Mulder rubbed his eyes tiredly and peered over the man’s shoulder. “Any luck yet?”

‘No more luck than last time you asked me,’ Frohike snapped irritably. ‘I told you it would take some time.’

“I know, but I forgot you dead guys think in terms of eternity. Try and remember I’m planning to find Krycek during my lifetime.” 

Frohike scowled, bristling at Mulder’s careless reminder of his own dead status. His irritation allowed him to finally say the thing that had been on the tip of his tongue for hours. 

‘So he’s Krycek again, huh? So much for your ‘I’d give anything to have him back’ speeches. Don’t you think it’s kinda pathetic you could only get it up for him when you thought he was dead?’

Mulder’s wounded pout made the ghost feel slightly guilty, but not enough to regret his words. It was about time Mulder wised up to the source of his conflicted emotions.

“The attractive thing about a dead Krycek,” Mulder retorted grimly, “is the reduced likelihood of him leaving a trail of corpses in his wake. Unlike Skinner, I’m not allowing my personal feelings to get in the way of apprehending a dangerous killer.”

‘Bullshit,’ Frohike snorted. ‘Since it’s becoming clear that the only people in danger from Krycek are those who threaten his family, primarily members of the Consortium, you’d be standing on the sidelines cheering him on except you’re pissed because you found out he shagged your sister.’

“He used me,” Mulder said, his voice ragged with angry grief. “All those years I told myself he couldn’t really have been faking it all; that despite his betrayal he did actually feel something for me, and now it turns out he isn’t even fucking gay. It was *all* a lie. Even the way he reacted when I touched him. Remember me saying he used to shiver when I walked into the room? How the fuck do you think I feel to find out that, what I always believed was desire, was really revulsion?”

Frohike’s face folded into lines of compassion. ‘You don’t know that for certain,' he pointed out softly. 'Just because he’s married with kids, doesn’t necessarily mean he’s straight. You’re bi yourself, Mulder.'

Mulder shook his head angrily. “You don’t understand. The Alex I knew…the Alex I slept with wasn’t bi. He wasn’t even… shit… I thought he was a natural bottom, you know? The kind of guy who couldn’t even fuck a woman if he tried. He never even got it up until I was inside him. He said…he said it was the only thing that turned him on…being fucked, I mean. And, of course, I fell for it big time. Forget the Skippy rat act. Take off his suit and he was pure sex on legs. The first time he undressed in front of me, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I’d always had this weird belief he was smaller than me. Something in the way he walked and held himself, maybe. But that first night, when I saw how built he was, was the first time I realized he was a hell of a lot more powerful than me.

“I…shit…I can’t explain how good that made me feel. Knowing he was easily capable of taking charge, knowing he was willingly letting *me* take all the control. It was addictive, Frohike. All that muscle and sheer animal power just lying down and spreading his legs for me, shivering and writhing and fucking *begging* me to fuck his ass.”

'Whoah!' Frohike exclaimed, licking his lower lip frantically. 'Sounds hot.' 

“Yeah?” Mulder laughed bitterly. “He played me like a fucking violin. All the times he stood there with a limp dick, begging me to fuck him until he came, and it turns out the only reason I gave him a hard-on at all was the fact I was pounding the fuck out of his prostate.”

‘Oh,’ the ghost said glumly, as he caught Mulder’s point. 

“So excuse me if I’ve decided the only thing I want to do to Krycek’s ass is kick it.”

***

“They’re not happy,” Scully said, “but they’ve signed your discharge papers.”

Looking at her smug smile, Skinner had a sudden image of her waving her weapon around in reception until the cowed doctors had given in. He quickly stifled a grin, although he knew perfectly well she’d only used her badge and her own qualifications to secure his release. 

Probably.

He holstered his own weapon, pulled on his jacket, folded his somewhat creased overcoat over his left arm and strode purposefully towards the door. As they headed down the corridor, Scully almost running to keep up with his long, powerful strides, he tried, desperately, to contain the excitement that was making his heart pound as frantically as if the nanos were jumping back to life inside his veins.

// Yeah, well, get used to the feeling // he told himself sourly, // because if Mulder’s right, the chances are you’re going to have a real up-close and personal reunion with that damned palm pilot. //

“I’m surprised Mulder restrained his enthusiasm long enough to pick me up,” he remarked dryly, as they entered the elevator and Scully pressed the button for the ground floor.

Except for a brief flush of color in her cheeks, Scully managed to look almost convincingly confused by his comment. “Kansas is on the direct flight route from Washington to Arizona,” she pointed out. “It was easy to arrange a connecting flight. We wouldn’t have dreamed of checking out the address without you, Sir,” she said primly.

“Hmmm,” he growled, wondering whether she’d threatened Mulder with bodily harm until he agreed to stop off and collect him en route. “How sure is he?” 

She shrugged lightly. “As sure as he can be under the circumstances,” she admitted. “He didn’t dare run the address through the FBI computer in case he alerted anyone to its whereabouts. So all we know is it might be the origin of the email.”

“Might be?”

“Well, it apparently bounced several times around the world via various satellites and appeared to dead-end at a number of international addresses. He finally narrowed it down to four possibilities in Switzerland, Russia, Germany and Arizona. Since you said Krycek told Lisita to ‘drive home’, Mulder’s convinced the Arizona address is the genuine one.”

“Lisita’s school fees were paid via a Swiss Bank,” he reminded her, his heart sinking slightly.

“That’s exactly why Mulder thinks that address is a red-herring. Besides, he says that the email was virtually untraceable. No one alive could have cracked Krycek’s security systems and, knowing that, he’s certain the Arizona address is the right one. He says Krycek wouldn’t have bothered to hide it so well if it wasn’t his address.”

Skinner rubbed the bridge of his nose as it began to throb with an impending headache. Since he didn’t want to know the answer, it seemed barely worth asking the question, but he still forced the words out. “If no one alive could trace the email, how the hell did Mulder do it?”

Scully blushed fiercely and dropped her eyes from his gaze.

“I’m waiting, Agent,” he growled.

Picking at some invisible lint on the hem of her jacket, Scully mumbled into her chest, “He said…um… Melvin Frohike helped him.”

Skinner rolled his eyes heavenward. “Lord, give me strength,” he groaned.

***

Wearied by the flight, they disembarked at Tucson International and waited in a ridiculously long queue to collect their pre-booked rental car. It appeared the city was hosting some kind of convention, from the numerous people thronging the Arrivals lounge, and almost all of them seemed to have booked a car with Hertz.

As the harried desk clerks desperately tried to deal with the sudden influx of customers, Mulder began fidgeting constantly, hopping from foot to foot, and gnawing his lower lip in silent distress at the delay. Scully struggled with a wicked urge to ask him whether he needed the bathroom.

Skinner’s face was so expressionless it could have been carved from stone, but Scully could see a small vein ticking so prominently on his forehead that the Doctor in her wanted to check his blood-pressure. But she wasn’t feeling particularly suicidal and, for a man who had apparently been dead only 24 hours earlier, Skinner was undoubtedly looking remarkably well.

“I’ve had enough,” Mulder snarled suddenly, pulling his badge from his jacket and pushing through the crowd to the front of the desk. “Fox Mulder, FBI,” he announced loudly. “I’ve got a car booked and I’m on official FBI business.”

“So much for a low profile,” Scully sighed.

Skinner’s mouth twitched as he watched the blonde at the desk glowering at Mulder with an expression of annoyance. “If you’d just wait a moment,” she said, with forced politeness, “I’ll serve you next.”

Mulder brandished his badge like a weapon. “Serve me now.”

“But I’m already half-way through booking these gentlemen into the computer,” she replied. “If I stop now, I’ll lose all the data I’ve input.”

Mulder just glared at her until she muttered angrily under her breath and gave in.

“That’s the much-vaunted Mulder charm at work?” Skinner snorted. “No wonder I spend half my working life pacifying the people he pisses off.”

“He just gets a little intense when he’s focused on a case,” Scully explained hurriedly. “He always wants to get from A to B in the fastest possible time.”

“We’ll be going from A to B in a super-compact from the look on that poor woman’s face,” Skinner pointed out dryly. 

With a loud sigh of exasperation, he shouldered through the displaced customers. “Thank you, Agent,” he snapped. “I’ll take over.” He flashed his badge and a charming smile over Mulder’s shoulder towards the clerk then, elbowing Mulder ungently out of the way, he spent the best part of twenty minutes soothing the woman’s ruffled feathers before emerging triumphantly with the keys to a Cherokee Laredo. 

He waved them in Mulder’s face. “I’ll drive,” he announced, and Mulder’s face fell even further.

“We going on Safari?” Mulder grunted ungraciously, as he threw their cases in the back of the huge SUV. “It’s a damned good job you sign off your own 302’s.”

“Mulder?” Scully said sweetly. “Shut up.” 

As she scrambled up into the front seat, she wished she were wearing pants. The Laredo wasn’t designed for a short person in a skirt to enter with dignity. But her momentary embarrassment was more than made up for by Mulder’s angry grumbling about being relegated to the back seat.

Skinner climbed in, started the engine and checked the map. “I think the quickest way is if we take route 10 through Benson, then turn down route 191. Fallow Point is about 25 miles north of Douglas.”

“Not to mention, it’s twenty miles east of Tombstone,” Mulder snorted. “Wonder who Alex inherited his sense of humor from. Certainly wasn’t you, Sir.”

Skinner ignored him. “It’s already 6.20, and it’s going to take at least three hours to get there.”

“The way you drive,” Mulder grunted.

“So,” Skinner continued smoothly, “I suggest we’ll stop for something to eat, book ourselves a motel for the night, and approach the location in daylight.”

Scully nodded her agreement.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Mulder protested angrily. “We’re nearly there!”

“As you yourself just pointed out, Agent. I don’t have a sense of humor,” Skinner retorted. “This isn’t going to be one of your usual unprepared headlong rushes into the unknown. We do this one by-the-book.”

“Exactly what part of the book covers this situation, Sir?” Mulder drawled sarcastically.

“He’s right, Mulder,” Scully interrupted, turning enough to give him a quelling glare. “It’s only common-sense to reconnoiter the address. This is Krycek we’re talking about. God only knows what kind of weaponry he’s got in his house.”

“Et tu, Scully?” Mulder mumbled, his eyes dark with betrayal, then he lapsed into a sulky silence and pretended to be absorbed by the scenery as Skinner drove with implacable slowness down the dark highway.

When they finally reached the outskirts of Benson, Skinner pulled the Jeep up outside a Steak House and turned off the engine.

“We’ll eat here,” he announced.

“I’m not hungry,” Mulder pouted.

“I am,” Scully said, which earned her another of Mulder’s death glares.

But it was the truth and, besides, spending an hour eating now would reduce the amount of time she’d spend later, listening to Mulder pacing up and down his motel room in frustration at the enforced delay.

Despite Skinner’s decision to stop at the restaurant, it was soon evident that he had even less of an appetite than Mulder. He ordered a steak, then just pushed it around his plate disinterestedly until Mulder, who’d petulantly refused to order at all, started stealing his fries. At which point, Skinner told Mulder to order ‘his own damned food’ and then the two men just sat and glowered at each other while she munched doggedly at her salad and fervently wished she was anywhere else at that moment.

She had a feeling that, whichever way things played out at Krycek’s place, it was all going to end in tears.

Skinner clearly wanted Krycek’s actions to be vindicated somehow, and Mulder… well, though she hated to admit it, she didn’t think Mulder was going to be satisfied until he’d permanently wrung the little rat’s neck himself. Mulder wasn’t even mentioning the fact that he might find Samantha alive. For the first time in her memory, his quest for his sister had taken a clear back seat.

And it occurred to her, sadly, that on top of all of Krycek’s other crimes, he’d now done the absolute unforgivable. He’d tarnished Samantha in Mulder’s eyes.

***

It was gone ten when they found a small motel on route 191, about 15 miles from Fallow Point. 

Skinner killed the engine, opened the trunk, pointedly pocketed the keys and told Mulder to get their bags while he checked them in. He booked two connecting rooms; a single for Scully and a twin for himself and Mulder, since he didn’t trust Mulder out of his sight.

But Mulder seemed oddly subdued as he let them into their room, dully asking whether Skinner minded if he took the first shower. So, although Skinner had driven and consequently considered himself to have first dibs, he graciously nodded his agreement. “But leave me some hot water,” he warned, as Mulder disappeared into the bathroom, toilet bag in tow.

With a sly grin, he hid the car keys under his mattress, before removing his jacket and tie and sitting down on the edge of his bed with a sigh of weariness. He felt sick with tension yet contrarily bone-tired enough to sleep like the dead. Which he thought was pretty ironic, given the last few days.

His maudlin thoughts were disturbed by the sight of a wet, naked Mulder stumbling tiredly back into the bedroom in search of his sleep pants. His stomach did a lazy back-flip as, for the first time in his life, he found his cheeks burning with embarrassment at the sight of another man’s body. 

// But it’s not just any body, is it? It’s the body of the man who slept with your son.//

Skinner swallowed convulsively, desperately trying to repress his sudden feelings of revulsion. Hell, he had several gay…well, not friends, but certainly acquaintances, and as long as they weren’t camp, like McAllister, and didn’t rub it in his face, he had no particular feelings about their chosen lifestyle. So, maybe Mulder had been right. It wasn’t the fact that Alex was gay that bothered him, as much as the idea that Mulder had slept with him. Was it just too close, too personal for comfort, to imagine a man he knew so well in bed with Alex? Or were his feelings of distaste more to do with the relationship that had later developed between the two men?

Could Sharon have ever done anything to him that would have inspired the kind of hatred Alex sparked in Mulder? Could he have ever wanted to strike her and punch her, as Mulder had so often beaten Alex? Could he have let someone chain her on a freezing balcony? Could he have ever stood and watched someone kill her without even flinching? 

The answer was no. A definite, absolute no. No matter what she’d done, even if she’d proven herself to be evil incarnate, he would never have been capable of truly hating her. And didn’t that prove, in and of itself, that whatever relationship that had existed between Mulder and Alex had been in no way comparable to the love between a man and a woman?

Or maybe, just maybe, it proved what Sharon had always said. He’d never really loved his wife. Because if love and hate were opposite sides of the same coin, could love also be the opposite side of indifference? That was how their marriage had ended, a sad wasteland of indifference with both of them trapped on either side of a barricade of their own making. 

“Did you ever love him?” he found himself blurting, only to flush hotly at his own words.

For a long time, Mulder pretended not to hear him. Pretended for so long that he was half-way to the bathroom before Mulder’s sad thoughtful voice answered him.

“I loved him,” Mulder admitted, his eyes dark and wounded, “and, for a while, I believed he loved me.” Then he barked a wild chuff of laughter. “But then, I believe in vampires, werewolves and liver-eating mutants too, Skinner. So draw your own conclusions.”

***

She wasn’t sure what drew her to the window. Perhaps, subconsciously, she’d heard the soft snick of a door closing, or the furtive sound of feet sneaking over the parking lot. Whatever it was, she pulled the drapes aside just in time to see Mulder climbing into the Cherokee and starting the engine. By the time she raced to the door, he’d already left in a squeal of brakes and all she could see were two red tail-lights disappearing into the distance.

She pounded on the locked inter-connecting door until Skinner wrenched it open and stood there, dripping water, wearing nothing except a towel around his hips.

For a split-second she did a double-take, swallowing compulsively, wondering suddenly whether she’d have been so quick to turn her back on his gentlemanly advances if she’d had any idea he looked like that without his clothes on. Then she forced the thought away, reminding herself that she loved John, and quickly told him the situation.

Though, from the furious look in his eyes, it was clear he’d already worked it out for himself.

Uncaring of her reluctantly interested eyes, he started throwing his clothes on. Cursing all the while under his breath about keys, mattresses and kicking Mulder’s ass. Then he grabbed the phone and started dialing.

“I’m going to kill that stupid, self-centered, egotistical son-of-a-bitch,” Skinner growled several minutes later, slamming the phone down in frustration. “There isn’t even a 24hr taxi service in this godforsaken town.”

Although Scully’s own face was pursed with annoyance, she gave a half-shrug and reached for her FBI badge. “So we just commandeer a vehicle off another guest,” she said matter-of-factly. 

At Skinner’s look of surprise, she cracked a small smile. “I’ve been ditched by him so many times, I’ve learned to take a pragmatic approach.”

***

Samantha walked into the Sitting room, grabbed the newspaper off Alex’s lap, rolled it up and used it to swipe the top of Alex’s head. 

“What did I do now?” he asked, looking up at her with a good-natured smile.

“Guess who didn’t take the garbage out tonight?” 

“Damn,” he groaned. “For god’s sake don’t tell your mother. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Don’t yell at me, but maybe she’s got a point. Nicki’s got to learn if he makes a promise, he has to keep it.”

“He’s only eleven,” Alex countered. “It’s not the end of the world if he’s forgotten to take out the goddamned garbage.”

“It’s the principle…” 

“What do you want me to do? Go haul his ass out of bed, make him get dressed and do it now?” Alex demanded, with an exasperated sigh.

“Of course not,” she soothed. “I’m just saying you need to have a talk with him in the morning.”

“Okay.”

“And…um…maybe you should hide the evidence from Mom,” she added, with a grin.

“I’ve already set the alarms, Sam,” Alex groaned.

She shrugged. “Fine. If you can’t be bothered to get up that’s okay. Just don’t blame me when Mom finds the trash can full and feels the need to remind you of your fatherly obligations. Don’t expect me to interfere, when she’s giving you chapter and verse on your failure to adequately discipline the children.”

“Alternatively, I could solve the entire problem by just shooting her and burying her in the back yard,” he pointed out, with an evil smirk.

“That’d make a hell of a mess. I think it would be easier all round if you just put out the garbage,” Samantha said solemnly, though she was clearly struggling to keep a straight face.

Alex rose to his feet with a sigh. “I’m a highly trained assassin, Sam,” he grumbled. “I know at least 57 ways to kill her without making a ‘mess’ in the house.”

“I know,” she said. “I was talking about the mud she’ll track into the carpet when she finally claws her way back out of the ground.”

Alex snorted with laughter, pecked her lightly on the cheek, and headed for the kitchen to collect the garbage.

***

Mulder couldn’t believe his luck. 

He’d parked the Jeep at the end of the drive, deciding it best to make his way up to the house on foot, and years of experience of breaking into military enclosures had instinctively frozen him in place fifty-feet from the front door when a glint at the corner of his eyes had revealed what had turned out to be the tiny winking laser of a sophisticated perimeter alarm.

That hadn’t been lucky, except for his failure to trigger it, because that had just left him cold and exposed and realizing he was totally unequipped for circumventing the alarm system. After ten minutes of freezing his balls off, convinced by the alarm alone that this was the right house, he reluctantly decided he might as well return to the motel and face Skinner’s wrath.

What was lucky, was the fact that he’d no sooner made that decision than the tiny laser stopped blinking, the house’s porch lights came on, the front door opened and none other than Alex Krycek himself stepped out. Carrying not an Uzi, or a rocket launcher or even a plain old fashioned pistol, but just an honest-to-goodness black garbage bag.

In front of Mulder’s incredulous eyes, Krycek blithely walked down the porch steps and headed casually towards a large refuse container at the far end of the enclosed front yard.

For a moment, Mulder seriously wondered whether it was a trick. He’d get half-way across the lawn, and then the garbage bag would transform miraculously into some deadly weapon and he’d be cut down mid-stride.

But, being Mulder, his weapon was in his hand and he was already running impulsively across the grass towards the white-picketed enclosure before the thought occurred to him and, by the time it fully registered in his brain, he’d already leapt over the low fence and was less than twelve feet from his quarry. And it was only then that the noise of his running feet, or maybe just sheer animal instinct, alerted Krycek to his presence.

He didn’t have time to delight in the expression of complete shock on Krycek’s face, but he subconsciously registered the way Krycek lowered into a defensive crouch rather than reaching for a weapon of his own, and that gave him the confidence to slow down, instead of barreling straight into him. Even with one-arm, Krycek was stronger than him and Mulder wasn’t fool enough to believe Krycek would sustain his usual habit of letting Mulder hit him with virtual impunity. Here, in his own home, Krycek would undoubtedly fight like a cornered rat unless Mulder took full advantage of the gun in his hands.

“Freeze,” he spat breathlessly, coming to a shuddering halt just out of Krycek’s reach, and pointing the muzzle at Krycek’s heart. “Hands…oops, sorry, hand in the air.”

“Asshole,” Krycek snarled, his eyes flashing with dangerous fury.

“I said put your fucking hand up,” Mulder yelled, cocking his trigger.

Krycek flinched minutely at the tiny sound, his eyes flicking worriedly between Mulder’s face and the house.

“Yeah,” Mulder agreed coldly. “A shot might bring Lisita out, mightn’t it?” he taunted. “Do you really want to take that chance?”

Krycek paled, which only made his angry eyes burn brighter, but he slowly raised his good hand to prove it was empty.

“Now, turn around, and put your arms behind your back,” Mulder said. “Slowly.”

Krycek swallowed visibly, dropped his head slightly and turned around. Mulder waited until Krycek’s arms were in the middle of his back, then leapt forward and slammed the muzzle of his weapon against the back of Krycek’s neck. Using his left hand to grab Krycek’s wrist and twist it painfully upwards, Mulder turned him sideways and increased the pressure in his right hand until Krycek threw his head back in a desperate attempt to escape the bruising pressure of the gun against his throat.

“Fuck it,” Krycek gasped. “I’m not fighting you, Mulder.”

Mulder considered his comment, then smiled nastily. “No, you’re not, are you?”

He pulled the gun away from Krycek’s throat, waited for him to take a gasping breath of relief, then smashed the barrel across Krycek’s right cheek so hard that the skin tore and a spurt of blood landed on Mulder’s own face.

“FUCKER,” Krycek howled.

Mulder released Krycek’s arm, swapped his gun to his left-hand, jammed it quickly against Krycek’s neck and used his whole body-weight to drive his right fist into Krycek’s gut. The way Krycek grunted and doubled over was so damned satisfying, he immediately did it again. 

His fist, already hot with impact bruises, then drove towards Krycek’s stomach a third time. But, before it could connect, the unmistakable sound of a rifle being cocked behind his head made his arm freeze mid-swing.

“Drop the gun and step away from him, hands in the air.”

The voice was as cool as the night-air and just as familiar. 

Of their own volition, his fingers released his weapon and it dropped into the dirt with a dull thud. He swung around eagerly, barely even aware of Krycek collapsing heavily to his knees behind him.

His sister, his honest-to-god sister, was standing on the patio, pointing a rifle at his face.

“Samantha?” he gasped, and stumbled towards her.

Only to freeze, once more, as a bullet kicked into the dirt at his feet.

“I told you to put your hands up,” she reminded him coldly. 

Her attention flicked briefly towards Krycek, visually assessing the damage Mulder had wrought, and when she turned her eyes fully onto Mulder once more, he was stunned by the burning anger blazing in their depths.

“Samantha?” he pleaded, his expression bewildered by her expression of pure  hatred. “It’s me, Fox. Your brother.”

“I know who you are, Fox,” she said. “You’re the coward who just held a gun to my husband’s head while you beat him up.”

“Coward?” he repeated disbelievingly.

“What else do you call someone who hits someone, knowing that person is too damned stupid to even try and strike him back?” she demanded, her angry eyes flicking towards Krycek as he struggled to his feet.

“Leave it, Sam,” Krycek grunted, swiping the back of his right hand over his torn face before limping slowly towards her, carefully giving Mulder a wide-berth. He reached her side, turned to face Mulder, sat down heavily on the porch steps and hissed at the resultant jolt to his bruised ribs.

“You okay?” she asked Krycek gently, while Mulder simply gaped at them in confusion.

“I’ll live,” he snapped, jerking his head away irritably when she tried to check the damage to his face.

“I think that might need stitches,” she said, frowning worriedly at the bleeding tear across his cheekbone.

Mulder took advantage of her momentary distraction to take another step towards them, only to immediately find himself staring down the barrel of Samantha’s rifle once more.

“Don’t push it,” she warned. “I’m already pissed with you, Fox. I think you’ve scarred Alex’s face.”

Shaking his head, Mulder grinned with total disbelief. “You aren’t going to shoot me,” he said confidently.

“Want to bet?” she asked sweetly, her lips twisted into a frighteningly Krycek-like smirk. She lowered the rifle until it was sighted on his groin. “Maybe I won’t kill you,” she purred. “But I sure as hell feel tempted to geld that nasty temper of yours.”

“Samantha, stop waving that gun at your brother.”

The color drained from Mulder’s face, and he swayed as he turned in the direction of the impossibly familiar voice. “Mom?” he gasped weakly.

“What’s up, Mulder?” Krycek snorted. “Seen a ghost?”

Mulder ignored the mocking voice, his entire attention riveted on his mother. “Mom? Is that really you?”

Walking across the porch towards him, Teena Mulder offered him a tentative smile. “It’s really me, Fox,” she said, cautiously opening her arms to invite his hug.

But, instead of moving forward to greet her, Mulder’s face contorted with fury, and he swung towards Krycek  with a roar of outrage. 

“You FUCKER,” he howled. “You stole my sister AND my fucking mother?”

Krycek’s bruised face twisted into a wry grin. “It was kinda one of those buy-one, get-one-free deals. Believe me, it wasn’t a bargain.”

Mulder gaped at him in momentary disbelief. Then, with a howl of fury, he launched himself at the seated man, his hands fixing around Krycek’s neck in a choke-hold. He squeezed his fingers tight until Krycek’s eyes began to bulge from lack of oxygen. 

With a loud curse, Samantha flipped the rifle in her hands and brought it down, butt-first, on the back of Mulder’s head.

Coughing and wheezing for breath, Alex stared down at Mulder’s crumpled body, then looked up at his wife.

“Well, that went well,” he said, and smirked.

***

“Are you sure this is the right place?” 

Skinner just grunted, as though the question wasn’t worthy of an answer. He swung the truck off the road past what was unmistakably their abandoned rental car and parked up in front of the house.

“It’s very quiet inside,” she pointed out, her brow furrowed with confusion.

“What were you expecting? The gunfight at the OK corral?” 

“Something like that,” she admitted. 

“There’s at least one child in the house,” he reminded her. “Surely even Mulder’s got more sense than to go bursting inside with his weapon drawn.”

Scully looked less than convinced. “I don’t know, Sir. He gets pretty…well, crazy, where Krycek’s concerned. Can you really see him knocking politely on Krycek’s door and being invited inside for a cup of tea?”

Skinner shook his head.

“It’s really quiet,” Scully repeated. “Too quiet.”

“I know,” he agreed reluctantly. 

“I think we ought to call for back-up.”

“And say what, exactly? That Mulder’s possibly been taken hostage by a dead assassin and his recently-deceased daughter?” Skinner snapped.

“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that Krycek responds to any threat to his family with lethal force,” she retorted. 

“Which is exactly why I have no intention of surrounding the house with a SWAT team,” he barked. “Alex’s children are in that house.”

“So what do you suggest? We just ring the doorbell and ask him to invite us inside?” 

Skinner ignored her sarcastic tone. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” he said decisively. He reached inside his jacket for his weapon, unloaded it and placed it in the glove compartment. “Yours too,” he said, when Scully just blinked at him in disbelief.

“You’re proposing we go into a potentially hostile situation without back-up and unarmed?” she gasped.

“Why not?” he asked dryly. “Mulder does it all the time.”

***

“Do you want me to let them in?” Samantha asked hesitantly, as the door chime sounded for the second time.

“Sure,” Alex mumbled through the ice-pack on his face. “Hell, why not call a few of the neighbors around and we can have a party!”

“They aren’t going to go away,” she snapped. 

“So shoot ‘em already,” he drawled.

Spitting muffled curses around the cloth gagging his mouth, Mulder began to struggle wildly against the ropes that were binding his wrists and ankles to a heavy dining chair. 

Samantha sighed heavily. 

“He’s joking,” she assured her panicked brother. “If he’d wanted them dead, he could have activated the mines in the driveway.”

“Shows what you know,” Alex muttered, with a dark scowl. “Maybe I just want to see the whites of their eyes as I take ‘em out.”

As she walked into the room with a wet compress, Teena’s face was pinched with distaste. “Don’t tease Fox, Alex. You’re worse than the kids.” She walked up to Mulder and pressed the compress against the back of his head. 

Mulder glared at her furiously, mouthing various obscenities into the gag and pulling hard enough at the ropes to rock the chair. “Can’t I untie him, now he’s awake?” she asked. 

“If you untie him, he’ll take the gag off, and if he’s not gagged, he’ll talk. Knowing Mulder he’ll talk incessantly, and then I’ll have to kill him just to get him to shut the fuck up,” Alex snarled. “So, no, you can’t fucking untie him, you stupid cow.”

Teena flinched, her expression tightening with offense. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that, Samantha?” she demanded stridently.

Samantha rolled her eyes with obvious boredom. “Alex, don’t speak to mom like that.” 

Alex just smirked.

The door chime sounded again and Samantha sighed. “We’d better let them in before they wake-up the kids.”

Alex nodded, reaching into the crease between the seat and arm of the sofa for the gun he’d concealed earlier. He laid it across his lap, its muzzle pointed towards Mulder.

“Go let ‘em in, Teena.”

“Me?” Teena asked, her expression vaguely horrified.

“They might grab Sam as a hostage,” he explained patiently.

“They could grab me,” she pointed out.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Gosh. What a choice. Sam and the kids or the mother-in-law from hell. Jeez. Dunno how that one would go, Teena.”

“Alex,” Samantha hissed warningly, as Teena straightened her spine, cast Alex a supercilious glare, and stalked out of the room.

“You’re terrible,” she said.

“I am?” Alex replied, with an innocent look.

Then, in front of Mulder’s stunned eyes, both Samantha and Alex collapsed into giggles like a pair of naughty children.

***

“Any more bright ideas?” Scully snapped.

“Ring the bell again. If he was planning to shoot us, he’d have done it by now.”

“If he was planning to open the door, he’d have done it by now,” she countered. 

Only to jump with surprise as the door in question swung open and a polite voice said, “Mr. Skinner? Miss Scully? Do come in.”

Scully, who had faced murderers and monsters without blinking, swayed almost drunkenly as she identified the speaker. But, except for a momentary start, Skinner didn’t even appear surprised.

“Mrs. Mulder,” he acknowledged dryly.

“But…but…” Scully stammered.

“Indeed,” Skinner agreed, using a gentle hand in the small of her back to usher her inside.

***

Without the stolid presence of Walter at her back, Scully wasn’t sure she’d have been able to hold it together when Teena Mulder - the ‘dead’ Teena Mulder - led her into a wide, comfortably furnished room in which Mulder’s bound and gagged body was displayed as a garish center-point. 

Alex Krycek was sprawled on one end of a large over-stuffed sofa, against the left wall, opposite a roaring open fireplace. He had a gun in his right hand and his prosthetic hand was holding a dripping ice-pack against his face. On the right of the room, next to the fire, a tall young woman, with long brown hair scraped back into a careless ponytail, was holding a rifle with apparent casualness. Neither Alex nor the woman, // It must be Samantha // her mind supplied helpfully, made any move to raise their weapons, but Scully was left in no illusion that both were fully prepared to do so if either she or Skinner made the slightest threatening move.

So she ignored them both and rushed, instead, to Mulder. Ignoring his muffled complaints, she wasn't foolish enough to attempt to untie him. She simply ran her fingers over his face, head and upper body, until she was sure his only injury was a nasty swelling on the back of his head. Then she placed her fingers under his chin and tilted his head back to gaze worriedly into his furious eyes. The clarity of anger reflected in the hazel depths satisfied her there was no danger of concussion. 

Only then did she rejoin Skinner, who had waited in surprising silence for her return to his side. Even more surprisingly, neither Alex nor Samantha had moved during her examination of Mulder, let alone protested it. And when she met Alex’s eyes, they looked almost amused at her actions.

“Well, we already have the cowardly lion,” Samantha sneered, sending a look of such intense dislike in Mulder’s direction that Scully’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “So I guess red here is Dorothy.”

Scully stiffened angrily at the scornful jibe; while Alex snorted loudly, flashing a look of amused appreciation in his wife’s direction.

“Soooo,” Samantha continued, with a glare of distaste in Skinner’s direction. “Is he made of straw or tin, do you think?”

“Oh, he’s got a brain,” Alex drawled. 

“Then he must be lacking a heart,” Samantha concluded with a solemn nod. She twisted her face into an expression of exaggerated understanding and snapped her fingers. “Of course,” she exclaimed. “How stupid of me not to recognize him immediately. He’s obviously your father, Alex.”

Skinner’s expression didn’t alter, but Scully was standing close enough to feel a tremor of suppressed reaction run through him at Samantha’s ‘joke’. The woman was definitely Mulder’s sister, Scully decided, because she clearly shared the same sense of cruel, sarcastic humor.

“If you’ve finished the comedy routine,” she snapped. “Perhaps proper introductions are in order. I’m Mulder’s partner, Dana Scully. This is Walter Skinner, and you have got one hell of a lot of explaining to do to us both, beginning with why the hell Mulder’s trussed up like a Thanksgiving Turkey.”

“Because we didn’t have a fatted calf,” Alex said, with an icy glare in Skinner’s direction. “That is the appropriate celebration for a prodigal’s return, isn’t it?”

“That’s a prodigal son,” Samantha corrected.

“Oh,” Alex said, his face falling into a mock pout. “Does that mean we don’t get to put Mulder in the oven?”

Skinner sighed loudly and spread his hands in a gesture of reconciliation. “Can’t we talk, Alex? Can’t you at least give me an opportunity to explain my side of the situation?”

Like a spell being broken, Skinner’s voice shattered the bizarre atmosphere of sarcastic humor and Alex surged to his feet, his face twisting into a feral mask of sheer hatred as he pointed his weapon directly at Skinner’s face.

“Just one bullet,” he snarled. “Just one fucking bullet in your head. Right between your eyes. Right where you shot me, you fucker.”

“Alex, why don’t you sit down and at least give the man the opportunity to speak,” Teena interrupted, crossing calmly over to the sofa, sitting down and patting the empty place next to her as though to encourage him to obey.

“Why don’t you mind your own fucking business, you old witch?” Alex snarled, but Scully saw some of the tension drain out of his shoulders as though yelling at Teena had allowed him to release enough fury to regain control of himself.

And the small, satisfied smile on Teena’s lips suggested she’d been fully expecting that reaction.

“Mom’s right,” Samantha said, her tone soothing. “Let him speak. If you don’t like what he has to say, you can always shoot him later.”

Scully felt her eyes widening in shock at Samantha’s casual tone, only to see a similarly satisfied smile on her face when Alex growled with disgust, lowered his weapon and slouched back to the sofa, successfully tag-teamed into compliance by the two women.

Which, Scully decided, suggested the dynamics in the room weren’t necessarily what they seemed to be on the surface.

“Why don’t you let Mulder go?” she asked, her tone reasonable. “You’re armed, we’re not.”

“We know you’re not,” Samantha smirked. “You wouldn’t have gotten through the metal detector on the front door if you were.”

Scully started with surprise, but it at least explained why neither she nor Skinner had been frisked when they’d entered the room. “So you could let Mulder go,” she repeated firmly.

“No way,” Alex snapped. “He stays just as he is. You think I’m gonna let a nasty violent bastard like him loose around my kids?”

Scully opened his mouth in automatic protest, then closed it again. Despite the look of wounded betrayal in Mulder’s eyes at her silence, it was impossible to deny the visible evidence of Mulder’s temper on Alex’s battered face.

“Remove the gag, at least,” Skinner suggested. At Alex’s frown, he shrugged and smiled wryly. “Since you can always replace it, if he pisses you off too much, I’m sure he’ll be smart enough, under the circumstances, to keep control of his mouth.”

Mulder’s eyes narrowed with contained fury at Skinner’s obvious message, but he nodded his sullen acceptance of the warning.

Alex stared intently at the carpet between his knees, then looked up and glowered.

“Sit down on the floor, both of you,” he snapped.

Skinner sank down onto his haunches without even a token protest. After a momentary hesitation, Scully followed suit. As she crossed her legs and tried to make herself comfortable, she gave a quick prayer of thanks for her decision to change into a pant-suit at the motel.

Alex gave a small nod of satisfaction. “Okay, Sam. Take the gag off.”

Scully was reluctantly impressed as she watched Samantha unknot the gag one-handed, her other hand keeping firm hold of the rifle. It was becoming increasingly obvious that Alex wasn’t the only member of his family who was potentially lethal.

Naturally, the second Mulder’s mouth was free, he proved his inability to remain silent. 

“I can’t believe you did this to me, Samantha,” he protested, his expression a wild mix of bewilderment and anger. “And you, Mom. You let me think you were DEAD. It’s Stockholm syndrome, isn’t it? The bastard’s brain-washed you both or something...”

“Mulder, shut up,” Skinner barked. “Or I’ll gag you myself.”

His eyes tragically wounded, Mulder let his bottom lip drop into a puppy-dog pout, as though he couldn’t face Skinner’s apparent betrayal on top of that of his sister and mother.

“Fox, you don’t understand…” Teena began awkwardly, wringing her hands together on her lap.

“Of course I don’t understand,” Mulder snarled. “How could you do that to me, Mom? You pretended you’d killed yourself. You let me think it was my fault you were dead!”

“It wasn’t about you,” Alex  interrupted, with a cold sneer. “Not everything’s about you, Mulder. Come to think of it, just about NOTHING is about you. Okay? Do you get it yet? Wake up and smell the fucking coffee, Mulder. For all your self-centered, egotistical belief that the world revolves around you, when push comes to shove, you’re just about fucking insignificant and you always have been. Okay?”

Scully flinched at the look of complete desolation that appeared on Mulder’s face in response to Alex’s cruel words. And she knew, instinctively, that it hadn’t been a blinding flash of humility that had put that expression on Mulder’s face. Alex hadn’t rocked Mulder’s belief in his importance in the quest to prevent the alien invasion. The pained understanding in Mulder’s eyes was far more personal and tragic than that. 

What she’d just witnessed was the shattering of any remaining tiny fragment of Mulder’s heart that had stubbornly clung to any hope that Alex Krycek had ever given a damn about him.

“Well, this is nice. It’s kinda like the Addams family reunion,” Alex quipped, breaking the stunned silence. “But there’s still something missing,” he mused. Then he snapped his fingers suddenly. “Jeffrey,” he announced, with a cruel grin. “Go call him, Sam. He’d hate to miss out on the fun and he always adds such visual…interest…to parties.”

Mulder shook his head in disgust.

“What?” Alex asked innocently.

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Well, you should know,” Alex replied easily, with a taunting wink.

Mulder flashed a guilty look in Samantha’s direction, his face blazing with sudden heat.

“Alex, you’re not helping the situation,” Samantha snapped. “Why don’t you go and put the kettle on, or something?”

“Oh yeah,” he grumbled. “I’m sure the ‘situation’ will look a whole fuck better over a cup of coffee.” 

But, wincing slightly, he rose to his feet and, right arm clasped across his stomach, he moved towards the door.

Hating herself for her inability to ignore his obvious discomfort, Scully found herself reluctantly saying, “I could tape those ribs for you and a couple of stitches on your cheek wouldn’t hurt.” Then she had to stifle a nervous laugh at his look of complete disbelief.

“Would you?” Samantha asked, her expression both surprised and relieved.

“I’m okay,” Alex snapped. “I don’t need any favors from her.”

“I’m a doctor,” Scully said. “It’s not a favor, it’s my job.”

“You’re a pathologist,” Alex sneered.

“Under the circumstances, that makes me a rather appropriate Doctor for one of the ‘Addams Family’, don’t you think?” she retorted dryly.

The rest of the room seemed to freeze into petrified silence at her words. Mulder’s mouth gaped open, Teena looked like she was about to bolt, and both Samantha and Skinner’s faces were pictures of shock. 

But Alex laughed. He laughed so hard he had to clench his ribs tightly as they ached under the strain. And, when he was finally in control of himself again, he offered Scully the first genuine smile she’d ever seen on his face.

“You’re okay, Doc,” he said. 

She just grunted and scowled in response but, despite herself, couldn’t deny that something in his laughter and his easy smile, had relegated him from ‘inhuman monster’ into a real person. Not a likeable person, of course. But a person, none-the-less.

***

Skinner waited until Scully and Alex had left the room before turning his full  attention on Samantha. 

Despite their short, strange acquaintance, her worrying sense of dark humor and the even more alarming way she was obviously comfortable with the idea of pointing a rifle in his face, he couldn’t deny actually liking his son’s wife. She had spunk. There was something undeniably fierce about her. From what he could see, Samantha shared Mulder’s trait of obsession but had clearly chosen to focus it entirely on the protection of her family. He had no doubt she would kill to protect her children. Or her husband. And although the AD in him found that alarming, the idea of such loyalty resonated perfectly comfortably within the core of his being. It touched on a dark, secretive place in his own heart that still believed in true love. 

Samantha loved Alex. That much was obvious. And, from the easy banter and understanding glances between them, it was equally obvious that Alex loved her. 

Which was probably why Mulder had given up his cursing in favor of a silent, sulking pout. 

If it was obvious to him, it must have been equally obvious to Mulder. Alex and Samantha were happily married. Which surely proved Alex’s seduction of Mulder had never been more than a cruel means to an end. 

Skinner felt moderately guilty, as though he was somehow responsible for his son’s actions and should, therefore, be offering Mulder some form of comfort over what Alex had done. But he was honest enough to admit that his primary feeling was relief. Because, while he agreed that Alex had carelessly trampled on Mulder’s heart for the sake of his own, as yet unknown, agenda, the knowledge settled two things in his mind.

Firstly, while he still disapproved of Mulder’s propensity for swinging his fists in Alex’s direction, he at least could accept the merit of Mulder’s violent hatred.
Since he genuinely liked and respected Mulder, he was strangely relieved to understand his behavior towards Alex was somewhat justified.

Secondly, and more importantly, he wasn’t going to have to try and come to terms with the idea of Alex and Mulder resuming their relationship. Now it was no longer a possibility, he could finally face the niggling doubt that had been in the back of his mind for days. The worry that if, no, when, Alex was vindicated, he and Mulder would fall back into each other's arms like two star-crossed lovers in a cheap romance novel.

// You’re a selfish bastard, Walter Skinner // he told himself, as he glanced over at Mulder’s posture of abject defeat. And he felt guilty and ashamed of himself. 

But he still felt relieved.

***

“If you’d asked, I could have found you some wool and a darning needle and you could have really made a mess of him,” Samantha snapped, grabbing Alex’s chin and turning his face so she could glare more closely at the heavy black stitches across his cheekbone. 

“Will you get off me?” Alex snarled. “I’m FINE.” He pulled away from her and stomped over towards the sofa.

“I told him the thread was too thick,” Scully said, with a defensive frown. “But he just said if I didn’t like it, he’d just stitch it up himself.”

“He would have,” Samantha sighed. “Stupid STUBBORN man.” She rolled her eyes in frustration and flashed Scully an understanding look. “I swear that’s the stuff Liss uses to plait Dancer’s mane,” she confided.

“So?” Alex argued. “I didn’t hear you complaining when I used it to stitch your stomach back together, Sam.”

“Since the alternative was running four miles with my entrails dragging behind me, I didn’t have much choice,” she reminded him angrily. “But this is your face, Alex.”

“Yeah, shame to mar the pretty boy looks,” Mulder drawled sarcastically, though he’d paled somewhat at Samantha’s casual mention that she’d been so severely injured.

“So you’re ‘immortal’ too?” Scully asked quickly, before Alex could react to Mulder’s taunt.

Samantha looked at her in honest surprise, then laughed. “We all are, honey, for what little it’s worth.”

“Yeah, Red,” Alex snorted, at Scully’s suspicious frown. “Even you.”

“Me?” she squeaked.

 “Which reminds me…”

He moved so fast she never even saw him coming. One moment he was sprawled lazily on the sofa, the next his prosthetic arm had her in a headlock and his right hand produced a plam seemingly out of nowhere. She screamed with pain and shock as she felt its tip sink into the back of her neck.

With a howl of outrage, Skinner started to scramble up from the floor towards them, only for Samantha to smash the butt of her rifle into his temple with enough force that he collapsed back to his knees Shaking his head in a pained, angry daze, he attempted to rise again, but Samantha reversed the rifle and slammed the muzzle against the skin between his eyes. 

“Move, and I’ll shoot your fucking brains out," she announced coldly.

Mulder, meanwhile, was screaming with fury, threatening to rip Krycek’s head off and struggling so violently against his restraints that he tipped his chair over and fell heavily to the floor with a resounding crash.

“Got it,” Alex announced cheerfully, using the tip of the knife to flick out the implant in the back of Scully’s neck.

It fell to the floor and he ground it under the heel of his boot. Then he released Scully,  scooped the crushed implant up with his hand and tossed it into the fire with a grunt of satisfaction.

Samantha pulled the rifle back out of Skinner’s face and offered him an apologetic shrug as he angrily righted himself.

“You’ve killed her,” Mulder howled, banging his head on the floor in frustration.

“He’s such a fucking drama queen, isn’t he?” Alex asked the room in general, before crossing to the small bar in the corner of the room and pouring himself a drink.

Wide-eyed with shock, Scully pressed her right hand to the tiny wound at the back of her neck,  then brought her hand to her face and stared disbelievingly at the blood on her fingers.

“Mom, go fetch Dana a band-aid,” Samantha said.

“The cancer…” Scully whispered.

“It’s gone,” Samantha explained, her face softening into an expression of sympathy. “You beat it yourself, Dana. The way our bodies work, you had to be either dead or at least almost dead before your healing powers kicked into gear. Why do you think you were the only abductee out of all of those women you met who survived the cancer?”

“Because we put the goddamned implant back into her neck!” Mulder roared.

Samantha shook her head. “Because she’s one of us,” she corrected impatiently. “The only reason Dad led you get hold of the implant was to make you think it was the implant that saved her.”

“But why would he do that?” Scully demanded, shaking her head in stubborn disbelief.

Alex threw back his scotch, poured himself another, hesitated momentarily and then reached for a second glass. He poured a double measure into it, glanced thoughtfully over his shoulder at Skinner, and added another shot. Then he walked past the fallen Mulder, and pressed the glass into Skinner’s trembling hand. “Woman’s got one hell of a right-hook, hasn’t she?” he asked proudly.

“Yeah,” Skinner agreed shakily, taking a gulp of the Glenfiddich. He was rethinking his earlier decision to like Samantha, but he was damned well learning to treat her with respect.

“It’s a tracking device,” Alex said, turning towards Scully. “The aliens sweep for your location at least once a day. You were putting us all in danger just by being here.”

Scully nodded stiffly, her eyes ice-cold. “And you couldn’t have just said that to me rather than assaulting me and performing a butcher-act?”

“Alex tends to prefer a direct approach to solving problems,” Samantha said, with an apologetic shrug. 

“I see,” Scully snapped coldly, though her mind had begun to race. What if they were right? What if she had beaten the cancer herself? Could she finally let go of her secret dread that the remission was temporary? “So it won’t come back?” she asked, with a suspicious waver in her voice.

“It won’t ever come back,” Samantha agreed. 

And, to her horror, Scully found herself bursting into tears.

***

Skinner hesitated, his throat tight with emotion, warring between the natural desire to offer comfort to the sobbing, obviously overwrought Scully and the understanding that she would probably prefer him not to acknowledge her distress. Past experience had proven conclusively that, although Scully would gratefully accept a hug when she was distraught, afterwards she would deliberately distance herself from her comforter, as though mortified by what she perceived as a show of weakness on her part. 

Unless, of course, her comforter was Mulder. But since he was still sprawled face down on the floor, his limbs bound to the upturned chair, there was little likelihood of his intervention in the current crisis.

Skinner  was still wondering what to do, torn between his natural protective urges and the common sense born of bitter Scully-experience, when Samantha solved his dilemma by handing her rifle to her husband and gathering Scully inside her arms in a warm, almost motherly, hug.

Skinner found himself sighing with relief, understanding that Scully would be far more comfortable with the idea of letting down her defenses in front of another woman, even if that woman was a virtual stranger… and, anyway, that was far from the truth. Samantha may not have been a physical reality to them until less than an hour previously, but her existence had been shadowing Mulder for so many years that no one who knew Mulder could claim Samantha as a stranger.

And, despite his concern for Scully, he was pleased for the opportunity to see this new compassionate facet of his daughter-in-law. He’d already experienced the spunk, determination and sheer damned ruthlessness that made her such a perfect mate for Alex. Now he saw a little of her softer side, the part of her that was the mother of Lisita and…???

“You have two children?” he asked Alex cautiously.

The expression that crossed Alex’s face was oddly furtive, as he looked between Skinner and Samantha and then, almost casually, flicked a glance towards the fallen Mulder, before nodding a brief, though strangely guilty, nod of agreement.

“We have a…a son,” he said hesitantly. “Nicki…Nicholai… he’s eleven.”

Samantha gave him a peculiar questioning look over the top of Scully’s head. Skinner watched suspiciously as Alex’s eyes flashed her a silent warning, and Samantha’s face immediately stilled into an unnaturally blank mask. They were concealing something, that much was clear, but it was hard to focus on trying to figure out the nature of that secret when the knowledge he had a grandson was making his heart pound furiously inside his chest.

A grandson. He had a grandson. A beautiful, wonderful, eleven-year-old grandson.

“Does he look like you?” he blurted, not sure why it mattered to him so desperately but, since Lisita looked so like Samantha, he had this strange certainty that Nicki was a carbon-copy of his father. 

Annoyance flashed in Alex’s eyes. “Why? You saying you’re only interested in him if he looks like a fucking Mulder? Kids aren’t puppies, Skinner. You can’t pick and choose between ‘em based on their looks.”

“I know,” he agreed mildly. “I suppose I was just hoping he’d been spared the Mulder nose.”

Alex’s mouth fell open in surprise, Samantha snorted loudly and Mulder cursed something unintelligible into the carpet. Which brought Skinner suddenly to his senses. He rose to his feet, completely ignoring the snick of a trigger being engaged on Alex’s lap.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Alex snarled. “Sit down.”

Skinner pointedly refused to turn around. “I’m going to pick Mulder up,” he announced firmly. He walked over to the fallen chair and, grunting with the exertion, snapped it upright again.

“Thanks,” Mulder snapped, his tone anything but grateful. “About fucking time you …” he continued petulantly.

Skinner decided he’d had enough. He already had one sulky, bad-tempered brat waving a gun in his back for choosing to put Mulder’s comfort over his own safety. So he sure as hell wasn’t accepting Mulder’s back-talk as his reward for the chance he’d taken.

“You want to be back on the floor, boy?” he growled, bending down until his nose was practically in Mulder’s face.

It was peculiarly satisfying to see the hazel eyes widen with a sudden appreciation of imminent danger and, though Mulder just swallowed silently rather than apologizing, Skinner was gracious enough to accept that Mulder-silence was a hell of a lot more satisfying than any amount of verbal groveling.

He turned away from Mulder’s temporarily chastened features and noted that Scully was now seated in one of the winged armchairs next to the fire. Samantha had retrieved her rifle, but she was standing behind Scully’s chair-back, her right hand gently squeezing Scully’s shoulder as the smaller woman wiped her face and struggled to regain her composure.

His heart ached for her, his own experiences with the nanos having taught him to appreciate how it felt to live with a constant dark-shadow of your own mortality hovering in the back of your mind. He imagined, if Alex ever freed him of that threat, he too would have an emotional catharsis of wild tears. He could only hope if it happened that Alex would have the good taste to let him experience that break down in private.

Which, naturally, brought his attention to Alex once more. It was impossible to sort out the conflicted emotions that Alex wrought in him. At the moment he’d risen to his feet to rescue Mulder from the carpet, he’d been reasonably confident that Alex wouldn’t shoot him. He’d made the assumption or, more accurately, the leap of faith, that as long as Alex had the gun and, therefore, the upper-hand, he’d be satisfied with the threat of violence rather than its enactment.

To tell the truth, despite his long experience of Alex’s lethal capabilities and Samantha’s increasingly obvious affinity with her rifle, the atmosphere in the room currently felt far from dangerous. Regardless of the weapons in their hands, and their clear determination to use them if they had to, he was peculiarly certain that neither Alex nor Samantha wanted to hurt any of them. He’d been in enough hostage situations in his life to understand that the vibes in this room were different.

But that didn’t give him any particular sense of reassurance. His gut told him that the only way the impasse between them all could be breached was if he and Alex stopped pussy-footing around and talked about the relationship between them. Unless they addressed the misunderstandings between them, there was no hope of moving forward. Yet, contrarily, he was equally certain that any attempt to broach the subject would immediately return Alex to his earlier murderous fury.

Which left them all facing a very long, very uncomfortable evening.

And, speaking of discomfort, he was damned certain that Alex felt like hell. The entire right side of his face was now swollen and discolored, the black stitches across his cheekbone almost invisible now against a garish dark-purple bruise, his right eye was little more than a narrow emerald slit inside puffed tender flesh, and Skinner imagined his stomach and ribs were a similar pinto pattern of bruises. Damn Mulder anyway. The situation was already emotionally volatile enough without this added complication.

Sure enough, as Alex shifted on his seat, his face was a controlled mask of obvious pain and his breathing was beginning to sound a little ragged. Skinner was ridiculously touched to notice that the moment Alex exhaled a tiny hiss of discomfort, Samantha abandoned her efforts to comfort Scully and directed her full attention on her husband.

“You okay?” she asked worriedly.

“I’m fine,” Alex snapped so defensively that it was obvious he wasn’t.

As Samantha’s lips pursed in worry, a high-pitched wail from the doorway made them all jerk around in surprise.

“DADDY HURT!”

“Oh, fuck,” Alex cursed. “Get him out of here, Sam.”

A look of momentary panic crossed her face, then she leapt towards the door in an attempt to catch the carrot-haired, blue-eyed toddler who was charging into the room with a look of determination on his face.

Skinner just gaped at the child, his mind working frantically to absorb the obvious, if unbelievable, identity of the little boy. Scully was frozen in place, eyes huge in her abruptly white face, her mouth dropping open in sheer confusion. Only Mulder managed to verbalize his shock with a roaring cry of “WILLIAM.”

“Daddy,” the little boy wailed, his plump legs powering him surprisingly easily past Samantha’s frantically grasping arms.

For just a second Skinner’s heart leapt with an odd, almost pained joy at the look of sheer happiness in Mulder’s hazel eyes. Despite his own earlier doubts, it seemed Mulder really did love his son, he realized, and the knowledge was bitter-sweet that he would witness at least *one* happy reunion of father and son….

And in the next second, he saw that happiness in Mulder’s eyes crushed into agonized confusion, as William’s head-long charge into the room ended in a sudden swerve and a leap into Alex’s lap.

“Daddy,” William sobbed, throwing his arms around Alex’s neck. “Daddy hurt.”

Alex paused long enough to cast a dark, despairing look over William’s head, swallowed heavily as he absorbed the horrified disbelief on Mulder and Scully’s faces, and then he closed his eyes, lowered his head to the boy’s temple and kissed him with undeniable tenderness. “Daddy’s fine, slugger. I’m okay.”

William shook his head in violent disagreement. “Dreamed you, Daddy. Dreamed you hurt,” he explained solemnly, then raised a tiny trembling hand to Alex’s discolored cheek and stroked it tentatively.

“It’s just a bruise, honey,” Alex explained, in a soft tender tone that Skinner wouldn’t have even imagined possible to emerge from Alex’s husky throat.

“Make Daddy better,” William announced, his face screwed up with determination.

Samantha gave a little gasp of panic and took a step forward towards them. “No, William,” she pleaded. “Don’t…”

But, in front of Skinner’s incredulous eyes, he saw a warm golden-glow began to rise between William’s outspread fingers until it bathed Alex’s face and then, almost in slow-motion, he saw the swollen flesh begin to shrink back to its normal proportions, the dark bruises fading, the slitted eye roundening, and still the glow grew until the pair of them were silhouetted inside it, until they were haloed in light from head to toe. And then, as abruptly as if someone had flicked a switch, the light disappeared and there was nothing except a man and a little boy sitting on the sofa and the whole incident could have been a hallucination except for the undeniable fact that Alex’s face was unmarked. Even the black stitches had disappeared.

“Oh my god,” Skinner breathed.

“This isn’t possible,” Scully stated firmly, though her eyes were swirling with obvious doubt.

“You even stole my fucking SON?” Mulder roared, his face so dark with fury that, for a moment, Skinner had the strange illusion that Alex’s bruises had somehow rematerialized on Mulder. “I’m going to fucking KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD!”

William’s mouth dropped open in almost comical surprise. “You cussed.” He turned to look at Alex, as though for confirmation. “He cussed, Daddy.”

“Yeah,” Alex growled, his eyes blazing in Mulder’s direction. “The bad man cussed in front of you, William.”

Although it was clear to Skinner that Alex was just warning Mulder to mind his language in front of the little boy, Mulder seemed to take the ‘bad man’ comment particularly badly, as though Alex was deliberately turning his son against him.

“FUCKER!” he screamed, struggling wildly against his restraints. “I’m gonna tear your fucking head off for this, Krycek!” he promised.

“Oh no,” Teena groaned, covering her eyes dramatically. 

“William. NO,” Samantha cried, her tone oddly desperate.

Skinner and Scully had a split-second to exchange a confused look and then the chair Mulder was sitting in rose several feet into the air, shot backwards almost too fast for their eyes to follow, and impacted against the far wall with enough force that it splintered apart. Mulder was thrown to the floor, collapsing with a grunt of pain, and he sprawled face-first into the shattered remains of the dining chair. For a moment he just lay there motionlessly, then he groaned loudly, shook his head as though dazed, and struggled with obvious difficulty up onto his hands and knees.

“William,” Samantha sighed, her tone heavy with both censure and obvious relief that Mulder was relatively unharmed.

“Bad man,” William replied, with a smug satisfied grin.

Alex took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then released it in a heavy sigh. He shook his head at the boy in clear chastisement, though it was obvious to the adults in the room that he was struggling to suppress a smile, and all he said was, “Go back to bed, William. It’s late.”

“But I wanna…”

“Nana will read you a story,” he interrupted, with a sudden glare at Teena.

She took the hint and rose to her feet, taking William’s hand and tugging him gently out of the room.

Like a spell being broken, his exit seemed to shatter Scully’s stunned apathy. She surged to her feet, her eyes tracking desperately towards the door as though she’d race after the little boy.

“Sit back down,” Samantha snarled, jabbing her in the stomach with the rifle.

Scully’s face contorted with sudden fury. “That’s my SON, you bitch!”

Samantha shoved her forcefully back into the armchair, her own features darkening with anger. “You gave up the right to call him that four fucking years ago,” she reminded her coldly.

“Well, this is really turning out to be a fun family reunion, isn’t it?” Alex drawled.

“Alex?” Skinner said, his tone mild. “I think you should shut up now.”

And, to his immense surprise, Alex looked more startled than angry at his suggestion. He didn’t even protest when Skinner crossed over to Mulder, helped the stunned man to his feet and walked him carefully over to the chair opposite Scully.

“You alright?” he asked worriedly, staring deeply into the dazed hazel eyes.

Mulder blinked a couple of times, his mouth opening and closing silently, then he shook himself, grunted with pain, and finally found his voice. “Did you… did you see that, Sir?” he asked, with barely contained pride. “Did you see what William did?”

Skinner rolled his eyes. Only Mulder was capable of being thrown bodily across a room by his own four-year-old son and ending up clearly more impressed by the child’s ability to do it than upset it had happened in the first place.

“I can safely say we all saw it,” Skinner said dryly. “He might take after Dana in looks, but he sure as hell inherited your temper, Mulder.”

“Why did you take William off the Van De Kamps?” Scully demanded suddenly.

“You’ve got it backwards,” Samantha retorted. “The Van De Kamps adopted him on our behalf. They never intended to keep him. They did want a child of their own, but the salient point is that they wanted a child of their own. They had no interest in raising someone else’s child, but since it was well documented that Mrs. Van De Kamp couldn’t have children naturally, they needed to be seen to adopt a baby to cover their own tracks. Alex deliberately got himself ‘killed’, so he could drop out of sight and work with the rebel aliens for a few months. The price of his help was a son for the Van De Kamps. Then he exchanged their son for William.”

“You’re saying that’s the reason you threatened to kill Mulder in the parking garage?” Skinner interrupted hoarsely, his eyes dark and fathomless as he stared deeply into his son’s face in search of the buried truth. "You really did go there with the intention of being 'killed' yourself."

“Like I told you before, I needed to be publicly dead,” Alex replied, with a casual shrug. “And I was pretty sure you’d be more than happy to do the honors, pop.”

Skinner winced visibly yet, at the same time, a little of the terrible tension in his spine relaxed a fraction at this first, small vindication of Alex’s previous behavior.

“You needed me to believe you were dead,” Mulder said, with a satisfied nod.

“Fuck it, Mulder. How many times do I have to say it’s not all about YOU,” Alex snapped. “I needed to die in front of Knowle. He’d started to suspect there was something a little too…resilient about me. The replicants knew you and Scully were second gens, but they didn’t know about me. That’s why I not only had to die in front of him, but then I had to go into permanent hiding after I’d done my deal with the rebels over William.”

“None of this is possible,” Scully denied vehemently. “At the time Walter ‘killed’ you, I was still pregnant. How the hell could you know I’d give William up for adoption? Even I never imagined I was capable of making that choice until the day I actually made it.”

“I knew you,” Alex sneered. “And, more to the point, I knew Mulder. It was obvious he was gonna run out on the two of you. For your ‘own good’, of course,” he added, with a sarcastic glare in Mulder’s direction. “And you wouldn’t be able to handle a kid like William yourself.”

“How dare you…” she began.

“Stow it, Red,” Samantha snapped. “You were abducted and entombed in an alien spacecraft that wiped out half of Antarctica as it took off over your head, and you still refused to accept the existence of Extraterrestrial life. You made a career out of denying the reality of anything that didn’t fit into your narrow preconceived worldview. So how the hell were you ever going to accept a child with William’s abilities?”

“So you decided to steal him for yourselves?” she demanded.

Alex gave a chuff of disgust. “Steal him? We did everything we fucking could to make you accept him. You were his mother, damn you! He belonged with you.”

Samantha nodded her agreement. “Who do you think sent Jeffrey to give him that injection? We thought if we managed to suppress his abilities, you might accept him after all. But you still found an excuse to give him up, didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Scully protested, shaking her head in violent denial. “It was the only way I could make sure he was safe.”

“No,” Alex retorted, his green eyes cold. “It was just the easiest way. You just handed your baby off to a pair of complete strangers and went back to living the life his presense had so rudely interrupted.”

“I LOVED HIM,” Scully screamed.

“You couldn’t have, or you’d have found another way, Dana,” Samantha replied, her tone implacable. “Alex and I sacrificed our lives for our children. We never even wanted to have children, but the moment they were conceived we turned our backs on our own selfish hopes and dreams, and made the decision that they were the only thing that mattered. But you chose instead to sacrifice your child just so you could return to your previously comfortable life.”

“That’s not fair,” Mulder protested. “All Scully ever wanted, all she ever dreamed of, was to be a mother.” 

But, despite his words, his eyes were filled with old doubts as he watched the mother of his child attempting to deny his sister’s obvious unforgiving condemnation. Two such strong women, he thought. So similar, and yet poles apart. Because Scully claimed she had used her strength to walk away from her child, while Samantha had clearly used her strength to keep her children at her side.

“So what happened, Red?” Alex snorted. “You changed your mind when you hit the reality of dirty diapers and sleepless nights?”

“You bastard,” she spat, and her untypical profanity, more than anything else, was like an admission that he’d struck a raw nerve.

Mulder nodded sadly, accepting finally the apparent truth of a long-held suspicion – that Scully had liked the idea of motherhood, far more than she’d liked the reality itself.  And a strange voice snickered in the back of his head that the puppy she and Doggett were planning to adopt had damned well watch its step.  A few too many 'accidents' on the carpet and maybe it too would find itself in a new home.

And yet… he couldn’t bring himself to condemn her. As Doggett had said, he was equally guilty. He also had walked away. If he hadn’t, if he’d stayed, if keeping William had been the price of his staying, he had little doubt that Scully would have chosen to keep William after all. 

//Was that the true reason you asked me to father your baby, Scully? Did you really think you loved me *that* much, that you’d have our child simply in the hope of tying me to you with the chains of enforced responsibility?//

He didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to accept that even subconsciously – and he sincerely didn’t believe it a conscious choice on Scully’s part – she might have conceived William primarily as a means to entrap him. It wasn’t anger or disgust that made him want to deny the possibility. It was sadness and guilt. The whole damned scenario was too damned pathetic, considering the way he had so easily walked away from both Scully and his son.

So his voice and expression were subdued when he deliberately averted his eyes from her grief and turned his attention towards Alex instead. “Why did you arrange for the Van De Kamps to drop off the radar?”

It was Samantha who answered, as though she too couldn’t bear to watch Scully’s angry tears any longer. “So anyone looking for William would hit a dead end. We hit an unforeseen snag when the Van De Kamp’s natural, or to be honest very ’unnatural’, son was born with brown eyes. Alex and I discussed the situation, decided we couldn’t take the risk of someone realizing the babies had been swapped, and gave the Van De Kamps the option of either accepting a new identity and a fat bank account or having an ‘unfortunate accident’.”

“You seriously considered killing them?” Skinner demanded, his expression shocked.

“They’d seen our faces,” she replied coldly. “It might have taken bribes, drugs or even torture, but they’d have given us away under enough pressure. There was no point taking William in the first place if we weren’t fully prepared to protect him.”

“But why did you care what happened to William?” Scully asked, frowning with genuine confusion.

Samantha sighed guiltily. “We didn’t exactly care about him. Not back then. We just wanted to make sure he didn’t fall into the wrong hands. With you two out of the picture, we expected him to be abducted. Either by the aliens, who would have killed him when they recognized the threat he represented to them, or by the Consortium who would have… well let’s just say he would have ended up wishing they’d killed him.”

“Of course, we should have just let the aliens take him,” Alex said darkly, shaking his head in apparent self-disgust  at his temporary moment of weakness. “It would have been the easiest option.”

“YOU BASTARD,” Mulder howled.

“Shut the fuck up, Fox,” Samantha growled. “Listen to what he’s trying to say to you. We SHOULD have let William die. He wasn’t our child! He wasn’t our responsibility. We had far less obligation to him than you did, and you just turned your back on him.  Besides, just by existing he’s a threat to Lisita. So don’t either of you dare fucking sit there and condemn us for ‘stealing’ your son, for learning to love him like he’s our own, for putting our own lives on the line, time and time again, to keep him safe. You should be on your fucking knees THANKING us for accepting the risk he represents to our own DAUGHTER.”

“Why?” Skinner barked, his eyes darkening with alarm. “Why is William a threat to Lisita?”

“Haven’t you worked it out yet?” she sighed. “She’s the lock. William’s the key. The Consortium want to mate them together to produce the template for the 4th generation.”

“But they’re cousins,” Scully blurted, her eyes wide with horrified disbelief.

"That's the point," Alex spat. “Interbreeding is the best way to re-enforce genetic anomalies.”

“They want to force William and Lisita to have a baby together?”

Alex laughed grimly. “They just need sperm, ova and a petri dish. They’re not trying to create a baby, Red. They haven’t got time. William isn’t going to hit puberty until about a year before the alien fleet arrives. We’re talking about clones. Tens  of thousands of cloned 4th Gens created from just one single successful fetus.”

Mulder frowned thoughtfully and shook his head. “It’s not very well planned. Why did the Consortium wait so long to create William? It would have made more sense, given the tight time factor, to get Scully pregnant when she was originally abducted.”

Scully glared at him in disbelief, infuriated by his ability to temporarily put aside his emotions and consider the situation from a purely logical viewpoint.  

Samantha sighed heavily. “Because at the time Scully was abducted, there were already over a dozen female 3rd gens. Obviously they wanted a baby from the two of you, but its conception wasn’t considered a priority to anyone except Dad. He was arrogant enough to want the perfect 4th gen to be the product of a mating between my child and yours. But the other Elders blocked his attempt at that particular form of immortality. They said there was already enough genetic material to play with in the 3rd gens they already had.”

“I thought Lisita was special because she was the only 3rd gen female,” Mulder replied, with a confused frown.

Samantha looked at him with clear surprise, reluctantly impressed he'd reached that conclusion on so little evidence.

“She is now,” Alex admitted grudgingly.

“So what happened to the others?”

“A misunderstanding,” Alex replied, with a bitter snort of laughter. “A stupid fucking misunderstanding. Kind of funny really, if you think about it.”

As Mulder, Scully and Skinner all frowned at him in confused annoyance, Samantha hastened to explain his cryptic comment. “The rebels found out the Consortium families were meeting with the aliens. They stormed the building and killed them all.”

Mulder's eyes widened with sudden comprehension. “Burnt ‘em to toast,” he agreed, with a nod of satisfaction as he remembered the incident.

“What they, and obviously you, didn’t realize was they ‘toasted’ the entire 3rd generation in that airport hangar. Well, except for Liss and Nicki, obviously,” Samantha snapped.

“The rebel aliens thought they were killing the conspirators,” Alex laughed. “But what they really destroyed was the Consortium’s main plan for resisting the invasion. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“But…but I thought we were all supposed to be ‘immortal’,” Mulder pointed out, with a confused pout.

“For fuck’s sake, Mulder. We’re ‘relatively’ immortal, not fucking indestructible. If I can’t regenerate an arm, how the hell do you think one of us could come back from a pile of ashes? You think someone could have scooped ‘em up, added water and, hey presto, reconstituted humans?”

“We were all supposed to be there,” Samantha interrupted, before Mulder could respond. “I was driving to the hangar with Liss and Nicki, expecting Dad and Alex would meet us there. I was about a mile away, when Alex called me on my cell and told me to turn the car around and just keep driving. I didn’t know what was going on but I trusted him when he said I couldn't go home, so I booked the three of us into a motel for the night. Alex met us there the next day and told me he’d managed to convince Dad we’d died in the inferno along with the others and so what was left of the Consortium believed the Project was over.”

“You faked their deaths just to hide the fact two of the 3rd gens had survived?” Mulder demanded, with a disgusted sneer in Alex’s direction.

“I faked their deaths to free my family from that cancer-ridden bastard,” Alex growled.

“But I assume Spender eventually found out you’d lied to him?” Skinner interrupted.

“Yeah,” Alex sighed. His expression was bleak for a moment, his eyes darkening with  pain, but then he grinned with sudden unexpected pride. “But not for three fucking years, and he never found out where I’d hidden them. He never fucking saw ANY of them again.”

“You’re saying he couldn’t find enough ‘bribes, drugs or tortures’ to get the information out of you?” Mulder taunted. “I find that hard to believe, Krycek.”

Alex just glowered at him, refusing to rise to the bait, but Samantha’s face contorted with remembered grief and her eyes, as she looked over at her husband, were soft with obvious adoration. “Alex protected us,” she whispered. “They did…they did terrible things to him, to try and make him betray us…”

“Shut up, Sam,” Alex growled, his cheeks flushing hotly.

“No,” she said. “I want them to KNOW, Alex. I want the three of them to stop looking at you like you’re garbage and understand they haven’t even got the right to share the same fucking AIR as you do.”

“Just leave it,” he snapped, surging to his feet. “Don’t waste your breath. They don’t care, haven’t you figured that out yet? They see what they want to see, and believe what they want to believe, and it doesn’t matter, because I don’t give a fucking DAMN what they think of me, anyway.”

He stood there for a moment, his chest heaving, his eyes so dark they looked like deep wounds gouged into his face, and then he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Go to Part Five