The door to the apartment building obligingly swung open as a woman got up off her knees, smiling in satisfaction at the audible click of the lock she had just picked. Making sure she had not been discovered, she carefully stood up, shouldered her back pack and stepped into the room, closing the door behind her in one swift, silently efficient motion. Her laboured breathing and steady countenance was the only outward sign that betrayed her frayed nerves as she once again paused to consider the potential consequences of capture here. Her father had gone to great lengths to hide the whereabouts of the Consortium's office to her ... to anyone for that matter, and she could only know that the secret was one of the most dangerous to possess. She knew her father to be a kindly man at times, but she also knew that he could be exacting and ruthless. She knew because she had seen it with her own eyes.

She surveyed the room. Old, with classical looking décor, green walls and dark mahogany furniture dominated the room. It was simply yet ornately furnished with gold trimmings along the middle of the walls. A quick inspection proved that what she had surmised all along was correct. This apartment served as some sort of meeting place, the bedrooms and kitchen being devoid of all living amenities. Only the centrally placed table with its two rows of chairs belied the fact that it had been recently occupied.

She gave a start as she heard a key turning. Swiftly and silently she eased herself behind one of the couches backed up against the wall and laid still as a single set of footsteps tread onto the carpet. A wisp of her raven black hair fell down over her eyes and threatened to be a nuisance, but she ignored it. It would be very bad if she was discovered here, especially if there was actually going to be a meeting taking place. She fervently hoped that it was not the case.

The footsteps circled, ever so slowly around the room, as if its owner was trying to pry something from the stillness in the air. All of a sudden, it stopped. Silence. She concentrated on breathing through her mouth so that the sound of it would not give her away in the deadening silence of the room.

Silence. She could not even hear the sound of the other person breathing. They were as quiet as a shadow.

And suddenly there was a shadow, a shadow of a man leaning down above her, the barrel of his gun gleaming as it caught the reflection of the sun through the opened windows.

"Stand up." He ordered in a slithery, velvety voice. She recognised something in it, but was not able to discern it inside the jumbled maze of thoughts veering uncontrollably inside her mind. She slowly eased herself out from behind the couch, keeping her hands up around her face. Lifting her head up, she peered through the mass of raven hair that had escaped from the ponytail behind her back and stared straight into the eyes of her apprehender unflinchingly. A sliver of shock coursed through her body as she stared into the eyes of a man she had not seen for seven years. His eyes were just as she had remembered them, unusually dark grey green in the morning sunlight. Her shock and surprise was mirrored in those same eyes now as recognition dawned on them both. He dropped the gun, almost as if it had become too hot to hold and looked up, speechless. The wildness of her mind now was incomparable to those moments just before when she had believed she had been caught by one of her father's operatives. It was all she could do to whisper his name, something that had not passed her lips for so long. Something to her so sweet and tender, and was the most precious memory she had of him.

"Alex."

* * *

He has changed - subtlety, but nonetheless irrevocably. There is a gauntness to his carriage now that has nothing to do with the leanness of his athletic body. His eyes, once so full of shining feeling and youthful, idealistic candour are now murky green pools of repressed aggression, showing accumulated knowledge of pain and suffering in its dark depths. There used to be an ever-present mischievous twinkle in those dark orbs; now there was nothing more than silver glints embueing his expression with the hardness of steel. The essence of Alex Krycek - the Alex she knew - was gone. The Alex who would sit with her for hours after they had come back from a date and just talk; the Alex who would tease and taunt her in the days when he had seemed like an older brother to her; the Alex who had so solemnly took her hands in his and kissed them gently when he had been trying to comfort her after her mother had died; the Alex who had gingerly held her face with his hands as if it were made from fragile alabaster and had gazed longingly into her eyes on their last parting - when she had gone to Oxford -

- That man was gone. Gone and replaced by this much older, gaunt looking version with the haunted eyes. Older than his years, aged prematurely through his desperate way of life. His eyes were round and wide now, still in shock at their sudden encounter.

And her - Alex thought she looked so lovely in his light, the morning sun outlining her with a pale, white glow. He had reached inside the deep recesses of his long forgotten past, when he had been free, and happy, and young ... and remembered her loveliness in them. The soft wisps of raven hair that customarily fell over her eyes when her head was bent down in solemn study; the brightness of her crystal blue eyes when she laughed; that sweetest, most loving and innocent open nature that was the only thing he cherished from his dark, vaulted past. And now she was here, really here, confronting him with his past love for her, the love he would always feel for her, no matter how hard he would try to forget. An angelic face that would taunt him for the rest of his days with its call of love.

He let out a slow, measured breath. Alex thought she looked like she had just seen a ghost. He smiled without humour to himself at the accuracy of it.

"I thought you were dead." It was the only thing she had attempted to say after her partially recovering from her initial shock. They stood as still as statues for countless moments, taking time to absorb the reality of one another's presence, their changes, their feelings. She felt that she could have lived several lifetimes in those moments, just standing there absorbing the once-familiar presence of him.

But the spell had to be broken. Alex stepped away from the light streaming in through the window and retrieved his gun from the floor. Putting it away in the pocket of his jacket, he stared down at her, his forehead furrowing quizzically in concern.

"Anya, what are you doing here?" He asked her quietly in a strangely muted tone. She frowned at the normality of it, as if he had just been telling her to put on an extra jacket in the rain. A defensive retort was forming on her lips when her mind suddenly caught up to the fact that he was here, right in the middle of the Consortium's secret meeting place ... had been investigating the room looking for intruders with a gun in hand. Which meant only one thing - that he was working for them. With a sharp jolt inside her she realised with a rapidly growing coldness that the schism between them, formed with her presumption of his death, was as strong and biting as ever. He was indirectly working for her father ... and that made them enemies. For good or for ill, they were sharply divided between two mutually exclusive sides, pitted against each other for the coming battle.

He was looking at her with a strange expression on his face, betraying no hint as to his inner thoughts. She could not read in his eyes whether or not he was thinking the same thing. She kept telling herself that this wasn't the past - could never be again - that she had to get away from him now before he discovered why she was here ... but her resolve collapsed in the face of his strangely muted desire for her in his eyes. Strange because Alex had never been the type of person to restrain his emotions before.

She broke the silence by loosening the safety catch from her gun as she withdrew it from under her black leather jacket. She held it up, emphasising its presence as she laid it sideways on the palm of her hand.

"Are we going to talk like old friends - " she paused, dramatically pointing the gun in his direction, " - or new enemies?" She asked brashly, confidently, completely removed from her churning anxiety. She could hardly believe that her hand had not betrayed any shaking as she held up the gun. Expressionless, Alex Krycek slowly withdrew his own weapon, repeating her gesture. He laid the gun flat up on the palm of his hand and slid it across the table between them.

"Let's talk." He did not mince words, did not take the chance of saying too much, in case they would reveal too much. Scared that his voice would crack under all his churning emotions.

She stared at him for a moment before mimicking his gesture of laying her own gun on the table beside his. Her hand was shaking slightly now.

He swallowed - once to calm his nerves, another time for strength in the face of his quaking emotion. He who had not blinked when he had been asked to kill Bill Mulder in cold blood years before, he who had merely shrugged in resignation as the death of Agent Scully was ordered - this girl ... this woman standing in front of him now was the biggest danger he faced. Dangerous because she reminded him of a time when he was human ... when he had cared.

He should have killed her before he started to have feelings for her again.

"You work for my father." It was not a question, a statement uttered harshly in judgement. It jolted him to respond, to abandon his laconic demeanour. He looked up sharply, his eyes glinting with silver sparks.

"I work for no man." He almost spat the words out in disgust. He was suddenly frightening to behold, the embodiment of malevolence and anger.

But just as swiftly it was gone as he rounded the table in quick, fluid strides, the professionally placid assassin unable to fetter his own actions and his resolve finally breaking down. He caught her in a surprisingly gentle embrace, running his hand through her long, dark, lustrous hair and rocking her gently back and forth. Anya felt unbidden tears welling up in her eyes at the familiarity of the motion, ran her hand uncontrollably through his soft, dark brown hair and rested her head contentedly on his chest.

And then she noticed it.

She pulled away from him in shock, and he had an almost blinding moment of terror as he thought she had decided to reject him. But then he noticed her bright, compassionate eyes, piercing in the soft light, looking up at him with undisguised horror and pity.

"Alex ... your arm." She choked on the words as her emotion overtook her. She had said it just in the way she had so long ago when she had discovered his massive contusions under his shirt after defending her from a drunken attacker. He opened his mouth to reply, but nothing would come out. It was all he could do to look at her and run his good hand gently down her face, tracing the line of her cheek regretfully. Anya could not say anything then - could not say anything that expressed her sadness, her horror at imagining how he felt when he had lost it; replaying the hundreds of times she had looked down on those sensitive hands and revelled in their perfection. Never would he be able to accompany his deep, resonant voice with the strumming of his guitar. Never would he be able to use those sensitive fingers to play for her a sweetly haunting tune on the piano. Those fingers of her musical, artistic Alex - how could he bear it? She felt as if she had just lost her own arm.

"It's ... it's okay Anya." He said in a haltering, yet clear voice. 'It's ... it's not as bad as it looks. I'm used to it now." She bent her head and rested the top of it on his chest, afraid he would see in her eyes her grief and regret of not being able to be with him when it had happened. When he had needed her the most.

Her antagonism towards him only a few moments ago dissipated like morning mist in the sun. Reading the line of her thoughts, he slowly leaned down towards her until he made eye contact. He tilted her face upwards and gently kissed her. The surge of emotion and chemistry between them grew as their long dormant longing for each other fanned the flames of their passion. Gently first, then with each passing moment with more urgency and passion until it completely engulfed them. The locked their arms around each other and indulged in a frenzy of passionate embraces, trying to wipe seven years worth of loneliness and regret from their past.

At long last they disentangled themselves, one and then the other coming to the realisation that their wonderful moment of magic had passed. Leaning on his shoulder with the majority of her weight pressed against him, Anya felt a sickening feeling descend into her stomach. Alex slowly stepped away from their circle of intimacy, unwound her arms around his neck, one and then the other, all the while gazing with intense longing in those dark grey green orbs. This feeling, this intense yet gentle longing for her was almost more than Alex could bear. It had nearly torn him - no, he corrected - it had nearly torn the old Alex apart. The Alex that had died along with his father and his mother and his sister and his brother in that horribly fatal car explosion - that was meant to kill him too ... but he had been too unlucky for that. Unlucky to have survived and to have been doomed to walk alone on his path of destruction - and then he had been told that Anya, his Anya, was dead and buried too. He almost laughed aloud in his bitterness. Her father had cost him everything. He had cost Alex a life of love and blissful ignorance.

"Anya you must go." He turned away from her and walked towards the table and retrieved his gun. "The Consortium's planning to meet here in an hour. I came down to secure the area." He sighed somewhat plaintively. "You know they'll kill you if they find you here - no matter who your father is." He stared down at his gun, then looked into her eyes again. "But then again I guess I don't have to tell you that."

So, he had guessed then - and he hadn't killed her.

She took some slight comfort in that - that, if things were different ... well, -

She stepped forward and stuck her revolver back inside her jacket. She was on the verge of asking him about all those murders she had read about in her father's files. Is it true, Alex? Did you really kill all those people?

But then she feels that nothing is more important to her than Alex. Wordlessly she placed her hand on his cheek and closed her eyes, trying to commit to memory the texture of his face, each new line and dent in that not-so-smooth skin. She opened her eyes as he placed a hand on top of hers, savouring each other's presence one last time. Then, as gently as before, he detached himself.

"You'd better go." He gruffly whispered. Anya bent down and shouldered her ruck sack. Even now his demeanour was gradually slipping back into what he had been before - a man with a gaunt physique and empty dark eyes. Blinking back rebellious tears, she walked calmly, sedately out of the apartment thinking of the words she had always meant to say to him, but had never found the conviction to do so. Turning back towards him, she found it now, suddenly all so easy.

"I love you Alex." She smiled somewhat sweetly. "I always will." He looked up in surprised wonder, but had already heard her quickly retreating footsteps disappear down the hallway.

I love you too Anya. God ... if only you knew how much ...

He went to check the surveillance cameras around the room, recalling the group's obsession with knowledge. He found every one of them disconnected. A slow grin found its way onto his face. Smart girl ...