Part Six

"Still slumming it, Ashriel?" Alex snarled back.

"Just popped in to get a tan. Nice heat, shame about the company."

At the bar, Anael sniggered loudly but poured Alex a drink and, waiting until he'd dumped his armful of unconscious human on one of the sun loungers, he pressed the cocktail into Alex's grateful fingers.

"I see you brought your pet with you again," Luke drawled, from the patio.

Alex flinched slightly, took a gulp of his Tequila Sunrise for courage, and twisted to face his employer with an apparently nonchalant shrug.

"It's hell finding a decent motel in New Mexico at the best of times. Couldn't find anywhere safe to stash him with all those fucking aliens snapping at my heels."

"We really *must* do something about those aliens," a voice agreed solemnly from the swimming pool.

Alex spun around, dropping his drink in shock.

"Rafe? What the fuck are *you* doing here?"

"Taking a well-earned break," Rafe replied, somewhat unnecessarily, since he was floating on his back on the water, using his wings as a raft, with one Succubus waving a lily leaf over his head, another holding the cocktail he was sipping from and a third crouched between his thighs.

"Now is that anyway to talk to a guest, Alex?" Luke chided, moving to throw his left arm over Alex's shoulders and gesturing for Anael to bring Alex another drink.

Alex's eyes slid nervously over to Mulder, then back to Rafe's smug expression.

"Chill out, Alex," Ash chuckled. "Even Rafe's not stupid enough to steal something from under Luke's nose. Not if he ever wants to get invited back again, anyway."

Alex relaxed slightly and grinned self-consciously. Ash was right, he decided. Rafe definitely didn't look in any hurry to get ejected from Luke's house.

"So?" he asked, looking around with pretense of casualness. "No Gabriel?"

There was a chortle of mirth, then a loud splash as Rafe's uncontrolled laughter caused his wings to wobble so precariously that he lost balance and sank under the water. He came up spluttering, but still laughing. Alex turned mystified eyes towards Luke and found his employer struggling to contain a wide smirk.

"What?" he whispered, his own lips twitching nervously.

"He's dead," Rafe snorted, ascending to the side of the pool and shaking his wet feathers like a dog.

"Again?"

Luke slapped Alex across the back. "He had his face blown off this time. Not a pretty sight, I can tell you. Not that 'Spender' was ever a pretty sight," he added, looking over at Mulder thoughtfully. "So I guess it was obvious really, when you think about it."

"Yeah," Alex agreed, smiling fondly at Mulder's unconscious form and the soft downy fuzz of dark gray feathers folded over his back.

"He's sulking," Rafe announced gleefully. "There were over two dozen witnesses when he got blown away. He's drowning in paperwork trying to justify taking them all out so he can go back down."

"Two dozen?" Alex asked sarcastically. "When did the lives of a mere two dozen humans start meaning a damn?"

"I like you, Alex," Rafe purred sweetly. "You remind me of myself. I was young and stupid once too."

Alex growled and bristled, but Luke tightened his grip around his shoulders meaningfully. "The problem is *who* the witnesses are," Luke explained, steering Alex towards the patio. "They're all *ours*."

It took a moment for it to sink in, then Alex began to chuckle.

"You see?" Luke asked kindly.

"Yeah," Alex admitted with a wide grin. Then his green eyes narrowed a little. "Is the balance really that damned tight now?"

"Unfortunately," Luke agreed, his own expression sobering. "There's a finite number of souls, Alex. If you keep taking out without putting back, the well runs dry in the end."

"I can show you the figures," Ash interrupted, throwing a laptop in Alex's direction.

Alex caught the computer and flipped it open.

"Windows?" he snorted, as the program fired up. "Don't you know Bill is one of ours, Ashriel?"

"What's it you said? No point reinventing the wheel?"

"Fuck, is there *anyone* who isn't spying on me?" Alex snarled.

"You and your pet are prime time viewing in Purgatory," Anael chuckled, moving between Ash's outspread wings and starting to massage the tight muscles of Ash's neck.

"That's good," Ash purred. "I knew there was a reason I liked coming here."

"Speaking of coming, I really think it's too bad that you're insisting on keeping him mortal," Rafe complained, walking over to Mulder and stroking the soft downy fluff of his half-formed wings. "It's been millennia since we had a new fledgling. I'd forgotten how damn cute they looked."

Alex snarled and half-rose in challenge but before he was fully on his feet, Rafe yelped and pulled his now smoldering hand back protectively against his chest. He glowered at a smirking Luke for a moment, then dropped his eyes in defeat and stepped away from Mulder.

"Well?" Ashriel demanded.

Alex relaxed, turned his face back to the computer screen, and then whistled softly. "Hot damn, is this for real?"

"I told you the balance was tight," Luke pointed out. "We're all running out of options here."

Alex narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"What's this about, Luke? Why did you summon me up here?"

Luke patted him on the shoulder reassuringly.

"Raphael wants to do a deal," he admitted. "In view of Gabriel's most recent fuck-up."

"What kind of deal?"

"They're offering to call their hounds off Mulder. They're even offering to run interference between Mulder and the aliens."

"As long as you can keep him under control, we'll all leave you alone. All we want in exchange is Skinner," Ashriel announced.

"You can't have him," Alex growled. "He fell, if you remember. It's going to take a miracle to even get him into Purgatory at this stage."

"We're certainly not suggesting he's salvageable," Ash replied, with a shudder. "We just want him permanently out of the game."

"He's chained in a fucking basement. How much *more* out of the game could he be?" Alex demanded.

"How about dead?" Rafe answered. "Dead would be good."

Alex turned horrified eyes towards his employer.

Who just shrugged.

~#~#~#~

It was the smell that woke him, the unmistakable, mouthwatering smell of hot pizza. Skinner's nose twitched against the warm fabric of the garish sleeping bag and slowly crept up towards daylight. He blinked his eyes open and found himself staring right into Krycek's face.

"Whaa?" he gasped, scrambling back and upwards until he was sitting at eye level with the cross-legged assassin.

His instinctive urge to lunge forward and grab Krycek by the throat was hampered by the snub-nosed pistol in Krycek's left hand, not to mention the delicious smell emanating from the pizza box in his right. Calmly, he looked at the weapon, then at the proffered food and gave his best impression of a nonchalant shrug.

"Do I take it this is an offering to the condemned man?" he asked.

When Krycek's eyes slid away from his gaze, Skinner felt his stomach turn over. He quickly judged his chances of wrestling the gun from Krycek's fingers and decided his best option was to lull the assassin first with a show of resignation. So he just reached for the pizza box and calmly helped himself to a slice.

It *was* good, he decided reluctantly. Surprisingly thoughtful gesture on Krycek's behalf.

"Do you always feed your victims before you kill them?" he asked coolly.

"What makes you think I'm going to kill you?" Krycek replied, equally calmly. "Maybe the gun's just for my own protection."

"Maybe you're full of shit," Skinner growled back, but took another bite of pizza. It really *was* good. Just exactly how he preferred it. Then again, all of the food Krycek had been leaving him had been surprisingly thoughtful. Just as the books Krycek had left the day before had been a couple of novels by his favorite authors. He had to admit to himself that captivity at Krycek's hands hadn't been at all what he might have expected.

"You liked the books?" Krycek asked, as though he'd read his mind.

"Yes," Skinner agreed reluctantly. "It's been a while since I had time to just sit and read."

"Sorry about the radio."

"What?"

"It was petty of me," Krycek admitted, with a small sigh. "I should have let you have it yesterday."

"But yesterday you didn't know you were going to be given orders to kill me today, did you?" Skinner replied calmly.

Krycek looked at him in surprise.

"You're taking the idea well," he mumbled.

Skinner shrugged, reached for another slice of pizza and pointedly ignored the gun. Krycek noted where Skinner *didn't* look and chuckled under his breath.

"Tell me something?" Skinner asked suddenly.

"If I can," Krycek agreed cautiously.

"Why haven't you hurt me?"

"What?"

"Seriously, Krycek. I've been here three days and you haven't laid a finger on me once. Why?"

"Why haven't I kicked the shit out of you for shooting me, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"It's not my style," Krycek shrugged. "*This*," and he gestured around the basement "isn't about revenge, Walter. It never was."

"What the hell do you mean, 'not your style'?"

"I don't get a kick out of hurting people, Walter. I do what I need to do and sometimes what I need to do involves people getting hurt. It doesn't mean I enjoy it."

"You damned well seemed to enjoy hurting me before," Skinner snarled.

"You mean the nanocytes?"

"Of course I mean the fucking nanocytes. You loved it, you bastard. You fucking got off on having that kind of power over me," Skinner accused.

"You think so?" Krycek asked, with a careless shrug. "If I were 'getting off' on it, I'd sure as hell have made you squirm more than I did. Picture it, Walter. I could have had you as my personal bitch if I'd wanted to."

"I'd have ripped your fucking head off, boy," Skinner snarled.

"No. You would have *wanted* to," Krycek corrected, "But one touch of that keypad would have made you drop your pants and stick your ass in the air."

"Fucker," Skinner growled.

"I could have been," Krycek replied calmly.

Skinner glowered at him, his face so flushed that the veins in his forehead pulsed visibly against his skin, and then he gave a deep, disgusted sigh.

"So you want me to be grateful?" he snarled. "I'm supposed to forgive you because you weren't a *total* bastard?"

"No," Krycek replied. "I just wanted to make you think about it."

"About what?"

"About your attitude towards me, you self-righteous prick. About the fact you decided it was okay to shoot me dead like I was some fucking rabid dog. About the way you *murdered* me in cold blood and then just walked away like I was just a piece of garbage you'd wiped off your shoe."

"I didn't," Skinner denied quietly.

"I was there," Krycek reminded him angrily.

"No…I mean, I didn't just walk away," Skinner admitted in a low, thoughtful voice. "I wanted to. I tried to pretend it didn't matter. That you deserved to die for what you did. You did, you know? You really *had* earned that bullet a dozen times over…but…. but, what I did was still wrong. I didn't have the right to be judge, jury and executioner."

"No, you didn't," Krycek agreed.

"I've thought about it a lot, these past few days," Skinner admitted.

"Thought you might," Krycek muttered under his breath.

"And even though you're sitting there, like the murderous little bastard you are, and I know full well that you're going to try and put a bullet through my head, I *still* know that shooting you was wrong. It brought me down to your level. It made me no better than you are. I don't want to die without admitting that. So, for what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"You're what?" Krycek asked, his mouth twisting into a surprisingly triumphant grin.

Skinner forced himself to swallow the fury that rose in him as he saw that expression and reminded himself that this wasn't about Krycek, wasn't about whether Krycek deserved to live, it was about himself. His own conscience.

"I'm sorry that I shot you. It wasn't a righteous killing. It was murder," Skinner admitted, raising his head and meeting Krycek's eyes proudly.

"YES!" Krycek yelled, punching the air in triumph. "Stick *that* up your ass, Rafe!"

Skinner was still blinking at Krycek with too much astonishment to even think to grab the gun when the whole building began to tremble. The floor underneath him seemed to ripple and groan, he heard a pipe crack and burst in the bathroom and several slabs of plaster dropped from the ceiling and smashed on the concrete floor, filling the basement with a choking, white dust.

"Was that an earthquake?" he demanded, as the room finally settled once more. "An earthquake in DC?"

"I think it was more of a fart of temper," Krycek sniggered, rising to his feet gracefully. "But let's get out of here, anyway."

"Get out of here?" Skinner demanded, and then looked down in astonishment as the cuff around his ankle simply fell away.

"Ever heard that expression, 'confession is good for the soul'?" Krycek sniggered, then turned so that his weapon was pointing directly at Skinner's heart.

Skinner froze momentarily, seeing the clear intention in Krycek's eyes, then lunged forward.

To his surprise, it didn't even hurt. He heard the loud recoil of the gun, looked down in amazement at the red stain on his chest and stared in bewilderment at the undeniably affectionate expression on Krycek's face. He opened his mouth to speak but instead his mouth filled with blood, choking off his words as he sank slowly to his knees.

He tried again, but all he could manage was "Kry…" before the darkness around his vision became an all-encompassing blackness. He teetered on the edge of the abyss, feeling a rushing sensation around his body as though he was caught in a strong wind, and then he fell.

Down and down into the endless darkness, his body twisting and flailing in the buffeting wind, his mouth open in a soundless scream of horror and surprise.

And then something, *someone*, caught him.

He felt arms around his chest, arms that squeezed tight and reminded his lungs to breathe. He heard the wailing wind change into a rhythmic flapping, as though a pair of vast wings were battling the down current and dragging him upwards to safety.

Up and up, towards a faint light that shone somewhere high above the abyss. A light that was as warm on his upturned face as the blackness beneath him was like an icy mouth gnawing at his feet.

And as they approached the light, as the darkness fell away defeated by the strong beating wings of his rescuer, Skinner turned his head and stared straight into a familiar pair of bright green eyes.

"Krycek," he gasped.

"You really *have* to start calling me, Alex."

"Alex," Skinner repeated wonderingly, as they burst through into the light and glided gently to a halt on what *felt* like grass.

"Where the hell are we?" Skinner demanded, blinking stupidly and telling himself he was *not* seeing, what he *thought* he was seeing.

"Welcome to Purgatory, Walter," Alex laughed, flicking his sweat-drenched bangs out of his eyes with his left hand and folding his wings with a satisfied sigh.

"But…but, that's the White House," Skinner choked.

"As it is in Heaven, so it is on Earth," Alex chuckled, "Though in this case it's more the other way round. Except the weather's better here, of course."

"I'm dead, aren't I?" Skinner asked suddenly, his knees going weak as the realization hit him.

"Whoops, careful big guy," Alex answered, catching him around the waist and preventing him from falling. "I know it takes a bit of getting used to but, believe me, you're going to like it here."

He sniffed the air and grinned. "Come on, Walter. Luke's got a bar-b-que on and you haven't died 'til you've tasted his spare ribs."

"I'm very confused," Walter admitted, in a small voice, allowing Alex to take him by the hand and lead him up to the house like a child.

Alex pulled him through the front door, down a maze of corridors and finally out onto wide patio around a vast swimming pool. Walter looked around in bemusement at the creatures sprawled out on the sun loungers that surrounded the pool. In view of Alex's own feathered appendages, he was less shocked by the wings than the fact that each and every one of the beings seemed to be totally shit-faced.

"Looks like we missed a great party," Alex agreed mournfully.

At the sound of Alex's voice, someone stepped out from behind the bar-b-que and waved a spatula at them in welcome.

"Mr. President," Walter choked, sagging in Alex's arms again.

"Wings," Alex coughed into his hands.

Understanding dawned on the cook's face and his form shimmered into its usual blond glory.

"Sorry about that," he said, wiping a hand on his thigh and offering it to Walter. "I sometimes forget to get changed. Pressure of the job. You know how that goes don't you, Mr. Skinner? I'm Luke. Welcome to Purgatory."

As Walter shook his hand in a daze, Luke turned his attention to Alex and frowned at his sweat-drenched hair.

"Tight call, huh?"

"Closer than I prefer," Alex admitted. "I really needed a bit more time to be *sure* of the outcome but, what the hell, it worked. I guess Rafe's pissed as fuck?"

"Why do you think we had the party?" Luke chuckled.

"So, he accepts the deal stands?"

"Of course. The deal was Mulder's life for Skinner's. You killed Skinner so now they can't touch Mulder."

"Excuse me?" Skinner interrupted weakly, still feeling far too bewildered to raise his voice. "You killed *me* to save Mulder's life?"

Alex nodded.

"Okay," Skinner agreed. "I can live with that…well, whatever…but can someone please explain what the hell is going on here? I mean, if I'm dead, how the hell can I be here?"

"You'd better get Walter a drink," Luke suggested, pushing Alex towards the bar. "Sit down, Walter and make yourself at home. It's a long story."

Go to Part Seven