Warnings:  This one's dark and pretty angsty in places.  A box of tissues next to the PC might be prudent. Specifics would spoil, so suffice it to say that people of an over-sensitive disposition should give this one a miss. People who love a tortured rat and a big protective bear, on the other hand, can  settle-in, kick-back and enjoy.

My sincere thanks to Laura for the beautiful cover, Gaby for the encouragement and the painstaking beta of such a long story ( above and beyond as always, honey ) and to Amazon X for insisting there couldn't be this much hurt without a lot more comfort  -  which turned an already long story into a novella.

The story is set a few months after the 'The Truth', and the events in 'Existence *did* happen before the commencement of this story.  That in itself should warn you this isn't going to be an easy ride. But if you make the journey, I believe you'll find the destination worthwhile.

“I’m sure this is all very interesting,” the recently appointed new Deputy Director of the FBI, Walter Skinner, said, gesturing vaguely over the reports she’d placed on his desk with a look of mild distaste on his face. “But when you asked for this meeting, you gave me the impression you had something more significant to discuss than simply another standard update on the results of this state-sanctioned torture.”

“I realize you’ve always been ambivalent about this experimentation. You haven't even visited Penzbech during the last six months, so I have no illusions about your feelings about what's going on there. That’s the reason I chose to bring this to you, Sir. I’m hoping you’ll at least listen to me with an open mind.”

He raised a brow in an arch of mild amusement. “Are you channeling Mulder, Doctor Scully?”

She frowned at his use of her medical title – his not so subtle reminder that neither her nor Mulder’s roles at Penzbech were officially sanctioned. As far as the world in general was concerned, they were no longer Agents of the FBI. Mulder was even still officially an escaped convict with a death sentence hanging over his head.

It had to be that way. Because only a small select group of people in the higher echelons of the Government were aware of the existence of Penzbech and, of those, only a few were party to the actual details of the Project taking place inside its walls.

“I wish I were,” she said, her expression rueful. “I’ve certainly gained a new appreciation, these last weeks, of how it feels to be the only person willing to believe an unpalatable truth. I’m out on a limb on this one. Even with the evidence staring him in the face, Mulder’s point-blank refusing to believe.”

“I never saw Mulder as a man who required evidence in order to believe anything,” Skinner grunted. “But I’m even more hard pressed to envisage him deliberately denying any truth, no matter how personally distasteful he might find it.”

She nodded, her eyes sad. “I think it’s not so much a refusal to accept my hypothesis, as an inability to face its consequences,” she admitted carefully. “Drake dismisses my evidence as ‘hysterical nonsense’ and the rest of the team is denying my conclusions because they don’t want to face the moral implications. But Mulder…well, it’s more an emotional crisis for him. He can’t afford to believe.”

“Believe what?” Skinner growled impatiently.

“There’s been a…development. I have reason to believe that the Supersoldier virus doesn’t kill the original human host, after all. The body is changed at a genetic level and the alien functions with complete autonomy but the original human consciousness remains.”

“That’s not possible,” Skinner denied, color draining out of his face.

“We always knew the new host had access to the original human’s memories,” she pointed out. “But in view of the complete cellular change of the body, and the complete absence of any genuine human emotion, we naturally assumed any human infected with the virus ‘died’ and was replaced by a Replicant. Certain… anomalies in the latest experiments made me question that original assumption. I now believe that the Supersoldiers aren’t Replicants as much as hitchhikers. Or, perhaps, the original hosts remain as hitchhikers inside the new Replicant bodies. Either way, the hosts aren’t dead.”

Skinner looked appalled. “Assuming you’re right, are they self-aware?”

“I believe so,” she said, refusing to meet his eyes. “As far as I can tell, it’s a similar scenario to the Oilien possession. The human host remains awake and aware, but unable to control the actions of the alien possessing their body. They’re just carried along for the ride.”

“Can these ‘hosts’ feel pain when it’s inflicted on the Replicant’s body?” he demanded urgently.

“Up until a couple of weeks ago, I would have said ‘no’. But I’m not so sure now,” she said, with a sad exhalation of breath.

“What do you mean, ‘now’?”

“You know we’ve been working closely with the subjects, continuously testing them…” she swallowed heavily, “to destruction.”

Skinner nodded, his face expressionless, only a slight narrowing of his eyes indicating his personal distaste for the scenario.

Despite his lack of verbal censure, Scully blushed and dropped her eyes to the floor. “You’re not the only one, Sir. Mulder is equally sickened by what we’ve been doing.”

“But he accepts the necessity, as do I,” Skinner interrupted. “We’re fighting for the survival of the human race, Doctor Scully, and while it sticks in my craw to support the deliberate torture of any creature, even an alien Supersoldier, I accept that we’ll lose this war if we don’t learn new practical ways of destroying the enemy.”

“That’s what I told myself as I subjected the captives to experiment after experiment. The first time I ‘killed’ one of them, I was physically sick. But, somehow, the fact he climbed back to his feet ten minutes later, completely unscathed, made it easier to ‘kill’ him the next time. Within a month, I was testing how long it took different chemical reactions to burn them alive and feeling more irritated by the headache I got from their screams than nauseated by my ability to emotionlessly inflict that kind of agony on any creature.”

She raised her head and met his appalled stare with shadowed, haunted eyes.

“But, two weeks ago, I ‘killed’ one of them and he didn’t come back to life. His human host did.”

Skinner’s careful mask slipped a notch. “What?”

“When I returned to the testing chamber, I didn’t find an emotionless Supersoldier smirking at me. I found a sobbing ‘man’, who was begging me not to hurt him any more.”

Skinner shook his head slowly. “I don’t understand what you’re implying.”

“I believe the alien gave the reins back to his host in an attempt to prevent any further experimentation on the body they share,” she explained.

“How do you know it wasn’t just a trick? A game the alien was playing with you?”

“I didn’t,” she sighed. “I assumed it was a deception. I went ahead with another series of tests. The subject became increasingly distressed. He portrayed every symptom of a nervous breakdown. After the third test, the subject committed suicide. He deliberately threw himself against the magnetite shielding of his cell.

“I repeated the experiment with three further subjects. With the same results. Testing the Replicants to destruction ultimately results in the alien consciousness retreating from control and the original host then taking the ‘human’ decision to end its torment with suicide.”

“What happens if you stop the testing?”

“Once the immediate danger has been averted, the alien consciousness swiftly re-establishes control of the subject.”

“So you’re saying the only way to get the alien to relinquish control is to subject it to repeated, intolerable pain, but the minute you remove the threat the alien takes over again?”

“Yes.”

“No wonder no one wants to believe you. You’re telling them that every time they kill a Supersoldier, they’re also killing a human being. A human ‘captive’ of that Supersoldier. A self-aware, innocent victim. And you have no way of separating the hitch-hiker from its host. If that’s even a safe analogy. The changes made by the alien virus change the host body irrevocably.”

She nodded sadly. “But, moral implications aside, if we could remove the alien, or at least find a way to give control back to the host permanently, we’d have our own *human* Supersoldier. That, at least, has caught the attention of some of the Military. But then, you know how the military mind works. They accept the ‘theory’ as being plausible, but there’s no way of actually ‘proving’ that it’s the original human consciousness which takes over and then decides to commit suicide. They say it could all be an elaborate deception, with certain aliens being sacrificed to fool us into stopping the experimentation completely.”

“But you don’t believe that?”

“No, Sir. I don’t.”

Skinner adjusted his glasses and took a deep breath. “Is subject 42 still alive?”

Scully flinched slightly. “Yes. I demanded a temporary halt on all further fatal experimentation as soon as I began to suspect the hosts were self-aware. It hasn’t made me popular.”

“Move subject 42 back into the test to destruction program, and call me when the alien appears to retreat. I want to talk to him.”

“Sir, I don’t think that would be possible...”

“You have no authority to stop me,” he snapped.

“That’s not what I meant. 42’s behavior has always been somewhat atypical so I don’t think you’ll be able to make a valid judgment. Somehow the alien in his body has always been able to mimic the original host’s behavior patterns almost flawlessly. The other subjects produce reasonably good facsimiles of their hosts but 42…well, if you didn’t know better, you’d swear he’s the genuine article.”

“What if he is?” Skinner suggested quietly.

Scully looked momentarily horrified by the idea, but then shook her head firmly. “It’s not possible,” she stated firmly. “The only incidents of hosts apparently regaining control have been aberrations where the aliens have allowed them to temporarily retake the reins during moments of great physical pain. The hosts are incapable of permanently reclaiming control.”

“You’re probably right,” he agreed. “But I have to see for myself. If it’s really him, I’ll know.”

***

Skinner stared expressionlessly through the two-way mirror. Although the thick glass had been silvered with a thin layer of magnetite, he was still careful to keep his hand near to the handle of his special-edition revolver. If, by any chance, the Supersoldier managed to break through the glass, he’d be met with half-a-dozen 9mm shells molded from solid magnetite.

To an innocent onlooker, the naked, shivering man huddled in the small cell would have appeared harmless. Broken, even. A victim of inhumane treatment and inexcusable torture.

But Skinner was no innocent and he doubted the man in the cell could ever be described as harmless.

Pitiable in his current state, admittedly. And, if Scully were right, he was suffering a kind of hell that even his worst enemy couldn’t have wanted for him. It was no wonder Mulder was walking around looking like his puppy had died.

Because nobody, human or alien, deserved what was happening to subject 42.

Yet, Skinner wasn’t a fool. Regardless of his sickened feelings, he’d draw his weapon without hesitation if the Replicant so much as moved towards the mirror.

“I want to talk to Drake,” he said, and one of the soldiers flanking him nodded and left to find the Doctor who was heading the Penzbech Project.

Skinner was surprised, and gratified, that when he spoke his voice had emerged calm and cold, with no tone of the personal revulsion he felt over the whole situation. Any protest, no matter how mild, would be perceived as weakness and he’d be removed from the Project. No matter how little overall authority he had in this hell-hole, it was better than being cut out of the loop completely. At least one moral man needed to stand witness to what was going on.

Besides, he owed subject 42.

It had, after all, been his bullets that had put him into the grave which the military scientists had dug him out of.

‘I didn’t know,’ he whispered silently through the mirrored glass. ‘I didn’t know you were infected. I swear, as much as I hated you, I wouldn’t have wished this on anyone. I just didn’t know.’

His silent apology was interrupted by the arrival of the chief military scientist.

“You wanted to see me, Deputy Director?”

“He’s got two arms. When did that happen?”

Drake flicked through the papers on his clip-board. “The eleventh re-gen. Approximately five months ago. That was the first time he experienced total physical destruction. We immersed him in hydrochloric acid. That’s why I can’t accept Dr. Scully’s hypothesis. This subject is absolute proof that the human host is no longer present,” he announced smugly.

“How so?” Skinner demanded.

“The first ten experiments resulted in the subject’s ‘death’ and a varying amount of fatal physical trauma. On each occasion, the subject subsequently regenerated himself back into the human form he had at the time he was infected by the alien virus. As you can see from these photographs, the Replicant was a perfect copy of Alex Krycek down to his physical scars and his missing limb. Presumably, the template for that appearance was stored along with Krycek’s ‘memories’, and the alien could access the information as though it were held physically within the brain it had invaded. After the total destruction of the subject’s body, however, the Replicant regenerated itself without scars and with both arms. One can only conclude that this pattern was obtained from the host’s DNA, rather than from the host’s ‘memory’ of appearance. So even if the consciousness of Alex Krycek was still in existence through the first ten experiments, it’s safe to assume it was no longer present after the eleventh. Whether you believe human awareness is a chemical state or a spiritual one, it exists somewhere inside the human brain tissue. The acid bath reduced the subject to a single metal vertebra in which human consciousness could not have survived.”

“Yet the alien consciousness survived, with a memory of Krycek’s DNA,” Skinner pointed out. “How is that possible?”

Drake shrugged angrily. “We aren’t certain.”

“Which somewhat undermines your argument, doesn’t it? If you don’t know how the Replicants survive being ‘killed’, you aren’t in a position to categorically state that a human consciousness can’t also survive that ‘death’.”

Drake flushed slightly, then shrugged. “It’s irrelevant anyway. Even if he were still carrying a dual-consciousness, there’s no way to separate the man from the alien.”

“I’m going to talk to him.”

“It’s not advisable to go in there,” Drake protested.

“I didn’t ask your advice,” Skinner snapped. “I want to talk to him, face-to-face. I once knew the man he was. I’ll know whether it’s him I’m talking to or an alien wearing his face.”

“Very well, Deputy Director. I can see I can’t talk you out of this ludicrous plan, so I’ll arrange for him to be restrained for you and you can find out for yourself that I’m right.”

Skinner began to nod his assent, but then hesitated. “How do you restrain a Supersoldier?”

“Fire, Sir,” one of the soldiers explained helpfully, slightly raising the flame thrower at his side. “We burn them down to the exoskeleton, then fasten them into magnetite restraints before they can regenerate enough muscle to move.”

Skinner’s stomach churned, but his face remained stony. “Why don’t the magnetite restraints kill them?”

“We lost a few that way in the beginning,” Drake interrupted, “but now we use a special alloy that has enough magnetite to keep them restrained but not enough to generate the chemical reaction that destroys them. It just burns them a little. We’ve done the same with the shielding in the cells since the … unfortunate incidents. We can’t afford to lose any more test subjects.”

“So, let me get this right. You burn them almost to death, then you put restraints on them that keep burning them even as they attempt to regenerate?”

“We have to move them back and forth from their cells to the laboratory somehow, Sir,” the soldier pointed out defensively.

“Can’t you just threaten to shoot them?”

The soldier flushed. “Well, we used to do that,” he admitted. “But now they’re all trying to kill themselves anyway, it’s hardly a deterrent is it?”

“We can’t afford to lose any more test subjects,” Drake repeated firmly. “We’ve had no success in actually capturing an active Supersoldier. All our subjects were collected before they transformed. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find human bodies that are carrying the virus?”

“Do you have any idea how impossible it would be for me to carry out a lucid conversation with someone while they’re burning alive?” Skinner countered. “Human OR alien? Forget the restraints. I’ll talk to him as he is.”

“Forgive me for saying this, Deputy Director, but even if your crazy theory about 42 still being ‘human’ is right, I would have thought you’re the last person he’d react well to seeing. Aren’t you the man who killed him?”

“Yes.”

“Then even if that’s Krycek in there at the moment, rather than the alien, walking into that cell is committing suicide. If, and I don’t believe it but if, he is Krycek, he’s still in a Replicant’s body and he’s probably spent the last 18 months dreaming of the moment he’ll get his hands around your neck.”

Skinner stared through the mirrored glass. “I wouldn’t blame him,” he muttered. “But Krycek’s too smart to do something that stupid. He kills me, he gets a moment’s satisfaction inevitably followed by some dire punishment.”

“We’d acid his ass,” the soldier confirmed, with a smug grin.

“Sadistic little shit, aren’t you?” Skinner said, his tone quiet and unemotional.

The soldier blinked rapidly, clearly trying to work out whether he’d just been praised or insulted.

“So he won’t hurt me,” Skinner continued. “He’ll try to work me, gain my sympathy, and he can’t get that by killing me.”

“Perhaps,” Drake allowed. “But that won’t prove anything. The Replicant has Krycek’s memories. If that’s how Krycek would have reacted to you, then the Replicant will know that and act accordingly. No matter how much 42 acts like Krycek, going in there won’t prove anything. You still won’t know.”

“I’ll know,” Skinner replied firmly.

“Well, as much as I’d like to witness your little experiment, I have an experiment or two of my own to check on,” Drake said.

“Don’t let me keep you. Finding new ways to kill your test subjects must take a lot of your time,” Skinner replied.

Drake frowned at him, found nothing in Skinner’s expression to confirm his suspicion he’d just been insulted, and shrugged.

“You can leave too,” Skinner told the soldiers.

“Our standing orders are to…”

“Obey senior officers,” Skinner interrupted. “And I may not be military but, as a Deputy Director of the FBI, I can assure you that pissing me off will get you stationed in Kazakhstan by tomorrow night.”

“Yes, Sir,” the soldiers replied, saluting sharply and leaving the room.

Skinner took a deep steadying breath and then activated the complex three-door system that would allow him into the cell. Between each door, he was bathed with a magnetite-rich gas. It made him cough a little, but he knew it was harmless to a human. It wasn’t a high enough dose to kill a Supersoldier either, but if Krycek tried to pass through the door himself, without the gas being turned off at the guard station, he’d not only be in a world of pain but the chemical reaction of his body to the gas would trigger a sensor which would not only activate an alarm but also several jets of acid.

By the time the soldiers responded to the alarm, there would be nothing left of Krycek except a vertebra or two which would be scooped up and thrown back into the cell to regenerate.

Apparently none of the Replicants had ever tried to escape their cells twice.

Between the second and final door, Skinner unholstered and double-checked his weapon before entering the room. He wouldn’t have entered at all if he hadn't been sure Krycek wouldn't attack him. But he still took the precaution of drawing his weapon and aiming it at Krycek’s head as he stepped inside.

Despite the loud clanging, as the door closed and locked behind Skinner, Krycek didn’t look up. He remained huddled against the far wall, visibly shaking, and his only reaction to Skinner’s entrance was a low, fear-filled moan. It was immediately clear he’d learned to associate all visitors to his cell with being forced to participate in horrendously painful ‘experiments’.

“I’m not here to hurt you, boy,” Skinner said gruffly.

At the unexpected, familiar voice, Krycek’s head jerked up and his eyes met Skinner’s.

“Skinner? Oh god, Skinner. It’s you. It’s really you. Help me. Please. Oh, God, you’ve got to help me. PLEASE. Get me out of here,” he pleaded.

He looked impossibly young. Younger even, perhaps, than when he’d first been assigned to work with Mulder. Regeneration had taken years off him, had removed all the faint lines from his eyes, and even the familiar pensive crease between his eyebrows had disappeared to leave his face innocently smooth. His hair was almost to his shoulders but his face was clean-shaven, with not even a trace of dark shadow. Skinner was momentarily surprised by that, since he couldn’t imagine Drake giving a Replicant a razor, but then he realized that all the Replicants were beardless unless their hosts had had beards at the time they'd been infected with the alien virus.

The Replicant’s whole body was unblemished. No scars, no wrinkles, no bruises, just an expanse of perfectly flawless skin.

But he was clearly severely underweight, despite the defined musculature of his body.

“Don’t they feed you enough?” Skinner snapped, in an attempt to mask his sudden feeling of disorientation at Krycek’s disturbingly youthful and ‘innocent’ appearance.

Krycek blinked and shook his head in apparent disbelief at the question. “Feed me? They’re torturing me to death almost every fucking day and you’re worried I’m not eating enough? For God’s sake, Skinner, get me out of here. Please. I’ll do anything. Anything. I know you hate me, but shit, Skinner, you can’t leave me here. Please. Oh, God, PLEASE. I’m begging you.”

There was a time Skinner would have felt ecstatic at having Krycek on his knees, pleading for mercy. Under the circumstances, he just felt sick to the stomach. But he kept his expression stony and shook his head.

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. The minute you step out of this cell, the alien will take over again, won’t it?”

Panic flashed over Krycek’s features and he licked his lower lip desperately as he rocked back and forth on his knees, hugging his arms around his waist in an obvious attempt at self-comfort.

“No,” he said. “It’s gone.”

“Lie to me again, boy, and I’ll be gone,” Skinner snapped.

Krycek’s eyes flared with terror. “Okay,” he gasped, nodding furiously. “You’re right. It’s just lurking. Waiting to try and catch me unawares. The minute I’m distracted, or I sleep, it’ll try to break out again.”

“Break out? It isn’t deliberately hiding?”

Krycek’s lips twisted into a smirk. “It was,” he hissed, checking over his shoulder furtively as though the alien was standing behind him. “It snuck deep inside me, leaving me to face the shit, but I found its hiding place and locked it in. It’s banging at the door. Trying to get out. Trying to sneak past me and take over again.”

He giggled wildly, a crazed sound, and then sobbed, clutched his arms tighter around his middle and started rocking again.

“I’m too late,” Skinner groaned. “You’ve gone mad.”

“MAD?” Krycek screamed. “I’ve got a fucking alien in my head. I’ve turned into Frankenstein’s monster and I’ve spent the last god knows how long being ‘tested to destruction’. Who the fuck wouldn’t be mad? And YOU shut the fuck up too,” he added, hitting the side of his head with his hand.

“Hearing voices?” Skinner asked. “Is it talking to you now?”

“Fuck you.”

Skinner sighed with relief. Krycek was clearly, and understandably, on the edge. But he wasn’t mad yet. And, more to the point, he was still Krycek.

“Look up, Krycek. Look at the ceiling. What do you see?”

Krycek tipped back his head and frowned. “The sprinkler system?”

“Tell the alien if it tries to take over again, it won’t be water coming out of that system.”

Krycek cringed and huddled into himself, his eyes panicked. “It wants…wants to know what.”

“What do you think it will be?” Skinner demanded.

Krycek’s eyes went huge with terror, glassing over with a sheen of threatened tears. “Acid? Oh god. Oh shit. No. Nonononono. Don’t… don’t… oh don’t burn us again.”

Skinner swallowed heavily and forced his face to remain expressionless, despite the wild roiling of his stomach at the frantic note of terror in Krycek’s voice.

“I’m here to help you, Krycek. YOU. Not that creature inside you. Nobody wants to hurt you, Krycek. If that thing stays inside you, you’ll be fine. But if it comes out…well, let’s just say all bets are off.”

###

It took all of Skinner’s strength not to stagger out of the cell and immediately throw up. Maintaining a cold façade in front of such human terror made him feel like the monster. So on finding Mulder standing in the anteroom, having clearly watched the whole ‘interview’ through the mirror, he let the younger man have the full brunt of his anger.

“What the hell are you doing here, Agent Mulder? Still think that’s just an alien thing in there? Want to burn him alive again? Want to chop him into little pieces, an inch at a time, just to see how nicely he screams for you? Want to torture that poor bastard some more?” he roared. “You going to stand there and call him the monster? Because I’m telling you, if the cost of saving humanity is to become what we’ve become then maybe we aren’t worth saving.”

“You’re right.”

The simple agreement took the wind out of Skinner’s sails and he dropped into a chair, rubbing his forehead with both hands. “That’s Alex Krycek in there. Whatever else he is, he’s Krycek too,” he muttered. “And whatever Krycek did, he doesn’t deserve this.”

“No one does,” Mulder agreed.

Skinner looked up at him in bemusement. “Scully said you didn’t believe…”

“I didn’t want to believe,” Mulder corrected, with an embarrassed smile. “Not the Mulder you know and love, huh?”

“No one would want to believe,” Skinner replied. “What the hell are we going to do, Mulder?”

Mulder shrugged. “We have no choice except to go ahead with the mass manufacture of the magnetite weapons. We carry on developing the chrondrule shields, since the testing has proven they successfully interfere with the Replicants’ ability to communicate telepathically with one another, and we keep testing the subjects for weaknesses. But,” he said, as Skinner opened his mouth to protest, “subject 42 gets removed from the ‘test to destruction’ program because Krycek’s possibly the real key to finding a better way to defeat the aliens.”

“Then you do believe he’s still somehow alive?”

“I’d say ‘I want to believe’, except even the thought makes me sick under the circumstances. But if the human consciousness does survive and the alien presence can be removed, then our best defense against the Supersoldiers would be to ‘unmake’ them. At the very least, we’d have our own human Supersoldiers to help us fight the colonization.”

“I can’t see Krycek helping us to anything other than early graves even if we do somehow separate him from his ‘hitch-hiker’. When I think about how much I hated him for killing me once with the nanocytes, it makes me shudder to think how much hate he must be carrying after being deliberately killed dozens of times in the most painful, horrific ways.”

“Well, you’re certainly not endearing him to you by telling him there’s acid in the sprinkler system, are you?” Mulder chuckled wryly.

Skinner flushed slightly. “I was improvising. It seemed smartest to get Krycek to admit himself what the alien fears the most. We need to generate a Pavlovian response, where the alien automatically retreats at the first sign of danger.”

“You do realize we’re probably going to have to actually do it now, don’t you? At some point, the alien’s going to test the water. It’s going to force a confrontation to see whether we’re serious.”

“Oh shit.”

“It’s okay, Sir. Remember, it’ll be the alien in control if or when we do it. We need to develop a system of punishment and reward. The longer Krycek remains in charge, the more comfortable his life becomes. But every time the alien takes over, he goes back to first base again.”

“It won’t work,” Skinner argued. “What Krycek perceives as ‘rewards’ are highly unlikely to coincide with the alien’s needs. It doesn’t have any requirement for physical or emotional comfort. Why would the alien co-operate to make Krycek happy?”

Mulder shook his head and laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Skinner growled.

“Me,” Mulder admitted, with a wry shrug. “I just realized the irony of my answer to your question. You’re right that the alien won’t give a shit whether Krycek’s happy or not. My idea was we’d keep the alien in line with the stick, and use the carrot to motivate Krycek. But none of this is going to be worth a damn unless Krycek himself learns a way to keep the alien permanently suppressed. And what’s ironic is that, out of all the subjects here, Krycek’s the only man who stands a chance of actually achieving that.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he’s a self-serving ratbastard. No seriously, Sir,” Mulder continued, when Skinner gave him a look of disgust. “I actually don’t mean it as an insult in this scenario. Every other test subject we have is ex-military personnel. Krycek is the only surviving, if that’s the word, subject who wasn’t a soldier when he was infected. I realize the aliens have their own consciousness but their behavior as Replicants is constrained by the memories of their hosts. The other hosts were soldiers. They’re used to being told what to do. They’ve spent years eating, sleeping and shitting on the command of their superior officers. To put it bluntly, they were military puppets a long time before they became alien puppets.”

“You’re saying they’re mentally predisposed to be ideal hosts?”

“Exactly,” Mulder agreed, with a wolfish grin. “Stupid bastards probably like not having to even pretend to think for themselves anymore.”

“I doubt they like being tortured to death daily,” Skinner snapped, deeply offended by Mulder's rude and dismissive attitude towards military personnel.

Mulder’s grin slipped several notches but he still held Skinner’s eyes and stood his ground. “Maybe so, but they still  haven’t got the guts to do anything about it except kill themselves. I don’t see Krycek throwing himself against his cell walls, do you? He’s a survivor. He’ll take the pain, the agony, the sheer fucking terror, and he’ll keep taking it because, at some level, he still believes in himself and in his ability to somehow claw his way out of this nightmare he’s found himself in.”

“Even ratbastards have nervous breakdowns eventually, Mulder. You might be the psychologist here, but I’m telling you that man I just spoke to is nearly at the end of his rope.”

“Yeah,” Mulder sighed, his eyes suddenly haunted. “We don’t have much time. He’s holding on to sanity by a very fine thread. But he is still reachable if we act quickly and he’s the only subject who’s got a chance of severing the alien’s hold over him.”

***

The tentative knock made Skinner look up from his overloaded desk with an irritated, weary sigh. Since he’d left standing orders with his secretary that the only visitors he would receive that afternoon were Scully or the Director himself, he was pretty damned certain this wasn’t a social call. As his visitor poked her head around his door, he repressed a groan, ignored the sudden churning in his stomach, and gestured her to take a seat.

“More bad news?” he sighed. It had been three days since his visit to Penzbech and since then Mulder and Scully had only contacted him to report on problems.

Scully gave him a wry smile. “Mostly bad, but some tentatively good.”

“What’s that?” he said, gesturing at the video in her hands.

“Brace yourself,” she replied. “I decided it was easier to show than tell.”

“So give me the good news first.”

“Following your orders, my team came up with a new form of non-magnetite restraints, and Drake’s reluctantly given them the go-ahead. It’s now possible to restrain the Replicants without hurting them.”

“Why do I get the feeling there’s more to it than you’re telling me?”

“I’ll show you,” she said, crossing the room and slipping the video into his machine. She let the tape play for a moment, and then freeze-framed on a picture of a naked Replicant strapped to an examination table with restraints cuffing his hands and ankles and a wide metallic band across his chest.

“The hand and wrist restraints are just high-tensile steel,” she explained. “Enough to keep the subject immobilized, but with enough effort he can break free of them. The true restraint is the contraption over his chest. It’s steel too, but it’s hollow and filled with hydrochloric acid.”

“So if he breaks it….”

“Watch,” she said. Then muttered ‘hope you didn’t eat lunch’ under her breath.

She turned the video back onto play.

Skinner watched as a soldier approached the restrained ‘man’, and touched his genitals with an electronic prod. The Replicant screamed, arched his body in agony and struggled wildly against the restraints. The soldier leaped back out of the way as the Replicant’s arms and legs broke free of the steel cuffs in a spray of blood. Then the Replicant began to sit up and the main chest restraint began to buckle and crack under the pressure. A second or two later, it split in half and a gush of liquid spilled out of its center and spilled over the Replicant’s torso in a bubbling, steaming flood.

Scully let the video play for two more minutes, but deliberately muted the sound.

She freeze-framed again when all that was left of the Replicant was a twitching head and shoulders connected to two frantically kicking legs by a half-dissolved spinal cord.

“Excuse me,” Skinner gasped, struggling to his feet white-faced, and almost running into his personal bathroom.

“Sorry about that,” he said, emerging a few minutes later, still pale and wiping his mouth.

Scully met his sickened look with an expression of sympathy. “If I had to count how many times I’d thrown up at Penzbech, I’d need a calculator.”

“Why the hell didn’t Drake just tell the poor bastard what would happen if he broke the restraint?” Skinner growled.

“Drake’s a great believer in the test subjects learning by experience. He says no amount of words educate as well as practical demonstrations. Before he agreed to allow the new restraints to be used, he played that same trick on each and every one of the subjects.”

“Even 42?” Skinner snarled.

“Since he blamed their implementation on your new standing orders over subject 42, he was the first Replicant who received the benefit of that little demonstration.”

Skinner’s face clouded with fury. “And that’s your idea of good news?”

“In the general scheme of things,” she shrugged. “The point is that now the Replicants are too terrified to struggle, regardless of what’s being done to them, they’re suffering a lot less unnecessary pain. At least these restraints don’t burn them while they’re behaving themselves.”

Skinner nodded his reluctant agreement.

“So what’s the bad news?” he growled.

“This next part of the tape shows the new experiments being run on subject 42.”

“I said he was to be taken out of the program,” Skinner roared.

Scully shook her head. “You said he was to be taken out of the ‘test to destruct’ program. There are still a lot of experiments that don’t fall under that category. And before you watch this and go crazy, please bear in mind that the information we obtained from this experiment was absolutely crucial. I may not agree with the methods used, but it gave us information that we had to have. The bad news isn’t what you’re about to watch, sickening as it may be. It’s what we learned from doing it.”

She clicked the video back into play, but left the sound muted and gave her own commentary.

The television screen showed subject 42 in a large laboratory filled with white-coated scientists and gun-toting soldiers. A naked Krycek was shackled by the new ‘kinder’ restraints to a metal examination table. The one difference between his posture and that of the previous Replicant was that his legs were bent and raised, with his feet locked into what looked like gynecological stirrups.

“What the fuck?” Skinner growled, as he watched one of the scientists attaching a cup to Krycek’s limp penis.

“Our greatest concern,” Scully said, as they watched the screen, “was to know how the Supersoldier virus can be spread. We’d already tested saliva, urine, stool and blood, so we knew it couldn’t be passed by those bodily fluids. As long as it couldn’t be passed sexually, we at least would know that new Replicants can only be created by direct alien intervention. But if the Replicants can reproduce themselves, we’ve got one hell of a problem, Sir.”

“I don’t believe this,” Skinner growled, as he watched Krycek thrashing wildly on the table as one of the scientists inserted a slim metal rod into his anus.

“Vets use a similar method to obtain sperm samples for artificial insemination,” Scully explained emotionlessly. “A small electric shock applied directly to the subject’s prostate gland. It causes an immediate ejaculation.”

“So I see,” Skinner snarled. He was glad the sound was off, so he only had to imagine Krycek’s scream as he arched against his restraints and came into the cup.

Scully flipped the video into fast-forward. “Just more of the same,” she muttered. “Suffice it to say that a Replicant can regenerate approximately every ten minutes. So Drake continued taking samples for over an hour.”

She freeze-framed again at an image of a petri dish, then moved forward frame-by-frame as the video zeroed in on its contents.

“We discovered two pertinent facts about subject 42’s sperm. Firstly, it’s non viable. In other words, he can’t impregnate a woman or a female Replicant. Secondly, and more importantly, it does contain the virus.”

“He’s a Typhoid Mary?”

“All the Supersoldiers are. And that’s not all. They’re all homosexual.”

“How the hell can you know that?”

“Every single subject was immersed into a sense-deprivation tank and then subjected to an overload of sexual images. Deprived of all other sense-input, they couldn’t fail to respond physically to the only information they were allowed to process. Regardless of prior orientation, each and every one of them responded to images of naked men rather than women. The only possible conclusion we can reach is that the aliens intend to encourage their hosts to reproduce as rapidly as possible and to concentrate that reproduction on male victims.”

“Because, theoretically, males make better soldiers?”

“Exactly. It begs a question though, doesn’t it? If Krycek is in control of his alien, why is his sexual preference still being dominated by the alien imperative? Drake says this proves subject 42 is faking, and I find myself wondering whether he’s right.”

“Unless Krycek is gay anyway,” Skinner pointed out. “That would throw a spanner in your theory, wouldn’t it? You’re a scientist, Scully. It’s not like you to jump to conclusions without knowing all the facts.”

She gave him a wry smile. “I accept your point, but we have absolutely no data about his previous life and I can hardly ask Krycek whom he used to sleep with, can I?”

“So, the Supersoldiers can infect people they have anal sex with? What happens if they catch, rather than pitch?” Skinner mumbled, blushing slightly.

Scully grinned briefly at his terminology.

“Well, there we come to the really bad news,” she said. “At first, we simply continued ‘encouraging’ subject 42 to ejaculate and took a number of anal swabs. Regardless of how sexually excited he physically became, we found no trace of the virus in his rectal fluid. So, theoretically, he couldn’t infect a man who was penetrating him. Dr. Drake, however, is an extremely thorough scientist who never takes results on face-value.”

She put the video-recorder back into play.

“You’re not going to like this, Sir. I confess I screamed blue-murder when he told me what he was going to do. But….well, watch and see for yourself.”

Skinner’s jaw tightened as the scene rolled out in front of him, but despite the fury burning in his gut, all he said was, “Who are they?”

“Soldiers. Volunteers, although you have to use the term loosely when you’re talking about enlisted men. Drake’s theory was that at least if it went wrong, we’d have more test subjects with few questions asked.”

“The man’s a monster.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but watch.”

Skinner watched in horror as the first soldier dropped his pants and scivvies, walked between Krycek’s open legs, shoved his cock inside the helpless ‘man’ and began thrusting.

“This is obscene,” Skinner growled. “It’s rape. Worse than rape. The bastard didn’t even damned well prepare him. Krycek’s clearly in agony. I want his name. Let’s see how the bastard feels when he spends the next ten years in military prison as someone’s bitch himself.”

Scully winced at the pained grimace on Krycek’s face at the brutal penetration. “Remember he’s a Replicant, Sir. He wasn’t actually harmed. Ten minutes after this footage there wasn’t a mark on him. But, believe me, that soldier’s already paid the price for his brutality. Watch.”

On the screen, Skinner saw Krycek’s body arch into an involuntary orgasm. He ejaculated onto the soldier’s chest. For a second or two, nothing happened as the soldier continued to thrust to his own completion. But then the white spatters of Krycek’s semen began to move on the soldier’s chest. They flowed together until a myriad of tiny white liquid worms began moving upwards toward the soldier’s face.

Even without the sound on, it was clear the room erupted into panic.

The soldier began to struggle, batting helplessly at the ‘worms’ and trying to back away from Krycek. But, somehow, it seemed that his cock was clamped tight inside Krycek’s hole, preventing him from moving, and the worms continued to wriggle their way up his neck, onto his face and then slid inexorably towards his mouth, nose and eyes.

“Why the hell is no-one doing anything?”

“Drake ordered the room cleared. He couldn’t run the risk of anyone else becoming infected. The subject’s semen acted in exactly the same way as the oilien infection,” Scully said, turning off the tape.

“The soldier’s been quarantined. We’ve tested him and he is carrying the virus. All our efforts to cure him have failed. It appears that the form of virus carried inside the Replicants is a different strain from the original. In less than three days, the soldier is already showing symptoms of infection. This strain of the virus gestates inside a living host and, if current indications are anything to go by, creates a new fully-fledged Supersoldier in approximately a week.

“In other words, any of the Supersoldiers currently at large are possibly creating more Replicants at an exponential rate.”

“Oh my God.”

“So while I share your disgust at the methods, I can’t find it in myself to condemn what Drake did to subject 42.”

“His name’s Krycek,” Skinner barked. “And you’ll excuse me if I find it more difficult than you to accept any excuse for sexually abusing and raping a helpless prisoner.”

“As I said, I’m disgusted by what Drake did. But I can’t deny the importance of the information he thereby obtained.”

“What is the military saying?”

“They’re in a panic, naturally. Unless we can find a way to ‘neuter’ the Supersoldiers, this has blown their plans for trying to tame one of them to work for us. Basically, they’re saying that even if we manage to separate an alien from its host, they can’t let that host out into the world and run the risk he’ll create more Replicants.”

“Maybe the infection would leave the body at the same time as the alien.”

“Perhaps. But maybe it’s part of the irreversible physiological change. Drake’s working on the problem. He’ll find out the truth, one way or the other.”

Skinner stood up. “I’m coming back to Penzbech with you.”

“That’s the other reason I came,” Scully replied. “Subj…Krycek’s been asking to see you.”

***

“Jesus,” Skinner said, looking through the mirrored glass with an expression of horrified fascination.

“I know,” Mulder agreed. “It’s pretty obscene. But all the Replicants are wearing them now as a safety precaution.”

“It looks painful.”

“Probably is,” Mulder muttered, absently rubbing his own crotch in sympathy. “But given the results if it’s activated, it seems fairer to have it tight enough that they can’t forget they’re wearing them.”

“What exactly are the results?”

“Works on the same principle as the chest restraint. But it’s a lot more fragile. If he becomes erect, he’ll snap the ring and the acid will immediately castrate him. That’ll give someone ten minutes to get the fuck out of his cell before he regenerates. It’s the only way to be absolutely certain he can’t infect anyone.”

“And he’s wearing it permanently?”

“Well, until they come up with another alternative. Scully’s team is working on the idea of injecting a low level of magnetite solution directly into both the scrotum and prostate of a subject. Just enough to kill off the infection. It’ll only work until the subject’s next regeneration, of course, but seems a kinder solution on a day-to-day basis than wearing an acid-filled cock-cage.”

“Why the scrotum and the prostate?”

“Because Scully can’t establish for certain whether the infection is carried in the semen or just the sperm. Under test conditions, the infection within the ejaculate remains dormant. That makes it pretty impossible to run conclusive tests on its individual properties.”

“How is that possible?”

Mulder shrugged. “Scully believes it may be programmed to only become ‘live’ on contact with human skin. She thinks it’s a kind of chemical reaction. She can’t prove her hypothesis, though, without risking another soldier becoming infected, so she’s simply going to cover both bases by injecting both the prostate and the scrotum with the ‘cure’.”

“And how near finding that cure are they?”

“They’re already there. It’s just a matter of working out the right dosage now, apparently. Too much and the Replicant’s balls literally explode. Not enough and they’re still potentially infectious. The poor bastard they’ve been using as a test subject spent all day yesterday continuously regenerating his balls and most of today being alternately injected and then forced to ejaculate so they could test the effectiveness of the dosage.”

Skinner frowned suspiciously at the way Mulder was refusing to meet his eyes as they spoke. “Who are they using?” he barked.

“Krycek,” Mulder admitted, with a slight flinch at Skinner’s immediate glare of fury. “It’s our fault, according to Drake. Since Krycek’s the only Replicant not on the ‘test to destruct’ program, Drake says he’s the logical choice for that kind of non-fatal experimentation."

“The whole fucking point of removing him from the program was to try and help him break free of his alien co-habitor. Not torture him into insanity.”

“I know,” Mulder agreed. “And Drake has agreed that he’ll leave Krycek alone from now on. He’s now our baby.”

Although there was nothing on Mulder’s face except an innocent smile, Skinner noticed him rubbing significantly bruised knuckles with his left hand.

“I hope you really hurt him, but if he reports you…”

“I didn’t hit him anywhere that he’d want to admit,” Mulder snickered.

“Oh?”

“Put it this way, Krycek’s not the only one with ball ache today.”

Skinner looked at him in surprise, but didn’t even try to prevent his own smug smile. “Good,” he breathed. “Now I’m going to see if I can undo some of the damage that fucker’s done.”

“I’ll go see how Scully’s doing.”

At Skinner’s frown, Mulder stiffened defensively. “It’s not her fault, Sir. She loathes all this as much as we do but, as she said herself, if they don’t find a way to control the risk of further infection, the military is going to order Penzbech shut down and all the Replicants will be destroyed. You might not see it, but she’s trying to give Krycek a chance.”

Skinner breathed heavily and nodded. “I understand,” he said. “I don’t like it. But tell her I understand.”

***

“I’m sorry,” Skinner said, without preamble, as he entered Krycek’s cell. “I know what they did to you, and I’m sorry. If I’d known, I would have stopped it.”

Krycek’s only acknowledgement of his presence was to pull himself into a tighter ball of misery.

“I brought you something,” Skinner said, reaching into his overcoat.

Krycek shivered and whimpered low in his throat.

“Something good,” Skinner clarified. “Chocolate.”

For a moment, Krycek still remained frozen but then, painfully slowly, he raised his chin and risked a careful look in the direction of Skinner’s outstretched hand.

“It’s Valrhona,” Skinner said. “I couldn’t believe the price of it, but Mulder said he remembered you liking it so I brought you a couple of bars.”

Skinner saw a brief spark of interest in the haunted green eyes, but then Krycek sighed and dejectedly dropped his head back on his knees.

“You don’t want it? Come on, I know you want it. You really look like you could use some fattening up,” Skinner coaxed. It was the weirdest thing, but it actually hurt him that Krycek was showing no interest in what he’d hoped would be a genuine treat.

‘The man’s just culminated eighteen months of horrific torture by being sexually abused and raped, you asshole’, a voice snarled in the back of his head, ‘and you really think a bar of chocolate is going to help him feel better?’

“Not ‘llowed,” Krycek mumbled, his voice dull.

Skinner blinked in confusion. “Not allowed? What the hell do you mean it’s not allowed?”

Krycek raised his head again, and this time his expression was bitter. He gestured over to a low platform on the far side of the cell where there was a large plastic jug of viscous white liquid and a small plastic mug. “That’s my dinner, Skinner. And my breakfast. And my lunch. That’s the only fucking ‘food’ I’ve eaten in this place. And you wonder why I’ve lost weight? You try drinking that vile shit and see how much weight you lose.”

“Why?” Skinner demanded furiously.

Krycek cringed, obviously certain Skinner’s anger was directed at him. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled frantically, and began trembling violently again.

Skinner was torn between guilt and irritation at the reaction. ‘Why wouldn’t he think you’d hurt him?’ that insidious voice whispered in his head. ‘Who the hell hasn’t hurt him over the last year and a half?’

“I meant why are they being so cruel to you?” he asked, keeping his voice deliberately soft and sympathetic.

Krycek risked a disbelieving glance in his direction. Something in Skinner’s eyes must have convinced him the question was serious, because he stopped trembling and shrugged slightly.

“Expediency. Don’t you know that’s Drake’s personal motto?”

“I don’t understand.”

“If he knows exactly what’s going in, it’s easier for him to monitor what’s coming out,” Krycek snarled, gesturing towards the commode in the far corner of the cell. “They check, measure and weigh every shit and piss I take. They record it too,” he added, pointing at the cameras in the cell. “Every fucking bowel movement I make is on video.”

Skinner stared at the cameras in disgusted fascination. He’d already absently noticed Krycek’s complete lack of privacy for personal functions, but what Krycek was suggesting was obscene. “But why?”

Krycek shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he thinks I’m planning to infect the whole population with an infected dump.”

It made a certain amount of sense to Skinner. Of course Drake wasn’t going to let any of the Replicants’ bodily waste enter the public sewerage system without being thoroughly checked for infection, but the cameras were a totally unnecessary indignity in his opinion.

“I’ll see if I can arrange for a low screen,” he offered. “You have to be monitored 24/7, so I can’t give you true privacy, but you’ll get whatever limited dignity I can afford you from now on.”

For a horrible moment, he thought Krycek was going to cry. The green eyes filled with tears and Krycek sniffled into his lap, but all he actually said was a muted, though seemingly genuine, ‘Thank you’.

“Secondly,” Skinner continued, “I’m going to have you changed onto a proper diet from today. If that makes them work harder to monitor your…um…waste products then so-be-it. So take the damned chocolate.”

Krycek shook his head and shivered. “Drake won’t be happy,” he whispered fearfully.

“You’re not one of Drake’s test subjects any longer,” Skinner replied firmly. “From now on, Mulder and I have sole authority over you.”

He’d hoped that the announcement would pacify Krycek. Instead it seemed to terrify him. He scrambled backwards across the floor until he was as far away from Skinner as was physically possible in the tiny cell.

“Why does that scare you?” he asked, deliberately repressing his automatic irritation at what he perceived as Krycek’s irrational ingratitude.

When Krycek finally answered, Skinner’s gut churned.

“At least Drake doesn’t hate me,” Krycek whispered, then dropped his head onto his knees and began to sob.

Skinner took a step towards him, but then hesitated. Krycek looked absolutely terrified and if Skinner’s approach made him panic there was no knowing how he might react.

‘He’s a fucking Supersoldier,’ Skinner reminded himself. ‘He could rip you apart with one finger.’

“Neither Mulder nor I have any reason not to hate you, Krycek,” he replied calmly. “But neither are we intending you any harm. A few days ago, you asked for my help. So I’m helping you, to whatever limited extent I can under the circumstances. In exchange, you’ll agree to give me and Mulder your full co-operation.”

“If you want to help me, let me go,” Krycek snarled.

“You know that’s not possible,” Skinner retorted sharply. “I’ll give you some time to think about what I’ve said.”

He laid the chocolate bars on the low platform, grabbed the jug of unappetizing ‘food’ and let himself out of the cell.

***

“How did it go?” Skinner asked.

It was almost midnight by the time Mulder had arrived at his apartment clutching a bag of Chinese take-out.

“Drake pulled another hissy-fit when he found out you’d arranged for Krycek to get ‘real’ food, but he…um… saw sense eventually.”

“Don’t tell me you hit him again?” Skinner groaned, reaching for another piece of lemon chicken.

“Nah. I pulled in the big guns. Between you going back to work and Drake finding out about the new arrangements, I had a long chat with Senator Matheson. I explained what we were trying to do with Krycek and why and managed to sell him the idea. He pulled a few strings with the military and we got virtual carte blanche.”

“Define ‘virtual’.”

“We can’t do anything that might compromise the safety of the base. Krycek will be subject to whatever safety measures are deemed necessary for the other Replicants. In other words, he gets the injection same as all the rest.”

“Scully’s managed to perfect it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I don’t see a problem with that.”

Mulder winced. “It apparently hurts like fuck,” he admitted. “We’re basically burning their balls from the inside out. And it’s to be administered a minimum of once daily.”

“Why daily? I thought it would work until a Replicant regenerated himself.”

“The prostate injection will. But even with 24/7 monitoring, it’s theoretically possible for one of the Replicants to mutilate his scrotum without us realizing. For instance, Krycek could roll over in his sleep, ‘accidentally’ damage his balls out of camera view, and then regenerate them. So either he has to be permanently restrained, or every time he’s been left alone he gets injected again before we’re allowed to visit his cell.”

Skinner shuddered. “Alternatively, we could continue to use the cock-cage. I don’t see how we’re going to create any trust with him once he figures out that a visit from us means a burning needle in his balls.”

Mulder shook his head. “Three of the subjects triggered their cages today. All the others got pretty damned close to setting theirs off too. After a few hours they seem to get driven crazy by the pressure. Scully doesn’t even think it’s related to the discomfort of the cages. She believes the Replicants have an inbuilt biological imperative to reproduce. The inability to become erect plays incessantly on their minds until, eventually, they stop caring about the consequences and start clawing at their groins anyway.”

Skinner shook his head in bemusement. “We’ve never noticed an overwhelming sex-drive in Supersoldiers before.”

“Yeah, well I think we can blame Drake for this. My theory is the Replicants remain sexually dormant until ‘triggered’. Presumably, the aliens didn’t want to move too fast so they inbuilt the potential, but left it inactive. Immersing the test subjects in the sensory deprivation chambers and ramming sexual images down their throats has forced them to prematurely jump into reproduction mode. Apparently most of them are now acting like cats in heat. Constantly touching themselves and acting in … um… suggestive ways with their guards. It’s become a whole new security nightmare.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“What about Krycek?”

“To an extent,” Mulder admitted, “but he’s definitely more in control of himself than any of the others. It supports his claim that he’s managing to keep his alien influence suppressed.”

“I probably don’t want to know the answer to this, but I can’t walk into that cell without knowing exactly what Krycek’s suffered today, so tell me, Mulder. How does someone apply an injection directly into the prostate gland?”

Mulder shuddered slightly. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask,” he admitted.

“That bad?”

“Worse than you can imagine, Sir. Drake’s initial idea was to apply it anally, like they’ve been applying the electrical shocks. Only it turns out that the application of an injection is a lot trickier. He used a mechanical dilator to open Krycek’s anus wide enough to get his whole goddamned hand inside. But he still couldn’t see what he was doing. So he tried to open him up even wider. By that time, Krycek was struggling so hard that they had to swap back to the magnetite restraints. He was screaming the place down, Sir.”

“The fucker,” Skinner snarled, visualizing shoving his own hand up Drake’s ass and seeing how loud he screamed.

“Anyway, by that time, Krycek’s body had begun regenerating the damage from the initial dilation and his ass suddenly clamped down so hard on Drake’s wrist that Drake’s whole lower arm is now bruised a spectacular shade of purple.”

“What did Drake do?”

“Well, if Scully and I hadn’t been there, I think he would have really hurt Krycek in revenge. Instead, he just had him turned over and restrained on his back. Then he cathetered Krycek and injected him that way. It seemed to hurt. A lot.”

“Drake injected him through his…his… his penis?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Skinner rubbed his face with his hands and sighed heavily. “How the hell do we do it, Mulder? How do we walk into Krycek’s cell and ask for his co-operation after something like that? How can the poor bastard even still be sane?”

“Bottom line, Sir?”

Skinner nodded grimly.

“Because, in the scheme of things, Krycek had a pretty good day today. Compared with what’s happened to him over the last eighteen months, the tests today were a walk in the park. It’s pretty sickening to admit it, but he’s survived a lot worse.”

“Jesus,” Skinner cursed. “Did he at least get a decent dinner?”

“Nothing heavy. He hasn’t had solid food for a long time, remember. But he had soup and some scrambled eggs. Oh, and he ate the chocolate. Both bars. You’d better go shopping again,” Mulder chuckled.

“Damn,” Skinner sighed. “Why the hell couldn’t Krycek’s weakness be sunflower seeds? How the hell am I going to explain expensive French chocolate on my expense accounts?”

“You’re a deputy director, Sir. Why not set up a special Valrhona budget in the interests of national security?” Mulder snickered.

***

Mulder took a deep steadying breath, then let himself into Krycek’s cell. Of necessity, he was going to have to do the majority of the ‘work’ with Krycek. He was assigned full time to Penzbech, while Skinner still had the many duties of a Deputy Director to fulfill in addition to the Project and so would only be able to visit Krycek in the evenings.

Yet, despite Skinner being the one who had finally killed Krycek, Mulder was damned sure that it was going to take a lot longer for him to gain Krycek’s co-operation. There was too much bad history between them for Krycek to see him as anything but ‘the enemy’.

That’s why he’d arranged for Krycek to be restrained for his first visit.

It had been easy enough to organize. Krycek had been allowed to eat his breakfast in peace and then had been subdued and taken to the laboratory for another scrotal injection. All Mulder had done was ask the soldiers to leave Krycek restrained when they wheeled him back into his cell

“Good morning,” he said, entering the cell, and Krycek’s head whipped around in panic from the examination table.

“I hear you behaved yourself this morning,” Mulder continued, ignoring Krycek’s terrified stare. “Climbed into your restraints without argument.”

“That’s because I actually imagined it would hurt worse to be shot with a flame-thrower than to co-operate,” Krycek snarled. “If I’d known they were about to burn my fucking balls off I wouldn’t have been so fucking stupid.”

“Get used to it, Krycek. From now on, you get that injection every morning,” Mulder advised him bluntly. “If you fight them, all that will happen is you’ll get burned to a crisp and then taken to the laboratory for your injection. So think of co-operation as the best of two evils.”

“You fucking heartless bastard.”

Mulder just shrugged. “I just thought you’d rather know the truth. We aren’t going to achieve anything by lying to each other.”

“Wasn’t it you who said I wouldn’t know the truth if it bit me?” Krycek snapped.

“My, you are feeling better this morning, aren’t you? Amazing what a couple of decent meals can do to chirp someone up.”

“You want fucking gratitude, is that it? Well okay, Mulder. Thanks a fucking bunch for the French toast. Shame about the needle in my balls.”

“Yeah well, life sucks, Krycek. Get used to it.”

“I was used to it. Until that fucker Skinner murdered me.”

Mulder shook his head and tutted loudly. “Is that any way to talk about the man who’s practically put his ass on the line getting you removed from Drake’s clutches?”

“I’m not seeing any significant improvements,” Krycek hissed.

“No? Well think about this, you ungrateful little fuck. Every other subject got that same injection this morning but they aren’t having conversations right now. They’re too busy screaming their asses off while Drake tries out their reaction to having a napalm shower,” Mulder retorted angrily.

Then he felt sick, and guilty, when Krycek immediately turned frighteningly pale and began to throw up.

It took him a couple of frantic seconds to find the release for the restraints, but he managed to help Krycek sit up before he choked on his own vomit.

“I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly, patting the Replicant’s shoulder. “I just wanted you to face reality, not choke on it.”

Then he swallowed heavily and took a nervous step backwards as he belatedly realized that Krycek was now free and he was unarmed . “You aren’t um… um… planning to kill me, are you?”

Krycek gave him an incredulous look then gave a brief significant glance at the overhead sprinklers. “For a bright guy, sometimes you’re a complete asshole, Mulder.”

Mulder rocked back on his heels, staring at Krycek with clear bemusement.

“WHAT?” Krycek snapped.

“It really is you,” Mulder breathed. “I wasn’t sure… but you really are Krycek, aren’t you?”

“So fucking what? It doesn’t change anything, does it?” Krycek said, his tone bitter. “Maybe it even makes it worse. Makes it personal.”

Mulder felt an irrational flash of hurt. Krycek honestly seemed to believe he was taking pleasure in his misfortune. But, then again, why wouldn’t he?

“It just makes wanting to get that alien fucker out of your head personal,” he said.

Krycek gave him a look of clear disbelief, crossed to his water jug and took a deep gulp to rinse his mouth, then walked to the far corner of his cell and hunkered down into a crouch. “What the fuck do you want from me, Mulder?”

“For starters, I need the answers to a few questions.”

“What’s the point? You’ll just accuse me of lying to you. What’s it this time? Something new or an old favorite? Let me guess…. It’s ‘Did you kill my father’?”

A flash of old fury thundered through Mulder’s heart.

“This is fucking pointless. I think I’m going to call Drake and tell him he can have you back,” he spat.

Krycek’s reaction was both immediate and sickening. His face flooded with terror and he threw himself forward, crawling towards Mulder in a posture of absolute submission. “Please, oh god, please. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please. PLEASE. I’m sorry, Mulder. I’ll be good. Anything. I swear it. Anything you want. Please.”

“Shit,” Mulder gasped, as a huge ball of bile rose in his throat.

He’d never, in a life full of remembered horrors, witnessed anything as heart-wrenchingly pathetic as watching a naked, broken Alex Krycek crawling across the floor like a whipped cur, begging desperately for a mercy he clearly didn’t believe he’d receive.

“I didn’t mean it,” he snapped desperately. “Listen to me, Krycek. I didn’t fucking mean it. You know what a fucking nasty temper I’ve got. So…so… so just don’t push me in future, okay?”

Now curled in a shivering, terrified ball at his feet, Krycek nodded frantically. “Anything you want,” he husked. “Anything. I swear.”

“Are you gay?”

The non-sequitur was enough to shock Krycek out of his sniveling contrition. His head jerked up and he looked at Mulder incredulously. “What?”

“Just answer the question. Yes or No. Are you, or more to the point, were you gay?”

Color flooded Krycek’s cheeks, he dropped his gaze to the tiles at Mulder’s feet, and he mumbled something incoherent towards the floor.

“I didn’t hear you,” Mulder barked.

“Yes,” Krycek whispered, his head bowed in miserable defeat.

Mulder nodded. Skinner had been right. Krycek’s homosexuality wasn’t a side-effect of his transformation. Another possible confirmation that Krycek’s alien was no longer in the driving seat.

“That day you kissed me, what was that all about? You got a thing for me, Krycek?”

Krycek moaned miserably and began to tremble.

“You said ‘anything’, Krycek. I want the truth. Are you attracted to me?”

“Yes,” Krycek whimpered.

“Then you’re an idiot. Even if you weren’t a rat-bastard, I wouldn’t have looked twice at you. You’ve got too little tit and too much cock for my tastes.”

“I know,” Krycek mumbled into the floor. “I always knew. It… it didn’t matter.”

“Why?” Mulder asked, his tone gentling.

“Fantasy,” Krycek replied simply, then fell silent.

Yeah, Mulder told himself. Krycek was right. Since he had hated the ratbastard, it hadn’t really mattered whether he himself was gay or straight anyway. Since Krycek knew nothing would ever come of the attraction, he’d been free to fantasize anything he liked. But it still seemed pretty pathetic. Poor bastard.

“Did you kill my father?”

Krycek began shivering again. “Yeah,” he breathed, then tensed in obvious expectation of punishment.

Oddly, finally hearing the confession out loud didn’t hurt Mulder like he’d expected. Or maybe it was just the circumstances. Whatever dire retribution he’d ever fantasized for Krycek paled into insignificance next to the horrors the man had suffered. Was still suffering.

“Get some rest,” he said. “Skinner’s coming to see you tonight.”

Then he hesitated at the doorway. “If you get back in your restraints, you won’t have to have another injection. If you don’t, they’ll insist on doing it again before Skinner arrives. It’s up to you.”

Krycek looked up at him in clear bemusement. Mulder wasn’t sure whether he was stunned by Mulder’s calm acceptance of his confession or by the warning. Either way, he just rose silently to his feet, climbed back onto the examination table and let Mulder reactivate the restraints.

“I’ll tell the soldiers to release you and stay with you when they bring your lunch. As long as they strap you back in afterwards, you’ll be okay,” Mulder promised awkwardly, then stepped out of the cell.

***

“Has Krycek eaten dinner yet?” Skinner asked, as he checked in with the guard-station at 9.30.

The soldier he was questioning looked slightly sheepish. “We didn’t have anyone to spare to wait with him while he ate and Agent Mulder said he’d rather avoid 42 having to have a second injection today. Things are a little…um…. crazy here at the moment.”

“Trouble?” Skinner asked.

“16 got free when he was being put back in his restraints after today’s experiments and attacked Dr Drake. It happened so fast, no one could do anything.”

“He killed him?”

“Um….no.”

“What the hell happened, man?”

The soldier licked his lips nervously. “Well, you know…um… the problem we’ve been having with the Replicants the last couple of days? Um… well 16 had just regenerated and he was …um… frustrated and….well… it just happened so fast, Sir. We tried to break them apart, but it was too late.”

To Skinner’s horror, as the penny began to drop, he found himself struggling not to laugh.

“Where’s Drake now?”

“In the isolation wing. Dr Scully says it’ll be about seven days before he has to be put into the cells with the others.”

“How terrible,” Skinner muttered insincerely.

“Yeah,” the soldier replied, equally unmoved. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

“If you call the kitchen to get Krycek’s dinner ready, I’ll take it in to him myself.”

“I appreciate that, Sir,” the soldier replied, and made the call.

Skinner waited for the food to arrive. It took about twenty minutes, and when the chef’s assistant arrived with a tray his own neglected stomach jumped up and took immediate notice of the heavenly aromas wafting from the covered plate.

“What is that, Private?” he demanded, as he sniffed appreciatively.

The young man snapped to attention. “Medallions of port sautéed in a white wine sauce, with petit pois, new potatoes and asparagus tips.”

“For Krycek?”

The private smirked. “Well, his menu was going to be corned beef hash tonight, like the rest of the mess. But then this meal became unexpectedly available, so Chef said we may as well give it to 42.”

Skinner suppressed a smile. “Good thinking,” he said. “But isn’t Dr. Drake hungry tonight?”

“Oh, well when Bennett got infected, the Doctor insisted he should be moved immediately onto the Replicants' diet,” the private replied smoothly. “So it only seemed fair under the circ…”

“I get the picture, Private,” Skinner interrupted. “Carry on.”

“Yes, Sir,” the young soldier agreed, with a salute and a cheeky grin. “Oh,” he called back over his shoulder, just before he disappeared around a bend in the corridor, “and you can tell 42 that tomorrow night he’s having steak.”

“Why do I get the impression no one’s particularly cut up about what happened to Dr Drake?” Skinner asked the guard on the desk.

“I have no idea what you mean, Sir,” the soldier replied blandly. Then he coughed several times, like he was choking.

No longer even pretending to hide his own smile, Skinner made his way towards Krycek’s cell. A part of him was horrified by his own reaction to the tragic news. A far larger part seemed to have a more Old Testament attitude to Drake’s fate.

“An eye for an eye, Drake,” he said, as he stepped into the door mechanism. “Let’s see how you enjoy being a test subject.”

***

He stepped into the cell, closed the door, put the tray on the low platform and released Krycek from his restraints.

“Sorry your food’s late. There’s been a bit of an incident here. Eat before it gets cold.”

Krycek gave him a nervous look but still scurried over to the tray as though he was starving. “Shit,” he breathed, as he uncovered his plate and stared down in disbelief at his dinner.

Skinner’s own stomach rumbled angrily as Krycek sat cross-legged on the floor and began ravenously devouring his food with a plastic knife and fork. The pork was so tender that even the flimsy knife slipped through it as though it were butter.

“And to think that all I’ve had to eat in the last three days is half a take-out Chinese and a couple of subs,” Skinner sighed out loud.

Krycek paused his wolfish eating abruptly and looked dolefully at the remains of his dinner. “You want to share?” he asked warily.

For some reason the genuine, if reluctant, offer made Skinner’s heart ache.

He shook his head firmly. “No. I’ll get something on the way home. But thanks.”

Krycek’s lips twitched into a vague ghost of a smile, then he rapidly began eating again as if worried Skinner might change his mind.

“Before I forget,” Skinner said, as Krycek burped loudly and pushed away his empty plate, “I brought you some more chocolate.”

Krycek eagerly reached over for the proffered bars, then hesitated and drew his hand back empty. “Why are you doing this?” he whispered. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

“It’s just damned chocolate,” Skinner snapped, his surly mask firmly in place, because when push came to shove he didn’t know why he was putting himself on the line for Krycek. To one extent, it was because he couldn’t bear the thought of any creature being abused the way Krycek was. But then, there were still 19 other surviving Replicants in the base and he wasn’t buying them expensive chocolate and making sure they had decent food to eat.

He placed the chocolate on Krycek’s tray and moved to sit on the edge of the examination table.

“I spoke to Mulder. He said you’re gay.”

Krycek stiffened defensively. “And that’s a fucking crime now?”

“Don’t ever swear at me, boy,” Skinner growled.

Krycek shuddered and dropped his head in clear, frightened apology.

“The reason it’s significant is that all the other Replicants are as gay as yourself now,” Skinner explained. “It’s apparently a side-effect of the transformation. That cast a doubt on your assertion that you’re currently in the driving seat.”

Krycek blinked rapidly, then his eyes flickered with understanding. “So you’re saying that if I was already gay, it’s not an issue. But if I hadn’t been, then my current orientation would be a sign I’m just the alien faking you out?”

“Exactly.”

“You haven’t thought this through, Skinner. How do you know I’m not actually the alien just saying I used to be gay before? Maybe it’s a double-blind.”

“And maybe the alien’s smart enough to say what you just said to make me even more convinced you’re Krycek?” Skinner chuckled.

Krycek just shrugged.

“I believe it’s true, because Mulder said you’re in love with him.”

“I never said that. I said I was attracted to him,” Krycek denied angrily.

Skinner ignored his denial. “Furthermore, Mulder says he can, in retrospect, see evidence of that in the way you previously dealt with him. Evidence that you’re a fucked up confused little puppy, admittedly, but he’s still convinced it’s true.”

“I never said I loved him,” Krycek repeated angrily. “Arrogant bastard.”

“That’s Mulder,” Skinner agreed, with a small affectionate smile.

“Anyway, just because I felt that way still doesn’t mean the alien isn’t fuc…um, messing with your heads.”

“You want me to think that’s true, Krycek?”

Krycek shook his head. “I’m just saying it now, because either you or Mulder are going to get around to considering it later. I don’t… shit….I mean… oh hell. I can’t afford to hope, Skinner. Don’t you understand that? What if it’s you fucking with my head?”

“I told you not to swear at me, Alex,” Skinner reminded him quietly. “All I can promise you is that, however it turns out, you’ll never be part of the Project again. Even if you are the alien tricking us, the very worst we’ll ever do is kill you once. Permanently. No more torture. No more abuse. That much I can promise you.”

Krycek’s eyes went huge with shock at Skinner’s unthinking use of his first name, and he absorbed the rest of Skinner’s comments in silent, stunned acceptance.

“Mulder’s straight, you know,” Skinner added. “He’s open-minded, but not terribly experimental where sex is concerned.”

“He’s the oldest born-again virgin in DC,” Krycek snorted. “They say after seven years every skin cell in the human body has replaced itself and Mulder hasn’t been laid in a decade.”

It occurred to Skinner to mention that a Replicant’s total body regeneration was an even more effective way of re-establishing virginity, but in view of Krycek’s recent rape he didn’t think the observation would be appreciated.

And he didn’t know why it was suddenly so important to him that Krycek accepted the truth that Mulder could never return his feelings. But maybe it was just that there were already enough people currently making a career out of hurting the poor bastard without Krycek voluntarily adding to his own pain by clinging on to an impossible fantasy.

“I just didn’t want you to keep …”

“What? Fantasizing about him?” Krycek interrupted bitterly. “Let me explain something to you, Skinner. Even before I died I had to depend on a ‘dream’ of happily-ever-after. I knew it was never going to happen. I knew I’d never find the so-called Mr. Right. I took a long hard look at myself once and realized no-one was ever going to want a shitty excuse for a human being like me in that way. So I built myself a little fantasy world around Mulder. It didn’t matter that it was never going to happen with him, because it was never going to happen anyway.

“I’ve lost my life, my liberty, my body and now I’m even sharing my goddamned head with an alien son-of-a-bitch who spends 24 hours of every day trying to take me over again. So I’m damned if I’ll lose the one thing I still do have. When you pull that final trigger on me, and I know you will, I’m at least going to die with the fucking DREAM someone could have loved me.”

Skinner felt abruptly sickened by Krycek’s words. The more time he spent with him, the harder it was to cling on to even a memory of his previous hatred of the man. No-one deserved this much physical and mental anguish. No-one.

“Krycek…”

“Just…. Just fu…just leave me alone. Please, Skinner. Just go home and leave me alone,” Krycek begged, pulling his knees to his chest, curling his arms around his lower legs and burying his head in his thighs.

Although he was silent, Skinner could tell from the desperate shaking of his shoulders that Krycek was crying.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he said, rising to his feet and heading towards the door.

His stomach was still aching with hunger but, for some unknown reason, the pain seemed to have moved right up his torso and was now situated in his heart.

***

“You wanted to see me?”

Scully gave him a grateful smile, entered his office and sat down. “I know you’re busy, Sir, so I appreciate…”

“Just cut to the chase, Dr. Scully,” Skinner snapped, though his expression was softer than his words.

“It’s about Drake. Well, about Drake’s replacement.”

Skinner sighed and rubbed his eyes. It should have occurred to him that Drake would immediately be replaced. Then again, he couldn’t imagine any new appointment to head the Penzbech Project could be anything except an improvement. Drake might have been a brilliant scientist, but he was still one fucked-up sadistic son-of-a-bitch.

“Who have they appointed?”

Scully cleared her throat, looked intensely uncomfortable and then whispered, “Me.”

“You? But you aren’t even military.”

She shrugged. “I have high-level security clearance. I’m the most experienced with the Replicants and the Project, and… well, apparently my appointment came directly from the White House.”

“Something to do with Mulder’s pet Senator, you think?”

She nodded miserably.

“Isn’t this good news?”

She shrugged again. “I find myself having a crisis of conscience, Sir. When Drake was in charge, I could blame him for the atrocities and paint myself as the voice of reason. I could justify my work with the subjects as being a necessary evil to protect them from the worst of his excesses. I’ve done unspeakable things, but I could always justify them to myself with the knowledge that Drake would have done worse.

“But now, I have to stop hiding behind those pale excuses and face reality. In many ways, I’m as culpable as Drake. Worse, perhaps, because I now believe the original hosts are alive – something that Drake never accepted. I know I’m hurting human beings. So what does that make me?”

Skinner steepled his fingers and stared at her carefully before replying.

“It makes you the best person to head the Project.”

“But….”

“Hear me out, Dana,” he said, deliberately using her first name. “You know my opinion about the experiments. I am appalled. I am ashamed. I find it increasingly difficult to sleep at night. However, I still accept the unfortunate necessity for the Penzbech Project to continue. Sometimes the ends do justify the means, even if we end up burning in Hell for our part in what’s happening there. We’re trying to save the whole human race, billions of people, and for that we are abusing and torturing a few, hapless creatures who are more deserving of our pity than our hate.

“We have no choice except to use the test subjects in an attempt to find a way to prevent the colonization. However, where you and I differ from Drake is that we do understand that what we are doing, while possibly justified, is an offense against every moral principle we hold dear. And that’s why you have to accept this position. Because I know you’ll never inflict anything except necessary suffering on those poor creatures.”

Scully released a loud, relieved exhalation of breath and nodded.

“You’re right, Sir. Thank you.”

“So, what are the first steps you’ll take when you return to Penzbech and pick up the reins today? How do you intend to change the regime there? I assume that is your intention.”

She frowned and looked down at her hands. “I can’t stop the experiments,” she sighed. “We still have a number of potential weapons that have to be tested. The data we’re collecting is crucial. And finding a long-term solution to the virus being transmitted as an STD is absolutely vital.”

Skinner looked grieved, but nodded his agreement.

“But, that aside, I want to change the way the subjects are treated when they aren’t being experimented on. The first order I intend to give is that from now on the Replicants are to be given clothes. Keeping them permanently naked was not only Drake’s way of dehumanizing them and pretending they were no more than lab rats, but was a way of demoralizing them and keeping them in a constant state of vulnerable humiliation.”

Skinner nodded his approval. “What about their diet?”

“Again, my personal opinion is that Drake used that as a deliberate tool to reinforce the fact that they were just ‘things’ that required nothing more than basic nutrition. We knew months ago that their waste products weren’t dangerous. We even stopped testing their excretions. There was no reason not to change them back to ‘proper’ food, except Drake’s insistence that they required no ‘human’ comforts and that to give them any would be perceived as weakness on our part. They're all visibly underweight. So it's a situation I intend to put right immediately.

“I also propose we make their cells a little more comfortable. There’s no logical reason why they can’t have cots to sleep on and even small comforts like books to read. Drake always said that any extraneous items in their cells could be used as weapons, but that was a ludicrous argument. The Replicants are weapons. If they want to attack their guards, they aren’t going do it by throwing a damned book at them.”

Skinner growled deep in his throat. “Call me a monster, but my only argument with what you’re proposing is that Drake won’t suffer what he put those poor bastards through.”

“Well, I don’t know, Sir. It’s only prudent, given that he’s a new kind of Replicant – one produced by the new sexually transmitted strain of the virus – to assume that he, and Bennett, might deviate from the norm we’ve observed in the other Replicants.”

“Bennett’s the soldier who raped Krycek?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“So, theoretically, the data you’ve already collected from the other Replicants might be invalid as far as they’re concerned?”

“Exactly,” she nodded. “I think, for safety’s sake, we should keep them on the original regime until we know for certain. It's the only way we can scientifically compare their data to that already collected.”

Skinner felt guilty about the amount of personal satisfaction he felt over the idea. But not so guilty that he didn’t nod at her suggestion. “A prudent course of action,” he agreed.

“My other primary concern is this sexual imperative Drake’s awakened in the subjects. The injections are proving successful in neutralizing the threat of infection, but haven’t addressed the mental desire to reproduce. There have been several incidents of Replicants attempting to seduce or even rape their guards. It seems that even the threat of being burned isn’t a deterrent if the subject is sufficiently frustrated, and I’m not sure how to handle it. There may be a chemical way to suppress the sexual desire, but our initial trials are proving unsuccessful.”

“Damn,” Skinner muttered. “Can't they just... um... relieve their own frustration?"

"Masturbation only seems to relieve their physical needs, not their psychological imperative to try to reproduce themselves. They appear more obsessed with the idea of achieving penetration than by the act of ejaculation itself."

"Then what about allowing them… um…conjugal visits?”

Scully blinked rapidly and blushed. “From whom?”

“Each other,” Skinner clarified. “I understand the security issue of letting them interact, but surely you could find a controlled way to pair them up?”

“Shared cells are out of the question,” Scully replied. “I can’t expect the soldiers to handle two Replicants in such a confined space. But I could possibly adapt one of the laboratories so it would be possible for two subjects to ‘interact’ and then be safely separated for return to their cells. It’s a good idea. I’ll get my team working on it and then come up with a schedule.” She hesitated, then said, “What about Krycek? Do you want me to include him?”

Skinner wasn’t sure why the careful question made his temper flare, but even the idea of Krycek being wheeled into one of the laboratories for his daily ‘interaction’ with one of the other Replicants infuriated him.

“I don’t want Krycek having any contact with the other Replicants,” he barked.

Scully looked askance at his tone, so he forced himself to relax and speak more calmly as he continued.

“I don’t want Krycek knowing anything has changed for the other Replicants,” he explained. “I don’t even want him to know that Drake is no longer in charge. I want him to believe that every concession he has comes from me and depends on his good behavior and his ability to keep his alien suppressed.”

“I understand,” Scully nodded. “It makes sense. If he believes he’s totally dependent on your goodwill, he’ll be more inclined to respond positively to you. I’ll instruct his guards accordingly. But…well, what about his sexual imperative?”

“The way I understand it, he’s far more in control of himself than the other Replicants are. If it does become an issue, I’ll find a way to deal with it.”

Scully pursed her lips disapprovingly. “What if it becomes an ‘issue’ when Mulder’s in his cell?”

“He told you?”

“That Krycek’s been panting after him for years?” Scully snapped, with uncharacteristic spite. “Yes, of course he told me. We both thought it was pretty funny when we spoke about it last night, but it won’t be funny if Krycek rapes him, will it?”

A flare of irrational anger spiked through Skinner and he struggled to keep his expression impassive. “I don’t think it’s funny at all,” he replied coldly. “I think it’s sad. Perhaps it would be best if Mulder works alongside you with the other Replicants. I’ll take over with Krycek. That should alloy your fears, Dr. Scully. I can’t see Krycek raping me.”

Scully had the grace to look slightly ashamed. “I’m sure Mulder wants to work with Krycek,” she said. “When I said we laughed, we weren’t deliberately being cruel. It just… well, you have to admit it is pretty ridiculous, Sir.”

“Nevertheless, your comments about Mulder possibly being in danger were valid. I’m long overdue a vacation. I’ll take some time off and work with Krycek myself.”

“But…”

“That will be all, Dr. Scully. I’m late for my next appointment.”

***

He had to pull a few strings and call in a few favors, particularly since he’d just dropped the bombshell that he was planning to take an unscheduled ‘vacation’, but Skinner managed to clear his schedule for the afternoon and leave the office by 2.

The first thing he did was stop at the shopping mall.

After a lot of thought, he decided that incremental concessions made a hell of a lot more sense than changing Krycek’s situation overnight. So he bought a couple of pairs of boxer shorts and a few tee-shirts. He’d offer the shorts first, to at least allow Krycek to cover his nakedness, and if he continued to co-operate he’d get the tee-shirts too. After that, he’d take a wait and see approach.

Next he bought chocolate. Valrhona again, naturally, but also chocolate covered cherries and a selection of Belgian truffles.

Then he went to the bookstore and purchased an eclectic collection of paperbacks and even some graphic comic books.

Finally, he popped into Walmart and bought a sleeping bag, a small portable CD player and a selection of CD’s.

Trusting he had enough bribes to last him at least a week, he drove to Penzbech.

The same soldier was at the desk when he signed in.

“He’s been good today, Sir,” the soldier announced, before he even asked. “We gave him the injection in his cell according to your new instructions, and he didn’t give us any trouble about restraining him. He’s probably bored out of his skull by now, of course.”

“He ate breakfast and lunch?”

“Yes, Sir. Rogers took it in to him and waited while he ate. He said 42 was subdued but seemed appreciative of the company. I’m sure he’s grateful as hell not to be in the tests any more, but it’s got to be a long day all alone in that cell.”

“Yes. Tell Rogers I appreciate his time,” Skinner nodded, giving the soldier a small smile of approval and giving silent thanks that at least some of the guards were prepared to treat Krycek as though he were ‘human’.

Krycek looked oddly disappointed when Skinner entered his cell and released his restraints. He climbed awkwardly off the table, stretched himself to work out the kinks in his spine after hours of being strapped to the unforgiving metal surface, then he crossed to the back of the cell and squatted down into a crouch before finally meeting Skinner’s eyes.

Skinner sat down on the edge of the table, put his bag on the floor, pulled out his weapon and placed it casually on his lap. It wasn’t a magnetite-loaded revolver this time, it was one of the new-design Replicant-subduing pistols that shot a hollow-tipped, acid-filled bullet.

From the sudden look of terror in Krycek’s eyes, it was clear he’d been unfortunate enough to have personally experienced the effectiveness of the weapon.

“Why did you look at me like that when I entered?” Skinner demanded, his face deliberately stern.

He saw Krycek swallow heavily, lick his lips nervously, glance surreptitiously at the pistol on his lap, then bow his head in frightened defeat. “I was expecting Mulder,” he admitted hesitantly.

“Mulder isn’t in charge here, I am,” Skinner snapped, feeling irrationally jealous over Krycek’s obvious disappointment over the identity of his visitor.

“Yes, Sir,” Krycek whispered, his whole posture now one of submission.

“I brought you something,” he said, and was gratified that Krycek immediately whipped his head up with interest. At least Krycek was now expecting his surprises to be a ‘good thing’.

He reached into his bag and withdrew a pair of boxer shorts.

Krycek looked at the shorts, momentarily glanced down at his naked groin, and gulped visibly. For a moment he looked completely dumbfounded, then he dropped forward onto his hands and knees and began crawling eagerly over the floor in his direction.

“Not so fast,” Skinner barked, even though he felt gut-sick at Krycek’s undeniable similarity to a much-beaten but suddenly hopeful puppy, scurrying across the floor in the hope of a treat rather than a kick.

Krycek skidded to a halt and glared at him with a mixture of hate, intense disappointment and fear.

“When, exactly, did you first manage to overcome the alien’s control over you?” he demanded.

Fury sparked in the green eyes. “How the fuck should I know? I don’t even know what fucking month it is now, you bastard.”

Skinner picked up the boxers and began to replace them in the bag. “What did I tell you about swearing at me, boy?”

“I’m sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry, Sir. Please, Sir. I’m sorry,” Krycek wailed, his eyes darting fearfully between the disappearing shorts and the pistol.

Skinner brought the shorts back onto his lap. “Want to try again, boy?”

“Yes, Sir. Please, Sir,” Krycek whimpered.

Skinner should have felt a sense of victory. Instead he felt slightly nauseous. Nevertheless, he let none of his emotions show on his face. “So when did you ‘take over’?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Krycek whispered, hunching his shoulders miserably. “I’d been here a long time. Maybe a year, I think. It felt that long. It wasn't... wasn't so bad back then. None of the tests were that painful in the beginning. Not compared to now.  Just... just minor injuries. Gunshots, minor amputations, that kind of thing. But... but then it all changed. They stopped hurting me and started killing me.   I think I took-over after I’d been killed maybe a dozen times. I’m really not sure. I’m telling the truth. I swear I am.”

“So what changed?”

Krycek shrugged helplessly. “It was like I was trapped in my own head. Like when…when the Oilien possessed me. I mean I could see and hear and I knew what was happening around me. I could feel everything that they did to me. Everything. EVERYTHING!”

Skinner nodded his understanding, and tried to quell the churning in his stomach at the picture Krycek was painting in his head.

“But…but I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t stop me. I was just being carried along for the ride and the alien fucker who’d taken me over was so fucking scared he couldn’t think clearly any more either.”

“You were aware of his thoughts?”

Krycek nodded, then clearly reconsidered and shook his head. “Not his thoughts. But his panic. His fear. His helplessness to get himself out of the situation. He was angry. Furious. But most of all, he was pissing his pants. So I kept telling him that I could get us out of the shit. I could talk to Drake. Reason with him. Promise him co-operation. I said that I could stop the pain.”

“And he believed you?”

“No,” Krycek growled. “He wasn’t that fuc…um…stupid. I was lying through my teeth, and he knew it. But… well, he started giving in anyway. He started believing that somehow I wasn’t feeling the same level of agony as he was because he was running around in my head, shit-scared, going out of his mind …well, my mind …and I was still managing to stay lucid.”

“How?” Skinner demanded. “How did you manage to stay sane if ‘he’ couldn’t?”

“Ever had your arm amputated by a hot knife in a Russian forest?” Krycek snarled. “Pain is pain. Reaches a point where there aren’t any ‘degrees’ of pain. There’s just agony. I knew pain and I knew what it was like to be taken over by an alien. I’d survived BOTH. So I knew… I thought… I’d eventually survive this pain and this possession. I was so fuc…so sure I’d find a way to get free.”

“So what happened?”

“Like I said, we’d been killed a few times, and each time he got more and more scared of the ‘next’ time. We knew Drake was going to just keep killing us, over and over, until the day we couldn’t regenerate.”

“We,” Skinner interrupted, with a significantly raised brow.

Krycek flinched a little and his eyes darted guiltily. “Me and the alien, I mean. We both were scared. Fucking petrified….sorry. And this one time we regenerated, he slipped ‘behind’ me as we woke up. Left me in charge. Left me to deal with his shit, because he figured it was safer where I’d been. Less painful.”

“But it wasn’t?”

“It isn’t,” Krycek agreed, “but once he was there I didn’t let him get out again. I knew I was in charge because, that night, after Drake killed us again, and that time was… god I can’t even say what he did to us that day, I was the one who regenerated us.”

“How do you know?” Skinner challenged.

Krycek met his eyes and raised his left hand. “Because I gave myself my damned arm back.”

Krycek opened his mouth to speak again, but Skinner waved him silent. He needed a few minutes to digest what Krycek had just said. If Krycek was telling the truth, he’d managed to take his body back from the alien on the 10th re-gen, because Drake had said Krycek’s arm had come back during the 11th.

That had been months previously.

And, ever since then, Drake had been deliberately and systematically torturing a human to death.

Almost absently, Skinner handed over the boxer shorts as he continued to deliberate. He was peripherally aware of Krycek eagerly grabbing them and pulling them up over his over-thin legs like he’d just been given the keys to paradise, but all Skinner could think about was the fact that Drake HAD to have known. In all that time, with all the other test subjects to compare Krycek’s behavior and reactions to, there was no way the scientist hadn’t realized there was something significantly different about subject 42.

He reached into his bag again and retrieved a paperback at random. He laid it on his lap, where the shorts had been, and watched Krycek’s eyes light up with greedy hope.

“Why couldn’t the alien regenerate your arm?”

Krycek’s eyes clouded over a moment and his lower lip trembled. “I don’t know,” he whispered miserably, now looking at the book as though it was a rapidly disappearing dream.

So he’d already learned the lesson about honesty, Skinner told himself, though he now regretted asking Krycek what was an apparently impossible question. He thought for a moment, then said, “I don’t expect you to give me the scientific explanation, Krycek. You’re a thug, not a Doctor. I just want your honest opinion. You have to have a theory about it.”

A look of relief flooded Krycek’s features. “I think,” he said hesitantly. “That the aliens somehow absorb a template of how their hosts look at the time they’re infected. I don’t think it has anything to do with DNA at all. How can it? DNA only says what a person should look like. It doesn’t allow for environmental influences. It can’t indicate whether the host was fat or thin, bearded or clean-shaven. It can’t tell the alien whether the host was scarred or had an amputation. So, the way I figure it, the alien takes some kind of ‘snap-shot’, like a 3-D photograph, and that’s the template it returns to every time it regenerates.”

“And how do you think you managed to regenerate your arm?”

“Because… well because my template always had two arms.”

“Be more specific.”

“When I used to dream, I always had two arms. I had longer hair. I was always younger. In my dreams, I always slipped back ten years into my past. Probably because my subconscious didn’t like what I’d become,” Krycek said wryly. “And when I woke up, the first time I was back in control, I regenerated into the man I was in my dreams. Ironic, huh? The only ‘man of my dreams’ I ever got was myself.”

“So you’re saying that if the alien takes you over again, you’d regenerate back into an older man with one arm?”

“I think so,” Krycek whispered. “But I don’t know.”

“Fair enough,” Skinner nodded. “You’re smarter than you look, Krycek. And I guess a smart man deserves a book to read.”

He tossed the paperback, and Krycek caught it and hugged it to his chest ecstatically.

Skinner reached a final time into his bag. He already had more than enough to think about and he was eager to discuss Krycek’s theory about DNA with Scully and Mulder. He thought that Krycek was really onto something. If that was true, then there would be actual physical proof if they managed to get another host to regain control. Admittedly, not as dramatic as the difference between Krycek having one arm or two but surely, in someone’s dreams, everyone would envisage themselves a little younger, fitter, healthier or something. Scully hadn't noted any changes in the subjects who'd killed themselves but, now they knew what to look for, it might be an idea to recheck the old surveillance tapes to see whether they'd shown any physical differences. 

Krycek practically drooled as Skinner withdrew a bar of chocolate and laid it on his lap.

“When you said ‘we’ and ‘us’ earlier, I had the distinct impression you weren’t speaking in a purely grammatical sense. Tell me now, and you’d better tell me the truth, do you see yourself and the alien as one combined being now, rather than host and hitch-hiker?”

Krycek’s eyes glistened suspiciously and he moaned low in his throat, clutching his arms around himself protectively.

“Remember that ALL concessions can be removed as easily as they are given,” Skinner reminded him coldly.

Krycek shivered.

“Sometimes,” he whispered.

“Sometimes?”

“I know it’s his fault I’m here, but… but he’s the only friend I’ve got.”

Skinner threw him the chocolate bar and rose abruptly to his feet. He needed to get out of the cell, away from Krycek, away from a horrifically abused man who now saw his only ally as the alien hiding inside his head.

“I won’t be back until tomorrow morning,” he said gruffly. “So there’s no need to restrain you again. You’ve pleased me today. I’ll make sure you have something good for dinner.”

Then he strode hurriedly out of the room and decided he’d find a quiet bar for an hour or two before visiting Scully and Mulder.

But he stopped at the guard-station on the way out and made certain that the chef’s assistant had been serious the day before when he’d promised Krycek a steak.

***

“I’m supposed to be working alongside you with Krycek.”

“Not anymore,” Skinner countered, oddly pleased by the pouting expression on Mulder’s face.

“On the record, I want to say I think you’re making a big mistake, Sir.”

“There is no record, Mulder, and you admitted yourself that you lost your temper with him several times yesterday. More to the point, he was equally aggressive to you. I think the pair of you have too much shared violent past to ever reach a meaningful level of trust. Besides, he shows me a lot more respect. He’s intimidated by me. He believes, without doubt, that I wouldn’t hesitate to administer a punishment to him. That makes me far more successful in encouraging him to be truthful.”

“Well, you did kill him,” Mulder acknowledged. “So he’s in no doubt about how you feel about him.”

‘How I felt about him,’ Skinner corrected silently.

“Well, there’s no arguing you got some significant results today,” Scully interrupted. “Krycek’s theory is intriguing.”

“As long as you remember you can’t believe a word that comes out of that lying ratbastard’s mouth,” Mulder sneered.

Skinner frowned repressively. “That attitude is exactly why I’ve pulled you out of this particular project,” he snapped.

Mulder bit his lower lip and managed to look both wounded and misunderstood.

Skinner wasn’t impressed.

“Of course, the best way to prove the theory would be to let Krycek’s hitch-hiker take over again. If we saw, with our own eyes, that the alien regenerates without an arm we’d not only have physical evidence but we’d always know if it was really Krycek we were talking to,” Scully said.

“And what if Krycek couldn’t take charge again?” Skinner demanded. “What if the alien kept hold of the reins? It’s an unacceptable risk. I’m not going to ask him to try it.”

Scully shrugged. “I was only speaking theoretically. But it would be valuable proof.”

“You’ve got 19 other subjects to work with, Scully. Make one of them your lab rat. My priority is trying to free Krycek, not give him back into the alien’s control.”

“We still don’t have any reason to believe that separation is possible,” Mulder interrupted. “The vaccine that prevents the virus from gestating is useless in a fully-fledged Replicant. It’s also useless to cure people infected with the new strain. That’s why we can’t do anything about Drake and Bennett.”

“Not that there would be any point treating Drake anyway,” Scully pointed out. “If we stopped the virus transforming him, he’d die anyway.” At Skinner’s puzzled look, she sighed and continued. “Supersoldier semen is as physically aggressive as the Replicants themselves. In the two minutes 16 managed to remain inside Drake, he ejaculated enough semen to destroy Drake’s entire intestinal tract. We’re not just talking peritonitis, we’re talking complete colonic failure and a ruptured bladder and stomach. That semen is intended to not only infect, but to damage the host’s body so thoroughly that the only ‘cure’ is for the transformation into a Replicant to go ahead.”

“He must be in agony,” Skinner said, appalled despite his distaste for the man.

“And no painkillers seem to be effective. Drake’s already getting a taste of being a test subject and he isn’t even a Replicant yet.”

“While we’re on the subject of the sexual imperative, did you have any luck with the other Replicants?”

Scully smiled. “Five pairs of Replicants successfully interacted with each other today.”

“She means they fucked each other’s brains out,” Mulder smirked.

“I know what she meant, Agent Mulder,” Skinner snapped repressively. “And did you have any problem returning them to their cells?”

“No, they were surprisingly docile once they’d satisfied their imperative,” Scully replied. “I think this is going to solve the security issue. There are a lot of relieved guards.”

“I can imagine,” Skinner said dryly.

“Scully told me what you said about Krycek not raping you, Sir,” Mulder said, “and I feel bound to point out that regardless of how intimidating Krycek might find you, if he did get the sudden urge to relieve his frustration there wouldn’t be a thing you could do to stop him. You’re a big man, Sir, but he’s a Supersoldier.”

“I’m well aware of his physical superiority. But it’s not me he’s in love with, is it? Which is another damned fine reason to keep you out of his cell. But, overall, I don’t see it becoming an issue. Krycek’s in charge of his own mind. That makes a considerable difference between him and the other Replicants.”

“Well, for your sake, let’s hope you’re right,” Mulder muttered darkly.

***

“Another game of show and tell?” Krycek drawled.

Skinner frowned thoughtfully. While he was pleased Krycek had shown no disappointment this time when he’d arrived in the cell and released him from his restraints, Skinner wasn’t sure he liked the way he’d just seated himself calmly on the floor and looked with undisguised interest at the bag Skinner was carrying.

In one respect he was relieved that Krycek had replaced his previous shivering fear with the certainty that all he had to do was act like a good performing rat to receive a reward. But, on the other hand, there was something a little too casual about Krycek’s behavior that morning.

It was something in Krycek’s eyes. Something a little sly. Something a little….alien? Although Skinner was still sure Krycek was in overall control, his gut told him that he’d interrupted Krycek having a chummy chat with his internal ‘friend’.

He thought for a moment, then came to a reluctant decision.

“Yes,” he said, and waited.

Sure enough a slight smirk played over Krycek’s lips. That firmed his resolve.

“We start with you handing back your shorts and book.”

For a second, Krycek stared at him in stunned disbelief. Then his lower lip trembled and his eyes brightened with tears. “That’s not fair,” he whispered.

“Not fair?”

“I was good,” Krycek moaned. “I was good. You said I was good.”

Skinner felt like shit, but he was also certain he was doing the right thing. Letting Krycek start taking things for granted would be sending a message that he could ‘call the shots’ in their relationship.

“That was yesterday. Today’s a bright new day. We start from scratch.”

“Bastard,” Krycek hissed.

“I can see we’re off to a bad start. I’ll call the guards to help you obey, shall I?”

Krycek shook his head frantically, rose to his feet and quickly removed his boxer shorts. He gave a gulping, miserable sob and started to bring them to Skinner.

“On the floor will do,” Skinner told him. “I’d like to at least imagine you’ll earn them back.”

Krycek nodded, his eyes cautiously hopeful again.

“And the book,” Skinner reminded him, tapping the table this time to make it clear that he wasn’t so certain Krycek would manage to earn that back.

Shoulders slumped dejectedly, Krycek slunk to the back of the cell, picked up the paperback and carried it reluctantly to the table. Then he returned to his spot on the floor and sat down.

“Let’s talk about sex,” Skinner said, deciding to get the subject out of the way while Krycek was naked. It seemed more expedient, he told himself, then winced at his memory that it had apparently been Drake’s favorite word.

“Sex?” Krycek choked.

“Did you masturbate last night?”

Krycek looked both shocked and mortally embarrassed. “What?”

“Show and tell, Krycek. If you want to stop showing quite so much, I suggest you move on to the tell part,” Skinner said bluntly, staring significantly at Krycek’s exposed groin.

Krycek mumbled something.

“What was that?”

“I said ‘yes’,” Krycek spat, then buried his flaming face in his hands.

“Do you masturbate every night?”

Krycek looked like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him. “I do now,” he mumbled.

Skinner nodded. “When did you start?”

“A few days ago,” Krycek said, refusing to look at him.

“And before that? How many times over the last eighteen months?”

“Never.”

“So it was Drake who was responsible for re-awakening your sexual drive,” Skinner cursed. “When you masturbate, who are you thinking about?”

Krycek’s head reared up, revealing two horrified green eyes.

“I asked you a question,” Skinner barked.

Krycek hugged himself. He also, Skinner noted, became half-erect. “Mulder,” he sobbed.

Again Skinner felt that vague flash of irrational anger. But he told himself it was merely concern over the safety of his Agent.

“When you’re masturbating, thinking of Mulder,” he snarled sarcastically, “are you imagining yourself fucking him or being fucked.”

“You have no right…” Krycek began.

“No, BOY. You’re the one here with no rights, remember?”

Krycek sniffed, sobbed and dropped his head in defeat. “I…we… I mean…. I mean we imagine fucking him.”

“But you?” Skinner asked, his voice gentling. “Forget what your ‘friend’ wants. What do you imagine?”

“Him fucking me,” Krycek whispered.

“So, you’re a bottom?” Skinner asked bluntly.

Krycek nodded sullenly.

“Always?”

Krycek nodded again.

“Always catching rather than pitching?” Skinner demanded. “Always the fuckee rather than the fucker? Always the cunt rather than the cock?”

“YES!” Krycek screamed, his eyes furious and his cheeks flaming at Skinner’s deliberate crudeness.

“Thank you,” Skinner said mildly. “You can put your boxers back on now.”

Krycek gave him a disbelieving look, as though he couldn’t believe that was the end of the subject, but Skinner had the information he needed. The alien had an imperative to fuck but Krycek wanted to be fucked. Another clearly distinct difference between the two beings in Krycek’s head.

As Krycek replaced his shorts, Skinner looked at the book on the table. The spine was creased and, picking it up, he found that a corner had been turned over about half-way into the book. So Krycek hadn’t finished it yet. Good. That made its return a real ‘prize’.

So he put the book back down and reached into his bag for a tee-shirt instead.

It was almost funny to watch the way Krycek’s eyes darted hungrily between the tee-shirt and the book. He was clearly frustrated by Skinner’s decision, and yet he obviously wanted the shirt too, so he was torn between hope and disappointment.

“Let’s talk about sex some more.”

Krycek gave him a disbelieving, betrayed look but sniffled his agreement.

“Some of the other Replicants have made certain advances to their guards. Some have even gone so far as to attempt to rape them,” Skinner said. “Needless to say, they suffered quite painful consequences.”

Krycek shivered visibly.

“Has the thought occurred to you?”

“NO!”

“Don’t you dare lie to me, boy.”

“I’m not lying,” Krycek protested. “I swear I’ve never even thought about the guards that way.”

“What about your ‘friend’?”

Krycek flushed. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “Sometimes he says things to me. But I don’t listen.”

“What about Mulder?”

“You bastard.”

“DON’T FUCKING SWEAR AT ME!”

Krycek dropped into a defensive crouch and began to tremble in fear.

Skinner was torn between feeling guilty at Krycek’s obvious terror and an inappropriate urge to laugh at the fact he’d just sworn at Krycek for swearing. But, then again, this whole scenario was a case of him teaching Krycek to ‘do as I say, not as I do.’

“I asked you a question.”

“Yes,” Krycek mumbled, into the floor. “I’ve thought about doing it to Mulder.”

“But what you really want is Mulder to ‘do it to you’,” Skinner reminded him, surprisingly gently. “And you know what would happen if you did fuck him, don’t you?”

Krycek shook his head.

Skinner frowned in annoyance but then re-considered as he realized Krycek wouldn’t know the consequences. The alien fucker in his head was highly unlikely to have told him.

“Without the injection you have every morning, your Supersoldier sperm would rip through his intestines, shredding them into pieces. You’d rupture his colon, his bowels, his stomach. And then, when he died, he’d become a Replicant too.”

Krycek rose up and rocked back up on his heels. Tears were pouring down his face and there was no way he was faking the anguish on his face at Skinner’s blunt pronouncement. “I didn’t know,” he sobbed.

Skinner threw him the tee-shirt. “Wipe your face,” he said gruffly. “I trust you’ll stop complaining about having that injection now.”

Krycek nodded miserably.

Skinner checked his watch. “Your lunch will be here in a few minutes. We’ll continue this later.” He deliberately picked up Krycek’s paperback, slipped it into his bag and went to the door to wait for Private Rogers to arrive.

***

An hour later, he relieved Rogers and frowned at the half-eaten food on Krycek’s tray.

“He didn’t seem to have much of an appetite, Sir,” Rogers said, with a wry shrug of his shoulders.

Skinner nodded and stepped into the cell. He felt both relieved his words had had such an impact on Krycek – surely that had to prove that he was feeling true human emotions – and yet guilty for upsetting him so badly. He decided he’d manage to work the afternoon’s conversation around enough to find an excuse to give Krycek the truffles.

But to do that, he needed to get past asking the most important question so far.

Krycek was still sitting in the same spot, looking miserable and subdued, but he was wearing the tee-shirt and he’d at least stopped crying.

Skinner sat down, reached into his bag, and pulled out the confiscated paperback. There was a flicker of interest in the dull green eyes, but not much. Apparently Krycek had not only lost his cocky attitude but even the capacity to ‘hope’. So Skinner purposefully pitched his voice into a low, friendly tone.

“This afternoon, I want to do something a little different. I want to talk to your ‘friend’.”

That sparked a reaction in Krycek, though it was one of sheer terror rather than interest.

“I’m not letting him out,” he snarled. “I don’t care what you fucking do to me. You can fucking burn me, but I’m not letting him out.”

Skinner ignored the panicked cursing and kept his tone mild. “I’m not asking you to relinquish control. But you’ve already demonstrated to me that he is listening, so I want to ask him some questions and you can tell me his answers.”

Some of the angry panic slipped from Krycek’s expression, only to be replaced by a sulky look. “What if he won’t answer? Will you punish me if he won’t co-operate?”

“Of course I will,” Skinner replied firmly. “He’s supposed to be your ‘friend’, isn’t he? A friend wouldn’t stand back and let you lose what you’ve worked so hard to gain.”

Krycek’s face crumpled. “You’ll take my clothes again?”

“For starters. If he’s really un-cooperative, you’ll be back to Dr. Drake’s favorite menu for dinner,” Skinner advised him emotionlessly. “And if he really pisses me off… well, I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out for you.”

Krycek threw up.

There wasn’t any warning or dramatics. He just turned white as a sheet and lost what little lunch he’d eaten onto the floor at his feet.

Skinner rose off the table, walked to the door and summoned a guard to come and clean up. It wasn’t just that it would be impossible to interrogate Krycek in a small cell stinking of vomit. He needed the temporary respite to control his expression. Every grain of humanity in him was insisting he begged Krycek’s forgiveness for his cruelty and assured him his threat had been a bluff designed to frighten the ‘alien’ into co-operation.

But he had to keep playing the game, he told himself. If there was ever going to be a chance to save Krycek, he needed the information the alien had.

‘I’m doing this for your own good, boy,’ he apologized silently, though the words seemed hollow and false even in his own head.

“Let’s try again,” he said, handing Krycek a plastic cup of water, once the cell had been cleaned and the smell of vomit had been replaced with that of detergent.

Krycek took a long, grateful gulp of the water and sniffled his agreement.

“What’s his first conscious memory?”

Krycek was silent for long enough that Skinner almost growled at him in irritation, but he reminded himself that ‘presumably’ there was an unheard inner dialogue taking place inside Krycek’s head.

“Pain,” Krycek eventually whispered.

“What specific pain?”

Krycek’s eyes flashed angrily but he was still too cowed to make any verbal protest at Skinner’s relentlessness.

“Burning. The first memory he has is of the restraints biting into his body. My body when we first woke up.”

“He has no memory of the time before he infected you?”

Krycek’s eyes went blank for a moment, then he shook his head. “Not conscious memory.”

“Define what he means by conscious.”

A short silence again.

“Individual. Waking up in my body was his first conscious experience of … of ‘self’.”

“So before then he didn’t consider himself an individual entity?”

“He was a fucking virus, Skinner,” Krycek snarled. “By definition he couldn’t have been an individual.”

“I’m asking for his opinion, not yours, and drop the fucking attitude, boy.”

Krycek deflated and his eyes went glassy again.

“He confirms what I said. His previous existence was that of a colony. Like ants. Or Borg.”

“A star-trek watching alien, Krycek?” Skinner growled sarcastically.

“Look I’m interpreting here. Give me a break. I’m doing my best to put his thoughts into human terms.”

Skinner’s eyes sparkled with sudden interest. “So when he ‘talks’ to you, he doesn’t do so in words?”

Krycek shook his head. “It’s more like flashing images. He understands language and he demonstrated he could speak when he had control of my vocal chords. But, by preference, he talks in pictures. There’s more clarity that way.”

“How can you say that, if you’re struggling to translate for him?”

“Clarity between us,” Krycek replied. “I understand him perfectly. I’m just having to think about how to put it into words for you.”

“Sounds more like the description of a nice friendly symbiotic relationship than a possession,” Skinner commented. “What’s his take on it?”

A short silence, during which Krycek’s face clouded with anger and even fear.

“He’s just ‘said’ something to upset you, hasn’t he?”

“As far as he’s concerned, this is his body,” Krycek agreed. “He believes he’s being generous in sharing it with me. He claims to be capable of ‘erasing’ me, and occupying my body alone.”

“He’s lying,” Skinner said confidently. “He’s bluffing you, Krycek. If he could erase you, he would have done so back when he was in control.”

“He says the only reason he didn’t was he needed access to my memories. He considers them irrelevant now under the circumstances.”

“Not a very friendly ‘friend’ is he?”

Krycek flushed. “You don’t understand. Even if he could erase me, he wouldn’t do it. At least not while we’re imprisoned here.”

“Make me understand.”

“We’re lonely.”

Skinner nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. Better to have anyone to talk to than nobody.”

“It’s more than that. He…he can’t survive loneliness. He needs to be part of a collective mind. It was okay at the beginning. We had the others to talk to. But, somehow, Drake made us deaf.”

“The chrondule shielding,” Skinner agreed. “It prevents you ‘talking’ to each other.”

Krycek nodded. “He’s lonely, and scared, and he doesn’t know what his function is. Without the collective mind, he’s like a single ant running around without purpose.”

“So they only function to a very limited extent as an ‘individual’ and that’s by stealing the memories of their hosts. What would happen to him if your consciousness was removed and he remained cut off from the other Replicants?”

Krycek flinched.

“Ask him,” Skinner barked.

Krycek’s eyes went opaque. When they finally cleared, he looked sickened. “He’d cease to function as a unit. Without direction, or my memories to guide him in independent action, he’d just wind-down to a halt.”

“Jesus,” Skinner breathed.

“So now you know,” Krycek snarled, his eyes wide with fear. “The solution isn’t to drive him out of me. It’s to drive me out of him. Without me, without contact with his collective, he’s harmless.”

Skinner’s nostrils twitched. He’d thought Krycek was frightened before, but now the air was thick with the musky fear-scent of Krycek’s terror.

“Don’t panic, boy,” he said, throwing Krycek the paperback. “It sounds like bullshit to me. I think your uninvited guest is lying his nasty little head off. He thinks I’m stupid enough to buy that tale and solve his problem… which is you, Krycek. Tell him I’m not going to do his dirty work for him. If he wants control of your body he’s going to have to fight you for it himself. I’m not going to help him.”

Krycek stared at Skinner in momentary disbelief, then gave a loud, sobbing gasp of relief.

“I think we’re finished for today. I’m worn out, even if you aren’t.” He checked his watch. “It’s still a couple of hours before dinner. I imagine you’re hungry.”

Krycek’s stomach growled loudly in agreement.

Skinner reached into his bag, withdrew the box of truffles and tossed them in Krycek’s direction. “I’ll see you in the morning, boy.”

Krycek said nothing. He didn’t even reach for the chocolates.

But, a couple of minutes later, as Skinner activated the door to leave, he heard Krycek whisper, “Thanks.”

***

“I think the alien just wants us to try and get rid of Krycek for him.”

“I don’t know, Sir,” Mulder replied, chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully. “The idea of the Replicants being little more than worker-drones makes a lot of sense. It fits in with a lot of data we know about them. They do act like a collective mind on occasion.”

“Like when I gave birth,” Scully agreed.

“But they have autonomous function too,” Skinner argued. “Look at Billy Miles, for example. He was perfectly capable of thinking and acting for himself.”

“But he had access to the collective mind. I’m not saying they can’t act as individuals, but they are always linked into each other by some kind of telepathy.”

“So you think Krycek’s alien was telling me the truth?”

Mulder pondered, then shook his head. “I definitely think he told you a truth. But it wouldn’t make sense for him to tell us how to destroy him, so there has to be more to it than that.”

“Unless he’s suicidal,” Scully pointed out. “After all he went through when Krycek was in the testing program, coupled with his inability to wrest control back from Krycek and the knowledge that even if he does it would just mean his death, perhaps he’s just had enough. Maybe he sees Krycek’s refusal to give up as the one thing standing between him and escaping a life he doesn’t want.”

Mulder thought about it a moment, then nodded. “She’s right, Sir. It fits. Krycek’s alien has had enough. It doesn’t even care that it’s just given us a way to stop the other Replicants too. It just wants out.”

Skinner groaned and rubbed his eyes.

“I told Krycek it was bullshit. I promised him I wouldn’t help the alien to destroy him.”

Scully gave him a sympathetic look, but said, “We have to look at the bigger picture, Sir. There’s a lot more at stake here than Alex Krycek.”

“And, since we still have no more idea of how to get Krycek out of the alien than we had about getting the alien out of Krycek, we’re still at first base anyway,” Mulder pointed out.

“That’s it,” Skinner exclaimed, and grinned widely.

Mulder and Scully exchanged worried glances.

“What if we make the alien think we’ll help it. Get it to tell us how to erase Krycek, then apply the principle in reverse?”

“Even if you could convince the alien, aren’t you dependant on Krycek to ‘talk’ on its behalf? I can’t see him co-operating while you and the alien plan his demise. And there’s no way you can let Krycek in on the plan without alerting the alien. It’s impossible,” Scully stated.

“Maybe there’s a way to trick both of them simultaneously,” Mulder mused. “Let me give it some thought. In the meantime, carry on building up Krycek’s trust, or at least keep programming him to co-operate with you. Whatever I come up with, it’s going to depend on Krycek being at a stage where he obeys you without stopping to think about what he’s doing.”

***

As he released the restraints and Krycek moved to his usual spot in the middle of the floor, Skinner saw him eyeing the larger bag he’d brought in with interest. But, unlike the previous morning, it wasn’t a smug, knowing look but a wistful, hopeful look. The difference in his demeanor was gratifying. So was the fact Krycek was nervously playing with his tee-shirt as though already expecting to be told to strip once more.

Skinner was relieved by the attitude. Since Krycek had been a particularly ‘good boy’ even before his arrival, Skinner hadn’t wanted to start the day by reducing Krycek to tears by making him re-earn his clothes all over again.

“Rogers tells me you didn’t even have to be restrained this morning for your injection.”

Krycek colored but nodded. “I…I understand why they’re doing it now,” he muttered.

“It still must have hurt like fuck,” Skinner said, with genuine sympathy.

“Not as much as the idea of killing Mulder,” Krycek replied.

The comment washed away a good portion of Skinner’s charitable feelings. For a moment he was tempted to tell Krycek to strip after all. Then, mouth half-open to speak, he paused and wondered what the fuck was wrong with him? Why the hell did it matter to him that Krycek was still obsessed with Mulder?

‘Because I’m the one trying to save his ass. I’m the one sitting here, when I’m supposed to be on vacation. I’m the one who gives a shit whether he ever gets out of this cell alive.’

So he settled for a growled, sarcastic, “How touching,” and reached inside the bag to withdraw a new book.

Krycek’s eyes fixed on it hungrily and he squirmed slightly, either in anticipation of earning the treat or in fear of what cost he’d have to pay to earn it.

Skinner had been intending to start the interrogation with a couple of easy questions about Krycek’s experiences as a Replicant. Truthfully, he’d planned all of that day’s questions to be relatively easy. As Mulder had said, he needed to build Krycek’s co-operation, and the easiest way to do that was to give the impression he wanted Krycek to successfully earn the small rewards in his bag.

But he was still pissed off, so he found himself throwing away his carefully planned interrogation and going straight for Krycek’s jugular instead.

“Did you let that smoking son-of-a-bitch fuck you?”

Krycek jerked in surprise and his eyes went huge with shock. “What?”

“Yes or no, boy.”

For a moment, he thought Krycek was going to tell him to go to hell but then the kneeling man shivered in defeat, lowered his head, and whispered “Yes.”

“And the Englishman? The one who died in the car bomb. Did he fuck you too?”

Krycek cringed and dropped his head even further. “Yes.”

“What was his name, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Krycek mumbled.

“You let him fuck your ass and you didn’t even know his damned name?” Skinner roared.

“He told me to call him John. But…but I don’t know if that was his real name.”

“Any other members of the Consortium hierarchy?”

“Yes,” Krycek whispered, his face now so low it was almost touching the floor.

“How many?”

Krycek just sniffled.

“I ASKED YOU HOW MANY!”

“I don’t know. Five. Six maybe,” Krycek eventually sobbed.

“To think I almost threw up when I found out Drake had you raped,” Skinner snarled in disgust. “And it turns out you’re nothing more than a dirty little whore.”

He threw the book so hard at the crouching Krycek that it struck his back before bouncing onto the floor,  then Skinner grabbed his bag and stormed out of the cell.

***

As he strode towards the guard-desk, the soldier on duty looked up, did a double-take at his red, furious face and gulped.

“What happened? What did 42 do? Did he attack you, Sir? Do you want him disciplined?”

The soldier’s worried, almost frantic, voice stopped Skinner in his tracks and he paused to catch his breath.

What the hell had just happened in there?

He’d lost it. Lost it big time.

And why?

Because…

Because Krycek had admitted docilely subjecting himself to a horrendously painful injection, simply because he was terrified of hurting Mulder. And because of that, unforgivably, Skinner had attacked him, abused him, called him a whore, practically said he’d deserved to be raped. And why?

Because he was…

Skinner shook his head. He wasn’t going there. He wasn’t even going to acknowledge the thought that had just struck him.

“Krycek didn’t do anything wrong,” Skinner told the soldier firmly, and in saying it he was forced to admit to himself it was the truth.

“I’m just feeling unwell today,” he said, and that wasn’t a lie either. Suddenly he felt extremely unwell.

“Would you…” his voice broke a little. He cleared his throat and flushed with embarrassment. “Would you ask Rogers to make sure he has something particularly nice for lunch today? Oh, and get Rogers to take him this too,” he added, reaching into his bag and extracting a chocolate bar. “I forgot to leave it for him.”

Before the soldier could reply, Skinner spun on his heel and walked away.

***

He drove for a couple of hours, in no particular direction, only sighing and pulling in to park when he realized he’d somehow driven past the same Diner three times.

He thought about going into work. There was bound to be a huge back-log that he could sink his teeth in and thereby escape the thoughts bouncing around his head. He was sure his temporary stand-in would appreciate the help. But that would inevitably cause people to question his presence and would start a rumor that he was a sad lonely bastard who couldn’t even manage two week’s vacation without running back to work on the third day.

He thought about talking to Scully, then dismissed the idea as ridiculous. They shared professional courtesy and even some genuine affection but they weren’t, and never would be, confidants.

Talking to Mulder was definitely out of the question.

Talking to no-one would probably result in a brain aneurysm, considering the pulsing pressure that was building up inside his skull as his thoughts incessantly chased each other around and around.

He picked up his cell-phone and called his ex-wife, Sharon.

An hour later, he was sitting in her open-plan kitchen/family room as she made coffee for them both.

“Daryl isn’t due home from work for another couple of hours,” she said, presumably referring to her current live-in lover. Skinner had given up trying to learn their names. Over the last five years she’d swapped and changed models more frequently than high-flyers changed their cars. When he’d once asked her why, she’d told him that she’d already had Mr. almost Perfect once and if he hadn’t been sufficient for her she was damned if she was compromising on his replacement.

“So, tell me your problems,” she said, handing him his mug.

He just shrugged. As always, despite his best intentions, when actually faced by her concern he simply clammed up and found it impossible to say what he wanted to say.

Instead of becoming irritated by his silence, she simply offered him an understanding smile. His inability to communicate with her had, after all, been one of the primary reasons they had eventually divorced.

“Let me guess. You’re either considering retirement, or you’ve been framed for murder again, or you’ve fallen in love with someone.”

Skinner startled so badly he almost spilled his coffee.

“I see I hit a nail on the head,” Sharon said, with a smug smile. “And since all three are extreme possibilities, I’m going to guess it’s the least likely. You’ve actually fallen for someone.”

Skinner shook his head in firm denial and glowered at her.

Sharon grinned. “I know you too well, Walter. That particular look might work with your Agents but it’s never fooled me. Who is she?”

“It’s not what you think,” he growled.

Sharon’s eyebrows raised a little. “It’s a he?” she laughed lightly.

This time he did spill his coffee.

Ten minutes later he was sitting, very uncomfortably, in a pair of Daryl’s jeans that were at least a couple of sizes too small, while Sharon tried to dab the stain out of his pants.

“What makes you ever imagine I could fall in love with a man?” he growled.

“What ever makes you say that like it’s a criminal offense?” his ex-wife countered. “To tell the truth, I always thought you would have been better off with a man. You’ve never wanted to be the kind of man that most women want as a husband.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?” Skinner roared. If he’d been sure he could have driven his car in the restrictive, under-sized jeans he would have been tempted to storm out of her house in fury.

Enjoying his ‘trapped’ state, Sharon began marking points off on her fingers. “You like sex, but you hate having to play romantic games to get laid. You think of sex like you think of going to the gym or eating your dinner. And most women don’t respond to ‘let’s fuck’.”

“I never said ‘let’s fuck’ to you,” he protested.

“Not in those words, but that’s what you meant,” she countered. “Secondly, you hate kissing and cuddling and  talking after sex. You just want to do the deed and either get up and do something else, or go to sleep. It’s a man thing. Thirdly, your idea of relaxing – not that you often came home in time to relax – is a six-pack, a ball game and a bowl of popcorn.”

“I prefer malt.”

“The principle’s the same. You’re a ‘man’s man’. I always thought you’d be better off in a relationship with someone whose idea of a good time was to belch, fart and throw popcorn at the TV every time someone fumbled a ball.”

“You make me sound like a Neanderthal.”

“I make you sound like a man,” she laughed. “You’re all Neanderthals at heart. Finally, you need a partner who just takes you as you are, bad moods and all, and just lets you be. Most women can’t stand a surly man. They have to pick and poke and prod in an attempt to get to the bottom of the problem because, basically, a woman always assumes her man’s mood is her fault. And that,” she finished, “is why I always thought you’d be better off with a man. Because no-one except another man would put up with you. Anyway, do you really think I don’t know about Steve Redshaw?”

“You put up with me for eighteen years,” he pointed out, blushing heavily. “And that thing with Steve was an aberration. Things happen in war time.”

“Yes. But I eventually grew up. And things that happen in wartime are just things you’d do in normal life if you weren’t so up your own ass about looking ‘respectable’.”

“And I actually imagined coming here would make me feel better,” he snarled.

“So tell me the truth. It’s that gorgeous Agent Fox Mulder, isn’t it?”

“Will someone please tell me why the hell everyone thinks he’s gay?” Skinner growled. “And as for gorgeous, his nose is too big, his chin is too small and he’s at least mildly insane.”

“Oops,” Sharon said. “Obviously not Mulder then, though your reaction is somewhat telling. Let me guess. Whoever you have fallen for thinks Mulder’s gorgeous.”

“You’re a witch,” Skinner snapped irritably, though he was actually relieved that she’d figured it out for herself.

“So he’s in love with Mulder?”

“Yes.”

“Well, didn’t you just say Mulder wasn’t gay? What’s the problem?”

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me,” he sighed. “Quite apart from the fact he hates my guts, he’s a ….a….a….a criminal.”

“Is a criminal or was a criminal?”

“There’s a difference?”

“Of course there’s a difference. If you don't believe in the principle that criminals can be shown the error of their ways and rehabilitated into society, what the hell are you doing working in Law Enforcement? So my question is, is this person, at this moment in time, still engaged in criminal activities?”

“No.”

"Is he likely to re-offend?"

"No. Not considering his current circumstances."

“Is he wanted?”

“No,” Skinner admitted, leaving out the fact that the outstanding warrants had been cancelled because Krycek was legally dead.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Like I said, you wouldn’t believe me. But, let’s just say he has a medical condition.”

“AIDS?” she asked, her expression falling.

Skinner thought for a moment. “Something similar,” he agreed. Krycek definitely was the carrier of a fatal STD.

“Then I understand your hesitation,” Sharon said carefully. “But if you love him, it would be cruel and unkind to allow your feelings to be affected just because he has a medical condition, however potentially dangerous.”

“But he doesn’t love me. In fact, I think I can confidently say he hates me. I didn’t come here for advice about how to get into a relationship with him, because that is never going to happen. It’s just I… I was cruel to him today. I was unbelievably cruel, simply because I was suddenly struck by a wave of jealousy over his feelings for Mulder. I’m ashamed of my behavior, and I can’t even apologize to him because… well, because… because I’m his ‘supervisor’ and admitting why I said what I did would be admitting my feelings and that would make my position as his supervisor untenable and…well, he’s in a very dangerous situation at the moment and anything that makes him lose his respect for me could put his life at risk.”

“Wow,” Sharon said. “That has to be the longest, most heart-felt speech I’ve heard you say since the day of our wedding. He’s really gotten under your skin, hasn’t he?”

“I don’t know how,” he groaned. “But yes.”

“Then go in to work tomorrow and pretend today never happened. Be nice to him. Be professional with him. Act like you never said anything. Maybe he’ll figure it out for himself, maybe he won’t, but if you can’t actually apologize your best bet is to sweep the incident under the carpet and hope he does the same. With luck, he’ll put it down to it being your time of the month. Just a joke,” she laughed, as Skinner’s face turned a deep furious purple. “Seriously, Walter. If you have upset him, then harping on about it without explaining your behavior would be worse than just ignoring it. Act like nothing happened and he’ll probably think he misunderstood you.”

Hard to misunderstand being called a dirty little whore, Skinner reminded himself bitterly but, despite her deliberately limited understanding of the situation, he decided to trust Sharon was right. He’d make a fresh start in the morning and hope that he hadn’t destroyed too much of the trust Krycek had begun to develop in him.

As for his attraction to Krycek, now he’d finally acknowledged it, he could begin to put it in perspective. Krycek was an extremely good-looking man, even more so now he'd regained an appearance of youthful innocence, and he was in an extremely vulnerable situation – which had always been one of Skinner’s weaknesses – but ultimately, not only was Krycek in love with Mulder but, more importantly, he wasn’t even HUMAN any more. Injection or no injection, there was no way Skinner was ever going to be stupid enough to encourage a  relationship with any man who was carrying an alien being inside his head.

He wasn’t into threesomes.

***

Skinner arrived at Penzbech the next morning in a deliberately positive mood. He’d awoken early, gone to the gym and knocked the hell out of a punching bag for the best part of an hour – alternately picturing his victim as Drake, Spender and even for a short, guilty yet satisfying, moment as Agent Mulder - then he’d had a good breakfast at his favorite coffee shop and bought a selection of donuts and a thermos full of mocha-latte for Krycek. Whatever had happened the day before, he had the sad certainty that a present of coffee and donuts would undoubtedly manage to break through the Replicant’s sulky mood. Pathetic as it was to admit, Krycek’s current life was so god-awful that no matter how upset he might have been by Skinner’s behavior the day before, he’d be incapable of refusing any gifts out of simple wounded pride.

His positive mood was completely shattered when he reached the guard station and was nervously informed that Krycek wasn’t in his cell.

“Dr Scully ordered us to deliver him to the lab late yesterday afternoon to run some tests and he hasn’t been returned yet.”

Skinner left his bag with the soldier and strode furiously towards the laboratory, only to have his entrance blocked by two apologetic soldiers.

“Get out of my way,” he snarled.

“You can’t go in, Sir,” they apologized, though they raised their weapons sufficiently to make it clear they’d use force to prevent his entrance if necessary. “Unauthorized entrance is a potential health hazard.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Even if you were the President himself, we wouldn’t let you in, Sir. We have our orders.”

“Is Scully in there?” he snarled.

“No, Sir. Dr. Scully is in her office.”

“Fine,” he growled, spinning around and heading in that direction.

As he burst into her office, he absently noticed that she looked exhausted. Her eyes were dark rimmed and her hair was spilling out of its ponytail in lank, untidy strands. But he was too angry to care.

“What the hell is Krycek doing in your lab?” he demanded. “I want him back in his cell now and you’d better have a damned fine explanation for…”

She raised a weary hand to stop his angry tirade. “A new injection,” she said.

“Explain,” he snapped.

“I decided it was intolerable that the only solution we had to the threat of infection was so agonizing to the Replicants. I was also unhappy that we were having to either keep them permanently restrained or repeat the injection just ‘in case’. So I had a team working on a less painful solution. We had a breakthrough yesterday afternoon. We managed to insert the magnetite into carefully programmed nanobots. By inserting them in a Replicant’s bloodstream, we can not only destroy the infected sperm but nothing less than a complete body regeneration can remove the nanobots' effectiveness. In other words, if the Replicant attempts to regenerate its gonads, the nanobots immediately neutralize the threat.”

As her explanation sank in, Skinner began to feel ashamed of his outburst. There was no arguing that the new solution was a far more humane idea. But the other implications weren’t lost on him either. “So the Replicants are walking around with a presumably fatal level of magnetite inside their bodies?”

She nodded, her expression a mix of triumph and sadness. “The primary military application of these nanobots is control,” she admitted. “While the magnetite is inside the bots, it’s shielded and causes them no discomfort and the bots are programmed to only automatically release their payload into the Replicant’s reproductive organs if they sense a threat. However, using a control panel, we can override some or all of the bots to discharge the magnetite on command. A controlled, low-level release would simply cause enough pain to incapacitate the Replicant. A full release would cause the Replicant’s body to implode.”

Skinner closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He couldn’t deny the ingeniousness of the idea, but his own experience of being ‘controlled’ by nanocytes gave him a less than scientific appreciation of the situation. Yes, he understood the importance of Scully’s breakthrough but the idea still made his stomach churn.

“And that still brings me back to my original question. What the hell are you doing with Krycek? I told you to use the other Replicants for your tests. You had no right to use him without my knowledge.”

Anger sparked in her eyes. “You weren’t here and you didn’t answer your cell phone,” she snapped. “Besides, I’m in charge of this Project and I refuse to undermine the work of this whole operation just because of your ‘feelings’, Sir. All the testing of the original injection was done on Krycek, so he was the only logical choice for testing the new solution. We had to directly compare the data from the original experiments against the new results.”

“You’re telling me Krycek spent the night being sexually abused again?” he roared.

“It was imperative that we monitored the nanobots' continued effectiveness through a series of ejaculations,” she argued. “And it was also crucial that we proved they’d continue to act efficiently, regardless of low-level regenerations.”

“In other words, you used that probe to force him to multiple orgasms, then you castrated him repeatedly to check that every time he regenerated the mutilated flesh he remained sterile?”

Scully swallowed heavily but met his eyes defiantly.“Yes.”

“I don’t know you,” he said, his body bristling with disgusted fury.

“Tell me something, Sir. Would you be looking at me like that if I’d used a different test subject and simply given you the good news this morning that we no longer have to keep Krycek restrained or subject him to a daily injection?”

It was enough to deflate some of his anger. “No,” he admitted reluctantly. “But Krycek’s different…”

“He’s in control,” she agreed. “But didn’t he say himself that even when he wasn’t in control he still felt and experienced exactly the same level of pain?”

He nodded.

“Then what gives us the right to say that he is any more worthy of consideration than any of those other poor bastards?” she demanded. “In fact, bottom-line, every other Replicant in this base at least used to be a decent human being when they were alive. I hate what I did. I hate what I’m having to do. And no one deserves to suffer like these Replicants are suffering but, if I have to be completely honest with you, given the choice between having to inflict pain on a man who used to be a soldier, or on one who was a criminal, my decision is pretty damned clear!”

“Then let me be equally clear,” Skinner growled. “If Krycek isn’t back in his cell within the next ten minutes, I’m going to make a call to the White House and bring the wrath of God down on your head, Dr. Scully. And, if you ever touch Krycek again without my permission, you’ll be out of here faster than you can pack your bags.”

She blinked at him in a combination of horror and bemusement. “You’re not being fair,” she whispered, and her eyes filled with tears.

“No,” he admitted. “I’m not. But I am being serious.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Why the hell do you even care? You hated him, Sir.”

“Yes, I did, didn’t I?” he agreed easily. He rose to his feet. “Ten minutes,” he warned, and walked out of her office.

***

Twenty minutes later, not wanting to enter until the guards had left, Skinner picked up his bag from the guard station and entered Krycek’s cell.

Krycek was huddled in the far corner, his head buried in his knees and his body wracked with silent, heaving sobs. He was naked again and, looking around the barren cell, Skinner couldn’t see his discarded boxer shorts and tee-shirt. Presumably they’d been victims of Scully’s tests.

He seated himself on the edge of the examination table, carefully laid his pistol on his lap because he couldn’t image Krycek not attacking him under the circumstances, withdrew a new pair of shorts and a tee-shirt from his bag and threw them in Krycek’s direction. They landed a few feet short of the sobbing man but it was enough for Krycek to cautiously raise his head and notice Skinner’s presence.

For a moment, the red-rimmed, green eyes blazed with hatred as Krycek identified his visitor and then Krycek’s face crumpled and his angry expression was replaced by a combination of fear and cautious hope. Ignoring the garments Skinner had thrown at him, Krycek dropped forward onto his hands and knees and crawled forward, body low to the floor in a posture of complete submission, until he reached the center of the cell. Then, still staring at the floor, his shoulders began to shake uncontrollably and he spoke so quietly that Skinner had to strain to make out the words.

“I’m sorry. I don’t…don’t know what I did. But…but I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so...so…so…sorry.” He gave a huge gulping breath and Skinner saw tears splashing on the tile floor under his bowed head. “Please…please, Sir… don’t…. don’t… please… give me… give me ano… ano…another chance. I’ll be good. Good. I swear. I…I… please…”

Skinner angrily wiped at his own eyes. The poor bastard obviously believed that it had been he who’d ordered Krycek’s night of relentless torture. And he couldn’t even deny it. If he said Scully had acted without his knowledge, it would destroy Krycek’s trust in him. The bitter irony almost made him laugh out loud. It was actually better for Krycek to believe he was a sadistic, vengeful prick than to let Krycek lose faith in his omnipotence. Krycek had to believe that only Skinner had power over him, or he’d realize that pleasing Skinner was irrelevant if someone else still had the authority to hurt him.

“Put your clothes on, Boy,” he snapped, forcing his features into a bland mask.

Krycek raised his head enough to glance with cautious hope from under his eyelashes.

“It’s a bright new day, Krycek. Let’s start again, shall we?”

Shaking with obvious relief, Krycek scrambled for the boxer shorts and tee-shirt and tugged them onto his body. Then he returned to the center of the room, sat down and offered Skinner his best ‘anything you want’ expression. He even attempted a ghost of a smile.

Krycek’s effort to look simultaneously harmless, grateful and even happy, while he was obviously simply in a state of sheer terror, made Skinner feel sick. Skinner coped with his nausea, as always, by adopting an, equally false, impassive expression.

“Did they feed you this morning, boy?”

“No, Sir,” Krycek gulped.

“Hungry?”

Krycek cringed slightly, carefully checking Skinner’s expression as though wondering whether it was a trick question, and then seemed to decide that honesty was his only option regardless of any possible consequences. “Y…yes, Sir.”

Skinner reached into his bag, withdrew the thermos and the donuts, and took them over to where Krycek was sitting. Krycek cringed at his approach and huddled into himself, clearly trying to appear as small and harmless as possible.

There was something almost obscene about Krycek’s subservience, Skinner decided, as he returned to the table. Given the ability of a Supersoldier to snap a human in two with just a flick of his wrist, seeing one so completely cowed was blatant, unavoidable evidence of the torture that had been inflicted on the poor creature. It was impossible to ignore the suffering Krycek had been put through when every flinch and cringe of his body was a testament to the torments he’d endured.

Watching the way Krycek tore open the donut box and almost choked in his eagerness to devour the unexpected treats was somehow equally distressing. By the time Krycek was rapturously slurping at the coffee from the thermos, Skinner had to rummage in his bag just to give himself an excuse to furtively wipe his eyes again.

Skinner chose one of the graphic comics. A small reward for a, hopefully, stress-free question.

“Before we begin,” he said, clearing his throat, “I’m going to explain the significance of last night’s testing to you. I doubt anybody bothered to explain what they were doing to you or why.”

Krycek flushed and gazed into his coffee to avoid having to look at him, but he managed a whispered, “No, Sir.”

“Specially programmed nanos have been introduced into your body. Each tiny machine contains a pay-load of magnetite.”

Krycek shivered in obvious terror.

“Naturally, we can use those nanos to discipline you, or even kill you,” Skinner advised him bluntly. “However, the important fact about them is this. They neutralize your sperm. From now on, there will be no necessity to subject you to the daily injections. Neither will you be restrained in your cell. So, regardless of what you may think, the pain and humiliation you suffered last night was not a punishment. In the days to come, you will look back on the experience and hopefully decide that last night was a small price to pay in return for your new limited liberty.”

Krycek raised his head and gave Skinner a puzzled look.

“I…I thought…”

“What did you think, boy?”

Krycek blushed and dipped his eyes. “You…you said…whore. I…I thought…”

“That I’d decided to treat you like one?”

Krycek nodded, and a tear rolled down his cheek.

‘Damn Scully,’ Skinner thought, ‘and damn me for having such a vile temper.’

“Then you’re not as smart as I thought,” he snapped gruffly. “So it makes it rather appropriate that I’ve got a comic for you today, rather than a book.”

Krycek’s head jerked up, his eyes fixed eagerly on the comic on Skinner’s lap and, unconsciously, he licked his lower lip.

“A couple of days ago, you said that you used to talk to the other Replicants before the shielding went up.”

Krycek frowned uncertainly, but then nodded.

“You looked doubtful,” Skinner prompted.

“Not me…him. It was before.”

“When he was still in charge?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“What did he ‘talk’ about?”

Krycek shook his head. “I don’t know.” Then he looked panicked. “I’m telling the truth, Sir.”

“I accept you may not have been party to the conversations,” Skinner accepted, “but you must have gained some impression about them.”

“I could sense his emotions,” Krycek agreed. “He was calm, contented, almost smug. Even despite what was happening to us. It was only when we went deaf that he started to panic about the experiments.”

“You think he was planning something? Perhaps they had a plan for escape which depended on their ability to communicate?”

Krycek shrugged helplessly. “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. I guess, working together, perhaps there were enough of us back then to escape. But then the shielding went up and a lot of the other Replicants died in the experiments. And…and then all that mattered was trying to survive.”

“Fair enough,” Skinner nodded. He tossed Krycek the comic and reached into his bag again. This time he withdrew the rolled up sleeping bag and placed it on his lap.

Krycek, who had been clutching the comic like it was gold, suddenly lost interest in his ‘prize’ and stared with total fascination at the sleeping bag. He looked like a little boy on Christmas morning – albeit one who was terrified that Santa might suddenly decide he’d been a ‘bad boy’ after all.

“I can’t imagine that sleeping on that tile floor is very comfortable,” Skinner said, his voice deliberately casual.

“It’s cold and hard,” Krycek whispered. “And…and they never turn the lights out.”

“You have to be monitored 24/7,” Skinner replied firmly. “Darkness isn’t an option. But, with a sleeping bag, I suppose you could snuggle up enough to cover your eyes.”

Krycek nodded and hugged himself, his eyes fixated hungrily on Skinner’s lap.

Skinner forced himself to scowl at the sleeping bag as though he was having second thoughts. “I don’t know though,” he said. “It’s a big concession. Huge. I’m not sure whether…”

“Anything,” Krycek yelped, in sudden panic. “Please, Sir. I’ll do anything.”

“I think it would have to be something impressive, Krycek.”

Krycek nodded eagerly. “Anything,” he agreed.

“I think,” Skinner said, with a deep sigh, “You’d have to tell me everything you know about the planned colonization. Everything. Starting with your first contact with Spender and all of your dealings with the Consortium.” He made a show of checking his watch. “It’s just gone ten. Lunch is at 2. Stop talking before Rogers arrives and the sleeping bag goes home with me. As for any lies or half-truths, well... let’s not even discuss the consequences of those!”

Krycek started talking.

By the time his lunch arrived he was so hoarse that his voice was little more than a gravelly whisper, he was hunched over with exhaustion, and he’d still only reached the point in time when he’d traveled to Tunguska with Mulder. Skinner hadn’t learned anything particularly significant, except the fact that Krycek was absolutely desperate to earn the sleeping bag, but he decided that that in itself had been a major breakthrough.

“We’ll call it a day for now,” Skinner said. “Get some sleep. I’ll be back later this afternoon.” He rolled the sleeping bag in Krycek’s direction and his breath caught at the pure, almost innocent, ecstasy on Krycek’s face.

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

He walked to the door, dropped a chocolate bar on Krycek’s lunch tray as he passed Rogers, and left.

***

Skinner returned to the cell just after six. Krycek was still curled inside his sleeping bag, snoring softly, and Skinner just sat there for a few minutes watching him breathe. There was a faint musky odor in the air, evidence that Krycek had made full use of his new privacy.

At first it struck Skinner as a little improbable that Krycek had felt the urge to masturbate only a few hours after being so badly abused sexually, but then, as he considered the situation, he decided it had probably been Krycek’s way of trying to reclaim his body for himself. After so many involuntary ejaculations it had probably been a relief to be in a position to ‘choose’ to come. Skinner decided it was just another demonstration of Krycek’s natural survival instinct.

He let Krycek sleep a little longer, then coughed loudly.

Krycek jerked awake in a panic, scrambled out of the sleeping bag and scurried, head down, to his usual position on the floor in front of Skinner’s feet. Then he waited, trembling slightly, in a clear posture of dread.

His attitude puzzled Skinner slightly, but then he realized that Krycek now had something he considered too valuable to lose. The gift of the sleeping bag had upped the ante in their relationship and Krycek was obviously terrified of losing the ground he’d already gained.

“We stopped at the point you’d managed to inveigle yourself into the camp commandant’s confidence, leaving Mulder to suffer the tests alone,” he said, without preamble. “Carry on from there.”

This time he didn’t reach in his bag for a new ‘reward’. He decided the fear of losing the reward he’d already earned was enough to convince Krycek to co-operate.

Skinner called a halt at 8.30, waited while Krycek ate his dinner, and then told him to return to the tale. It was gone midnight by the time they finally reached the point of Krycek waking up as a Replicant.

Krycek had told him everything. The identity of the people pulling his strings. The crimes he’d committed. The reasons for the nanocytes. The reason he’d finally panicked and confronted Mulder in the parking lot with a loaded gun.

A lot of Krycek’s story had been incoherent because it became clear that, on many occasions, even Krycek hadn’t understood his own motivations. He’d apparently been running on adrenaline for years, making decisions on the spur of the moment just to survive and rarely considering the consequences. He’d been an immoral little scumbag who had always put his own survival first and foremost, with little care for the lives or feelings of other people. But, through it all, he’d maintained a strange, convoluted, but oddly touching amount of genuine affection for Mulder.

By the end of Krycek’s confession, Skinner had decided a few things. That, angry as he still was at her, Scully’s point about Krycek ‘deserving’ his fate more than the other Replicants was somewhat valid. That he no longer saw Krycek’s obsession with Mulder as being a threat as much as proof that somewhere in Krycek’s black little heart he at least did have the capacity to care for someone. And that hearing all of Krycek’s crimes freely confessed, while confirming every suspicion Skinner had ever held, had still had the weird effect of laying a lot of his own long-harbored resentments to rest.

Besides, there was no arguing that Krycek had already more than paid the price for his crimes.

At his feet, Krycek was huddled in an exhausted, defeated crouch. It was obvious that he was terrified that despite obeying Skinner’s demand to tell the truth, he would still be punished for the content of that truth.

Skinner sighed loudly. “I think we both need a drink,” he said, and reached inside his bag to produce a bottle of malt. He poured generous measures into two plastic cups and handed one to Krycek.

After a moment’s confused hesitation, Krycek grabbed the cup and took a gulping mouthful of the clear amber liquid. Then he choked dramatically and offered Skinner a nervous, embarrassed grin.

“Been awhile, huh?” Skinner asked gently, taking a drink from his own cup.

Krycek nodded silently and began to sip carefully at the strong whiskey.

Skinner had a sudden strange impulse to ask about Krycek’s childhood, but he reminded himself that the poor bastard had already talked himself raw. Supersoldier or not, Krycek still looked physically worn out.

So Skinner found himself talking about his childhood instead. Nonsense tales. Things so separate from his ‘relationship’ with Krycek, or alien colonizations, or Replicants or any other of the myriad of ‘sensitive’ subjects between them, that before he knew it they were nearly half-way down the bottle and Krycek was actually giggling at his story about the time he and his brother had gone scrumping in a neighbor’s orchards and made themselves sick as dogs on greengages.

“I had belly-ache like you can’t believe. Then I had the trots so bad I spent the whole damn night too terrified to get off the toilet. By the next morning, my asshole was burning so badly it felt like someone had shoved chili-powder up there and then, just when I was beginning to feel human again, my dad blistered my butt so bad I couldn’t sit down for a week.”

Krycek’s somewhat drunken eyes widened in obvious shock. “Your dad hit you?”

“Spanked me good,” Skinner chuckled. “My Dad was one of those old school ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ types.”

“I didn’t have a dad,” Krycek muttered, though under the circumstances it didn’t exactly sound like a complaint.

“Always suspected you were hatched, boy,” Skinner snorted.

Krycek gave him a black look and took another gulp of his whiskey.

Skinner was just about to ask Krycek about his mother, when a strange, confused look crossed Krycek’s features and he began to breathe so heavily he practically hyperventilated.

“What’s wrong?” Skinner asked, sobering instantly. Unlike Krycek he’d had enough recent practice with drinking that the whiskey had given him little more than a pleasant buzz.

Krycek shook his head wildly, clearly in a panic.

“TELL ME,” Skinner roared.

“He’s gone. I suddenly can’t hear him. He’s gone…gone…” Krycek wailed. “He’s left me. Left me all alone.” He began to shake violently, rocking back and forth on his heels like an autistic child.

“Calm down, Krycek. Krycek. ALEX. It’s okay. It’s just the alcohol. It must be affecting your brain, somehow preventing you from communicating with him. Think about it. If the little bastard could leave you, he’d have done so the first time Drake killed you both.”

It took a moment, but Skinner’s words slowly seemed to sink into Krycek’s brain and his look of wild-eyed terror began to fade.

“I thought you wanted him out of your head,” Skinner reminded him gently.

Krycek’s tragic green eyes met his briefly then slipped away in clear embarrassment. “I can’t…can’t handle this alone.”

“You’re not alone, boy,” Skinner reminded him gruffly. “Not anymore. We’re in this together now. I promise I’m not going anywhere until we do get that fucker out of you and finally put an end to this goddamned nightmare.”

Krycek rose to his feet and took a step towards him.

Maybe it was the alcohol, or the sudden release of tension, or simply relief at Skinner’s promise, but for the first time that week Krycek didn’t move like a hesitant, terrified, beaten cur, but flowed with the full strength and speed of a Supersoldier.

One second he was crouching on the floor a few feet from Skinner, the next second he was in Skinner’s face.

Skinner didn’t have time to stop and think about what he was doing.

He simply grabbed the pistol on his lap and shot Krycek in the chest.

***

For a moment, Skinner was aware of nothing but the absolute shock on Krycek’s face and the gaping, bleeding hole in the middle of his tee-shirt. Then the hollow, acid-filled bullet exploded inside Krycek’s chest and his immediate howl of agony filled the small cell.

Krycek staggered backwards, clutching the wound, as underneath the tee-shirt his flesh began to bubble and dissolve, and all the time he was screaming in pain and looking at Skinner with both fear and total betrayal in his eyes.

It was the expression on Krycek’s face that told Skinner he’d make a terrible, panicked mistake. Krycek hadn’t been intending to attack him. The Replicant’s obvious, agonized bewilderment at being shot was absolute proof that Skinner’s ‘self-protective’ reaction had been not only inappropriate but, under the circumstances, unbelievably cruel.

He dropped the pistol and ran towards Krycek, not even caring that in his pain Krycek might indeed now attack him. Instead, Krycek wailed in terror and backed away until he was trapped by the far wall.

“I’m sorry,” Skinner gasped, grabbing the jug that held Krycek’s water and throwing it desperately at the steaming, bubbling flesh of Krycek’s chest.

The worst of the damage had already been done. There was a gaping foot-wide hole in Krycek’s torso, a pulsing bleeding wound of burned tissue, and most of the tee-shirt had dissolved with the burning flesh. But Krycek’s screams had reduced to choking, gasping sobs and, with the water diluting the last of the acid, Krycek’s body was already beginning to knit itself slowly together as it regenerated the injury.

Krycek slid down the wall, until he was sitting on the floor, and, even as the wound closed, he began to sob wildly. “Why? Why’d you do that? You hurt me. Hurt me bad. And I was good. I…I was good.”

He sounded like a confused, terrified child and Skinner’s heart nearly exploded with shame and regret.

“I…I…” he began, then swallowed heavily and opted for the simple truth. “I panicked, Alex. When you moved towards me so quickly, I instinctively protected myself.”

“You hurt me. Hurt me bad,” Krycek sobbed again, still clearly unable to absorb what Skinner had done.

“You have to understand,” Skinner began defensively. “You’re a Supersoldier…you came at me…what was I supposed to do?”

But it was clear that Krycek didn’t understand. He was too upset, too frightened, to even listen to what Skinner was saying. He just sobbed and rocked and incessantly repeated that Skinner had ‘hurt him’.

The wound had already healed. Except for the tattered tee-shirt there was no longer any physical evidence of the shooting, so it was obvious that Krycek’s continued distress wasn’t that he’d been ‘hurt’ but that Skinner had been responsible. In one stupid moment of panic, he’d not only destroyed Krycek’s trust in him but the very extent of Krycek’s distress was proof of just how surprisingly substantial that trust had been.

Skinner felt sick. He wanted, more than anything, to run out of the room and escape Krycek’s broken whimpers.

‘Fucking pull yourself together, Marine,’ he spat at himself. ‘Put this right. Find a way, any goddamned way, to put this right again.’

He dropped to his knees and moved towards the trembling man in a half-crouch, taking a lesson out of Krycek’s book in the way to make himself look smaller and less threatening. His own safety was no longer an issue. The only priority was to somehow regain Krycek’s trust after such a terrible inadvertent betrayal.

He ignored Krycek’s frightened trembling, pushed to the back of his mind the knowledge that even an arm flailing in panic would kill him, and inched inexorably towards the distressed man. Krycek kept scrambling backwards, out of reach, until he was in the corner of the cell, and then he started panting heavily like a trapped beast.

Skinner kept edging towards him, whispering all the time, “It’s okay, Alex. I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay, Alex. Everything’s okay.”

When their bodies eventually touched, Krycek began to shiver wildly, his eyes wide with terror, but he was either too frightened or shocked to fight as Skinner continued to press against him, bringing their hips together and then, slowly and carefully, sliding his left arm up onto and then across Krycek’s shoulder until he was holding him in a loose, gentle hug.

“I’m sorry, Alex. So sorry,” he whispered, starting to exert a little pressure to pull Krycek into his embrace.

For a moment Krycek resisted him, his iron-hard body immovable under Skinner’s merely-human strength, but then he gave a huge, gulping sob and then twisted his upper body to bury his face in Skinner’s shoulder. He threw his arms around Skinner’s body in a desperate hug and started to cry again.

But this was a different kind of crying, more a release of tension than an expression of fear and, as Skinner patted his heaving back awkwardly, allowing Krycek to move more securely into his lap, Skinner’s own eyes burned as he understood that this was surely the first time Krycek had had any non-violent physical human contact in at least eighteen months.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it, boy?” he asked gruffly. “This is why you moved towards me. You just needed someone to touch you, hug you, treat you like you’re human.”

Krycek didn’t answer, but he began to sob even louder into Skinner’s chest.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Alex,” he continued. “I’m sorry I misunderstood.”

Gradually, Krycek’s sobs quietened into sad, occasional sniffles but he didn’t move out of Skinner’s arms. If anything, he seemed to settle himself even more comfortably as though silently saying he had no intention of relinquishing this brief, unexpected comfort.

Skinner decided he might as well settle in for the duration. He stretched his legs out, shifted until his back was well-supported by the wall, and alternated between stroking Krycek’s back and petting his long, tangled hair.

“Time you had a shower, boy,” he muttered, as he felt the greasy strands between his fingers. “And a comb. And I’ll have to buy you a new tee-shirt, won’t I?”

Krycek just snuffled into his shoulder and relaxed against him.

A few minutes later, after a couple more soft sniffles, Krycek’s breathing deepened and steadied and, to Skinner’s disbelief, he fell asleep.

“I’m going to have one hell of a cramp in the morning, if I don’t move you,” Skinner grumbled.

And yet, he still spent several more hours sitting there, letting Krycek sleep in his arms, before he eventually extracted himself, covered Krycek with the sleeping bag, and made his way out of the cell.

***

A scant few hours later, Skinner entered Krycek’s cell with a deliberately cheerful “Good morning.”

He pretended not to notice Krycek’s wary look, or the almost panicked way Krycek quickly stuffed his comic book under the protective cover of the sleeping bag, and simply took Krycek’s breakfast tray over to the low platform before moving to sit on the edge of the table as usual.

Krycek’s nostrils flared, he shuffled eagerly over to the plate of sausage and hot, butter-drenched pancakes, and he actually smiled as he saw several plastic packets of maple syrup on the side of the tray.

“Did you always have such a sweet tooth?” Skinner asked, as he watched Krycek open all the packets and drizzle them happily over the pancakes and sausage.

“Yes, Sir,” Krycek mumbled, flinching slightly as though uncertain whether that was a good or a bad thing.

“I brought you more coffee,” Skinner said, taking the refilled thermos out of his bag and carrying it over to where Krycek was sitting. “I tasted the coffee in the mess here once and, believe me, you haven’t missed anything.”

“Thank you,” Krycek whispered.

Skinner waited until Krycek had eaten and was on his second cup of coffee before starting the day’s questions.

“Last night,” he began, then stopped and snapped his fingers. “I forgot,” he said. “I owe you a new tee-shirt.” He reached into his bag and withdrew, not a tee-shirt, but a soft, fleece sweatshirt. “Hope you don’t mind this instead,” he said, throwing it in Krycek’s direction.

Krycek caught the sweatshirt, looked at it in wonder for a moment, then slipped it on. As Skinner had suspected when he chose it, the teal color made Krycek’s eyes look impossibly green.

“Thanks,” Krycek whispered, picking at the long sleeves in obvious, disbelieving happiness.

“Is your ‘friend’ back with you today?”

“Yes, Sir.”

At Skinner’s raised eyebrow, Krycek continued. “I could hear him from the moment I woke up. You must have been right about the alcohol affecting our ability to communicate with each other.”

“I’m sorry about what happened last night,” Skinner said.

Krycek flinched slightly but met his eyes and shrugged. “S’okay,” he said. “I didn’t think.”

“That makes two of us then,” Skinner replied gently, and Krycek sighed with apparent relief and offered him a tentative smile.

So, Skinner decided, he’d been forgiven. Obviously the comfort of the hug had somehow outweighed the fright of the shooting.

“Ask your friend if I frightened him too.”

Krycek’s eyes glazed over for a moment, and then his face creased into a frown. “He…um…he doesn’t understand the question.”

Skinner deliberately kept his expression impassive. “Well, it’s not just you I hurt, is it? I would have expected a certain level of resentment from him. Ask him.”

After a couple of minutes, Krycek shook his head in apparent confusion. “He…he doesn’t seem to…” Suddenly, Krycek’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to speak again.

Skinner shook his head warningly. “Did I ask for your opinion, boy?” he snarled.

Krycek looked temporarily shocked at Skinner’s apparent anger, but then a look of understanding dawned on his face. “I’m sorry, Sir,” he said humbly, but his eyes were suddenly bright and filled with a definite expression of hope.

“Let’s talk about the rebel aliens,” Skinner continued smoothly.

A couple of hours later, Krycek was happily clutching a CD player and some chocolate-covered cherries and Skinner’s head was full of a lot of largely useless facts about the aliens. But when he left Krycek’s cell and headed for Mulder’s office he had a triumphant smile on his face.

***

“It doesn’t make sense,” Mulder said, shaking his head in confusion. “It should be impossible. A Replicant can regenerate fatal wounds in ten minutes but can’t metabolize a relatively small amount of alcohol?”

Skinner shrugged. “Impossible or not, Krycek was drunk last night. Or, if not actually drunk, he was definitely inebriated. Perhaps it was Krycek’s human consciousness that couldn’t tolerate the alcohol.”

“Well, without understanding how it’s even possible for the host’s consciousness to remain inside the Replicant body, I suppose it’s impossible to know for certain what chemicals could affect that consciousness,” Mulder admitted reluctantly. “But are you certain it wasn’t a trick?”

“He wasn’t acting, if that’s what you mean. Krycek’s panic when he lost contact with the alien was genuine,” Skinner replied firmly.

“And the alien wasn’t aware of anything that happened while Krycek was inebriated?” Mulder demanded.

“Apparently not,” Skinner agreed smugly.

“Unless the alien was lying to Krycek.”

“He had no reason to. The way I raised the subject, there’s no way I alerted him to my suspicions. Besides, I’m not sure he could lie to Krycek given their method of communication. It’s got to be harder to fake mind-pictures than to say false words.”

“What about Krycek? You said he figured it out. Won’t he have inadvertently given the game away?”

“I don’t think so. Krycek says he never actually knows what the alien is thinking. Unless they actually ‘discuss’ a subject, they only know what the other is ‘feeling’. They share emotions, rather than actual thoughts.”

“So it would be possible to get Krycek just drunk enough to cut the alien off, then let him know about our plan to remove the alien?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God for that,” Mulder said, “because he sure as hell isn’t going to agree to the plan I’ve come up with if he doesn’t know our true agenda.”

“What plan?” Skinner demanded suspiciously.

“I’ve spent the last few days racking my brains for a way to communicate with the alien through Krycek, without him figuring out we’re aiming at helping the alien, rather than him. I mean ‘apparently’,” he added quickly, as Skinner’s face clouded over. “And it just won’t work. The only way to get to the knowledge in the alien’s brain is to put him back in the ‘driving seat’ and talk to him directly.”

“Absolutely not,” Skinner snarled.

“Listen to me, Sir. The alien apparently knows a way to remove the host's consciousness from his brain. We have to have that knowledge. We can’t get it while Krycek’s in charge, because there's no way the alien can use Krycek's mouth to tell us how to kill Krycek.  Even if Krycek could be convinced to be the alien's mouthpiece for that conversation, the alien would immediately suspect a trap because there's no logical reason for Krycek to co-operate. We can’t save Krycek without that knowledge. So we have to talk to the alien directly, and that means Krycek has to release control back to him.”

Skinner shook his head. “Firstly, we don’t know whether the alien really does have a way to get Krycek out of his body. Secondly, we don’t know whether it’s possible to apply the idea in reverse and throw the alien out instead. And thirdly….thirdly…..”

“Thirdly, you’ve fallen in love with Krycek, and you can’t stand the idea of him being trapped inside his own head again while you communicate with the alien instead!”

“WHAT THE….”

“There’s no point denying it, Sir,” Mulder replied smugly. “Scully and I talked it over and it’s the only logical explanation for your recent behavior towards him and us. It’s okay by us,” he added, “except we’re concerned about you. Insisting on holding onto whatever justified hate or resentment we once harbored towards Krycek seems somewhat…well, ‘petty’ in view of what he’s suffered here at Penzbech. Neither of us would stand in the way of him being given a second-chance. We just don’t see it ever happening. Even if we do manage to get Krycek free of his unwelcome guest, I just don’t believe the Military will ever let him go. He’s too potentially dangerous.”

“Let’s worry about the future after we’ve managed to get through the immediate present,” Skinner replied, choosing not to dignify the topic of his ‘feelings’ for Krycek with even a comment.

“Get Krycek drunk and talk to him, Sir. Lay it on the line. Why not let him make the decision?”

Skinner nodded. “I’ll give your suggestion some consideration, Agent Mulder. Thank you for your time.”

***

It was three days later before he raised the subject with Krycek. Three days of continuing to build the strength of Krycek’s trust in him with gifts and food and any and all small kindnesses. Sweatpants to match his new sweatshirt. A shower installed in the corner of his cell. The long-ago promised privacy screen fitted in front of the latrine. CD’s for his player. Books. Comics. Long days spent in deliberately easy interrogation. Evenings spent drinking and talking about movies, hobbies, sports and sharing stories of their childhoods.

Three days of praying Mulder would come up with another solution.

Three days of hoping Scully would find a way to get one of the other hosts to break the hold of his alien, so that someone other than Krycek could be the first Replicant whom they tried to separate from his unwelcome guest. But although she'd successfully managed to 'free' two hosts by repeatedly 'killing' the Replicants sufficient times to cause their hitch-hikers to retreat from control, both hosts had already been completely insane and so communication with them had been impossible.

Three days of using Krycek’s desperate need for human contact to deliberately deepen a growing physical bond between them.

Krycek had swiftly proven himself defenseless against unexpected kindness. After eighteen months of experiencing nothing but horrendous physical torture at the hands of his captors, Krycek had been helpless to resist the lure of Skinner’s soft touches. Although he shivered under even the gentlest petting, clearly terrified that Skinner’s caresses might suddenly transform into blows, he still was clearly helpless to resist any temporary illusion of safety. Offered the opportunity to hide inside the circle of Skinner’s arms, he swallowed his terror and clung desperately to Skinner like a drowning man clutching a life-buoy.

For three days, Skinner took any and all opportunity to prove himself Krycek’s only possible refuge from a cruel, terrifying world.

And then, at the end of the third day, Skinner finally broached the subject when Krycek had imbibed enough whiskey to put the alien to ‘sleep’.

“NO FUCKING WAY!” Krycek roared furiously. Then he took in Skinner’s stony expression, gulped a couple of times and slunk back into a humble posture. “Sorry,” he whispered.

Skinner reached over, refilled Krycek’s cup, and then patted the bowed head gently with his other hand. “It’s okay. You’re frightened. I understand that. But I want you to at least give the idea some serious thought.”

Krycek raised his head a little and deliberately pressed it towards Skinner’s hand so that Skinner found himself stroking the side of his face. Although Krycek’s expression was still mulish and sulky, three days of intense ‘programming’ on Skinner’s behalf meant Krycek now automatically turned to him for physical comfort even when Skinner was the source of his misery.

Skinner sighed heavily, climbed off the table, sat down with his back against the wall and patted his lap.

Krycek looked hesitant for a moment, but then the last trace of his temper was swallowed by a look of sheer relief. He scrambled over to where Skinner was sitting and climbed unhesitatingly to settle on his lap, with his face buried in Skinner’s shoulder and his arms wrapped tightly around the wide rib-cage.

“If…if I agreed,” Krycek whispered, trembling in Skinner’s arms, “What…what would you do?”

Skinner tightened his arms around Krycek and squeezed reassuringly. “It would be bad,” he admitted heavily. “The first thing we’d have to do is make it look like I’d given up on you. We’d have to set it up so the alien believes there’s a good reason for you to relinquish control to him.”

“You’re going to hurt me, aren’t you?" Krycek whimpered.

“I think we’d have to create a scenario in which you are ‘killed’. Then you let the alien take over at the point of regeneration.”

“I don’t…don’t…”

“Shushh, I know, Alex. I know,” Skinner whispered, dropping his head and kissing the top of Krycek’s head gently.

Krycek sobbed quietly for a while, letting Skinner soothe him, but then he took a steadying breath, shook his head slightly and said, “What then?”

“Either the alien comes through with a way to separate you, or… well, we kill you again and you take the opportunity of the second regeneration to wrest back control. So…so the worst scenario is you suffer two more ‘deaths’ and we’re back to where we are right now.”

Krycek shook his head firmly.

“I know you’re scared…”

“That’s not it,” Krycek replied. “If…if I agree to this…” He paused and took a choking breath. “You have to promise me… If it doesn’t work… If you can’t separate us…. Then you kill us. Really kill us. Don’t bring me back to live like this.”

“Shit, Alex, I can’t…”

“Promise me.”

“I…”

“P...p…please, Walter. Promise me.”

Skinner froze in shock. “You…you called me Walter.”

Krycek shivered and cringed slightly. “I’m sorry,” he began.

Skinner shook his head and blinked back tears.

“Don’t be sorry, Alex. Don’t ever be sorry,” he murmured, stroking Krycek’s hair.

And then, with his heart breaking, he whispered, “I promise.”

***

The next morning, as he arrived with Krycek’s breakfast, Skinner was wondering how he could manage to let Krycek know he’d changed his mind about their plan without alerting the alien. Producing a bottle of whiskey that early in the morning was out of the question, but waiting to discuss what was on his mind was intolerable.

He’d spent a sleepless night, running the situation endlessly through his head, and had come to the conclusion that he simply couldn’t do it. It was bad enough to imagine ‘killing’ Krycek in the knowledge he’d come back to life again. The idea of killing him permanently was… well, it was simply out of the question.

The current situation wasn’t SO bad, he told himself. Krycek was in charge of his body, the alien was trapped if not dormant, and the fact that they could ‘turn it off’ with the use of alcohol meant that he and Krycek had found a way to spend time together as a ‘couple’.

And, yes, he meant that term in all its romantic connotations. The last few days had been like a romance.

Well, if you allowed for the fact that he was in a position of absolute dominance over the other man and so all of Krycek’s ‘affection’ was born of desperation and a deliberately generated state of Stockholm Syndrome. Krycek was completely reliant on him for everything, from food to comfort to the ability to avoid pain and so Skinner was realistic enough to know that none of Krycek’s growing emotional dependence was real.

But it felt real.

And they were both happy, weren’t they? At least within the terrible limitations imposed by Krycek’s imprisonment.

Krycek hadn’t even mentioned Mulder for three days and his eyes now lit up with pleasure whenever Skinner entered his cell. He found any excuse to touch Skinner, brush against him, kneel close enough at his feet to rub his face against Skinner’s leg, practically purred if Skinner patted him and he clearly found the offer to climb onto Skinner’s lap irresistible. Still a little frightening, perhaps, but irresistible. There was no doubt, whatsoever, in Skinner’s mind that if he suggested they shared a more ‘personal’ kind of physical contact, that Krycek would be only too eager to agree.

But Skinner had drawn the line at a little cuddling and the occasional soft kiss on the top of Krycek’s head. He could enjoy the illusion of Krycek’s affection up to that point, but he knew taking it further would be tantamount to abuse on his part.

Unless the day ever came that Krycek was free to walk away from their ‘relationship’, until he had the ability to make a conscious free choice, Skinner would never let it develop any further. And the only way for that to happen would be to free Krycek from the alien and somehow engineer his escape from Penzbech.

But not at the cost of risking Krycek’s ‘life’.

And so, after a long sleepless night, during which he’d even wondered whether his refusal to go through with the experiment was his own selfish desire to keep his current relationship with Krycek rather than run the risk of losing him to death or to Krycek gaining the ability to leave him, he had decided, ultimately, that whether his reasons were selfish or not, he couldn’t go through with it.

So he put the breakfast on the platform, moved to sit on the table and finally raised his eyes to meet Krycek’s.

Who, rather than greeting him with a smile and then scurrying over to see what treat Skinner had brought him for breakfast, was glowering at him from the back of the cell with a look of pure hatred in his face.

Skinner’s stomach churned over. It looked like Krycek had had a sleepless night too, thinking about their conversation, and had come to the conclusion that all of Skinner’s ‘kindnesses’ had simply been a trick to convince him to let the alien regain control.

“Come here,” Skinner ordered, pointing at the floor, and forcing his expression to remain bland and unconcerned.

“Make me,” Krycek purred, unfurling himself with cat-like grace and rising to his feet. “Think you can make it to the door, before I reach you, Skinner?”

Skinner found himself swallowing heavily and reaching for his pistol. There was nothing subservient in Krycek now. Nothing vulnerable or wounded or fearful. Not a trace of the almost easy affection they’d built up over the last few days. Krycek’s expression was hard, his eyes were almost black with fury and his lips were twisted into a replica of the smirk Krycek had always worn when activating the palm pilot.

“Think that toy is gonna stop me, you fucker?” Krycek snarled. “Think you can fire enough rounds in me before I rip the fucking head off your shoulders?”

“Alex, don’t do this,” Skinner begged, raising the pistol and backing slowly towards the door. “Please, Alex.”

“You gonna plead for your life, fucker?” Krycek sneered, starting to slowly advance. “Or you gonna try and run, huh? Gonna see if you can get that door open, before I tear your hands off and stuff them up your ass?”

Keeping the pistol trained on the advancing Supersoldier, Skinner used his other hand to frantically fumble at the door lock. “Don’t do this, Alex. Hurt me and they’ll just hurt you.”

“But you’ll still be dead, won’t you?” Krycek laughed.

Suddenly, Skinner was knocked to his knees as the door burst open behind him and a couple of soldiers raced into the cell, flame-throwers already sending bursts of fire in Krycek’s direction. Another soldier grabbed Skinner by the arm and began dragging him out of the room as Krycek’s sweatshirt caught fire.

Krycek began to scream, a high-pitched howl of sheer agony, as the soldiers continued to fire pulse after pulse of flame at him, until his whole body was immolated and the cell was filled with the stench of burning flesh. The soldiers didn’t stop firing until Krycek was blackened and charred beyond recognition.

His corpse continued to stand there, a smoking black shadow of what had once been a man, and then it powdered and dissolved into nothing more than a pile of ashes and a single bright metallic vertebra.

“He didn’t even try to avoid the flames,” one of the soldiers said, in obvious bemusement.

Another shrugged and turned towards Skinner. “Good job we looked up at the monitor, huh?”

"Why the hell didn't you just use the nano controller to stop him?" Skinner demanded. "Did you have to burn him?"

"It's standard protocol, Sir, when we're under standing orders not to actually terminate a subject," the first soldier retorted defensively.  "It's almost impossible to program a non-lethal dose of the nanobots under a crisis situation, so Dr Scully ordered we should only use them as an absolutely last resort."

“Better get out of here, Sir,” the third soldier said. “He’ll start regenerating any minute now.”

Skinner took a grief-stricken, gulping sob and nodded.

‘I’m sorry, Alex,’ he whispered silently. ‘Yet again, I doubted you. I thought the worst. And all you were trying to do was make it easier for me, weren’t you? You took the choice away from me. Made it your decision to do this. Whatever else you are. Whatever else you’ve been. You’re the bravest son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever known.’

He closed his eyes briefly, struggled to compose himself, and let the soldiers lead him out of the cell.

***

Mulder found him sitting in rear of the guard station, trying to drink whiskey-laced tea with a hand that was shaking so badly he could barely raise the cup to his lips.

“You look like shit, Sir.”

Skinner raised haunted eyes in his direction and snarled, “I just watched Alex voluntarily commit suicide by fire in front of my eyes, Mulder. How the fuck should I look?”

Mulder bit his lower lip at Skinner’s unthinking use of Krycek’s first name, and shrugged sympathetically. “I know you’re in shock, Sir. It’s only natural under the circumstances. But I think you should come and see this.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Skinner growled, but hauled himself to his feet. “What the hell’s so goddamned interesting that I’ve got to deal with it now?”

“Krycek’s finished regenerating,” Mulder replied.

Skinner gave a small shudder, but scowled repressively.

“So? He’s a Supersoldier. That’s what they do.”

“No, Sir,” Mulder said, shaking his head. “You really have to see this with your own eyes. Even I’m struggling to believe it and Scully… well, she’s speechless.”

Skinner slammed his mug down on the table and followed Mulder to the ante-room outside of Alex’s cell. Scully was already there, staring through the mirrored glass like she’d just witnessed the second-coming.

“What is it?” Skinner frowned, rudely elbowing her aside. Then he looked through the glass and froze in stunned disbelief.

“Theory’s one thing,” Mulder said, “but actually seeing it? It’s pretty damned unbelievable, isn’t it?”

“He’s got one arm,” Skinner whispered. “And…and he looks older.”

“He did it, Sir,” Mulder agreed. “He actually fucking did it. He gave control back to the alien.”

***

“This changes everything,” Scully said, when they finally recovered enough from the shock to walk to her office and sit down around the conference table together. “We need a completely different protocol for dealing with Krycek now.”

“Don’t call him Krycek,” Skinner barked. “That’s not Alex in there.”

“We have to handle 42 as we handle the other Replicants,” Scully continued smoothly. “Forget trust or bribes or concessions. 42 is an alien who is largely disinterested in human comforts and it’s imperative now that full security measures are taken with him. That particularly applies as far as physical contact is concerned. After we’ve injected him with the nanobots he’ll be controllable and relatively safe to approach but you cannot enter his cell without the presence of guards who have both flame-throwers and the nanobot controls. This isn’t negotiable, Sir. 42 will attempt to rape anyone who enters the cell alone.”

“I understand,” Skinner grunted.

“That particularly goes for you, Mulder,” she continued firmly. “I know you need to be involved in this part of the operation, but we have to assume that at some level the alien is still drawing on Krycek’s memories to function, so he’ll have absorbed Krycek’s obsession with you.”

“Judging by the surveillance tapes I’ve watched over the last few days, I think Skinner’s the one who’ll need to wear a pair of magnetite-lined y-fronts when he’s in 42’s cell,” Mulder snickered.

Skinner blushed heavily, but still felt oddly grateful for Mulder’s observation. It was almost as if Mulder was deliberately giving some validity to the idea that some of Krycek’s feelings for Skinner might be genuine.

Of course, that just made it harder to say what he said next.

“We aren’t going to handle 42 like the other Replicants,” he said. “We’re going to treat him the way Drake used to treat the Replicants. We revert back to keeping him naked, feeding him that vile nutritional formula, and we put him immediately back into the 'test to destruct' program.”

“But…but Krycek’s in 42’s head too,” Scully pointed out, her expression horrified. “He’s going to suffer all the pain and indignity alongside the alien.”

“Skinner’s right,” Mulder interrupted. “The whole point of this is making sure the alien wants to jump ship as fast as physically possible. If we make him comfortable in Krycek’s body, he might change his mind about wanting to die. Since we aren’t offering to kill him, his only other option is for us to remove Krycek from his body and leave him in a vegetative state. That has to be what he meant when he said he’d ‘wind down to a halt’. He’s trying to escape the pain by deliberately entering a dormant state. And he can’t do that while he’s still linked to Krycek’s memories. I suggest we move this along as fast as we can. Make 42 so goddamned miserable that he’s begging us to take Krycek out of his head.”

“And pray that Alex forgives us,” Skinner muttered under his breath. “Let’s do it.”

***

“Today we’re going to test the effect of liquid nitrogen on this test subject’s extremities,” Scully announced emotionlessly, as she pulled a thick safety glove over her hand, and picked up a smoking vial of liquid. “We’ll start with the legs and arm. Then we’ll wait ten minutes for the subject to regenerate the damaged areas and see if it reacts more strongly to having an application to a more sensitive area, such as its groin. Then, I want to burn individual internal organs, in an attempt to tell which individual parts of the subject’s anatomy are most sensitive to pain.”

“Won’t that level of damage be fatal?” Skinner asked, his tone deliberately cold.

“Not in small individual applications, allowing for regeneration in between,” Scully replied, with a careless shrug. “As long as we avoid the brain, I’m sure we can experiment this way for eight or nine hours before the subject expires. Anyway, if it does die unexpectedly, it will simply regenerate itself so we’ll still be able to continue. Bathroom breaks before we begin, anyone? This is going to be a long session.”

“I’m fine,” Mulder announced. “I’m really looking forward to seeing this, aren’t you, Sir?”

“I still think the hydrochloric acid is more effective,” Skinner replied. “But I suppose it’s a good idea to check. We can repeat the experiment tomorrow with the acid and compare results.”

“That’d be fine,” Scully said. “I’m really pleased you’ve put 42 back in the program, Sir. I was running out of test subjects and now I’ll be able to catch up with a whole series of overdue experiments.”

“After all I did for the ungrateful bastard, the fucker tried to kill me,” Skinner snarled. “As far as I’m concerned you can do anything you damned well like to him, Dr. Scully.”

She pulled a mask over her face and walked over to the Replicant who’d been listening in obvious terror as the three of them coldly discussed the horrific details of what would be the next several hours of his life.

“Please, Walter. I love you. Don’t let them do this to me,” 42 pleaded, tears pouring down his face, as he struggled uselessly in his restraints.

Skinner stiffened.

“It’s 42, Sir,” Mulder reminded him in a whisper. “He’s got Alex’s memories. He’s just trying to play you.”

“Start with one of the feet, Dr. Scully,” Skinner barked.

Scully poured some of the liquid nitrogen over 42’s left foot.

If it hadn’t been for Mulder surreptitiously slipping his hand around his waist for support, Skinner might have collapsed as 42 uttered a wailing, animalistic scream as his foot dissolved.

“I think it works a little faster than the acid,” Scully announced, in a remarkably steady voice considering the fact she’d gone several shades paler under her mask.

“WALTER,” 42 howled. “PLEASE. PLEASE. HURTS, WALTER. HURTS.”

“Right foot,” Skinner snapped, although he was struggling not to run from the room and throw up.

“It’s for Alex, Sir,” Mulder whispered. “We’re doing this to free Alex. Hold on to that. Remember this is for Alex.”

Scully moved the flask towards 42’s other foot.

“I’LL TELL YOU,” the Replicant screamed. “PLEASE. I’LL TELL YOU ANYTHING.”

“What the hell do you know that would interest us?”

“How…how to stop us functioning.”

“We know how to stop you functioning, 42,” Scully snapped. “Want me to demonstrate a few times to show you? How about I pour this on your head?”

“NO….I mean ALL of us. How to make ALL of us stop functioning.”

“He’s bluffing,” Mulder scoffed.

“I’m not. I swear,” 42 sobbed. “All you have to do is remove our hosts. Then the shielding does the rest.”

“See, Sir? He’s just fucking with us. Offers us an answer when he knows there’s no way we can use the information. Burn his other foot off, Scully.”

“I can tell you how. PLEASE.”

“You really know how?” Skinner demanded.

“YES,” 42 howled. “Just…just stop hurting me. Please.”

“What do you think, Mulder?” Skinner asked.

“I don’t know, Sir. He might be just trying to buy time. I don’t think he knows how to do it. Let’s burn him a bit more, just to be on the safe side. Forget the foot, Scully. Burn his balls off.”

“With pleasure,” she said, moving the flask towards 42’s groin.

“MAGNETISM,” 42 screamed.

“Bullshit,” Mulder scoffed.

“We have defined magnetic fields,” 42 sobbed. “That’s why the magnetite kills us. The reason we can only co-exist with our hosts is that their consciousness has a reversed polar field. We can’t integrate the information into ourselves, we can only exist alongside it and draw on it when necessary. To get rid of the hosts, you just have to figure out their particular magnetic resonance and disturb it. That would destroy them.”

“Make any sense to you, Scully?” Mulder demanded.

She put down the flask, ripped off her mask and grinned. “It does,” she said. “It actually does! It explains a number of seemingly conflicted data collected from the subjects and the reason that Billy Miles seemed to have two heartbeats and then just one. What that machine was reading was a second, totally different biomagnetic field in his body. When the alien took over, it masked Billy’s own…well, biorhythm for lack of a better word.”

“It just begs one last question, doesn’t it?” Skinner growled. “Did Alex manage to take control of this alien because he’s so strong-willed, or because this alien is such a goddamned coward? You just sold out your race, son,” he spat at 42. Then he turned to Mulder and said, “Will someone get this piece of scum out of my face?”

***

“It worked,” Mulder gasped. “He’s just shutting down like we pulled a plug. It fucking WORKED!”

“And we did it by killing his host,” Skinner reminded him grimly. “16 *was* a human being once, and we just murdered the poor bastard trapped in his head.”

“But that’s the point, Sir. He was trapped in 16’s head. None of our attempts to communicate with any of the other hosts have been met with success. All those poor creatures have been doing is suffering pain alongside the aliens, with absolutely no hope of release other than death. We haven’t killed the host, Sir, we’ve given him a peace he must have been silently begging for.”

“I hope so.”

“Maybe it’s like you said, Sir. Maybe for a host to break free of its hitch-hiker, it needed the completely improbable combination of a man who didn’t know how to give up and an alien who did. Either way, we now have an answer. If we can develop this polarity-disruptor into a long range weapon and combine it with portable chrondule shields, we can incapacitate any army of Supersoldiers. In his own weird way, Alex Krycek has just saved the whole damned human race. I’m sure that’s got to be worth a few concessions from the President on his behalf.”

“We’ve still got to find a way to save him first,” Skinner grumbled.

“Scully’s working on it, Sir. It’s just far easier to kill the hosts than it is to find a safe way to kill the hitch-hiker. The problem is that the magnetic polarity of the host’s consciousness is the anomaly in the Supersoldier’s body. When she did try to simply reverse the alien polarity, the subject’s entire body literally turned inside-out. It was like one of those transporter accidents in Star Trek.”

“What?” Skinner demanded, frowning in confusion.

“Obviously not a fan, huh?” Mulder shrugged. “Put it this way… try to imagine someone with all their insides on their outsides, like a living mass of ectoplasmic jelly. Must have hurt like fuck! The only upside was he couldn’t scream, since his mouth was somewhere in the middle of the whole mess. After 30 minutes, when it was clear the 'thing' had somehow lost the ability to regenerate itself and wasn’t going to die without help, Scully had to give it a lethal dose of magnetite.”

“Which subject did she use?”

“48.”

Skinner blinked rapidly. “Drake?”

“Yup. Drake.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Anyway, Scully’s still working on the problem. She’s not going to give up, Sir.”

Skinner nodded.

“Um,” Mulder said cautiously, “I was speaking to Private Rogers the other day. He said you hadn’t been to visit 42 this week.”

“There’s no point,” Skinner snapped.

“Of course there’s a point. If you spoke to 42, Alex would hear you. He might not be able to communicate with you directly, but surely he’d gain some kind of comfort from your presence.”

“I can’t, Mulder. I can’t stand there and lie to him. I can’t promise him something that might turn out to be untrue. The day I walk into that cell again, is the day I either tell him we’ve found a cure or the day I admit to him that we can’t.”

Mulder frowned at his answer for a moment, but then sighed and nodded. “I understand,” he said. “And it’s not like you’ve abandoned him, is it? Rogers says you not only ordered him some clothing but you had a cot put into his cell too. And a TV. And a full bookcase. And you’ve instructed the kitchen that from now on he’s not only to have the regular mess diet but chocolate cake at least three times a week.”

Skinner flushed. “Like you said, Alex is in 42’s head too. There’s absolutely no reason either of them can’t be comfortable now. We have what we needed from 42. Treating him badly now would just hurt Alex.”

“Yes, Sir,” Mulder agreed, with a sympathetic smile.

***

“It’s fast?” Skinner demanded brusquely, rubbing the bridge of his nose desperately in the hope it would somehow stop the tears that were welling up in his eyes from spilling onto his cheeks.

“Almost instantaneous,” Scully swore.

“But it’s got to be….be… horrifically painful,” he growled.

She bit her lip and nodded sadly, not even trying to hide her own tears. “But it will be over so very quickly. He’ll barely have time to even think about screaming. Just a second or two. I promise.”

“I’ll…I’ll go fetch him,” he said gruffly.

Mulder placed a hand on his arm. “If you’d rather…”

“I made him a promise, Mulder. I promised him. I’ll be the one to tell him.”

“Yes, Sir,” Mulder agreed sadly.

“Sir?” Scully interrupted, her expression worried.

“I know,” Skinner said. “42 won’t…won’t understand. I’ll bring him back here in restraints.”

***

“Walter,” 42 said, rising to his feet as Skinner entered the cell. “I’ve missed you.”

When he started to take a step forward, the soldiers flanking Skinner raised their flame-throwers threateningly and 42 sank back onto his cot.

“Have they… have they been looking after you?” Skinner asked, his voice breaking slightly.

“I had chocolate cake again today,” 42 said, his bright green eyes softening with the memory. “And I watched a really nice film this afternoon. It was about a dog. A yellow dog. I liked it. Except, at the end, the dog died.”

Skinner stumbled to the examination table and sat down heavily. He wiped his mouth, struggled for breath, tried desperately to say something, but all that emerged from his throat was a low, anguished moan.

“Oh,” 42 said, his eyes widening in horrified understanding. “You…you’re here to kill us, aren’t you?”

“I made a promise, 42. I promised Alex that I…I’d either free him or I’d… I’d kill him.”

“Then…then you can’t free me, either?” 42 sobbed.

“I’m trying to free both of you. It’s over. I’m just here to make sure that neither of you suffer any… any unnecessary pain.”

“Alex loves you,” 42 wailed. “How can you kill Alex when he loves you?”

Alex just thinks he loves me, Skinner answered silently.

“Because I love Alex,” he said aloud.

“You hate ME,” 42 spat bitterly.

“No…No I don’t hate you. You’re wearing Alex’s face. How could I ever look at you with hate?” Skinner asked, wiping furiously at his cheeks.

42 absorbed that for a moment, his brows creased in thought, and then he nodded slowly. “You…you just want to help us. To take the pain away. Because you love us?” he asked, his expression suddenly childlike.

“Because…because I love you,” Skinner agreed sadly. “Please… let me take your pain away. Please trust me.” He raised a hand out to the Replicant, inviting him to stand.

A slow anguished tear rolled down 42’s face, he looked helplessly between the weapons of the stony-faced soldiers and Skinner’s outstretched hand, and then he sniffed and rose to his feet. “Alex trusts you,” he said. “So WE trust you.”

He walked over to the table, lay down and let the soldiers fasten the restraints.

“Will it hurt, Walter? Will it hurt?”

“Just for a second, baby,” Skinner gasped. “Just…just for a second. I swear.”

“You’ll be with us?”

“I’ll be with you, baby,” Skinner promised, taking 42’s fingers in his own, and he continued to hold them as the soldiers wheeled 42 to the laboratory where the acid tank was waiting.

***

“I…I don’t think…think I can…” Skinner gasped, as a harness was fixed around the table so that it could be lifted up by a pulley and lowered into the tank.

“You can,” Mulder said firmly. “You have to NOW.”

“But he’s so scared,” Skinner said, looking at 42’s tear-stained face.

“He’s accepted he’s going to die and it’s too late now for him to break free. You HAVE to speak to Alex now.”

“Yes,” Skinner said, nodding his head, and forcing himself to walk to the table and stare into 42’s eyes.

“I lied to you,” he admitted. “We did find a way to remove Alex from your head. But, more importantly, we now have a way to remove you from Alex’s head. When that happens you’ll be at peace, like I promised you, but not quite yet. I’m sorry.”

He gestured at the tank.

“This is for you, Alex. One last terrible pain. One last chance to take control again and come back to life in the body you want to be in. Your dream body, remember? And, when you come back to life, I’ll be waiting for you here, and we’ll remove 42 from your head and you’ll finally be free.”

“You lied to us,” 42 snarled, beginning to fight the restraints.

“No, I lied to you. And I’m sorry for that. But I kept my promise to Alex.”

He stepped back and motioned the soldiers to lower the examination table into the acid.

***

“How are you feeling?” Skinner asked softly, frowning worriedly at the scene he witnessed as the door closed behind him.

Ignoring his new bed and couch, Alex was crouching on the floor at the back of the cell with his arms around his legs and his forehead resting on his knees. Except for the jeans and tee-shirt Alex was now wearing, everything about his depressed posture and demeanor was an eerie echo of his behavior at the time of Walter’s very first visit to Penzbech.

After a brief yet somehow endless moment, Alex raised his head and stared dejectedly at his visitor. “I thought…thought you weren’t coming back,” he mumbled. His tone was less accusation than dull statement of fact.

“Didn’t you get my message?” Skinner demanded angrily, his expression clouding with a silent threat of dire retribution for the guards if they’d failed to tell Alex why he’d been absent since 42 had been removed from Alex’s head three days previously.

Alex just nodded sullenly, his eyes dull and lifeless. Enough to clearly say he’d received the message that Skinner would be unable to visit him for a few days but had simply assumed the worst – that Skinner had *no* intention of returning now the Project was grinding down to a close.

“I’ve just been a little busy the last few days, Alex. There was never any doubt about me coming back for you. I’d hoped you trusted me enough to know that,” Skinner snapped, guilt making his tone sharper than he intended.

“I’m sorry,” Alex whimpered, his face crumbling and his eyes filling with tears.

Skinner cursed himself internally. His last few days had been hell, and he’d suffered that hell on behalf of Alex, but none of that was Alex’s fault. It was just, even knowing what Alex had been through, it was sometimes hard to remember how terribly fragile Alex’s psyche currently was.

“It’s alright,” he soothed. “I’m not angry with you, Alex. I promise. I’m sorry I snapped.”

“I’ve missed you,” Alex mumbled

“I’ve missed you too,” Skinner admitted. “And you still haven’t told me how you’re feeling.”

Alex raised his two arms and stared at them in near-wonder for a moment. “You scared the piss out of me, Sir, but I’m still glad to be back in this body,” he admitted quietly.

“I thought we’d gotten past ‘Sir’,” Skinner reminded him gently.

Alex flushed and gave him a tentative smile. “I’m glad to be in this body, Walter,” he corrected.

“I hoped it would be worth it for you,” Walter replied. “Though, in honesty, the real reason I did it was so there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was you who had survived, rather than 42.”

“I know,” Alex whispered. He dipped his eyes to his lap. “I…I can’t believe you did it. Did it for me. You kept your promise. No-one…no-one’s ever kept a promise to me before.”

“I’m sorry I had to put you through that pain. Not only in the tank but…well, what we did to 42.”

Alex shivered but accepted Walter’s apology with a faint smile. “Sc…Scully says I’m out of the program now. Forever. No more experiments. No more … pain. I’m…well, I’m even officially being classed as ‘human’ again which means… well, apparently the Geneva Convention applies to me now. Even if the Military wants to test me, they can’t.”

“That’s right,” Walter agreed softly.

“I’ve got some…some rights now,” Alex mumbled, with a cautious sideways glance at Walter’s face as though he was uncertain whether his comment would cause offense.

“Of course you do,” Walter agreed easily, his chest restricting painfully at Alex’s nervousness. “Did they tell you what rights?”

“No more hurting. No more burning. They promised.”

“And how do you feel now 42’s gone from your head?”

“Weird. Lonely. Relieved.”

“I’m glad you added the latter,” Walter said gruffly.

“It’s just…just hard. Being here all alone. Even though it’s better here now.”

“Yes,” Walter agreed, looking around the cell. The examination table was gone, its place filled now by a small sofa. The low platform where Alex had eaten for so long had been replaced by a proper table with a chair. The TV he’d arranged for 42 had been replaced with one which had an inbuilt DVD player and one shelf of Alex’s bookcase even had a small pile of films for viewing.

“They’ve…they’ve been nice to me,” Alex whispered, his tone as much disbelieving as relieved. “I…I get chocolate cake every day now.”

Walter swallowed heavily. “Isn’t there anything else you want, Alex?”

Alex closed his eyes a moment and shivered. “I…I just want…just wish….”

“What do you wish for, Alex?”

“I…I asked… asked for…for a window,” Alex mumbled. “But they said no.”

Walter winced. “You’re probably not aware, but all these cells are three-floors underground. A ground-level, specially-built, high-security cell with a magnetite-shielded window would cost a lot of money.”

Alex nodded his head in defeated acceptance of the point and wrapped his arms around his chest in an obvious attempt at self-comfort. “I just…just wanted….wanted to see the sky again,” he whispered sadly.

“That really matters to you?” Walter asked gently.

“It’s like being in the silo again. I’m trapped. No way out. No hope. Just…just metal walls and an eternity of loneliness. And all I want, all I dream of, is seeing outside again,” Alex said, then dropped his head and shivered. “I’m sorry. I know….know I should be grateful for what I have. I am grateful. No pain now. No pain. That’s good. That’s enough. I know…know I don’t deserve more. It’s…it’s enough. It has to be enough.”

“What if I said I could let you see the sky again, Alex?”

Alex’s eyes went impossibly large and he swallowed several times before he managed a strangled, “I’d believe you.”

“Good,” Walter said simply, though his heart lurched at Alex’s simple statement of trust.

“So…so I…I can have a window?” Alex pleaded softly.

“Did Scully explain to you about the new weapons we’re developing?”

Alex’s expression dropped miserably at the change of subject, but he sighed and nodded. “I can’t be affected by the new weapons. They’re all specifically directed at normal Supersoldier polarity and my magnetic field is now something different. I still can’t tolerate magnetite though.”

“Which is just as well,” Walter pointed out, “since the only way the Military will agree to your release is if you continue to have regular injections of the nanobots. You also have to wear a security anklet that will send a satellite signal if it ceases contact with your skin. If you regenerate for any reason and don’t immediately report for a new dose of the bots, they’ll hunt you down and destroy you.”

“But they’ll let me go?” Alex gasped, clearly uncaring of the conditions of his release as long as he was going to be released. “Really let me go?”

“That’s the only reason they refused you the window, Alex. Because they knew I was negotiating for your release, so it would have been a waste of time and money. I’m just sorry it’s taken me a few days to sort everything out for you. Let me explain the conditions of your release.”

“I don’t care,” Alex exclaimed, hugging himself gleefully.

“The details are important,” Walter warned him. “The main reason they’re willing to let you go is you’re too potentially useful to leave you rotting in here for the rest of your life.”

“I have to work for the military?” Alex pouted sadly. From his expression it was clear that although he’d agree to do anything for his release, he wasn’t particularly thrilled by the idea.

“That’s one option. Both Mulder and I do have some influence at the White House, however. We obtained Presidential permission to re-instate you to the FBI, primarily to work with Mulder on the X-files again. Now the alien threat has top priority, the President agrees that your special ‘abilities’ would be a true asset for Mulder. But it’s up to you. If you want to work for the Military instead…”

“Does Mulder want me?” Alex whispered.

Walter forced himself to keep his expression calm, despite the sudden dart of intense pain he felt at Alex’s wistful tone.

“Mulder’s willing to give you a chance,” he said carefully. “Especially since your ‘help’ in this Project is the main reason he’s now able to return to his own previous life. Now the Government has a way of defeating the Supersoldiers, they’re prepared to acknowledge their existence, and that means Mulder’s conviction’s been quashed and he can go home. He feels, as I do, that you’ve earned the chance of a fresh slate too. Just don’t fuck it up this time.”

“I won’t,” Alex promised, his eyes filling with grateful tears.

“And that brings me to the final condition. Until such time as you have proven yourself trustworthy, you’re to have restricted freedom. You’re to be kept under a certain level of supervision at all times. That means you aren’t going to be allowed to live on your own for the foreseeable future.” Walter cleared his throat. “The obvious answer is that you stay with either Mulder or myself initially. I’ve already spoken to Mulder and he’s agreed.”

“That I can stay with him?” Alex asked.

Walter nodded.

“Wow,” Alex whispered.

Walter angrily forced back the tears that were suddenly burning in his eyes, and rose to his feet. “So, well, I guess I’ll see you at work then,” he snapped.

He was almost at the door when Alex’s soft voice called him back.

“Walter?”

“Yes?”

“Does this mean you don’t want me to stay with you?” Alex asked, in a small voice.

“I didn’t say that,” Walter replied gruffly. “I just…just thought you’d want to stay with…with the man you love.”

“I do,” Alex agreed softly, rising to his feet. “Take me home, Walter. Please.”

It took all of Walter’s self-control not to race across the cell and envelop Alex in his arms. He forced his expression to remain soft but firm and he shook his head slowly.

“You don’t love me, Alex.”

He raised his hand for silence when Alex opened his mouth to protest.

“You think you love me. I deliberately took advantage of your need for simple human kindness and made you fall in love with me. What you’re feeling is just a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome.”

Alex moaned low in his throat and backed away, his eyes filling with tears, his face screwing up into an expression of sheer anguish. “You tricked me?” he gasped.

“No,” Walter replied, his heart breaking at Alex’s obvious distress.“ I meant everything I did, everything I said. I….I…” his voice broke and he flushed hotly. “For the last few weeks, all I’ve been able to think about is finding a way to save you from this nightmare. You became…well, everything that mattered to me. But that was my choice. I chose not to walk away. I chose to help you. I chose to save you. But you… you had no choice over anything. So what you feel for me isn’t love, it’s just… just gratitude. And you’ve been abused enough, Alex. My taking advantage of the way you currently feel for me would be just another kind of abuse and I can’t do that, no matter how much I want to.”

“I love you, Walter,” Alex whimpered. “I don’t care why. I just…just do. Please… please don’t leave me. I need you.”

Walter shook his head firmly. “It’s going to take you some time to come to terms with what’s happened to you. It’ll be a few weeks, or maybe even months, before you’ll adjust to living in the outside world again. But when you do, you’ll probably be glad if you never have to see my face again, Alex. Believe me, there’ll come a time you’ll think back on this time we spent together in this cell and you’ll hate me for what I did to you.”

“You saved me,” Alex sobbed, shaking his head in furious negation of Walter’s words. “I don’t care how you did it. I love you. I NEED you. Please Walter, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’ve done to make you hate me again, but I’ll try harder. I’ll do better. I swear I will. Don’t…don’t leave me. Please.”

Walter closed his eyes momentarily and struggled for self-control. For all he had said he was unwilling to abuse Alex by taking advantage of his ‘love’, he knew the truth was more that he couldn’t bear to face a future in which Alex would become an integral part of his life only to eventually, inevitably, choose to walk away from him.

So how could he expect Alex to cope with him leaving? The experiences Alex had suffered had left him so emotionally and psychologically scarred that he wasn’t capable of understanding what Walter was trying to say to him. All Alex understood was that he was losing his human ‘security blanket’. So Walter’s attempt to be ‘noble’ was just breaking Alex’s heart and destroying any tiny capacity for trust still remaining in his battered psyche.

Alex needed him.

Right or wrong, Alex needed him.

He reached out his right hand.

“Let’s go home, Alex.”

For a moment, Alex just blinked at him as though incapable of processing what Walter had just said. Then he moved like liquid fire, flowing across the small expanse that separated them. Moving so quickly that Walter’s eyes saw nothing more than a blur. Sobbing with relief, Alex drove himself between Walter’s open arms, nuzzled his face into his neck and clung to him with almost bruising desperation.

“Shush,” Walter soothed, petting the shaking man and dropping careful, tender butterfly kisses on his eyelids. “It’s okay, Alex. Everything’s going to be okay now.”

He waited until Alex’s sobs had faded to an occasional hitching breath, then gently disengaged from the hug.

“Do you want to take anything with you?” he asked, gesturing around the cell.

Alex’s eyes rested briefly on a paperback lying on the floor next to his bed, but then he shook his head firmly. “Please,” he mumbled. “I just…just…”

“Yeah,” Walter agreed. Alex already had more than enough terrible memories of Penzbech without voluntarily taking home any ‘souvenirs’.

“I should have thought to buy you some shoes,” he apologized, as he led the way to the door and began activating the lock. “The first thing we’ll do is go shopping, okay? We can stop at the mall on the way… Alex? What is it? What’s wrong?”

Alex was backing away to the rear of the cell, his eyes wide with terror and his body shaking so hard he could barely stay upright.

“We’ll go straight home,” Walter amended quickly, mentally slapping himself for imagining Alex would be capable of handling enough normality to go ‘shopping’.

Alex’s only reply was a low, animalistic moan. His eyes were fixed inexorably on the open doorway and, to Walter’s horror, a dark wet stain was spreading across the front of Alex’s jeans.

Walter’s eyes darted between the door and the terrified man and then he groaned aloud as he belatedly understood the reason for Alex’s fear. The last time Alex had tried to walk through that door, he’d been showered with acid. It was no wonder Alex was suffering a panic attack.

He shook himself and deliberately pitched his voice into the softest, most reassuring tone he could muster. “The door’s been deactivated, Alex. Just like they used to deactivate it when they took you to the laboratory. It won’t hurt you. I swear, Alex. You know it can’t harm you when it’s turned off.”

“Burn,” Alex gasped, glassy eyed. “Don’t…don’t wanna burn.”

“ALEX,” Walter snapped, resorting to a tone of authority since Alex was clearly too scared to respond to gentle coaxing. “Listen to me, boy. We’re stepping through the door together. If it wasn’t deactivated, we’d both burn. Do you understand me? The acid would kill both of us.”

He saw a tiny flicker of returning sanity spark deep inside the over-bright green eyes and then Alex sagged and fell to his knees, hugging himself around the waist and beginning to cry in loud, gulping gasps.

“Hurt me, Walter. Hurt so bad. So bad.”

Fighting his own tears, Walter dropped to the floor and drew Alex into a tight reassuring hug. “I know they hurt you, baby. I know. But you’ve got to trust me now, okay? Trust me, Alex.”

Alex nodded dully. “Trust Walter,” he whispered, and buried his face into Walter’s neck.

It took Walter the best part of twenty minutes to completely calm him, and then another half-an-hour to help him out of his soiled clothes and into the shower. In his shock, Alex became as helpless yet malleable as a child. He silently obeyed Walter’s instructions to undress and climb under the water, let Walter redress him in a pair of sweats – which were the only change of pants Walter could find in the cell – and then allowed Walter to take his hand and tow him gently into the doorway.

Except for a ragged change to his breathing, Alex showed no trace of his earlier panic as they went through the three-door locking mechanism. But his eyes were glassy and remote, as though he’d escaped his fear only by hiding somewhere deep inside his head. And even when they emerged unscathed into the anteroom outside the cell, Alex remained uncommunicative and distant.

‘How the hell did I even imagine he could cope without me yet?’ Walter asked himself angrily, no longer seeing his earlier attempt to talk Alex out of going home with him as being anything commendable. Now he felt like an utter bastard. His own fear of being hurt when Alex eventually chose to leave him was irrelevant in comparison with Alex’s justified fear of everything.

Ignoring the puzzled, slightly shocked, stare of the soldier at the guard-station, Walter continued to hold Alex’s hand as he signed them both out and then guided Alex to the elevator.

“Just a few more minutes and you’ll see the sky,” he promised, as Alex trembled against him in the tight confines of the elevator. It was clear that his long captivity had made him more than a little claustrophobic. “It’s a beautiful day, Alex. The sun’s shining. Just imagine feeling that sun on your face. Just a few more minutes and we’ll be outside.”

By the time they’d walked down the last corridor, to the final door which stood between Alex and freedom, Walter was almost hoarse and Alex’s tee-shirt was dark with sweat-stains.

Then the soldier at that last door activated the lock and they were outside, blinking in the sudden daylight. Alex immediately dropped to his knees, hands clawing at the ground, head tipped back towards the sun, mouth wide open as he took deep, gulping gasps of fresh air and his whole body shook as he sobbed in gratitude and relief.

Walter waited patiently, giving Alex a chance to absorb his surroundings and begin to truly believe he was outside. He kept a hand on Alex’s shoulder, not to restrain but to reassure, and he took several deep breaths himself as though to clean himself of the taint of Penzbech.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked eventually, when he judged that Alex had finally calmed enough to ‘hear’ the question.

“Yeah. Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Alex agreed, suddenly hauling himself to his feet and striding towards the parking lot without even checking Walter was following him.

Walter blinked in bemusement at the sudden change in Alex’s demeanor. Then he shrugged, decided Alex was nothing if not resilient, and hurried to catch him up.

***

Walter drove Alex straight home to Crystal City, deciding it would be more sensible to settle him in the condo immediately and then worry about obtaining him some new clothes. He had a spare pair of sneakers in a kit bag in his trunk. They were a couple of sizes too large for Alex, but would suffice for the short walk through the lobby of his building.

The journey was largely silent, because Alex was clearly more interested in staring out of the passenger window at the world he’d never expected to see again than in anything Walter had to say.

When they were nearly home, Walter pulled into a drive-thru and asked Alex what he wanted to eat.

Alex flinched at his voice, then cringed in his seat until his body was pressed against the door, and although he forced himself to look at Walter, his eyes were wide, dark pools of fear. “Want?” he whispered warily.

“It’s not a trick question,” Walter laughed softly, though his stomach churned at Alex’s confused, frightened expression. “What would you like, Alex? There must be something you can’t wait to have again,” he coaxed.

Alex bit at his lower lip and then visibly tried to pull himself together. It was actually painful to witness his effort to straighten his posture and ‘pretend’ answering Walter’s question was the most natural thing in the world. “I,” he began, then swallowed nervously before trying again. “I’d like…” Then his voice trailed off, his eyes clouded with uncertainty and he began to shake again. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted, cringing through either fear or shame.

Walter cursed under his breath, but forced himself to offer Alex a wide reassuring smile. “How about we order one of everything?” he suggested easily.

Alex managed a tentative smile.

So Walter ordered one each of the entire menu, piled the bags on the backseat without comment, and even managed to pay without blanching at the cost. He waited until they were back on the road before saying, “I’m sorry, Alex. That was insensitive of me. I thought you’d enjoy being able to choose your own dinner for a change. It should have occurred to me that after being refused any choices for so long, you’d actually find it stressful to be put in that position without warning. So I apologize.”

Alex was silent for a few minutes, then he shifted in his seat enough to look Walter in the eyes. “I hate this,” he whispered. “I hate…hate being like this. What I just did was stupid. I know that, Walter. I just…just…went blank.”

“You panicked,” Walter agreed gently.

Alex winced and blushed. “Like I said, stupid.”

Walter shook his head firmly. “You’ve spent eighteen months being punished every time you even tried to think for yourself, Alex. In that context, panicking when being told to make a choice wasn’t ‘stupid’. It was just your natural self-defense mechanisms taking over. I was the stupid one. I’ll try not to make the same mistake again.”

In the event, however, Walter decided that buying all that food hadn’t been such a mistake after all.

For one thing, between trying to walk in shoes that were too big and carrying several bags of take-out, Alex was too pre-occupied by the mechanics of getting from the parking garage to Walter’s front door to stress overmuch about taking the elevator. He still shivered as the doors closed around him but his breathing remained remarkably steady.

For another, Alex managed to eat practically everything when Walter finally unpacked the food onto the kitchen table. He ate ravenously, almost desperately, barely even tasting the food in his haste to devour it and so it occurred to Walter, for the first time, that maybe it hadn’t simply been the unpalatable nature of Drake’s ‘nutritional formula’ that had been the cause of Alex and the other subjects becoming so underweight.

Now, as he thought about it, he realized the metabolism of a Supersoldier had to be far different than that of a human. Comparing the fuel needs of a Replicant’s body to a human’s was like comparing the efficiency of a high-performance race car against that of a family Compact.

So it hadn’t been greed, or desire for a taste of forbidden pleasure, that had made Alex so susceptible to bribes of chocolate.

It had been starvation.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me you were hungry?” he asked sadly.

Alex just blinked at him uncertainly.

Silently, Walter whispered to himself, ‘All those times I brought you breakfast and lunch and dinner and thought I was being so goddamned kind to you, making sure you had real food, and all the time you must have hated me for never bringing you enough.’

Aloud, all he said was, “This is your home now, Alex. Make yourself at home. Don’t ever feel you have to wait for regular mealtimes. If you ever want something to eat, just help yourself.”

Walter’s heart constricted at the immediate look of relief on Alex’s face. He looked as wide-eyed and happy as a kid in a sweet-shop, simply because Walter had said he could have the basic human right of eating whenever he was hungry.

“Let’s get you settled in,” Walter said gruffly, rising to his feet and leading Alex to the staircase before the stinging sensation in his eyes had a chance to transform into tears.

Alex shadowed him with quiet obedience up the stairs until Walter threw open the door to the larger of the two guest bedrooms and said, “I know it’s pretty basic, but we can redecorate it however you want.”

Then Walter turned to check Alex’s reaction and cursed silently at the look of betrayed shock on his face. Alex was backing away from him, hugging himself, his eyes shimmering with tears. “You…you said I could live with you,” Alex whispered.

“I just…just think you should have your own room, Alex,” Walter replied. “You need your own space,” he added firmly, as Alex continued to shake his head in denial, though they both knew what he meant was ‘your own bed’.

“I’ve had eighteen fucking MONTHS of my own space,” Alex screamed in fury.

Walter blinked at him in astonishment.

Alex continued to glare at him for a moment, but then he seemed to register Walter’s expression of shock. The fire died in Alex’s eyes, the color drained out of his face and he began to tremble violently. In a split-second, his posture went from angry to cowed. He dropped into a defensive crouch with his back against the wall and buried his face in his arms. “S…s…s…sorry,” he whimpered. “I’m s…s….s…sorry, Sir.”

“Jesus,” Walter breathed, rubbing his face tiredly. “I’m just trying to do the right thing here,” he muttered defensively. “Taking you into my bed when you’re so damned vulnerable is morally indefensible.”

/And letting him sob his heart out on that floor, sure he’s going to be punished for raising his voice to you, is morally defensible? You knew what you were agreeing to when you told him he could come home with you, Walter. You know this is what he needs from you./

He dropped to his own knees and inched carefully over to where Alex was sitting. “Okay,” he whispered. “Everything’s okay. I’m not angry with you.” He reached out and gently stroked Alex’s shoulder.

Alex shivered beneath his touch, whimpered slightly, then scrambled into Walter’s outstretched arms, buried his face in Walter’s chest and clung to him in a desperate, almost painfully tight, hug.

Walter held him for a while, rocking him gently, whispering nonsense into the dark over-long hair until the fearful sobbing calmed to ragged breaths. Then he kissed the top of Alex’s head and said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. It’s been a long stressful day. Let’s go to bed and discuss this in the morning when we’re both feeling better.”

Alex released his death-grip enough to raise his head and glance at Walter with cautious suspicion from under the safety of his lashes.

“Bed together,” Walter agreed, in answer to the silent question. “But, just to sleep,” he clarified carefully.

Alex’s face fell slightly but he still managed a small sad but accepting smile.

Walter led him into the main bedroom and rummaged in his chest of drawers for a spare tee-shirt and boxer shorts for Alex to sleep in. “Why don’t you take a shower,” he suggested quietly, handing Alex the clothes and motioning him towards the en-suite.

Alex clutched the clothes, his expression a strange mixture of both disappointment and gratitude, and silently left the room.

Walter stared after his retreating back for a moment, then sifted through his bottom drawer and found a pair of pajamas Sharon had once bought him as a Christmas stocking-filler. They were still in their cellophane wrapper, since Walter usually preferred sleeping in the raw, and they felt stiff and strange against his skin when he undressed and put them on.

He apparently looked stiff and strange wearing them too, because when Alex emerged from the small bathroom, still toweling his hair dry, he stared at Walter with an expression of shock that swiftly transformed into hurt fury.

“Most people use magnetite, Walter,” he snarled.

“Huh?”

“As a defensive shield against Supersoldiers,” Alex clarified.

“A little difficult to sleep in, I’d imagine,” Walter replied, maintaining an illusion of calm. “They’re just pajamas, Alex.”

But they weren’t, and both of them knew it.

“I know exactly what they are,” Alex muttered darkly. He looked down at his own tee-shirt and boxers, then back toward Walter, and his momentary anger deflated into a sigh of miserable defeat. “I’ll…I’ll go to my room then,” he whispered. His shoulders slumped dejectedly and he began to shuffle out of the room like a banished puppy being sent to its basket by a cruel and heartless master.

Walter let him take maybe three or four steps, all the time telling himself it was ‘for the best’, and then he heard himself call Alex’s name.

Alex flinched and froze.

“You’re already in your room, Alex,” Walter growled, violently ripping the offending pajamas off his body.

Alex cautiously looked back over his shoulder and his eyes widened with shock and appreciation at Walter’s now naked state.

Walter pulled back the duvet, slid under the top sheet, and then patted the expanse of space to his left. “You coming to bed or are you going to just stand there all night?” he snapped.

Alex gave a full body shiver, then risked a small smile. He pulled off his tee-shirt but left his boxer shorts in place, in acknowledgement of Walter’s earlier insistence that they were only going to be ‘sleeping’ together, and hurried to climb into the bed.

He then snuggled into Walter’s arms, burying his face in Walter’s chest with a deep, contented sigh. “Missed you,” he snuffled softly. “Missed this.”

Walter tried to reply, but found himself too choked to speak. So he just stroked Alex’s hair and listened to the thunder of his own heartbeat until the tickling breath against his skin steadied into an even, rumbling purr of sleep.

***

“We need to buy you some clothes,” Walter announced the next morning.

Alex froze for a moment in the process of eagerly shoveling his second plate of breakfast down his throat, but then shrugged an acknowledgement and continued eating.

“You’ll need some suits for work of course, but no one’s expecting you to start immediately so I guess the priority is getting you some casual clothes and some shoes.”

“When am I…um…” Alex mumbled though a mouthful of eggs.

“When we both decide you’re ready,” Walter replied firmly. “And not before. What you’ve been through… well, no one could just shrug those experiences off like they never happened and you’ll be more of a liability than an asset until you’re more…. well, let’s say ‘psychologically stable’.”

“You think I’ve gone crazy,” Alex muttered, his eyes dark with hurt.

Walter sighed and chose his words carefully. “I think you’re understandably suffering from PTSD, Alex, like any victim of prolonged, relentless torture. That makes your reactions to situations… unpredictable. I can’t let Mulder go out in the field with a partner who might be incapable of backing him up.”

Oddly, or perhaps tellingly, the mention of his concern for Mulder’s safety seemed to completely deflate Alex’s anger.

“Okay,” Alex nodded. “I get that. You need to know I won’t ‘freeze’ again, like I did at the drive-thru last night.”

Walter pushed away the hurt he felt at Alex’s easy acceptance of the situation. Maybe Alex no longer thought he loved Mulder, but his obsession with the man clearly hadn’t abated. The important thing, Walter reminded himself firmly, was that Alex was given enough time to recover from his experiences - and that time wouldn’t only depend on Walter’s ability to keep people from trying to exploit Alex too soon but on Alex not trying to push himself too hard.

Alex’s resilience and determination to survive had kept him alive, and relatively sane, through an experience in which every other ‘host’ had given up control to the alien inhabiting their body. But now, Walter saw Alex’s nature as the biggest stumbling block to his recovery. Alex would inevitably try and bounce back too fast, by ‘pretending’ he was better than he was, and a psyche built on lies would shatter if forced to deal with a truly stressful situation.

“I have to go back to work tomorrow,” he continued, noting but not commenting as Alex shivered and abruptly dropped his fork, “so I really need to go to the mall today. Not just for clothes. We need groceries too. You can either come with me, or stay here while I’m gone. But you need to decide so I can call someone over to sit with you if you’d rather stay here.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Alex snarled sulkily.

“No you don’t,” Walter agreed. “But I warned you yesterday that you’d been released on a short leash, and that means constant supervision at least for the first few weeks. Because I have to return to work, either Mulder or Scully will stay with you during the daytime until you’re ready to come back to work yourself. They don’t mind. A lot of their work these days is computer-based, and they both agreed that giving you a chance of freedom was worth some inconvenience on their parts.”

“Why?” Alex whispered, frowning in confusion.

Since it was pretty obvious why the authorities wanted Alex’s movements curtailed, Walter assumed Alex was asking why Mulder or Scully cared whether or not he was free. “Although I’m not in any way comparing their experiences to yours, Alex, what happened at Penzbech was traumatic for them too. They’re carrying a lot of guilt and I think they see helping you as a way to make some form of amends for what they did to all the test subjects.”

“They just did what they had to do,” Alex replied with a careless shrug.

Walter blinked at him in astonishment.

“You think I don’t understand why?” Alex demanded. “Better we were all dead than let those alien bastards make more of us. You all just did what you had to do….except that fucker, Drake. He fucking liked hurting us. Rogers told me how he died.” He paused, carefully checked Walter’s expression, and then whispered, “I’m fucking glad he suffered like that.”

Then he cringed slightly, clearly expecting Walter to react to the admission with disgust.

Instead, Walter bluntly admitted, “So am I.”

Alex closed his eyes in obvious relief.

“It’s alright to be angry, Alex. And not just with Drake. You have a perfect right to hate all of us for what you suffered.”

Alex opened his eyes, stared thoughtfully at Walter for a long time, and then his eyes slid away from Walter’s gaze and he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, his tone dull. “It’s over. It…it doesn’t matter now.”

For some reason, Alex’s words infuriated Walter. “Of course it fucking matters,” he roared. “What they did to you, what I did to you, it mattered, Alex. You matter.”

Alex jerked out of his seat and backed away from him, arms wrapped around his chest, his eyes wide with terror as they darted around the kitchen in instinctive search of an escape route.

Walter groaned and shook his head in frustration. “Look at you, Alex,” he said, dropping his voice to a near whisper. “Look what we’ve done to you. That’s why it matters.”

“I d…d…d…don’t….don’t wanna…” Alex gasped.

“What?” Walter asked, opening his arms.

Alex responded immediately to the invitation of comfort and threw himself desperately into Walter’s arms. “Please, Walter. Don’t…don’t want to talk ‘bout it.”

“Alright,” Walter agreed, using his hands to soothe the trembling man in his arms. “We won’t talk about it, Alex.”

Not yet anyway, he added silently. One day they would have to discuss it, but not when Alex was still so distressed that his only way of handling the situation was to pretend he didn’t even care what had been done to him. And definitely not when Alex was still vulnerable enough to accept comfort from the source of the pain he was trying to escape.

“So,” Walter said eventually, when he judged Alex was calmer. “Shall I call Mulder or do you want to come shopping with me?”

“Go with you,” Alex muttered into his chest.

“Okay. If you’re sure,” Walter agreed dubiously, though he couldn’t deny a tiny fission of triumph that, even in such a small thing, Alex had again chosen him over Mulder.

“Walter?”

“Yes?”

Alex swallowed heavily then raised his head to look Walter in the eyes.

“What’s… what’s to stop me just…just leaving?”

Walter opened his mouth to demand whether Alex wanted to leave, but then paused and reconsidered. Alex was asking a fair and reasonable question and the fact he was asking it didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Well, except that Alex’s emotions and behavior were capricious and totally unpredictable. One minute he was acting like a trembling, terrified child and the next moment he not only sounded perfectly rational but was … well, asking the kind of question that Krycek would ask.

“Nothing,” Walter admitted finally. “I couldn’t physically stop you. I imagine the military would use your anklet to track you down. If you take the anklet off, an APB would be put out on you and you’d be subject to a ‘shoot to kill’ policy. Realistically, since the military has never managed to capture a ‘live’ Supersoldier, I imagine that termination order would go into effect whether you removed the anklet or not. If they get within 500 feet of you, they can program your nanos to release a fatal dose of magnetite. But, honestly, if you ran far enough and fast enough, they’d probably never catch you.”

“That’s what I thought,” Alex whispered.

“So,” Walter asked, his voice deliberately casual. “Are you planning on running? You may as well tell me now before I max out my credit cards buying you new clothes.”

“How am I going to run anywhere without any shoes?” Alex countered.

“You…you want me to buy you shoes so…so you can run away from me?”

Alex shook his head. “I…I just wanted to hear you say it.”

Walter stared at him for a moment, frowning in confusion, and then relief struck him so quickly that the air whooshed out of his lungs and he sat down heavily on the kitchen floor, landing with a painful thump and his arms still full of Alex.

“You’re only here because you want to be here,” he whispered, his tone awed. “That’s what you’re saying to me, isn’t it?”

Alex nodded silently.

“And you just needed to be sure I understood that.”

Alex nodded again.

“I understand, Alex.”

“So I don’t need a babysitter,” Alex said, his voice firm despite a slight wariness in his eyes as he waited for Walter’s reaction.

“I’ll…I’ll tell Mulder and Scully we won’t be needing them,” Walter agreed. “They can always ‘say’ they’ve been keeping an eye on you, if the question comes up.”

“But…but I do want some shoes, Walter,” Alex added, with an almost cheeky grin.

***

A couple of hours later, having barely adjusted to the return of a seemingly confident Alex Krycek, Walter found himself again in the position of comforting a grown man who was sobbing like a terrified child in his arms.

The shopping trip had gone surprisingly well at first. Too well in retrospect. Except for a momentary moment of panic in the elevator, Alex had begun their venture out into the ‘real world’ with remarkable aplomb. He’d donned Walter’s oversized sneakers once more to shuffle into the car and, at the mall, had managed a sufficiently confident glower at the sales assistant in the shoe-store to prevent any comments as he chose a pair of black boots and declared he’d wear them home rather than have them boxed.

He was equally sanguine in the next store, grabbing underwear, black jeans, tee and sweater, disappearing into the changing room to dress and emerging with the tickets to his new clothes in his hands for the clerk to process the sale.

“Done this before,” he confessed to Walter, in a slightly sheepish voice. “Been on the run a lot and I rarely had time to pack a suitcase.”

And he’d been totally ecstatic when they’d visited a leather store to buy him a new black jacket.

But when they visited a tailor next, so he could be fitted for some new suits, Alex began to show confusion. He’d never bought a suit before that hadn’t been ‘off-the-peg.’

“Haven’t done this before then,” Walter joked gently.

“No, I fucking haven’t,” Alex agreed darkly, growling menacingly as a clerk attempted to measure his inside leg.

He’d begun to sweat slightly and, each time the clerk approached him with the measuring tape, he trembled like a highly-strung racehorse and drew his lips back in a threatening growl.

Walter began to realize he’d made a serious mistake. In ‘familiar’ surroundings, Alex had been able to draw on his memories and pretend he was fine, but in this new, stressful environment, he was beginning to rapidly fall apart.

“We’ll come back another day,” he said, gently taking Alex’s arm and squeezing it reassuringly.

“I just need one more measurement,” the clerk protested, his face falling at the thought of losing the sale.

Alex’s eyes flashed dangerously as the clerk approached and Walter was sufficiently worried about the man’s safety to snap, “ALEX. Behave.”

Alex flinched and cringed, his whole demeanor changing instantaneously from threatening to terrified. He hugged himself and moaned, his breathing becoming rapid and heavy even as his eyes turned glazed and distant.

“Alex? It’s okay, Alex. Everything’s okay,” Walter immediately soothed, gesturing for the clerk to back away slowly from the agitated man.

Alex threw his head back and searched the ceiling frantically. Seeing the overhead water sprinkler, he let out a shattering howl of terror and dropped to the floor, covering his head with his arms as he huddled into a tiny self-protective ball.

Walter unhesitatingly dropped to his knees and dragged Alex into his arms. “No one’s going to hurt you, Alex. I’m here, Alex. Walter’s here. You’re safe.”

“Burned me, Walter,” Alex whimpered. “They burned me. Burned me bad.”

“I know, Alex. But no-one’s going to hurt you now. No-one’s ever going to hurt you again. I won’t let anyone hurt you. You know I won’t.”

“Is he okay?” the clerk asked. “Do need me to call the paramedics?”

Walter waved him away. “Just give us a few minutes,” he asked, then turned his full attention to Alex once more. “Come on, baby. Let’s go home, huh? Please, Alex. Trust me. Let me take you home. You know you’re safe at home.”

“Wan’ go home.”

“That’s right, Alex. You want to go home. Come on. Let’s wipe your eyes, okay? That’s it. That’s better. Come on baby, let’s go home.”

Slowly, Alex unfurled his fingers from their clawing hold on Walter’s shirt and allowed himself to be gently tugged to his feet. Uncaring of their audience, Walter kept an arm firmly around Alex’s waist, both supporting and guiding him out of the store and through the mall to the parking lot. Alex was still glassy-eyed and mumbling about being burned, but he was docile under Walter’s touch, allowing himself to be guided into the car and when Walter leaned over him and clipped his seatbelt into place he finally gave a gulping sigh of relief and burst into tears.

Walter held him as he cried, no longer trying to soothe him since he understood the tears were a cathartic release of tension and an indication that Alex was actually calming down.

“S…s….s….sorry,” Alex gasped, after about 20 minutes.

Walter pulled his shirt out of his pants and used the freed material to wipe Alex’s face and nose. “It’s okay, Alex. It was my fault. Everything’s okay.”

“Crazy,” Alex whimpered fearfully.

Walter winced, then took a deep breath. “Honestly, Alex? I was more concerned about your sanity when you appeared to be taking everything in your stride. That was the behavior that scared me because it wasn’t natural. I told you earlier you had a right to be angry. Well, you have a right to be scared too. You’ve earned the right to act a little crazy sometimes. That doesn’t mean you are crazy. I think maybe it even proves you aren’t.”

Alex looked more confused than comforted.

“I think… I think it might be a good idea if you talk with Mulder, Alex. He’ll be able to explain things better than I can. I’m no psychologist but… well, I remember when I came back from ‘Nam I acted pretty crazy myself sometimes. I had flashbacks at the weirdest times. And that’s what you had, Alex. A flashback. No more, no less.”

“Walter?” Alex whispered.

“Yes?”

“I…I th…thought…thought ‘bout h…h…h…hurt…hurting h…h…him.”

Walter closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep steadying breath. “I know you did, Alex. You were frightened, terrified, and you considered attacking him, didn’t you?”

“Y…y…yes,” Alex whimpered.

Walter wiped gently at the fresh tears pooling in Alex’s terrified eyes.

“But you didn’t, Alex. That’s what’s important.”

Alex shook his head frantically. “W…w…worse. Th…thought ‘bout running.”

Alex’s trembling confession hurt him for perhaps a second and then Walter gasped aloud as the true significance of Alex’s words hit him.

“Let me be sure I’ve got this straight. You started to panic, thought about attacking that man, then I shouted at you and you became really terrified, sure you were going to be punished and so you thought about running away?”

Alex trembled in his arms and nodded miserably.

“But instead of running, you chose to stay there – even in the belief you’d be burned?”

Alex nodded again.

“Why Alex? For god’s sake, why?”

“Scared,” Alex mumbled into his chest.

“Scared of something worse than burning?”

Alex shivered and nodded but, even though he refused to answer when Walter asked him what he’d been so frightened of, Walter’s stomach turned over as the only possible answer struck him. Alex hadn’t run away, because the thing that terrified Alex most was the idea of being alone.

He’d survived Penzbech because he hadn’t been alone. He’d remained ‘sane’ because no matter what physical trauma he’d suffered, he’d clung onto the comfort of 42’s presence in his head. No matter that 42 had been his enemy and the cause of his suffering. 42 had also, in Alex’s own words, been his only ‘friend’.

Walter had a sudden gut-wrenching realization that, before 42, Alex had probably never had a friend. Alex had admitted he’d considered himself unlovable, with only a hopeless fantasy of Mulder to cling on to so he could ‘pretend’ someone cared about him.

But Penzbech had changed Alex irrevocably. After all those years of pretending to himself he didn’t need anyone, Alex had ended up needing a friend so badly that he’d become totally dependent on 42.

Until he, Walter Skinner, had not only usurped 42’s role as Alex’s ‘friend’ but had even eventually killed his ‘rival’, leaving Alex completely dependant on him instead.

That was why Alex had chosen to return home with him. And that was also the reason Alex hadn’t run away from him in that store, regardless of how terrified he’d been of the possible consequences of staying.

And accepting that, accepting the sheer enormity of his responsibility to the wounded man in his arms, was as terrifying as it was awe inspiring.

***

They were almost home when Alex turned to him and said, “We didn’t buy food, Walter.”

Walter had decided the grocery shopping could wait another day, and opened his mouth to say so. But then, looking at Alex’s woeful expression, he paused and reconsidered.

Food was a crucial issue for Alex. One far more important to him than having a new suit. Besides, Alex had coped perfectly well in a familiar setting. Walking into a grocery store hopefully wouldn’t be a particularly stressful experience for him.

“Okay,” Walter said easily, steering the car into the left hand lane and performing an illegal u-turn.

When they finally reached the parking lot of the supermarket, Walter turned off the engine and turned to Alex, who was trembling with a combination of nervousness and excitement. “Before we go in, I need to discuss something with you,” he said.

Alex’s lower lip trembled. “I’ll be good, Walter,” he promised.

“Well, I’d prefer you didn’t eviscerate any sales clerks,” Walter replied gruffly, “but that wasn’t what I wanted to discuss. I want to talk to you about money.”

The color drained from Alex’s face and his breathing changed to a panicked hitching. “I…I…d…d….don’t…” he stuttered.

Walter reached out and gently stroked the side of Alex’s face. “Calm down, baby. It’s okay. I know you don’t have any money, which is why I need to make something clear to you. Earlier, I put your new clothes on my credit card. I paid for them, because it was something I wanted to do for you. But I can claim back anything I spend on you on my expenses.”

Alex looked confused, but at least his breathing began to steady a little.

“It’s not just that it’s in everyone’s interests that you’re looked after properly while you’re in my care. I know you don’t want to talk about this yet,” Walter continued, “but, effectively, you were illegally imprisoned by our Government for eighteen months and I’ve managed to persuade them that, regardless of their justifications, you’re still entitled to a certain amount of monetary compensation for that imprisonment. Under the circumstances, they won’t actually give you any money of your own but they have agreed to give me a sizable budget for your care until such time as you’re back at work and drawing a salary of your own.

“So, when we go in that store, you can choose anything you want, Alex. Anything. I don’t want you to worry about what I might think, or the price on the packet. I don’t care if you struggle so hard to make your mind up that you end up buying everything in the whole damned store. We won’t be footing the bill, and I want you to enjoy this experience. So let’s go in there and hurt those bastards in the wallet, okay?”

A small smile tweaked the corner of Alex’s mouth and he snorted softly.

“What?” Walter demanded, his tone gruff but his eyes twinkling.

“You’re a closet anarchist, Walter.”

“I’m no longer a closet anything,” Walter chuckled wickedly, and grinned at the deep flush that immediately spread over Alex’s features. “Let’s go dent the national defense budget.”

Despite Alex’s tentative smile, Walter was still uncertain whether his words had achieved the desired effect. But when they reached the doorway of the store and Alex deliberately grabbed one of the super-sized trolleys he finally began to relax.

It was almost three hours before they returned to the car with an overflowing trolley and two store assistants trotting after them with yet more bags of groceries.

It had taken so long because, despite Walter’s words, Alex had made each and every choice in an agony of indecision. They had bought so much because every time Alex had hesitated over something then put it back on the shelf with a nervous flinch, Walter had reached out, grabbed the item, and thrown it into the trolley himself.

At some undefined point, the process had changed from Alex being incapable of making a decision and Walter then impatiently making it for him, to almost a game between them. Although Alex continued to pick something up, agonize over it, start to put it in the trolley then put it back - making Walter growl low in his throat, grab the rejected item and add it to the trolley - by the end of the first hour both of them were actually struggling not to laugh at each other’s antics.

“What do you say we eat out tonight?” Walter asked, as he pulled into the Crystal City parking lot and cut the engine.

Alex’s mouth dropped open in astonishment and he gestured behind them. They’d bought so many groceries that they’d filled the trunk and the entire back seat of the car. “Didn't we get enough food?”

“It’s late and, to be honest, I’m exhausted. By the time we’ve unpacked the car, I’m not going to be in the mood to cook.”

Alex said nothing.

“Look, if you don’t want to go out I’d understand,” Walter suggested hastily. “We could always get take-out again.”

“Whatever,” Alex muttered.

Walter drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a couple of minutes and then sighed expansively. “Okay, Alex. What have I done?”

Alex just shrugged, his face expressionless.

Walter rubbed the bridge of his nose, struggled to stay calm and then decided he was too damned tired to play games. If he’d enjoyed playing ‘twenty questions’ with a sulking lover, he’d have stayed married to Sharon. “I’m not a mind-reader,” he snapped. “I’m trying my best here, Alex. How about you helping me out a little?”

Alex mumbled something under his breath.

“What did you say?”

“I said I can cook,” Alex muttered, staring stonily out of the windshield.

Walter opened his mouth, then closed it again when he realized what was about to emerge was a lie.

“Yeah, I know,” Alex said bitterly, as though the words had been spoken. “You didn’t think I’d had time to fit in cooking lessons between Treachery 101 and learning a thousand ways to murder someone with my shoelaces. Well, despite what you said before, I wasn’t hatched, Walter.”

“Actually,” Walter fibbed quickly, “I was thinking about that time you blew up the chemistry lab in school and wondering whether to stop for a couple of fire extinguishers on the way home.”

He wasn’t sure whether Alex responded to his poor attempt at humor, or to the not so subtle reminder of the long evenings they’d spent in Alex’s cell discussing anything and nothing about their respective childhoods, but Alex immediately sighed and relaxed. “I wasn’t planning on us having nitroglycerine for dinner.”

“Good,” Walter chuckled, relaxing a little himself at the averted crisis. But then his conscience pricked him too much to let the matter lie. “I made certain assumptions about you a long time ago, Alex. The more I get to know you, the more I understand I was wrong about most of them.”

“No, you weren’t,” Alex whispered, dropping his head and visibly retreating into himself. “The worst things you assumed about me were probably true.”

Walter thought about it a moment and then nodded. “Yeah, I guess they were,” he agreed softly. “The worst things were true. But the weird thing is that I no longer think the worst things are the most important things. I haven’t forgotten what you did. I haven’t forgotten why I used to hate you. I still don’t condone the choices you made. But those things are in the past, Alex and, while they haven’t gone away, they’ve lost their power over me. I remember the hurt, but I can’t feel it anymore. It’s no longer important to me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah,” Alex replied quietly. “It’s how I feel about… about the way you treated me a few weeks ago. I hated you at first. I…I could accept you hating me but… but I still couldn’t believe you’d let them… let them do those things to me.”

“Alex…” Walter choked.

“But I don’t feel those things anymore,” Alex assured him. “I remember them, but they aren’t real. What’s real is that you saved me, Walter. That’s the only important thing for me. It’s the only thing that matters now. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Walter wanted to believe him, but he couldn’t. The two situations were poles apart, both in timescale and degree. Putting at rest hurt born of a few isolated incidents far in the past, regardless of how serious those incidents had been, bore no comparison to the intensity of suffering Alex had endured so recently.

“It’s not the same...” Walter began.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Alex interrupted irritably. “I’m suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, PTSD, flashbacks, yadda yadda yadda. Well fuck you, Walter. You don’t know ANYTHING about me.”

“But I want to, Alex,” Walter replied, with a calm he didn’t feel. Every time Alex showed a spark of spirit, it filled him with optimism that Alex would recover. Yet, at the same time, he knew he was walking on eggshells. Time, he decided, to change the subject and try to lighten the conversation a little. “I definitely never realized how brave you were, Alex.”

“Brave?” Alex demanded, his eyes narrowing with confused suspicion.

Walter shrugged. “You must be. Either that or stupid.”

“STUPID?”

“Well, you’re sitting in my car, yelling at me, despite me being the one with the keys.” At Alex’s bemused frown, Walter grinned expansively and dangled the car keys tauntingly from his index finger. “The chocolate’s in the trunk, Alex.”

For a moment, he thought he’d miscalculated. It seemed to take forever for Alex to understand that he was joking. But then the huge, wary green eyes sparkled and Alex’s lips fell open to reveal a small but genuine smile.

“Your insurance cover you for an ‘Act of Supersoldier’?” Alex asked, with a deliberately innocent smile.

Walter pretended to think about it for a moment, then sighed in apparent defeat and threw Alex the keys. He waited until Alex’s eyes gleamed with triumph and then gave him a shit-eating grin. “I reckon the only ‘Act of Supersoldier’ I’m going to witness tonight is you unloading the car. I’ll see you upstairs.”

He chuckled at Alex’s look of startled outrage, climbed out of the car and headed for the elevator without looking back.

It took Alex five trips to bring the shopping up to the condo and, from the time it took him to do so and the faint beading of sweat on his brow, Walter rightly assumed he’d chosen to climb the stairs each time rather than take the elevator.

Walter made no comment about it. For one thing, Alex was physically more than capable of spending all day running up and down the stairs without becoming significantly tired. For another, regardless of his current psychological scars, he knew Alex was still an adult capable of making his own choices and the sooner Walter accepted that, the better it would be for both of them.

He was tired. He’d begun unpacking as soon as Alex delivered the first load, and by the time Alex had emptied the car and helped him put the final items away, he was damned glad he’d accepted Alex’s offer to cook. He fixed them both a malt and then sat at the kitchen table, sipping slowly, as Alex began to prepare dinner.

“So you really can cook,” he said, after watching silently for a few minutes.

“I’m just chopping vegetables,” Alex pointed out.

“Yeah. But it’s the way you chop them,” Walter said knowingly.

“Maybe I’m just good with a knife,” Alex snapped irritably.

Walter chuckled under his breath. Alex obviously knew what he was doing in a kitchen and, as he’d already proven, was remarkably good at pretending to be at ease as long as he was doing something ‘familiar’. So, although it was a pretence, Walter still had the feeling he was starting to see glimpses of the real Alex Krycek.

/Prickly little bastard, aren’t you?/

“If you’re just going to sit there, you can peel the potatoes,” Alex announced abruptly, dropping a bowl of potatoes and a paring knife on the table.

/Bossy, too./

Walter just smiled to himself and obediently picked up the knife.

***

“How are things going?” Mulder asked.

“Better than I expected,” Walter admitted. “Much better.”

Mulder smirked and wriggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Put those thoughts back in the gutter where they belong, Agent Mulder,” Walter growled, with a repressive frown.

“You only call me ‘Agent’ in our own time when I strike a nerve,” Mulder replied unrepentantly. “I take it the course of true love is strewn with hidden obstacles then?”

“I have no intention of discussing my private life with you, Mulder.”

“Of course you do, otherwise we’d be having this discussion in your office instead of my apartment,” Mulder said bluntly.

“Alex is doing remarkably well, all things considered,” Walter said, deliberately ignoring Mulder’s comment.

“Good days and bad?”

“More like good hours and bad,” Walter admitted. “I’m still struggling through trying to identify the minefield of things that will set him off. He alternates between being so cocky sometimes that I could strangle him, and being so terrified he can barely breathe.”

“Panic attacks? Flashbacks?”

“Yes.”

“Only to be expected,” Mulder shrugged. “The cockiness is probably just over-compensation.”

“Actually, I’m beginning to suspect it’s the real Alex,” Walter chuckled wryly. “He’s an insufferable little bastard at times. Three days ago, he informed me I was a liability in my own kitchen and banned me from ever touching the stove again.”

“What did you do?”

“Burned some damned toast. The phone rang. What the hell did he expect me to do? Tell Stevens at the VCU I was too busy making breakfast to discuss a case? And if that wasn’t bad enough, he decided I was incapable of balancing my own check-book. Then he spent two days reading all my personal files and sorting everything into either alphabetical or chronological order. After which he informed me that, in his opinion, I couldn’t organize a bun-fight in a bakery.” He paused a moment, then wryly added, “And that’s not the actual terminology he used.”

Mulder roared with laughter.

“It’s not funny,” Walter snapped.

“He’s probably bored as hell,” Mulder pointed out. “What do you expect him to do all day while you’re at work? Of course he’s going to snoop around your personal files. He wouldn’t be Krycek if he didn’t. And the throwing you out of the kitchen, and the sorting out of your bills, is probably just his way of trying to show he cares about you.”

“I know,” Walter sighed.

“All cohabiting relationships are about making adjustments and compromises. But that’s not what’s really bothering you, is it?”

Walter shook his head and sighed.

“So, the problem’s sex,” Mulder concluded. “Too much or not enough?”

Walter stiffened with offense and his face darkened into a furious scowl. “You’ve got no damned right to…"

“So not enough,” Mulder continued, without batting an eyelid at Walter’s show of temper.

“It’s none of your damned business,” Walter snapped.

Mulder blinked slowly. “Not any? Damn. Well, I can’t imagine the problem being on Alex’s part. So what’s going on in your head? Alex Krycek’s been sleeping in your bed for over a week and you haven’t even tried to get your leg over yet? Do you have a medical condition I should know about?”

Walter glowered at him.

“Seriously, if… well, if you’ve changed your mind, my offer’s still open, Walter. Alex can stay here with me. He’s quite welcome to throw me out of my kitchen.”

“I haven’t changed my mind,” Walter growled. “And what the hell did you mean by saying you can’t imagine the problem being on Alex’s part?”

“Firstly, he’s a Replicant who’s been kicked into reproduction-mode. Even without the alien in his head, he still has a super-charged sex drive. Secondly, he regenerated into a 24-year-old body. Do you remember what it was like to be 24, Walter? Thirdly, he’s not only in love with you, but is completely psychologically dependant on your demonstrating affection to him in a physical fashion. If he’s settling for hugs and petting, it’s only because you’re refusing to take it any further,” Mulder said. “And, finally, judging from that conversation you and he had at Penzbech, he always was a bit of a sl… a sexually motivated person,” he amended quickly, as he saw Walter’s eyes blaze with fury.

“You seem to have conveniently forgotten the fact he was horrifically sexually abused and raped, Mulder. I would think that’s had at least some impact on his ‘sexual motivation’. And he’s not ‘in love’ with me. He just thinks he is.”

“What gives you the right to tell him his feelings aren’t valid?” Mulder countered. “What the hell is the difference between someone being in love and ‘thinking’ they’re in love, anyway? All love’s subjective. What about your feelings for him? Do you honestly think you’d have fallen in love with him under any other circumstances? You hated him enough to kill him, Walter. And now you love him. The situation that brought you two together was terrible beyond description, but it was the catalyst for your feelings too. If what Alex feels for you isn’t real, then your feelings for him aren’t real either.”

“You’re wrong. There’s no comparison,” Walter argued, though his eyes were shadowed with sudden doubt. “Alex is mentally ill.”

“So?” Mulder argued. “You think mental illness removes a person’s right to expect a normal sexual relationship with the person they love?”

“Excuse me for not being the kind of man who takes advantage of someone else’s vulnerability,” Walter snarled.

“Vulnerable my ass. Alex isn’t any more ill than when he managed to extract himself from 42’s domination, is he? If he managed to know his own mind when that alien fucker was in his head, then he’s sure as hell capable of knowing it now. If he thinks he loves you then he damned well does love you. I’m not belittling the extent of psychological trauma he suffered, nor denying the fact he may never fully recover from what’s happened to him, and yes, there’s a potential for abuse. He’s needy enough to accept a ‘certain’ amount of abuse in return for affection. But he wouldn’t have allowed himself to fall in love with you if he hadn’t already made the decision to trust you. Don’t throw that trust back in his face.”

“I… I’m just…just trying to do the right thing,” Walter argued.

“I know, Walter, but the truth is you’re actually being condescending and cruel.”

“Cruel?”

“Put yourself in Alex’s head. Ask yourself why he thinks you won’t sleep with him.”

“I’ve told him my reasons.”

“And you actually think he believes you?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“He isn’t human, Walter. He died. He woke up in an alien body. And the man he’s fallen in love with, rightly or wrongly, is giving him a whole pile of bullshit reasons why sex is out of the question, but he knows the truth. The truth is you simply can’t stomach the idea of fucking a Supersoldier.”

“That’s a goddamned LIE.”

Mulder shrugged. “I know that. But the question is, does Alex?”

***

When Walter let himself into his condo, he was greeted by the now familiar tantalizing scent of yet another of Alex’s gastronomic creations and he found himself sniffing the air appreciatively and absently rubbing his stomach in anticipation.

In little more than a week, Alex had already ‘trained’ him to expect to return home to nothing less than a culinary creation which would put a 5 star restaurant to shame.

At first, he’d put it down to Alex’s own understandable obsession with food. Then, after a couple of days, he’d begun to suspect that Alex was actually spending hours in the kitchen in a desperate attempt to keep him happy. But, as the week had passed, he’d come to the final, simple conclusion that it was another case of Alex’s true nature re-emerging. By preference, Alex did things ‘properly’ or didn’t do them at all.

“Smells wonderful, Alex,” he announced, as he walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Another Pavlovian response. The moment he walked in the door and took his coat off, he knew Alex expected him to eat. Alex became stressed to the point of aggression if Walter attempted to make small talk instead of immediately addressing himself to the food Alex had cooked.

And, as usual, they ate in virtual silence.

He’d rapidly learned that Alex hated being asked questions while he was eating. That, Walter suspected, was a direct consequence of his time at Penzbech. After all those months of near-starvation, Alex took the process of filling his stomach seriously. Interrupting him while he was eating was guaranteed to spark off a show of temper at best and a panicked flashback at worst.

He’d placidly listen while Walter talked about his day, as long as he wasn’t required to do more than nod or shake his head in response, but actual ‘conversation’ had to wait until he’d sighed contentedly and pushed his empty plate aside.

“So,” Walter said, collecting the plates and switching the coffeemaker on. After a couple of heated discussions he’d won the concession that Alex was only responsible for getting breakfast and dinner onto the table. Coffee and clearing up were Walter’s ‘jobs’. “How was your day?”
 
Something sparked deep inside Alex’s eyes and he dipped his head from Walter’s gaze. He hunched his shoulders, in an instinctive attempt to make himself a smaller target, and a faint tremor ran through his whole body.

“I…I did something, Walter,” he whispered.

Walter’s guts churned at Alex’s fearful posture and breathless, terrified tone, but he set his face into a deliberately bland expression and sat down again, so he was no longer towering over the obviously frightened man. “What did you do, Alex?” he asked gently.

Still unable to meet Walter’s eyes, Alex rose to his feet, crept over to where his new jacket was hanging, reached a shaking hand inside it and withdrew something out of an inner pocket. He returned to the table, breathing heavily, dropped the item in front of Walter and cringed back into his seat.

Walter looked down and swallowed heavily. “Oh, shit,” he gasped, feeling suddenly nauseous. “What the hell have you done, Alex? Where the fuck did you get this?”

Alex flinched in his chair and dropped his face almost to his knees.

“P…P…Penzbech,” he stammered.

Walter opened his mouth, closed it again, forced himself to push his emotions aside and think the situation through instead of giving in to his instinctive desire to scream at the cowering man.

“The fact you’re here proves you weren’t caught,” he eventually growled. “I guess it’s easier to break into a prison than out of one.”

“The other… other subjects have…have been ter…terminated,” Alex mumbled.

“Security there isn’t what it used to be,” Walter agreed. “But your security anklet should still have set off their sensors.”

Alex shrank even more and his right foot began drumming a nervous tattoo against the floor. “I took it off,” he whispered.

“WHAT?” Walter roared. “I told you, Alex. I warned you. Fucking HELL. They’ve probably already put out a termination order on you. SHIT. I need to make a call, sort this out, see if I can save your stupid, fucking INSANE ass.”

He began surging to his feet in panic, only for Alex to grab him by the wrist and hold him gently, but firmly, in place.

“I took it OFF,” Alex repeated, but this time made a slashing motion with his other hand towards his knee.

Walter gagged as his horrified mind absorbed what Alex was saying. He’d told Alex the anklet would sound an alarm if it left contact with Alex’s skin. So…so Alex had simply chosen to cut his lower leg off.

“It…it hurt like fuck, Walter,” Alex admitted, his eyes haunted, “but…but it worked. When I… when I regenerated, I disposed of it where no one will ever find it.”

"What the hell do you mean by 'disposed'?"

"I...um....deposited it in one of my old safety deposit boxes. Vacuum sealed in a temperature controlled vault. It'll mummify. The flesh won't ever rot. So the alarm won't ever go off."

“And then,” Walter choked, “you went to Penzbech, broke in, and stole a nano controller.”

Alex chewed his lower lip and nodded fearfully.

“Why, Alex? For god’s sake, why?”

“I can’t fucking live like this!” Alex snarled, his expression suddenly transforming into fury.

“With me?” Walter demanded, equally furious at what he could only see as Alex’s desperate attempt to ‘escape’.

Alex shook his head angrily. “Knowing they can kill me,” he snarled. “Knowing all they have to do is press a fucking button! It makes this,” and he gestured around the kitchen, “just a different fucking cell. Can’t you see that?”

Walter took a deep steadying breath as bitter memories of his own slavery to nanocytes flooded him. “I can see that,” he agreed reluctantly. “So…so you stole the controller and turned the nanos off. I guess you decided amputating your leg was less painful than a full re-generation.”

“NO,” Alex denied angrily. “I didn’t turn the damned things off, Walter. I’m not that fucking stupid. I know why I have to have them. I don’t…don’t want to hurt anyone. Don’t want to hurt you. I just…just need to…to…to know I can deactivate them if someone tries…tries to kill me.”

As the enormity of what Alex had done hit him, Walter removed his glasses, buried his head in his hands and began to weep quietly.

“Walter?” Alex whimpered. “You…you mad at me? Oh, god. Please, Walter. Don’t… don’t….oh don’t fucking cry. Please. I’m sorry. I’m s…s…sorry. I just…oh, fuck… please, Walter. Here,” he said, grabbing the controller and trying to press it into Walter’s hands. “Take it back. That’s it. Take it back. No one has to know. I…I…won’t do it again. Please, Walter. Please don’t hate me.”

Walter took a hitching breath, angrily wiped his face, looked up to meet Alex’s wide, terrified eyes, and reached out to gently stroke the side of Alex’s face.

“I’m not upset with you, baby. I’m upset at myself.”

Alex looked bewildered, but the endearment and soft touch was enough for him to gasp with relief and barrel into Walter’s arms, almost toppling the chair in his frantic attempt to crawl onto Walter’s lap.

“I… I spoke to Mulder about you today,” Walter confessed, stroking Alex’s hair. “He said… said I was being condescending and cruel to you.”

Alex growled, low in his throat.

“No,” Walter said. “Don’t be angry with him, Alex. He was right. Your actions today have proven that. Despite everything you’ve been through, everything you’re still going through, you’re still Alex Krycek – the real Alex Krycek – the ultimate survivor. He said you were incapable of allowing yourself to be abused, and he was right. You’ve been physically capable of leaving all along, and now you’ve figured out and executed a way of being able to not only run but to do so with impunity, and yet you’re still here, Alex. You’re still fucking here.”

“I love you,” Alex whispered. “I don’t WANT to leave you.”

“I know,” Walter choked. “I finally know that, Alex. And that’s why I’m crying.”

“So…so you’re not…not mad with me?”

“I’m furious you took the risk,” Walter snapped. “I’m even more furious you hurt yourself the way you did. But if I’m mad with anyone, it’s myself for not anticipating you’d do something like this. If I’d been thinking straight, treating you with the respect you deserve, I would have realized the threat of the nanos hanging over your head would be as intolerable to you as they once were to me.”

Alex visibly relaxed and snuggled deeper into Walter’s embrace. “So we’re okay?” he mumbled.

“We’re more than okay, Alex,” Walter assured him softly. “Except you’re very heavy and I’m starting to cramp here. How about we take this upstairs?”

For a long moment Alex refused to move, but then he sighed reluctantly and unfurled himself off Walter’s lap.

They mounted the stairs in silence, Alex too bewildered and relieved by Walter’s forgiveness to risk saying anything that might rekindle the earlier argument, Walter too stunned by the enormity of Alex’s actions to even try to form a coherent sentence. They remained silent as they undressed and Walter pulled back the duvet.

It was only when Alex reached for the drawer which contained his sleep-shorts that Walter finally managed to speak.

“Alex?”

“Yeah?” Alex mumbled, flinching slightly.

“Don’t….don’t put the shorts on,” Walter said awkwardly, feeling a hot flush rising in his cheeks.

Alex blinked slowly, looked momentarily confused, and then, gradually, a slow look of dawning hope crossed his features. “I…I…you…we…” he stammered.

Walter smiled gently and reached out his hand in invitation.

“I think it’s time, Alex. Don’t you?”

And, eyes glistening with sudden tears, Alex smiled softly, stepped forward, and took his hand.

 

The End

There is now a sequel to this story,  "42 - 2 years later"

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