her to terminate."

    "I'll bet he did,"Scully accused.

    "You stupid squid.  Either way she dies.  At least,
with the child, some part of her lives on."

    "At the cost of her own life," Scully spat.  "Without
the baby she could take a more aggressive course of
treatment, extend her time, lead a longer life-" He ran
out of steam.

    "She knows she is dying, Commander.  She knows
the possibilities and the liabilities and the
consequences of her choices."  Skinner's tongue darted
across his parched lips.  "Her dying wish is this child,
and I will do everything in my power to grant it to her."

    Bill Scully swayed, eyes unfocused, voice
quavering, "I don't want her to die."

    "None of us do," Skinner's own voice wavered, "but
this is her heart's desire and we respect her, love her
too much to take it away from her."

    "Bill?"  Maggie Scully wrapped her arms around
her son.  "Fox said you were here," she said tearfully.

    Bill Scully gathered his mother in his arms,
comforting as he was comforted.

    Walter Skinner gave them their privacy, his boot
steps echoing down the hall, abruptly saddened by
the realization that Dana Scully's child would never
know the comfort of a mother's touch.  "Damn," he
breathed, unsuccessful at blinking away the tears.

End Chapter 4
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Chapter 5

    "You would tell me if we were lost, wouldn't
you, Alex?"  Snow crunched against the
floorboards.  "You wouldn't just drive around
until we ran out of gas and froze to death,
would you?"

    "We're not lost," he said sharply.  "It's just
hard to get your bearings in a snow storm like this."

    She sat up.  "This is exactly why they put
women on the space shuttle, Krycek."

    "What, so they can stop and ask for
directions?"  He laughed.

    "Give me your GPS locator."

    "I don't have one."
 
    Her eyebrows shot up.
 
    "Any signal we bounce off a satellite is
just like a homing beacon.  They'd be on us
in minutes."

    "Oh," she said, embarrassed to have
forgotten.  "Then what are we looking for?"

    He twisted his head around.  "A block
house, 10 by 10 by 10."

    "Is it painted?"

    "White."

    She laughed.  "You expect to see a white
concrete block house in the middle of a snowstorm?"

    He nodded and slowed.  "I think we're close," he
said, squinting through the windshield.

    A giant white figure loomed beside them,
banging on the driver's window and making a
horrible noise.  Marita had already squealed before
she realized the "abominable snowman" had been
shouting Krycek's name.

    "Are you lost?" "It" shouted through the
lowered window.

    Alex reddened.  "NO, I just can't see the
blockhouse."

    The "snowman" laughed and pointed to a
snowdrift which looked square upon closer
inspection.  He thumbed a remote control and
the low ridge before them slowly collapsed
revealing a long, low concrete bunker.  Krycek
goosed the accelerator and, in an instant, they
were inside the bunker, heavy blast doors creaking
shut behind them.  The "snowman" doffed his arctic
hood and goggles revealing a tanned face and dark eyes.

    "We expected you 2 days ago.  Stasi and your
father were getting anxious."  He leered mildly at
Marita.  "I see we needn't have worried."

    "Stow it, Killian," Alex replied, walking around to
the passenger side, leading her to the only thing that
mattered to her right then--a warm, soft bed and the
arms of a warm, strong man.

***

    Fragments of guttural whispers drifted through the
partially-opened metal door and reverberated off the
concrete walls.

    "[Who is she, Alexei?]" uttered a feminine voice.

    "[A business associate.]"

    Marita cringed at the coldness in his voice.

    "[Business, brother?"] the other woman
snorted.  "[What sort of business associate do you
install in your own bed when there are plenty others
available?]"

    "[A none-of-your-business associate, Anastasia.]"

    A shadow crossed the sliver of light intruding
through the partially-opened door.  "[There are children
here, Alexei.  You shouldn't have brought your trollop.]"

    "[That's not what she is,]" he protested.  "[She's
the one who delivered the information storage unit to
us.  Now that the Grays have the merchandise, the
day is not far off.  We have no time to waste
discussing who's in my bed.]"

    Icy silence ensued.  The voice, when it spoke
again, was soft, loving, pleading.  "[You are a gifted
scientist, Alexei.  Why do you persist in wasting
yourself on these dark pursuits?]"

    "[It's what I was bred for, Stasi.]"

    "[Perhaps.  But it is not how you were
raised.  This woman: does she know you,
Alexei?  Does she know the boy whom I taught
to swim in the glacier-fed rivers so cold that after
a minute in the water your lips matched your eyes?]"

    "Nyet."

    "[Pity.  Alex Krycek may have the skills to
vanquish his enemies, but Alexandre Krycek has a
talent, a gift that can help save us all.  Don't waste
it, Alexandreovitch.]"

    "[There's nothing to waste, Anastasia.  I am the
deathsman, born to destroy.]"

    Marita's breath caught at the bitter resignation in his voice.

    "Nyet, Alexei," his sister disagreed.  "[You are your
father's son, born to help us save them all.]"

    The metallic  ring of a closing door echoed through
the portal.  Her eyes finally adjusted to the semi-
darkness, she studied her habitation.  It was
windowless, devoid of any architectural
ornamentation.  From high in the corner next to the
door, a small icon blessed the room, a tattered travel
bag sagging beneath it.  A worn chair filled the next
corner, sharing an Art Deco torchere with the bed in
which she lay.  Clothes hung from hooks flanking a
small chest in the other corner and in the fourth
corner, leaning against the block wall, was a well-
worn guitar.  She flung back the tapestry-covered
eiderdown and crept to the corner.

    The fingerboard was ebony, highly polished by
the repeated fingerings.  The shellac on the back
of the neck and below the sound hole had long
since been worn away and the wood beneath was
burnished from use.  A capo was clamped just
below the machine tuners and a tortoiseshell pick
was woven into the slender steel strings.  Kneeling
silently on a worn carpet thrown across the narrow
area of concrete she drew her fingers across the
dusty strings, tinny notes wafting through the air
with the disturbed motes.  She reached up to
grasp the neck, but fingers tightened around her
wrist and she felt herself being wrested back
onto the bed.

    "Feeling better?"  Icy blue eyes burned at
her from a handswidth.

    She struggled wildly to free herself from the
cage of leather-clad arms and denim-sheathed
legs that pressed her into the bed.

    "Not well enough for that," she hissed, trying to
pull her knees to her chest.

    "Don't worry," he chuffed.  "Sex is the last thing
we have time for."  He rolled off her, sitting on the
edge of the bed with his head in his hands.  "I just
hope that storage unit you saved will have enough
information for us to develop the vaccine in time.  Now
that the grays have the hybrid, the day can't be far off."

    "You have more time than you think," she draped
herself over his back as seductively as she had to
strength to manage.  She pressed her lips just
below his ear, her tongue just brushing his neck.

    "Why?" he rasped, leaning into her hungrily.

    "Because," she peeled the leather jacked
and dumped it on the floor.  "Because," she repeated
as she pulled him back onto the eider and straddled him.

    "Because," he whispered, her face hovering above his.

    She shook her head and sat up, her weight settling
on his hips with a smoky electricity.  She busied her
hands with his shirt buttons, but he stilled them.

    "A business associate expects to be paid . . ."

    "For what?" he grinned and busied his hand with
her shirt buttons.

    His prosthetic hand felt strangely cool against her
hip.  "I know who has Cassandra," her Cheshire-cat
grin glowed in the half-light.  She rocked back against him.

    "Who?" he groaned, sighing hotly.

    "Payment in advance," she admonished then exacted
her fee with great relish.

    "Who?" he croaked afterward, sated, spent.

    She teased him with the knee that had been draped
across his hips, dug her fingers lightly into his chest,
carefully avoiding the leather harness at his left
shoulder.  "The Alien Resistance," she
whispered.  "Worth the price?"

    Cat-quick he pinned her beneath him with a sly
grin.  "Worth a bonus."

End Chapter Five
minismith@aol.com

Chapter 6

    It just made the legalities of paternity clearer:
a husband was assumed to be the father of any
child born to his wife.  That - and the desire to
mollify Maggie Scully's conscience - had led
them to the altar in a quiet Episcopal ceremony
held beneath the Moon Window at the National
Cathedral.  Mulder had declined to convert so
Father McCue had declined to officiate.  But
they'd married despite him, with Mrs. Scully
and AD Skinner as their only witnesses.  The
bride had worn a work-suit, one of her few pale
ones, the growing bulge in her belly barely hidden
by her partially unbuttoned weskit.  They'd
"honeymooned" in the hospital, toasting each
other with fruit juice instead of champagne as the
cancer-fighting chemicals dripped into her.  Between
the morning sickness and the chemical-induced
nausea, the juice became her main source of
sustenance - so much so that after four weeks
she was returning to work nearly ten pounds
lighter.  The elevator car lurched, tossing her forward.

     Mulder's hand snaked out, wrapping around
her and pulling her close.  "Okay?" he whispered.

    She nodded, leaning against him despite the
stares of the other passengers.  The new gold band
gleamed as he smoothed her loose-fitting blouse over
her belly.  She covered his hand with hers,
squeezing it comfortingly before he returned it to its
proper place at the small of her narrowing back.  The
elevator halted gently, the doors whispered open and
he guided her into the familiar hall.  It was empty when
they began but had filled considerably by the time they
reached AD Skinner's door.

    They'd ducked inside, seeking refuge from the
prying eyes.  The network administrator later reported
that email volume had tripled in the subsequent
quarter-hour.  Grasping her hand, the AD was
shocked at the frailty of the once-firm grip though
the eyes burned more brightly than ever.  Her skin
was papery, stretched loosely over a cadaverous
frame.  But, somehow, she glowed a golden halo that
centered around the miraculous thirteen-week bulge
which she unconsciously stroked, diamond circlet
glittering in the morning sun.

    "Sir," she greeted with a smile that Skinner
couldn't help but return.

    "Welcome back, Agent Scully."

    "It's good to be back, sir," she smiled warmly.

***

    It was all very simple really-a very human equation
scrawled on the front of his brain: 1+1=3.

    "[Shit]," he hissed and extracted himself from the
extremely intimate position in which he was engaged.

    "[What, Krycek?]" his partner demanded
breathlessly, faced flushed.

    He fastened, buckled, zipped.  "[You know what,
Marita,]" he flung her shirt, his shirt, actually, at
her.  "[Get dressed.  We have work to do.]"  The
metal door rang as it slammed behind him.  He
stumbled more than walked, his ardor not
completely cooled yet.

    "[Now?]" she dressed as she followed him
down the dank concrete stairwell.  "[What is wrong
with you?]"

    He slowed his pace slightly.  "[Just when were
you going to tell me, Marita?  Or were you just gonna
wait and let me figure it out on my own?]"

    "[I don't know what in the hell you're talking
about!]"  She grabbed his good arm and spun him
around.  "[Tell you about what?]"

    Voices echoed further down the concrete hallway
and he pulled her into an empty wardroom.  He
spread his hand across her engorged belly.

    "[Just tell me one thing, Marita.  Is it my baby or
is it some alien thing they implanted in you?]"

    "[What?]" she stammered.  "[I don't know,]" she
clawed at her belly, "[oh God, oh, Alex, please,]"
blood trickled from the deep scratches, "[I've got to
know, please, Alex, I've got to find out.]"

    He captured her hands in his, her strength
surprising.  "[We'll find out,]" he soothed.  With his
shoulder he leaned against the intercom.  "[Wardroom
A2, I need help,]" he barked.  She struggled wildly,
ignoring his calm voice repeating, "[Relax, Marita,
we're gonna find out.]"

    By the time help arrived in the form of his brother-
in-law, Killian, and his oldest son, she had fallen into
near-catatonia.  They carried her deep into the silo to
the examining room of Anastasia Krycek.  She remained
still as long as he, Alex, was touching her but the loss
of his touch unleashed her frenzy again.  He pulled over
a stool and sat above her head, laying his head on the
examining table next to hers, still speaking
soothingly.  She flinched strongly at the invasive portions
of the examination, memories of the "tests" doing a
terrible water-dance in her eyes.

    "[Everything looks normal,]" Anastasia Krycek patted
her patient on the arm, gliding an instrument over her
belly while staring at a small screen.  "[The baby is
approximately twenty weeks by size.  Everything's
right where it should be.  Do you want to see?]"

    She shook her head but his curiosity won out,
eyes widening with wonder at the miracle before him.

    "[Here's the backbone,]" Stasi pointed.  "[And
the arms, the legs, the eyes, the mouth.  Look, it's moving!]"

    Marita's head rolled to face the screen and her face
lit up.  "[How can we be sure everything's normal?]" she asked.

    "[I could do an amniocentesis; we have everything here
to do the genetic analysis.]"

    "[Do it,]" Alex said quietly, then ran his finger
along the CRT screen while whispering in Marita's ear.

    "[You'll feel some pressure,]" Stasi warned and a
tear rolled down the patient's face, which her companion
wiped away with word and deed.  "[Just a bit
more,]" clear yellowish fluid filled the giant
hypodermic, "[and we're done.]"  She stretched a
small bandage over the needle-wound.  "[You may
feel some light cramping tonight.  Call for me if it
becomes strong or you bleed any at all.]"

    He nodded and walked slowly in silence beside
her, shuddering at the closeness of the elevator car
that lifted them six stories' height to the spartan
quarters they shared in the ground-level concrete
bunker.  He guided her around the comfortable
chairs she'd managed to scrounge in the four weeks
since their arrival from the others living below to
augment the office-style furniture left behind by the
military when the silo was abandoned.  Pushing open
the heavy metal door between the living room and
their bedroom, she stiffened, hands guarding her
belly as she fell toward the door jamb.  She felt
herself being lifted, nearly floating the eight-odd feet
before being settled on the soft bed.  A large hand
covered hers, the warmth soothing to the cramping
muscles below.

    "[Better?]" he asked after a moment, concern
darkening his eyes to sapphire-blue.

    She nodded weakly, burrowing deeper into the
large form curled around her.

    "[Rest,]" he commanded and she obeyed without
her usual dissent, drifting off to sleep to the lullaby of
their heartbeats.

    "[No!]" she bolted upright in the bed, upsetting the
stack of papers on his lap.

    "[Hey,]" he soothed.  "[You're safe; it was just a
nightmare.]"

    She scanned the room with feral intensity
before coiling again into the sheets, eider pulled up
around her nose.  According to the clock she'd been
asleep several hours.

    He brushed a lock of flaxen hair from her eyes
before returning to his reading.

    She blinked rapidly until her eyes adjusted to
the lamplight.  "[How's it going?]"

    "[It's not.]"  He continued studying the
paper.  "[The vaccine is only fifteen percent
effective on Rh-positive samples.]"

    She scooted higher in the bed and peered over
his left shoulder at his regular, even scrawl.  "[And
the negative samples?]"  Her belly dislodged his
senseless prosthesis.

    He stiffened at her touch, quickly adjusting the
arm so that it no longer touched her.  "[Still holding
at ninety-eight percent.]"
    She lay her head on his shoulder, long since
accustomed to the leather harness that secured
the replacement limb.  "[Well, as long as the
Grays don't have the hybrid you have time . . .]"

    He shook his head, eyes remaining focused on
the paper.  "[Moses thinks the Alien Resistance will
begin their own attack soon using the virus to destroy
the strongest then enslaving us on their own behalf.]"

    "[How does he know?]"

    "[He's been on the money so far.]"  He turned another
page and scribbled in a margin.  "[We can't afford not
to believe him.]"

    He made a show of concentrating on his work, but
she caught him casting furtive glances at her.  Or rather,
at her belly.

    She scooted until her breath warmed his ear.  "[The
answer is yes, Krycek.]"

    "[Marita, I, uh . . .]"

    She swallowed hard.  "[There hasn't been anyone
else, Alex.  Not since the freighter or long before it,
for that matter.]"

    He swallowed hard, mumbling, "[I'm not supposed
to be able to . . .]"

    She swung her feet to the floor, unsteadily navigating
the short distance to the lavatory.  Silhouetted in the
doorway, she said caustically, ["Then you better start
looking for a star in the east.]"  The slamming door cut
off his reply.

    He chunked his papers where she had
lain.  "[Bitch.]"

    "[Bastard,]" she called from the lavatory.

    "[Damn.]"  He pulled his knees to his chest
and propped his head on the arm propped on his
knee.  He ground the heel of his palm into his eyes,
but failed to staunch the tears.  "[Damn.]"
 
* * *

    "Damn," Fox Mulder whispered to himself as
another dry heave washed over him.  As the
spasm calmed he twisted the shower knobs,
then stepped under the steaming stream.  Hot
tears laved his cheeks as he lathered away the
evidence of his shame, the evidence of his
selfishness, the evidence of his ardor.  She had
so little strength, so little time, and he'd wasted both
satisfying his base passion.  What kind of man was
he?  He turned the water hotter, tearfully offering the
scalding pain as penance.

    "Don't cry," a soft voice called to him.  A soft
hand stroked his cheek and, in a moment, the water
cooled.  "It's okay."  She stood on tiptoe to cradle
his face in her hands, the child in her growing
tummy pressing below his bellybutton.  Her hands,
her entire body, for that matter, had shriveled,
bones showing through papery skin, with the
glorious exception of her belly - and that was
his fault, as well.

    He shook his head.  "I shouldn't have . . ."

    "I'd have been disappointed if you hadn't."

    "You need your sleep," he protested.

    She shook her head, strings of wet hair
dancing on either side.  "I have eternity to
sleep.  I'd rather spend the time I have left
giving you memories to keep you warm on
the coldest winter nights."  Sliding her arms
around his waist, she rested her forehead
against his chest, enjoying the memory of
their passion, storing it away for her cold
winter to come, filed under the only category
that mattered anymore: Mulder.

End Chapter 6
minismith@aol.com

Chapter 7

    A false spring warmed the Maryland countryside
and Maggie Scully had taken advantage of the break
in the weather to plan a little outdoor celebration.  She
smoothed the yellow linen napkins folded beneath her
best silver.  She'd always liked Dana in yellow.  She'd
bought her baby girl maternity clothes in the colors of
the rainbow, rebelling against her daughter's customary
black attire that looked so funereal-

    A sob caught in her throat, tears spilling onto her
cheeks.  She vainly searched her pockets for a tissue,
then reached for a napkin, stopping when a white
handkerchief floated into view.  She plucked the linen
from the strong paw that offered it, turned and buried
her face in the broad chest of its owner.  Muscular arms
folded around her, lending her strength in her moment
of helplessness.

    "I promised myself I wouldn't do this," she sniffled,
lifting her eyes to meet his.

    "So did I," Walter Skinner's normally rough voice
softened.

    "Were you able to keep your promise?"

    "Why do you think I had the handkerchief?" he grinned.

    "Bill hated it when I cried.  He said it was a sign of
weakness and maybe he was right."  She pulled shyly away,
adjusting the stemware while daubing at her face.  "I don't
think I have the strength to face this."

    "I know you do."  He allowed her some distance.  "With the
possible exception of your daughter, you're the strongest
person I know."

    She smiled ruefully before folding the sodden square and
slipping it into her pocket.  "Four months to go."

    "She'll make it."

    "Mom?"  Scully staggered to the nearest lawn chaise and
flopped more than sat, panting from the walk from her mother's
house.  Despite her breathlessness, a sunny smile split her
haggard face which she lifted to the sunshine.  "Mm, what a
beautiful day."  Her hands stroked her now-large belly.

    "You okay?"  Mulder kneeled beside her and asked
ever-so-quietly.

    "Mm-hm," she hummed.  "I could stay like this forever."

    "So could I," Mulder admitted.  "So could I."

***

    It was the model of incongruity-the sight of man-of-action
Alex Krycek in a long, white coat, perched on a high stool,
elbow on tabletop supporting chin, poring over a stack of the
latest lab results.

    "[Damn.]"

    The glass observation window of the "clean" laboratory prevented
hearing his expletive, but she'd watched his lips form that particular
word enough that she knew it by heart.  She rapped on the glass
and his face jerked up, eyes dark, round and lidless like a mole
emerging from his tunnel.  She beckoned him through the glass
but he shook his head.  She beckoned more urgently and he
responded in kind.

    Finally she stabbed the intercom switch.  "[Take a break,
Alex.  You've been at it for 48 hours straight.]"

    "[I'm okay.]" With his false left hand he swirled a spoon
in the tarnished silver coffee-glass.  "[See?]" His hand twitched and
the glass toppled, dregs of tepid coffee spreading across the
tabletop.  He muttered sharply and she smiled, recognizing on his
lips the formation of the word that was not only his favorite
expression of frustration but was, in her experience, his favorite
recreational activity-the proof of which was now playing soccer
with her internal organs.

    "[Oh, I see.]"

    He smiled sheepishly and plodded to the door, pausing to
hang his white lab coat on the nearby rack.  "[Just for a little
while,]" he admonished, leaning wearily against the back wall of
the elevator car as it whooshed upward seven stories' height to
the cavernous bunker that capped the abandoned missile silo
into which a community had settled.

    The doors swished open and he inhaled deeply, drawing in
fresher air to replace the stale, recycled atmosphere found in
the air-tight spaces below them.  His footsteps echoing heavily,
she followed him to their compartments, finding him in their
bedroom struggling with the buttons on his shirt.  Her belly
brushed his left arm and he drew a sharp breath.  She finished the
buttons, peeled off the shirt, then the undershirt.  He reddened at
the revelation of the harness that secured the replacement
appendage but she did not.

    "[How long has it been hurting?]" She nimbly released
the buckles.

    "[A day or so.]"  He grabbed the false arm with his right
hand and shrugged out of the harness, tossing the prosthetic
onto the bed.  "[What time is it?]"

    "[Nearly dawn.]"  She gently examined the stubby arm.  "[You
have a pressure sore.  You know you're not supposed to wear your
prosthesis for that long at a time.]"

    She disappeared into the bathroom, returning with salve and
bandages, finding an empty room, an open door and the sound of
footsteps on the stairway that led to the surface.  She grabbed two
coats and a blanket and followed, finding him on the crest of the
rolling ridge nearby, shirtless, face illuminated by the first rays
of the morning sun.  Winter's snows had surrendered to spring's wet
greening and the breeze warmed her face like a lover's breath.

    "[Moses says we don't have much time.]"

    She hung the leather coat over his shoulders.  "[Are the
vaccines ready?]" She spread the blanket on the ground on the
sunward side of a boulder.

    He shook his head.  "[Just the one.]" He sat on the blanket,
leaning against the boulder, pulled his knees akimbo and propped his
head on one with a trembling hand.  "[Half the world will die at the end
of the first incubation period and there's nothing we can do about it.]"

    "[But the other half will live.]" She settled between his legs, leaning
back into his chest.
    "[Maybe.  We'll have to continue the research after we lock down
the silo.]" He rested his chin on her pale head.  He burrowed his hand
under her shirt, fingers dancing in tiny circles on the taut, shiny skin
of her belly.  "[What day is it?]"
    "[Sunday.  Your father will be celebrating the
Eucharist soon.  He invited me personally last night,]"
she said with a little bitterness.

    "[Me, too,]"  Alex chuckled.  "[Do you know how
he referred to you?]"

    She felt his hand rummaging through his pocket
-- or at least she thought that was his hand in his
pocket.  "[I shudder to think . . .]"

    "[He, um,]" Krycek stammered.

    Marita tensed; she'd never heard him stammer.

    "[He called you my wife.]"

    Silence hung between them.
    "[It made me think,]" he said hurriedly, "[that he
knows more about us than we do.]"

    "[Does he?]"

    Slowly he brought up his closed fist, finally resting
it lightly on her tummy.  He opened it, spilling the contents.

    "[What are these?]" she asked slowly.

    "[They're nested O-rings from the rocket's fuel
lines.  They're made from aerospace-grade titanium and
carry the same serial number.]"  He slipped one of them
on his right hand, third finger.  The other he offered to her.
"[I have nothing to offer you but this.   My past is best
forgotten.  My present is a fool's quest.  I have no future
but what grows in your belly, what we made in there.   I
want my child,]" he smiled shyly, "[to know I accepted
that future, that I considered him or her the only thing I
ever did worth being  remembered for.]"

    "[I thought you were intent on saving the future.]"

    He laid his right hand, the metal ring a cool contrast
to its wearer's warmth, on her belly.  "[I've changed.  I'm
intent on saving my future.  Our future.]"

    She slipped the matching band on her own hand and
laid it on top of his.  "[You know, Krycek, this is the only
thing I've ever done that hasn't gone to hell.]"

    "[Fate,]" he said resignedly.

    "[Destiny,]" she corrected with a shy smile.

    "[Bitch,]" he said tenderly.

    "[Bastard,]" she replied hungrily.

    And they claimed each other with a tender ferocity,
no longer straining against the shackle of their common
passion, but entering into an ancient yoke, bound about
the heart.  Finally they lay, together, sated, in the ebbing
embers of their fervor.

    "[You're not coming with us, are you?]"  She buried
her face in his left shoulder while his hand danced warmly
over her roundness, fingers finally entwining with hers just
whispers away from their baby's heart.

    "[He's kicking a lot today, isn't he?  Maybe he'll be
 a soccer player when he grows up.]"

    "[Answer me, Alex.]"

    "[You know I can't live,]" he swallowed hard, "[down there.]"

End Chapter 7
minismith@aol.com

Chapter 8

    In times past he would have found the swim refreshing,
invigorating, but now Mulder felt only the overwhelming
fatigue of heartache.  Lap after lap he stroked the water,
each circuit both penance and a prayer.  It was a petition
offered to a God whom he doubted but was in no position
to disbelieve.  And so he swam on, pushing off from the
side of the pool at every turn, seeking nirvana in his
exhaustion or, failing that, oblivion.  His journey was
delayed by the appearance of a dark angel, looming at
the opposite end of the pool, his wings taking the form
of a dark raincoat, his halo a bald pate.  As his strokes
pulled him closer he considered the reason for the angel's
appearance.  It could only mean one thing: it was
The End.  It had come two months too soon.  Salty tears
mingled with the slick chlorinated water.  Be it one or
both, someone he loved would die today-taking his
heart with them.  Vacantly he accepted the hand that
lifted him from the water, dressed silently, then turned
to the last page of his life.

***

    It had begun as a dull ache  just above the stretched-
out waistband of the borrowed sweat pants that had
become her uniform.  She slid her hands beneath the
borrowed shirt, pressing her fingers into the overtaxed
muscles just above her spine.  It made her distended
belly jut out even further, if that were possible, putting
even more tension on the complaining muscles.  She
rubbed harder, wincing at the discomfort of stretching
her already-taut belly muscles to their limit.

    Her partner watched this ungainly ballet with
engaged bemusement.  Had she not been so
uncomfortable it would have been funny.  She was
enormous; he could not have conceived - no pun
intended, he smiled to himself - that she could be
this big.  Of course, he could not conceive that she
would have conceived in the first place since,
supposedly, he'd been genetically engineered to
prevent such things.  But Mother Nature had prevailed
and he stood on the brink of parenthood with a woman
for whom he could not form a relational description.  She
was not his "wife" as his father so euphemistically referred
to her.  That they were in the situation proved she was more
than a business associate, despite his insistence.  She was -

    "Krycek," she called sharply.

    His, he thought before wordlessly leading her to the military-
surplus sofa, sitting sideways on it, and settling her back into the
crook between his legs.  She rested her head against his
chest and he slid his hands around her pendulous belly, taking
some of the weight from her tortured muscles.  Gently he kneaded
her, relishing the little jabs as tiny elbows and feet protested the
additional confinement.

    "[Better now?]" He glanced at the clock on the wall as she
nodded. "[How long have you been hurting?]"

    "[A few hours,]" she murmured.  "[It's happening, isn't
it?]" Her voice trembled.

    "[Probably.]" He kissed the top of her head and spread his
fingers so they covered her belly.

    Her fingers crept up to interlace with his where they stayed
for a long while- the gentle soughs of their breathing interrupted
only by the cooking of another batch of replicated DNA-vaccine.

    She shifted, then swung her feet to the floor, perched on the
edge of the worn seat cushion.  "[Aren't you afraid?]"

    "[Of what?]"  He returned to his perch at his work table.

    She followed him.  "[Of everything!  What if the amnio was
invalid and there's something wrong with it?]"

    "[Him,]" the prospective father corrected.  "[I told you that the
amnio results were just as we expected.]"  With surprising
gentleness, his mechanical hand tucked a stubborn lock of hair
behind her ear.

    She smiled shyly and stepped into the V made by his legs
propped on the stool-rungs.  "[What if we screw him up?  We're
not Ozzie and Harriet . . .]"

    He pulled her belly-close.

    "[Or even Gomez and Morticia.]" She rested her forehead
on his chest, arms circling his waist.

    "[More like Boris and Natasha.]"  He nuzzled her hair, hands
stroking her back.  Her back muscles tensed, then her belly
muscles hardened.

    "[How long has it been since the last one?]" she gasped.

    "[Five minutes.]"  He turned her sideways, stroking both
her back and her belly as the muscular bands hardened.  Her
knees buckled and he joined her crouch, whispering hopefully
soothing noises in her ear.  She gasped again and leaned into
him, her lungs no longer pumping.  "[Breathe,]" he
reminded.  "[Makes the pain easier.]"

    "[Shut up, bastard,]" she growled.  "[How would you know?]"

    "[I know,]" he whispered and deathly-cool fingers stroked her face.

    Tears rolled down her cheeks.  "[I'm sorry, I'm such a bitch
and now you're stuck with me and a baby and . . .]"

    He chuckled, planting a small kiss on her glistening
forehead.  "[That's okay.  When Stasi goes into labor we never
know whether to call a midwife or an exorcist.]"

    Her features softened as her muscles relaxed.  "[It's
really stupid.]"  Tears coursed down her cheeks again.

    "[What's stupid?]"  He stood, then pulled her up into
his embrace.

    "[Bringing a baby into a world that has no hope of surviving.]"

    "[Maybe.]"  He whispered a few words into the intercom
before resuming.  "[But hope is alive so long as even one human
is.  That's why you'll both be down in the silo with Papa and
Stasi.  Besides, I'm a pretty hard kill.]"

    "[He won't even have the chance to know you,]" she wept.

    "[No great loss.]"

***

    The delivery room was eerily quiet despite the throng of people
and machines attached to and working on the petite
patient.  Mulder sat at her head, her eyes only occasionally
focusing when she drifted in, and out, of consciousness as she
had in recent days.  The lights were sun-bright but the voices were
muted, nearly obscured by the beeping machines that monitored both
mother and baby's heartbeats.

    "This may pull a bit," the doctor warned, seemingly elbow-
deep in patient.

    The patient, herself, nodded vacantly, mumbled, "Just
take care of the baby."

    The father sat stone-silent, tears streaming down his
cadaverous face.

    An awful slurping sound preceded the production of what
appeared to be a cream-cheese-covered baby doll draped,
silent and motionless, over the doctor's hand.  The mother's
hand reached for it but in an instant it was gone, surrounded
by gowned figures, moving feverishly.

    "How is she?" the mother asked.

    The father cooed into her ear.

    "Please tell me she's okay," the mother begged.

    "BP's dropping," the anesthesiologist warned.

    "Do something," the father begged.

    "Is she okay?" the mother insisted, groggily.

    "Stay with us, Dana," the doctor ordered.

    "Do something!" the father insisted.

    The doctors held a terse conversation amidst a flurry of
activity.  "She's closed," one doctor announced.

    "BP's rising."

    "What about the baby?" the mother cried.  "Please, please . . ."
    The activity in the corner slowed and a faint mewling broke
the silence of the room.
    "Samantha?" the mother called desperately.  "Mulder,
please," both arms quivered as she held them toward the sound
source, "please, I have to see her, to feel her . . ."

    The father shot the doctor a questioning look.

    "Dana," the doctor replied calmly.  "The baby is two months
premature.  She's having trouble breathing and needs to go on
to the NICU."

    "No, please," Scully's arm flailed toward the incubator, "please
let me touch her before you take her away."

    "Scully, they can't," Mulder stroked her forehead.  "She needs
some help right now."

    "Please let me touch her . . ."

    "Scully, you'll have plenty of time to hold her," the father
comforted, but his eyes begged the doctor for help.

    "Please, oh God, please, just a touch."

    The doctor nodded and a glass box appeared at her side,
its lobster-colored occupant flailing about like an upended
beetle.  Instinctively, the mother's hand found the opening in
the side and, in a heartbeat, her finger was gently stroking
the prominent ribs and deceptively puffy cheeks.  The tiny
form calmed, as if recognizing someone intimately
familiar.  The father slipped his hand inside the box, too,
his large paw ruffling the cinnamon-colored fuzz on the
baby's head.

    "I love you, baby girl," the mother whispered urgently.

    "She'll be alright," the father whispered strongly.  "She
has her mother's strength."

    Too soon, much too soon, the incubator was wheeled
away, leaving the parents with empty arms and broken hearts.

***

    "[One more push, baby, and it'll be over.]"
    "[That's what you said the last time, Krycek.]"
    "[So I lied,]" he breathed into her ear, struggling to
maintain their position on the birthing bench while she
pushed back into him.

    "[Again,]" she grimaced, tensing again with the contraction.

    He leaned forward into her back, his arms circling above
her belly.  "[Push, baby.]"

    "[I see the head,]" Anastasia announced, her hands moving
feverishly but confidently.
    "[Now, Alex,]" Marita grimaced and Alex Krycek looked
over her shoulder, witness to the most amazing sight of his life.

    Sound ceased for him, shouts diminished to muted
whispers.  Time slowed to a blessed crawl as he watched his
son emerge, inch by inch, into the waiting hands of his
mother.  She cradled her child while the pulsing cord was
tied, then severed, his lusty cries filling the room.  She
nuzzled him to her breast and he, following primal instinct,
suckled ferociously.  "[His father's son,]" she chuckled.

    Anastasia, having finished the ablutions, led them all
to their bed and with a kiss, disappeared.  The new parents
clung to each other, their child between them.  Joined now
by much more than simple passion, they gazed into each
other's eyes, solemnizing this joyous event with the only
promise that counted at this moment.

    "[I love you.]"

End Chapter 8
minismith@aol.com

Chapter 9

    Walter Skinner rounded the corner to a familiar sight:
Mulder, surrounded by a coterie of doctors.  His posture
reflected the months of agonizing waiting he'd endured-
the most recent weeks being the worst.  Scully had been
in torment, the pressure of her growing tumor causing
blinding headaches and violent mood swings.  She'd been
kept sedated for the most part, awakening only when the
pain became too great.  The baby-named Samantha, of
course- had nearly died, her premature lungs suffering
the burning effect of oxygen.  But, with copious treatment,
she'd survived and had improved to the point that she could
leave the nursery to room in with her parents for short
periods of time-which, judging by the warning sign on
the door, was where she was at this moment.

    Mulder stood at the breech, fending off this squad of
medicos, swollen, purplish lids hooding his now-perennially-
bloodshot eyes.  The older man paused, lending privacy to
the younger man, until Mulder's lids fluttered and he swayed
like a tall, withered plant in a strong wind.  In an instant
Skinner's hand clasped his upper arm, steadying him.

    "While the baby is ready to leave, Ms. Scully's condition
continues to deteriorate," the youngest of the doctors
intoned.  "For her comfort we suggest that she remain here until . . ."

    Mulder swallowed hard.  "She doesn't want to stay;
she doesn't want to be separated from Samantha for a moment."

    "We understand that, Mr. Mulder, but Ms. Scully's condition . . ."

    "There's nothing you can do for her.  She doesn't want to
die here."

    A robed nurse pushing a bassinet scooted past them
into the room.

    "I know you're concerned, Mr. Mulder, but I don't think
you understand-"

    Mulder's face turned red.  "Oh, I understand.  My wife just
gave birth to a daughter she won't live to see grow up.  I'm
going to spend the rest of my life trying to make sure that
little girl gets to know a mother she won't even remember."

    Mulder's eyes flashed fire, the first sign of life Walter
Skinner had observed in the younger man in
months.  Then tears quenched the flame.

    "She wants to go home.  As kind and caring as your
staff has been, she wants to die in peace, surrounded by
all the people who love her."  The voice cracked, "Please."

    The nurse rolled the bassinet, baby Samantha snoozing
contentedly on her belly, through the awkward silence.  The
doctors studied their shoes for a moment.

    Walter Skinner's head jerked up suddenly.  "Um,
nurse?"  He followed the nurse and bassinet.  "Nurse?"

    The nurse froze, momentarily, still facing away.

    "May I see your identification please?"  Walter
Skinner advanced warily, right hand gripping the weapon
under his suit coat.

    The nurse remained silent.  Skinner continued his
advance, followed by the baby's father.

    "Call security," the father ordered.

    "Step away from the child and put your hands
in the air," the AD ordered.

    The nurse, taller than average and stoutly built,
complied slowly, leaning against the nearest wall.  Skinner
kicked her feet further apart while patting down the limbs
and torso.  Then she flickered and, in the blink of an eye,
he found himself facing a tall, blonde giant of a man with
a face like chiseled cold steel.  Cat-quick the former nurse
swung, knocking the weapon from the AD.  Lightning-quick
the old soldier responded by planting a spike in the base
of the nurse's neck just as Mulder snatched up Samantha
and ran toward Scully's room.

    "Get out of here," Skinner ordered, shielding his eyes
while retreating from the noxious fumes emitted by the
nurse's body.  He followed Mulder, first standing guard,
then running rear guard as they made their escape to
someplace safe, wherever that might be.

***

    Scalding water streamed over him, coercing overtired
muscles to decompress.  In months past he would have
waked up Marita and found his release in their white-hot
passion.  But tonight he settled for showering, toweling
dry, and sharing warm, snowy sheets with his lady and
his son.  Rolling on his side to face them, he slid the
arm-stump under his pillow, tangling his feet with hers and
stroking the tiny back that slumbered peacefully between
his parents' hearts.

    "Hi." Her water-blue eyes blinked sleepily as he
brushed a gentle, adoring kiss across her lips.  Then
he did the same among the cottony tufts on the baby's head.

    "Hi."

    "[Did you finish?]"

    He swallowed hard.  "[Sort of.]"

    Her silence begged him to continue.

    "[We've gone as far as we can with the current antibody pool.]"

    "[Success rate?]"

    "[Still ninety-eight percent effective for Rh-negative
subjects; not even fifty percent for Rh-positive subjects.]"

    "[Those numbers don't sound too bad, Alex.]"
    "[The numbers lie.  The vaccine is virtually ineffective
on the O-positive antigen type.  Thirty-nine percent of the
world's population is O-positive.  Despite all of our work,
over two billion people will be defenseless against the alien virus.]"

    "[But I thought you said the antibodies in the baby's blood
would be stronger . . .]"

    "[They were,]" Krycek soothed the suddenly restless
child.  "[The antibodies from Itzhak's blood made the
difference for two-and-a-half-billion people, Marita.  But
you're type A-negative and I'm type AB-negative which makes
him type B-negative.  We can splice the antibody sequence into
all the AB-antigen types and even the O-negative type.  But we
can't get a good graft with the O-positive DNA.  It won't accept
the antibody sequence.]"

    She covered his trembling hand with hers.  "[You, your
father and Anastasia have done in a short time what the
Consortium failed to do in fifty years, Alex.  The vaccine you
developed will save most of us from bondage.  The world will
survive because of your work.]"

    "[Not all of the world.]" He rested his forehead against
hers, silent, shame-filled tears glistening in the half-light.

    "[Most of it.]" Angel-kisses, full of hope, wiped away the
tears.  "[Alexei,]" she paused, eyes burning brightly, "[you're
a hero.]" She brushed a wet kiss across his parched
lips.  "[You're our hero.]" The tender kiss hardened,
demanding, and receiving, and ardent response.  Her
smooth calf caressed his, her knee lingering at his
thighs expectantly.  "[It's been three weeks.]"

    He groaned as she coaxed her knee even
higher.  "[Nearly four,]" he rasped.  "[But,]" with a final
kiss he pulled away from her, "[Stasi will kill me if we
don't wait a while longer.]"

    "[How long?]"

    "[Two more weeks,]" he sighed, dejectedly.

    He could feel, and see, the heat rising in her
cheeks.  "[You discuss our sex life with your sister?]"

    "Nyet," he grinned.  "[She discusses it with me.]" His
hand brushed her cheek.  "[And she says wait until you're stronger.]"

    "[There are times when your family is a little too close-knit.]"

    She mirrored his rueful smile.  Little Itzhak stirred,
his tiny cry piercing the silence.  She pulled the child
close, unbuttoning her soft sleep-shirt, his tiny mouth
seeking, and finally finding, succor.

    "[Lucky,]" the father teased, curling himself
around his family.

    "[Lucky to have a father like you.]"

    "[No,]" Alex protested but she stopped it with a kiss
that warmed him not only with passion, but with hope.

    "[How long can you stay with us?]"

    He stroked Itzhak's leg and nuzzled her
cheek.  "[Distribution begins day after tomorrow.]"

    "[So soon?]"

    "[The sooner we start, the more lives we
save.  Moses says the advance reconnaissance raids
are already under way.]"

    "[I thought we'd have more time.]" A tear rolled down her cheek.

    "[We will,]" he vowed, tightening his embrace,
both of them ignoring for a moment the reality that would
make a liar of him.

End Chapter 9
minismith@aol.com
 

Chapter 10

    "Where are we going?"  Mulder had asked sometime during their first night.
    "Mount Nebo," Skinner had answered, never taking his eyes off the road.
    Three days later he was equally cryptic, but infinitely more grouchy
after sleeping little more than a few hours of the previous seventy-two.
He'd done most of the driving, allowing Mulder and Maggie Scully to spell him
when sleep overtook him.  Somewhere outside Minneapolis he'd pulled into a
used car lot and traded his land-barge Crown Victoria for an older Suburban.
    "State car of Texas," he'd grinned sheepishly as he'd transferred the
luggage while Mulder carried Scully and Maggie transferred baby Samantha.
    "Where are we going, Walter?" Maggie Scully had asked after everyone else
had drifted off to sleep.
    "A safe place.  Maybe the only safe place."
    "But where, Walter?"
    Skinner stared into the rear-view mirror, watching for any signs of
wakefulness on the part of the occupants.  Satisfied that they were,
essentially, alone he responded to Maggie Scully's question with a question
of his own.  "Do you know what's coming, Maggie?  Not just for Dana, but for
the world?"
    "Fox has said some things, tried to tell me some pretty unbelievable
stories about alien invasions-"
    "Believe them."
    "Excuse me?"
    "Believe them, Maggie.  They're true."
    An oncoming car illuminated the shocked look on her face.  "Little green
men and-"
    "They're gray, actually."
    Her jaw practically grazed her chest.
    "Over forty years ago representatives of the major powers agreed to
collaborate with an alien race to buy time to develop the means of survival-a
vaccine against a virus they were planning to use to destroy us.  In the
meantime, another alien race has become interested and now we are the spoils
in an extraterrestrial war."
    They rode in an uneasy silence for a long time, until the first rosy
tendrils of dawn shone in the rear-view mirror.
    "What about the vaccine?"  Her voice shook as she finally spoke again.
    The hum of asphalt had been replaced by the crunch of large gravel.  "The
government research has been spectacularly unsuccessful.  But-" He guided the
heavy vehicle to a smooth stop.  "Recently, scientists loyal to the growing
Human Resistance have developed a vaccine that is nearly seventy percent
effective."
    "And that's where we're going?"
    He nodded.  "That's where we are."  A metallic scraping preceded the
appearance of his weapon in his large paw.  "Wait here," he ordered, stepping
out into the coolish pre-dawn.  The slamming of the passenger door confirmed
for him that Dana Scully had inherited her innate curiosity from her mother.
    "Stop!" a voice ordered from the treeline.
    They obeyed, Skinner's free hand ushering her behind him.
    "What do you want?" the voice boomed.
    "I need to see the head of the research team.  I have a new antibody
source for the vaccine."
    Maggie Scully gasped and tried to pull away but his firm grasp detained
her.
    "And who might you be?"
    "Moses."

***

    Dana Scully shifted stiffly, her fluttering hand seeking the velvet
warmth of Samantha's tiny body that was strapped into the giant car seat.
The pink dawn had become a glorious morning -the sun painting gold on
everything in its path.  Samantha cooed at her touch but did not stir.  Her
father snored gently, head lolled against the door, feet stretched all the
way over to her side of the vehicle.  Scully nudged him gently with her toe
and he moaned, his moans could be delicious she remembered, but this moan
conveyed only sorrow and exhaustion.
    She tried to lift her head but it had been too heavy for some days now,
just as she'd been unable to completely focus her vision since the baby's
birth.  So she relied on hearing and feeling and right now she felt stillness
and hear only the rustle of the wind in the grasses.  They had stopped, in
the middle of nowhere it seemed, and Skinner and her mother were not in
sight.  She nudged her husband again, eliciting a groan, but the sight of
black-clad strangers made the next nudge a kick.  Their hand on the car door
elicited a feeble but anguished cry, turning to a kitten-roar when she
realized what, or who, they wanted.
    Samantha.  Gloved, evil hands were reaching across her, ignoring blows
from her rag-doll arms, to steal her child away.  She kicked, scratched,
cursed, nothing stopped them, not even Mulder's fierce but weak attempts at
rescue, but still she fought, like a dying lioness for her only cub, until a
bright, white pain engulfed her.

***

    She awoke to a terrifyingly familiar voice.  Opening her now-dull blue
eyes she focused enough to recognize the face of the voice's owner- a face
looming over her Samantha with a syringe in hand.
    "No!" Samantha's mother cried with as much strength as she could muster.
She pushed herself to her feet but the world tipped and she toppled into
Mulder's nearby arms.  "He killed Melissa!"
    The child uttered a cry then bawled, the sure hands of an older woman
holding her down gently but firmly.
    "[Quiet, quiet, sweet little one,]" the woman cooed to the frightened
child, "[it will be over soon.]" She continued to hum and shush comfortingly
and, after a moment, the child quieted.  She could make out Krycek swishing
around a vial of red before he scooped up the child and deposited her in her
mother's arms with surprising gentleness.
    "We've been working on a vaccine for several years, but our antibody
sources carried the negative antigen."  His hands moved swiftly among the
machines and the dishes.  "We managed to overcome the Rh-factor problem in
the AB-types but the O-positive type remained resistant.  That meant the
vaccine would not be effective on nearly thirty percent of the population.
Two billion people would face the alien virus unprotected.  We needed an
O-positive antibody source."
    "Samantha," Scully breathed.  "You can't have her," she tucked the child
deeper into her embrace.
    "Relax, Agent Scully.  I already have her--at least what I need of her."
Krycek swirled a crimson test tube.
    "They just needed a blood sample," Mulder comforted.
    "No," she raged.  "He killed Melissa, and your father, and now he wants
to kill Samantha!"  She struggled to get up until crimson gushed from her
nostril.  Swiftly, Mulder scooped up his daughter, handing her to her
grandmother, and pulled his wife's head down into his lap, tilting it back
and wiping away the blood with the towel Anastasia Krycek had offered him.
She raged on but he held on until she stilled, sobbing, her tears diluting
the blood to a watery pink.
    Krycek didn't try to hide the shock on his face.  "Rough postpartum?"
    "End-stage nasopharyngeal carcinoma."  Skinner snarled from only inches
away.  "It should have taken her months ago but she held on until Samantha
was born despite being unable to take her treatments."
    "How long?"  Krycek's voice trembled.
    Skinner merely shook his head. "What you did to me," he said pointedly.
"Can that help her?  Get rid of the cancer?"
    Krycek watched Mulder's tender ministrations.  The bony hands stroked her
face so gently while tears flowed freely from sunken sockets.  The skin hung
loosely, dully, with no fat to soften the skeletal angles.  "Mulder looks
like hell."
    "That's where he's been for the last eight months."
    Krycek dragged his right hand down his stubbled, weary face.  "It could
kill her if the cancer's metastasized."
    For the first time Skinner noticed the dark metal ring Krycek wore on his
third finger.  Terror flashed through the icy blue eyes, mirroring that in
Mulder's, of a husband facing the reality of watching his lady love being
taken away so horrifically.  He moved stiffly toward an opened safe, but
stopped, instead accepting a prepared hypodermic Anastasia Krycek offered
with a knowing nod.
    "What's that?"  Mulder asked suspiciously while Krycek sought a viable
blood vessel on Scully's scarecrow arm.  Scully did not move, her eyes fixed
and glassy.
    Krycek ran his fingers over her papery skin until he found a strong blue
line along the inside of her upper arm.  "NBTV.  Non-biological technovirus."
    She did not flinch at the needle prick and Krycek depressed the syringe's
plunger.  "They're in," his reply preceded the sound of clicking computer
keyboard keys. "Upload profile."
    "That's what you did to Skinner and he nearly died," Mulder spat.
    "Yeah, well, he didn't and the little buggers did the job they were sent
to do."
    "Short of a miracle, Mulder, you know it's her only hope."  Skinner had
moved behind the stained naugahyde sofa and was whispering softly.
    "How's the upload, Stasi?"  Scully's skin had become a mottled blue,
blood vessels thickening dangerously.
    "Ninety-eight, ninety-nine percent, it's done."
    "Do something," Mulder demanded when her limp body went rigid.
    "Krycek," Skinner admonished.
    "It will take a few minutes for them to respond," Krycek answered, his
warm, beringed hand brushing against her again-ashen cheek.  "Stasi?"
    "Contact with the cancer cells," the older woman responded.  "Commencing
self-destruct."
    "What?"  Skinner grabbed Krycek.  "I thought you were helping her."
    Krycek wrested his arm away from the larger man.  "I am.  The
self-destruct sequence is an electronic overload.  The current released will
destroy adjacent tissue- the cancer-- and cauterize any compromised blood
vessels."
    Mulder thought for a long moment.  "And if the cancer's metastasized?"
    "She won't suffer."  Maggie Scully, who'd been quietly rocking Samantha,
gasped at Krycek's reply.  "It will be over quickly."
    Mulder pulled his wife closer into a desperate embrace.  "I'm not ready
for it to be over."  Sorrow choked his voice.
    Comfort came from an odd corner.  "Our hearts never are, Mulder."  Tears
glistened as though the icy eyes were melting.  Krycek backed away slowly,
silently returning to his work while watching the computer screen.
    The minutes ticked by, silence interrupted by Mulder's and Maggie
Scully's snuffles, Skinner's pacing and Krycek's restless manipulation of the
lab equipment.  The only sound Scully emitted was labored breaths which
slowed, spacing further and further apart until . . .
    "Alex," a sharp, desperate voice cried from the door.   Its owner rushed
to the lab table, to Krycek who immediately drew them- Marita and the baby
she clutched- closer.  Her whisper rang around the concrete walls, echoing
back seemingly a thousand times.  "There's something wrong with Itzhak."

End Chapter 10
minismith@aol.com

Chapter 11

    Fox Mulder stood before the half-closed door, the voices from inside
echoing through the empty bunker.  He'd come to express his thanks to a sworn
enemy-thanks for saving the life of his wife who lay, resting comfortably and
happily, six stories below them.  But now, standing at the door, he realized
that his enemy had no time for his thanks.
    "[When did you know, Krycek?  When did you know Itzhak would die?]"
    "[The amnio,]" he replied emptily.  "[The reactivated DNA showed up on
the amnio.]"
    "[And you didn't tell me?]"
    Mulder shifted uncomfortably.  Despite the language difference, he picked
up the drift of the conversation.
    "[There was no point to it.]"
    "[There was no point to telling me the baby I was carrying was infected
with an alien virus that would kill him?]"
    "[He wasn't infected, Marita.  He was genetically altered in utero by the
tests to be immune to the virus.  But the process caused genetic damage,
enough that he could not survive."
    "[Then why would you let him be born in the first place?]" Her eyes grew
wide.  "[The antibodies,]" the pitch of her voice rose with the volume.
"[You bastard, you wanted the antibodies.]" She was screaming now, her fists
thudding against his motionless form.  "[You just wanted him for the vaccine.
 Ghoul!]" Her fists pummeled , her voice a ragged banshee cry. "[You
sacrificed your son for the sake of your precious vaccine!]"
    "May I help you?"  Krycek's voice boomed from behind the very large Glock
that was now pointed at the center of Mulder's forehead.
    Mulder swallowed hard, but not from his own fear.  He choked at the tinny
notes of terror he heard in his enemy's voice, at the tear-stained face.  "I,
uh," he swallowed again.  "I just came to say thank you."
    The Glock disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.  "You're welcome."
The flat, lifeless intonation thudded off the concrete walls.
    Mulder shuffled his feet restlessly.
    "Was there something else?"
    "No.  Yes."  Mulder studied the ring on his hand.  "I'm sorry.  About
your son."
    Krycek gazed mistily across the concrete bunker.  "Yeah, well, it's
probably what I deserve-meed for the deathsman."
    Mulder shook his head.  "Nobody deserves to see his child die.  Or hers."
    "It's the ultimate irony.  I was created to end lives; he was born to
save them.  But to do that he had to die -to pay for my sins, I think.  He
was my Pascal Lamb."  Krycek's eyes remained unfocused after a long blink.
"She was yours, you know.  Emily."
    Mulder cast his eyes down before meeting Krycek's now-focused gaze.
    "But the biology didn't matter, did it?  She was always yours in your
heart."
    Mulder nodded.
    "It's funny, you know.  How you can become attached to something,
someone, in a mere eighteen days."
    "Or less."
    Krycek nodded, eyes squinching shut while Mulder's footsteps scurried
away.  He stood, silent, motionless, etching for all time the shape of his
son's face on his memory until a hand circled his arm, gently pulling him
back inside.
    "[I know why you didn't tell me,]" she clutched a tiny, empty blanket.
"[You didn't want to spoil it for me.]"
    He chuffed. "[I wish I were that noble.]" He tugged at the tail of the
tiny coverlet, pulling her into his embrace.  "[He was my firstborn son.]"
    "[And mine.]"
    They shared the wracking sobs, the first since they'd returned their son
to the Earth in the sighing shelter of a knotty pine tree, until they
stilled, breathless, tearless, supported only by their shared strength.
    "[How long?]" she whispered. "[How long until you have to leave?]"
    He smoothed her hair.  "[Six hours.]"
    "[What if the vaccine doesn't work?  What will you do?]"
    He pressed his lips against the top of her head.  "[Stay.  Topside.
Until they're gone or we are.]"
    She shuddered.  "[Don't leave me here, Alex.  Don't leave me here alone.]"
    "[You won't be alone,]" he cooed.  "[You'll have Papa and Anastasia and
her family and -]"
    "[Don't leave me here alone.  Empty.]" She nuzzled his chest.
    "[It's too soon, love, too soon, too soon . . .]" His protests weakened.
    "[Please,]" she begged, tugging at his heart.  "[Please.]"

***

    So this is how it would end: not in conflagration and immolation but with
assimilation, gestation, then annihilation.  Walter Skinner buttoned his
shirt, his handgun neatly tucked inside the waistband of his jeans.  He
mulled over his role in the plans he'd set forth nearly seven years ago when
he'd first assumed the role of Moses.  It was time, now, for mankind to leave
the Wilderness and step over into Canaan.  If it worked, mankind would
survive and even prevail.  If not . . .  "[Please,]" he breathed, crossing
himself three times.
    "I never knew you were a religious man, Walter."  Maggie Scully sat
primly next to him.
    "You know what they say about atheists and foxholes."
    She smiled.
    He fumbled with his collar button and she brushed his hands away, nimbly
fastening the button.  He grabbed both wrists.  "Find a good man and be
happy, Maggie Scully."
    She laced her fingers through his.  "Like you found a good woman?"
    He grinned.  "Just my luck.  We were both still in love with other
people."
    "Yes, we were.  Friends?"  She wrapped her arms around his waist.  He
sighed at the remembrance of the comfort a woman's touch afforded.
    "Friends," he whispered.  "Take care of them."
    "I promise."
    "Shall we?" he offered his arm most ceremoniously.
    "I'd be delighted," she giggled, matching his strides into the crowded
meeting room.
    Conversations quieted as he ascended the steps.  "By now," he shouted,
too loudly.  "By now," his adjusted his volume.  "You each have your
distribution assignments.  I don't think I have to tell you that your mission
is, very simply, to save the world."  He looked over the sea of faces.
"We'll know in fourteen days if we were successful.  You know what you have
to do.  God help us all."  The room fell oddly silent as the warriors, sick
to death of war, took their leave to do final battle.
    "I should be going," Mulder said quietly.
    "Someone has to stay," Skinner replied.  "I'm too old."
    "And I'm too evil," Krycek interjected.  "Besides, your daughter deserves
to know her father."
    Dana Scully, skin radiating increasing health, pulled her husband into an
embrace.
    Walter Skinner continued his trek toward the blast door.
    "Be safe, Walter Skinner," Maggie Scully said quietly.
    He stopped, grasping her hand between his.  "Be happy, Maggie Scully."
    Alex Krycek lingered.  "[I never planned to fall in love with a bitch
like you,]" he whispered huskily, his warm hand brushing Marita's cheek.
    "[And I never planned to fall in love with a bastard like you.]" She
kissed his hand then spread it against her belly.  "[Come home to us when
you're done saving the world.]"
    "[I love . . .]"
    She sealed his vow with a kiss, long, passionate, hopeful.
    Tearfully he followed the teams into the moonlight night, kissing his
ring, then watching and waving as the gaping maw of the bunker ground shut.
    "[I love you,]" she vowed, praying that her empty arms would soon be
filled again.

***

    The communications room became sort of widow's walk where the wives and
families breathlessly watched the news reports of a global "influenza
epidemic."  Over ninety percent of the world was infected with the mild
strain, but very few deaths were reported.  No person watched with more
intensity than Anastasia and Alexandre Krycek who, on the third day, as if
mankind had risen from some tomb, pronounced the fateful words, "We've won."
    The first of the teams returned on the fifth day, flush with their
victory.  The remainder streamed in over the next few days, departing with
their families back to their normal lives.  The radio crackled on the eighth
day, bringing with it a message that "Moses" had returned to his family in
Texas.  By the tenth day nearly all of the teams had returned.  By the
eleventh day, all of the teams had returned save one.  "[We need you,]"
Marita breathed as she hunched over the short wave, her hand gently rubbing
her bellyful of hope.  She stayed by the radio, hardly eating, seldom
sleeping until, on the fourteenth day, a familiar voice crackled the speaker
saying only two words, "[Come home.]"

Top

Epilogue

    One Christmas had passed and another loomed only days away since the
world had nearly ended.  Samantha Mulder ran more than walked now, her
cinnamon hair flying behind her.  Her mother lunged to keep her busy hands
off the holiday tree bedecked with both angels and dreidels.  Prevented from
redecorating she turned her attention to helping her father with his job,
wrapping presents.  Joyfully she plopped in the middle of the paper he'd just
cut, as though she were the grandest of presents.  Her father could only
smile and sweep her into the dearest of embraces, sending her on to help her
grandmother cook.  As her little steps receded, the computer announced the
arrival of messages.
    "I'll get it," Mulder spared his again-expectant Scully the task of
getting up from the floor.
    A few keytaps brought greetings from Walter Skinner, now a gentleman
horse-rancher in Texas.  Spying a few words for Maggie Scully, Mulder clicked
to print them without reading them.  A few more keytaps brought the oddest of
messages.  The sender's  name was blank, the header information garbage even
to a DOD-quality decryption program.  But the hard drive churned and an image
painted the screen.  It wasn't just an image, but a movie clip and Mulder,
curiosity getting the better of his common sense, clicked on "Play."
    Christmas music crackled the speakers, peppered with baby giggles.  A
cotton-topped child toddled into the picture, steadied by its mother's strong
hand.  The mother was pregnant, too, very, and her face beamed.  The view
widened to include a dark-haired, blue-eyed man who teetered atop a ladder
adjusting a treetop angel.
    "Krycek?"  Scully breathed incredulously over his shoulder.
    "Well, it ain't Ozzie and Harriet."
    "Or Boris and Natasha."
    His tree-trimming task completed, the man descended the ladder, hooking
an arm around his wife and child.
    As the picture faded to black, Krycek voiced their message.
    "From our family to yours, we wish you joy, we wish you peace and we wish
you hope in the future that you helped to preserve."
    Fox Mulder pulled his wife into his lap, embracing her as he prayed to
that God in whom he'd gained new-found confidence, "Shalom to you, Alex
Krycek.  You've earned it."

End Deathsman's Meed
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