ONE  by Amber Kelsall (EnglshYew@aol.com)
Part Two of Krycek, I

Disclaimer:  Nope!  Krycek, Scully and Mulder are not mine.  But most of the writing and Kareena is.  WMM and Marita and CSM are also not mine.  I hope people enjoy reading about them, though.

Special Thanks to all the people that suggested this story continue and ragged on me to finish it.  You know who you are.  


So by now I assume that I've perked your interest.  Am I right?  I'm sure it hurts you like hell to have your worst enemy come out of the darkness and tell you a truth you hadn't even thought of before, but I feel you need to know.  Of course, it's all selfish of me, but I do it anyway.  I sit in this stupid car waiting for god-knows-who to drive them wherever it is they need to go to keep the world intact.  
I can see how the light drips down into the alleyway like a spider coming down from it's web.  I used to be fascinated with spiders, you know.  They are so agile, mysterious and invoke fear in humans when they are so much smaller.  Misplaced fear is what burns in us all the need to survive.  It sizzles into the cells beneath our very flesh and begs us to do whatever it takes to survive.  
One word has been seared into the flesh of my cells:  Kareena.
I saw her every now and again, our reunions always bittersweet and short on time.  After all this time in the dark, all the lies, she still saw me as her Alexandre.  I was so innocent, so alive with her.  Outside, I am nothing but a shadow.  Like I was a shadow in the shower stall the night your father was shot.
I'm sure you'd like to pin his murder on me, but I've never been one to shoot someone from behind.  If I lash out, it's because I know it needs to be done.  Your father's death was needless, and careless on the part of the people I work for.  I never pull the trigger, I'm only there to make sure it gets done.  I am a watcher.  They realized that the only way to keep me in control was to keep me endentured to them while giving me a certain freedom over others on my assignments.  Power is an important tool.
So why was I there?  That's another long story...I hope you're comfortable.  
It began on a night much like this one, the sky was almost cloudless, blackened in a deep navy blue.  I could see the stars shining so brightly as Kareena told me what they were, what formations they had bestowed upon them, and the stories of their origins from different cultures.  We were laying in the open field on a blanket on the warm night, entwined to each other like the twigs on grape vines.  She smelled like fresh summer peaches and her laugh radiated through the air when I told her so.  
We had planned to spend the entire night under the stars to catch the meteor showers of July.  She loved to watch them as they streaked in the sky, leaving a trail of silver like the necklace chain fell about her neck.  I had given her the silver locket on her eighteenth birthday.  It was shaped like a heart and was engraved with celtic knotwork; her favorite.  I remember it so brilliantly, it was so much a part of her from the moment she put it around her delicate throat.  
I fell asleep to the sound of her voice that night, telling me of Orion's great hunt in the night sky.  When I awoke, there was only stillness.
I was alone, desperately calling out her name to the cold night sky.  She was gone.  The ground was empty, there had been no sound to awaken me, to warn me of trouble.  It seemed only a moment between my happiness and utter dispair.  I thought my servitude to the Consortium had been over.  Like I said before, I couldn't have been more wrong.  
I had been lamenting for myself, self-absorbed man that I am, when I stumbled upon the English Gentleman leaning against the hood of my car.  He smiled sideways through my watering eyes and crossed his arms across his chest.  
"You did know that this would never be over, didn't you young man?"  He stated so eliquently.  "Once the CancerMan has chosen you, there is no way out."
I yelled in frustration.  "Where the hell is she?"
He put his left hand to the edge of his brow, smoothing it down.  "She's been taken to ensure your loyalty to the project, Alex."
"You can't do that to her, she won't understand!"  I could almost feel her pain, of what she must be going through kidnapped and twisted somewhere dark and cold.  
"But you see, that's the way we work, son."  The timbre of his voice never faltered.  "We take what people love the most to ensure that our plans don't fail.  When we need you, you will do what is asked, or the girl dies.  There are no bargaining chips.  From the moment our mutal smoking friend approached you in that hospital it was all worked out.  We had been watching you for months if not years.  
"We knew you would be a valuable asset to us, whether forced or willing to do our bidding."  His smile seemed to morph into a wince.
"Are you saying you deliberately exposed Kareena to a virus to get to me?"  I stuttered.  I couldn't believe what this man was telling me if I hadn't been standing right there, experiencing it for myself.  So if you're having trouble with this, I don't really blame you.  I just hope you get over yourself in time to see the truth.  That's what you're seeking, isn't it?  The truth?  Hopefully you will begin to recognize it when it's placed under your nose.
The Well-Manicured Man meerly nodded in response.  A curt gesture.  He is usually a man a few words, and god knows it certainly fits him.  He handed me a white business card with an address and time hand printed in black fountain ink.  It looked old fashioned.  
As I stared at it, he spoke again.  "Go back to your apartment and pack your things.  Tomorrow you begin your training at Quantico.  You will *not* fail, do you understand?"
"Yes."  I muttered.  I didn't even think about it.  There I was, standing in the middle of a field with nothing left but the desire to keep my girlfriend alive.  
That was when I joined the academy.  I excelled in studies, knowing that the better I did, the better the chance of seeing Kareena alive again.  I had come to the conclusion on many a sleepless night that she was no longer alive, and even if I did do what they said, they'd as soon kill us both then eventually let us go.
For the first year out in the field, I pulled petty jobs at night, stealing evidence from hotels, lockers, the evidence rooms.  I covered their tracks for them, and I got rewarded.  
I learned that Kareena was still alive the day that I graduated the academy.  It had been two years since I had seen her alive, heard her voice or touched her hands.  She seemed unphased by what was transpiring in our lives, and I was glad for it.  The Consortium had told her that she was being kept in a safe house because of the virus incident.  They told her someone was trying to kill her.  Little did she know that the very guards outside her door at night were the real threats.  From then on, I knew that as long as I did what I was told, they would keep their end of the bargain they had struck with me.  
Soon I found myself paired with you.  I had done my homework, followed your cases and stolen your evidence.  I knew what the real truth was.  I couldn't let you know that, though.  A life depended on it.
About the time of the Duane Barry case, I learned that Kareena was carrying our child.  That made the stakes even higher.    No matter how or when, the parental bond to a child is a force so strong that there is nothing you won't do for them.  
Thinking only of my child, I was ready to kill you.  I've heard the saying that for sometimes someone must die so that another can live.  I was ready to sacrifice you, but it was Scully they really wanted.  They controlled Duane Barry just like they controlled me.  So we carried out her abduction, and I didn't care.
Later, when I was in that interrogation room, I saw what Duane Barry's life had become and it frightened me.  I saw myself reflected back in those old, weary eyes and knew that I couldn't ever become what was embodied before me.  So I helped him be free.  I say that because by the time you had left, his eyes were just begging for me to kill him.  All I did was act as a catalyst for what he wanted most.  
I was rewarded with another visit to Kareena.  She had suffered a miscarriage, and I blamed the Consortium entirely for the pain.  For her pain, for my pain, for the loss of something I had worked so hard to secure.  I had wanted a family so badly when I played out their plans just as they has stipulated.  Have you ever wanted something so bad that you would do anything in the world for it, no matter how awful?  Of course you have, Mulder.  More often than I have, I'm sure.
That's when I began my planning.  I needed out, I needed to be something better than this for Kareena, for myself, for the child that I never knew.  I began checking around for sources outside of the Consortium and making friends within to begin the process by which I would gain freedom for Kareena and I.
In the middle of all of this, my next assignment came.  I was paired with a spunky little thing named Marita.  I immediately took her for a daughter of one of the Elders, but my suspicions were never confirmed.  Dressed in black and quiet as mice, we slipped into the bathroom at your father's home, and we waited.  When he finally came in for his heart medicine, Marita pulled the trigger of the gun with deadly accuracy.  It was then my duty to make it look as if you had done the deed.  I did what I was supposed to and we left.
I know you want to believe that I am truly the bad guy in all of this, but for all the wrong I have done, I still have some innocence.  It's probably less than I think, though.
After that, I disappeared again, continuing my preperations for freedom.  
My services were called on again the night that Melissa Scully was shot to death.  She wasn't supposed to be there, she wasn't supposed to be the one to die.  I was paired with a man of latin decent on this trip.  He pulled the trigger of an unregistered gun and only I realised the mistake when it was too late.  
It was my first mistake, and not my last.  They tried to bomb me out of existence on the way to the airport.  I ran away from that fire and into another.  Without time for recovery, I set the plans for freedom in motion.  I killed the guards outside of Kareena's apartment and managed to smuggle us into another country.  Then only I knew where she was at all times.  It was when I made the call to the CancerMan that he realized that something had gone terribly wrong.  I wasn't dead and they no longer had Kareena's life to hang over my head.  For a moment, I felt powerful.
Awhile later we met up again and I was taken into your custody.  I can't say that I blame you for the treatment you gave me, but then again I can't say that I liked it all that much, either.  You are one hard-assed son of a bitch, you know that?  
So I ended up with oil jerking me in all directions, leaking itself out of my body in a silo that I found myself locked into by the time the pain had stopped.  I saw the Cigarette-Smoking Man as I banged on the door, ignoring my cries for help.  I was calling your name.  You and Scully--you never came.  I slumped to the cold concrete floor realising that I had crossed CancerMan and there was no going back.  
So how did I get out?  Now there's the question I know everyone has been longing for me to answer.  It was the proper British man, Marita told me, who sent her to recover me.  He still had uses for a guy like me, whether there was something to blackmail me with or not.  After releasing me from the silo, Marita escorted me by gunpoint to a black limosine and gestured for me to get into the back.  There the Well-Manicured Man sat with his cup of Earl Grey tea and smiled his lop-sided grin at me again.  
"I have a propsal for you, young man."  He told me.  "I'm afraid it has it's own amount of risk, however."
"Cut the crap."  I spouted angrily.  "What the hell do you want?"  
Marita turned to the man, questioning whether she should shoot me for my insubordinance or not.  With a gesture, she put away her gun, not looking too happy about it.  
"Young Alex, "  he began again, "I merely want you to get some information for me.  Now does that sound so hard?"
"I'm never going back to Mulder or Scully.  My reputation is too tarnished.  They'll never listen to a rat like me.  CancerMan set me up for that fall.  He wanted to make me useless to you."  I had thought about this a lot.  
"He wants you dead, yes."  The old man said to me.  "But I believe that you are more valuable alive than dead."
"Am I endebted to you again, is that it?"  I shook my head in disbelief.  I made a mental note to plan better in the future.  It seemed that there was no escape.  
"You want to get back at the man who ordered your death, son?"  He took a sip of his piping hot tea.  "Then I suggest you make your way into this organization."  
Again he handed me a white card with black ink script.  I left the car when it came to a stop at the airport, and I did my best to hide again.  I went months without contacting Kareena, afraid that someone would find her and she'd be dead before I could get to her.  I knew that she was well taken care of because I had saved up enough money for as long as we would ever need to hide.  It wasn't much of a way to live, but I was glad that we were both alive.  
Next we were reunited at the warehouse, where you thought I had planted a bomb with a militant group.  How naieve of you.  I used them to get back to you.  Contacting you myself was too risky.  I knew they watched people like hawks, and I knew they were watching you.  I had different plans.  
We travelled to Russia, and you seemed to believe that I knew nothing of what we were getting ourselves into.  I knew only too well and I wanted to find a way to save myself from it.  
I used my Russian decendence to get what I wanted, and when it ran out, I lost my arm.  When I got out of that forest, I made my way into Moscow and took care of my arm.  I had made contacts within the city by spreading the wealth of my father's name.  His legacy and ties to the underground in Russia were overwhelming.  Within a few weeks I was settled and  I attempted to send for Kareena. 
It was then that I was given the news that she had died from heart complications while in labor with our second child.  I felt a fool, that in protecting her out of love, she died alone and afraid.  
The bodies of both her and our child were sent to Russia for a proper burial and I grieved deeply.  
I have changed through these experiences, Mulder.  I am no longer the green-assed rookie you thought I was when we first met.  There is nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing left to lose.
I am that one man..alone.

=End=