Title - Cockfighting Author - Dark Nascent E-Mail address - nascen...@hotmail.com Rating - NC-17 Category - SAHR <-- Well, the 'H' sorta depends on you. Spoilers - Fight the Future Keywords - Slash. Character Death. Summary - Guess. Archive - Sure, just let me know where it's going. Unless, of course, you represent Gossamer, in which case you don't have to tell me anything. Feedback - Always --------------------------------------------------- "Cockfighting," from the Barnyard Series Barnyard Series installments are entirely independent and need not be read in order. by Dark Nascent (nascen...@hotmail.com) --------------------------------------------------- CONTENT WARNING: Character abuse and corruption of Carter's vision. DISCLAIMER: Two rights don't make a wrong. Right? ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Special thanks to Ben and Jerry. You are my inspiration. --------------------------------------------------- 9:22 p.m. Hoover Building The ticking of the clock echoed in the unfamiliar space, bouncing off the walls and sinking into Mulder's right ear like ricocheted eightballs into the corner pocket. Game's over. Go home. Or not. Heave a sigh, lean forward, fingers splayed in hair. The desk under his elbows was real wood, polished and hard and unfamiliar. He did not like the new office. He knew that the window was a compliment, but the sultry warmth of the summer night air drifting out of the Foggy Bottom gave him unwelcome chills. Nervously, he patted his shirt pocket again, reassured by the crinkle of paper within. He kept imagining he'd set it down someplace--on the filing cabinet, the desk (his--hers was off-limits), the windowsill. Somewhere she would find it. Why couldn't he tell her? He had to tell her. It could be their chance to nail down that rat's ass-bastard for good. "Are you okay, Mulder?" He jumped. She laid a small hand on his shoulder, and he swiveled to face her, except she was standing closer than he'd expected, so that her breasts stared into his eyes. "Mulder?" she repeated. He blinked, wet his lips nervously. Tore his eyes away from his partner's chest and forced his gaze to her eyes; their open concern made his stomach tighten. "I'm...fine, Scully," he said, trying to rearrange his features into a mask of reassurance. Judging from her unchanging expression, he wasn't succeeding. "You sure? You've been jumpy all evening, and just now it was like you forgot I was even here. You look a little pale..." She pressed her warm palm against his forehead and he could have melted under it so he batted it away. She shrugged and held out a pile of photos. "Know what these are?" She'd spent the day on her knees, digging through the remains of files R - U. Most of the salvageable material she recognized on her own, but at least once an hour she brought him some barely identifiable pile to ask how it should be categorized or referenced. He knew he should feel grateful, but, to tell the truth, it irritated the hell out of him that she didn't know. He heaved a sigh and took the stack from her hand, flipped through them gently enough that the browned edges didn't crumble. Black-and-white crime scene photos stamped with a red '1976.' Dead men, naked and sprawled helplessly like fallen marionettes, but without visible injury. "Yeah," Mulder said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "These are...um...from a closed file. The killer--Redford or Redmond or something like that--turned himself in, but they never figured out how he killed the guys. Looked like cardiac arrest." Scully did her patented Eyebrow-Raise. "That's why the X-File? It was 1976--forensic pathology wasn't as reliable as it is today. He probably overdosed them with something." "That's not what he said. I went to talk to him when I first started looking into the X-Files in 1991. He was a male prostitute. Every one of those men had been regular customers. He said the sex was so good they just keeled over sometimes, and finally, it just got to him. Said he felt really bad." "Hmmmpppf," Scully sniffed, and Mulder knew he'd heard her final opinion on the matter. She turned away and started back across the room to file it under 'R,' and Mulder sank lower into his chair. The note in his pocket was burning a hole in his chest. "Scully," he said, before he could stop himself, and she turned expectantly. When he didn't speak, she stepped back toward him, leaned her hip against his desk. "What is it, Mulder?" she asked, using the same hooked and barbed tone he'd seen her use to wrench the truth out of suspects, and he knew he was going to tell her. Something, anyway. He leaned back in his chair, clasping the armrests, and thought while Scully waited patiently. "I was thinking about Alex Krycek," he said finally. She frowned. "Why?" "I was rereading the file on the Piper Maru, and it just got me started." He was lying and he could tell she knew it. He watched her process that information and file it under 'to be used later.' "So, what about Krycek?" she insisted. Mulder shrugged, picked up a pen and began to toy with it. "Why does he keep turning up? Why, of all the syndicate's undoubtedly innumerable cronies and thugs, do we so frequently butt heads with Alex Krycek?" "Well, during the Piper Maru case, he wasn't working for them," Scully pointed out, and he smiled at the subtle landmine she'd laid in her question. _Sorry, my friend,_ he thought. _One of the advantages of working with you is that I know your interrogation tricks all too well._ "No, but he's back with them now," he answered. "He's out there, somewhere, doing their dirty work, and we'll run into him again. And again." She reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, thinking. "Does this have to do with what you told me last winter, when he came to you with information about the Fort Wiekamp prisoner? When you said that the recurring connections we have in life are strange?" Mulder blinked, surprised for a moment that she'd homed in so quickly on that single event. Had he been that obvious, even then? "Yes, that's part of it, Scully," he admitted. "It _is_ strange that he keeps turning up. But I'm wondering if there's not a design to it, an intent on his part." "How do you mean?" Ah. Now they'd reached the potentially dangerous territory: the unfamiliar country of Sharing. _She's your closest friend,_ he told himself. _Why should this be so hard?_ It shouldn't. Thus resolved, he ambled forward awkwardly. "There's something I never told you about Krycek, Scully." He could feel her eyes sweeping over his face, deciding whether to pursue. "Do you _want_ to tell me?" she asked finally, and he had the sinking feeling that she might have guessed. He looked away. "I think so, yeah." There was a long silence as he worked up the nerve. Outside, a car horn honked and a truck roared by. He really hadn't wanted the window. He'd liked the old office--hidden and separate from the world, a refuge. He sighed, rubbed his fingers along the length of the pen. "Before your abduction, when Krycek was supposed to be my partner, he...that is, I...uh...he kissed me." He stole a glance up at Scully, but there was no reaction. She only regarded him calmly, kindly. Mulder looked away from her, at the clock hanging over the door. "It was totally unexpected," he continued hastily. "Well, not quite totally. I mean, I'd even wondered...the way he walked around, the way he watched me, something in his eyes. There was one day at the pool...." He trailed off self-consciously, then shook his head and continued. "Now, I think the whole thing might've been deliberate, of course, but at the time I just told myself I was flattered." "But you weren't?" Her voice was neutral but tinged with prompting gentleness. "Well, no. I mean, who would be? Sure, that's what women say when they find out a lesbian's attracted to them, but guys? No. Even 'enlightened' men like me. It made me nervous and uncomfortable." "But you let him kiss you," she said slowly. It wasn't a question. "Well...yeah," he admitted. Suddenly, sitting still was too difficult. He surged out of his chair and paced across the room, toward her desk. Her voice followed him. "Does this bother you because you let him or because you might've liked it?" "Scully!" he cried, whirling. "I'm sorry," she said immediately, tilting her head. "We don't have to talk about it." Mulder leaned against her desk, ran his hand through his hair. "No," he muttered through a sigh. "No. It's okay." He hesitated, then, gruffly: "Yes. I liked it, all right?" Scully crossed the room and reached for the hand that was tangled in his hair. She pulled it down between them, clasping it in that perfectly cool, strong way of hers. "Calm down, Mulder," she said softly. "You don't have to be defensive. It's me." He nodded once in apology and took a breath. She was standing too close--he could smell her perfume and her hand was too smooth. Hoping she wouldn't take offense, he stepped away, toward the window, and she didn't follow. "What if they _did_ set me up like that?" he asked the bright D.C. night. "What if they assigned me Krycek to get at me somehow? What if they knew--or thought they knew--something about me that I don't?" Her voice floated across the room to him. "I didn't think you had a problem with homosexuality." He winced. "I don't, not in principle, but we're talking about _me_ here. About my own sense of self-identity. I'm nearly forty years old, Scully. I don't pretend to know everything about myself but I did think I knew that much." He heard her sigh, imagined her folding her arms. Her next words were not unexpected. "Do you believe in biological determinism, Mulder?" He half-turned to look at her. "You mean nature over nurture? I'm a psychologist, Scully." "So you were trained by people who'd be out of a job if they said 'nature?'" He chuckled, and she did too. "No, really," he said, after a moment. "I believe we have a certain amount of genetic predisposition, but ultimately we make our own choices." She smirked. "You and the Christian Right." This was easier, non-personal, and he turned to face her completely, leaning one arm on the filing cabinet beside him. "No, seriously, Scully, they misuse the argument to advance their 'moral' agenda, but there _is_ something to what they're saying when they advocate homosexual 'conversion.' I do believe the ultimate control over who you are and what you do rests with your intellect, which is separable from your genes." "And you were so certain of your intellectual conclusions about your sexuality that you were startled by your biological reaction to Krycek's advance?" Parry and thrust. He grimaced. "I wish you wouldn't phrase it that way." "So the answer is 'yes.'" "Not really," he said, shrugging. "Just because I reacted doesn't mean I was wrong in believing myself heterosexual. Nerve endings are nerve endings." "Then why does it upset you?" He pursed his lips, conceding. "Because I may be justifying what I want to believe." She smiled faintly at him, and after a pause, he continued, encouraged. "Scully, what if I'm wrong? What if, because of the time and place in which I grew up, I resisted this very fundamental thing about myself? But would it really be about _myself_, if it went against what I'd intellectually defined as myself? I want to believe I control who I am." Scully frowned slightly. "I don't think I understand your problem. I think you're trying to justify your own automatic prejudice." "No, it's not that," he insisted. He thought for a second, then: "Scully, do you believe that because you're a woman, you should be openly emotional and maternal and like shopping?" Her brow furrowed as she tried to follow his logic. "Are you saying that because you don't fit the stereotype of a gay man--" "No, I'm saying just the opposite. Nothing I mentioned applies to you, but isn't the fact that you're a woman very deeply ingrained in your identity?" "Absolutely." "So is your sexuality, I would imagine. But is a woman limited by her gender? I don't mean socially or professionally--I just mean, are the choices about who she can be in life somehow constrained by her gender?" She considered that. "It's impossible to tell," she said finally. "Boys and girls are treated differently by everyone around them from the moment they're born." "All right, then let's look at something more cerebral," Mulder continued, gaining confidence. "Do you think you're an intelligent person?" Scully blinked. "Well, yes." "Good. I do too. Some psychologists believe that intelligence is related to the speed with which your neurons can process a given problem. This is in turn regulated by the production of neurotransmitters, which you probably know more about than I do. But their production can be altered by drugs or by hormones, right?" "Right...." "So maybe you're only smart when your body chemistry is tuned a certain way, and that changes from hour to hour, day to day. How would that make you feel, to know that you aren't _really_ intelligent, but that you just happen to think faster than most some of the time? Doesn't it perturb your sense of identity? Hell, maybe we could make you stupid with the right kind of drug." "Well, that's simple enough," she said, favoring him with a rare wry grin. "I think a couple of guys tried that on me in high school." "But, seriously. Doesn't that bother you?" "Not really," she replied. "Do you know what the corpus callosum is, Mulder?" "Yeah, it's the--ah--the part of the brain that connects the right and left halves." "Right. Well, sometimes it's surgically cut in patients with severe epilepsy, so that if one half of their brain goes into seizures, the seizure can't be transferred to the other half. Research on patients who've undergone this surgery allows scientists to actually stimulate one half of the brain at a time, either by covering one of the patient's eyes or by hypnotic suggestion. Researchers can talk to one side of the brain or the other exclusively, and they've found that each half has a remarkably complex and distinct personality. In some cases the right brain will even complain that the left brain is too 'bossy,' and since most speech centers are in the left hemisphere, maybe that's not surprising. That's just the left and right brain, but if we could as conveniently section off other parts of the brain, we'd probably find even more splintered personalities. Some scientists believe that we're actually just a conglomerate of fairly random 'people,' not a holistic entity that we can ever successfully wrap our minds around." "Do you believe that?" "I think the jury's still out. But I would be okay with believing that, because even if it means I can never truly know myself, the synergistic sum of those neurological parts is still me. I am still, fundamentally, Dana Scully." He crossed the room to stand beside her again. "But--and don't take this the wrong way, Scully--'Dana Scully' is just a word. You say, 'fundamentally' when there's no real foundation. If what you're saying is true then we can never really know ourselves and no one can ever know us." "I'm not saying it's true...." she began, but he charged ahead. "Moreover, if you accept that we're nothing but a bag of chemicals, that intellectual will is meaningless--a transient manifestation of the neurotransmitter of the hour--then you have to accept that, for instance, women shouldn't make decisions when they're premenstrual." "Or, that men shouldn't make decisions at all kinds of times," she replied with a dismissive wave of the hand. "Women's sex hormones may cycle monthly, but men's actually cycle daily, and not necessarily with periodic regularity. But again, I didn't say I accept the theory. I do believe we can and _should_ be held accountable for our actions." "Yet if we can't control who we are, how can we really control how we act? How can we ever feel pride for our accomplishments, and why should we feel shame for our mistakes?" Mulder shrugged. "I just refuse to accept that, Scully. I want to believe I know who I am. I want to believe _you_ know who I am." She looked up at him very seriously. "I'm pretty sure I do, Mulder." "I'm not gay, Scully." Her brow furrowed, and he knew he'd failed to make her understand. He knew he should tell her about the note now, but somehow, he couldn't make himself form the words. "It doesn't matter to me anyway," she was saying. "But let me ask you this: If you'd grown up identifying yourself as gay, would you bothered by this then?" He leered at her. "Well, then I'd just be bothered about my video collection." She rolled her eyes and he knew he was off the hook. He crossed back to his desk in a few short strides and put his hands on his hips, sighing down at the morass of papers--burnt, fresh and otherwise. "Well," he said. "That's a very deep thought," she told him solemnly. He ignored her. "I don't think I can take any more of this tonight," he said finally, gesturing at the desk. "I'm gonna take off, okay?" "Okay," she answered, but he could hear the curiosity in her voice and knew he hadn't completely succeeded in alleviating her suspicion. Oh well. She wasn't going to follow him. "You sticking around?" he asked. She gave a slight nod. "For a little while. I've got a little more energy left." He shouldered his jacket. "Don't stay too late," he said, aware of how awkward his voice sounded. Her voice stopped him at the door. "Mulder," she said, and he turned. She was still leaning against her desk, watching him carefully. "What'd you do?" His brow furrowed. "What?" "When Krycek kissed you. What'd you do?" He grinned at her. "I punched him in the jaw, of course." She gave a small snort of laughter. "Of course," she echoed. "And after that everything was just peachy?" He shrugged. "We'd gotten it out of the way. As for 'peachy'--you know the rest." She nodded slowly, and for a long moment the memories hung between them like a tangible fog, warmer for having been shared. Finally, with a fond nod of his head, Mulder left their office. He had truly intended to go home. To throw the note away and pretend to himself and his partner that he'd never seen it. But when he reached his car his fingers delved involuntarily into his shirt pocket and withdrew the scrap of paper. In the dim light of the parking garage, he unfolded it and reread the neat, capital letters. _Mulder._ _I can't keep the silence any longer. I want to help you. I can help you so much. Meet me tonight, at 480 Plato Ave., Apt. 44A._ _I think you know what I mean. I have to tell myself that you do. Please. I can explain everything._ _Yours,_ _A.K._ He knew it was stupid to go. If Krycek didn't kill him, Scully might. At the very least, she'd shoot him again. But somehow, deep down in the same place that told him what killers thought, he knew Krycek was telling the truth. And, though he hated himself for it, a part of him wanted to believe. End Part 1/2 "Cockfighting," from the Barnyard Series by Dark Nascent (nascen...@hotmail.com) part 2/2 --------------------------------------------------- 10:32 p.m. 480 Plato Ave., Apt. 44A "I didn't kill him, Mulder," Krycek gasped, his voice raspy and strained as Mulder's forearm twisted savagely against his windpipe. "You have to believe me! I was there that night but I didn't kill him. They shot him through the window." He gagged. "Please!" Mulder let up the tension a little, but still held the younger man's back against him in a vice grip. They were standing in a dark, dingy efficiency apartment, an undecorated room which had the dubious bonus of allowing the occupant to reach into the refrigerator while lying in bed. A single curtained window was suspended above the matress, and a small stove stood on the opposite wall. Beside the stove was a small closet. A regular rathole. He hadn't caught Krycek by surprise, of course, but they'd tussled and Mulder's extra arm gave him a significant advantage. So here they were, at the inevitable impasse. Mulder wasn't quite certain where to go from here; it had dimly occurred to him that he hadn't planned this well. Krycek's breaths were ragged heaves, shuddering against Mulder's chest. "I did...not...kill...your father, Mulder," he hissed. "I was following you, and they killed him." "Then _why did you run?_" Mulder hissed back, enunciating every word. "Are you saying you would've believed me?" Krycek demanded. "I'm not an idiot! My instinct for...self-preservation was sharper back then than it is now. I _want to...help you._" "Why do I find that so incredibly difficult to believe?" Mulder muttered. "Maybe it's because you left me to die in Hong Kong--" "--self-preservation," Krycek repeated. "I would've helped you if I could." Mulder continued as if he hadn't heard, squeezing Krycek's throat tighter again. "Or maybe it's because you betrayed me in Tunguska, left me in that cell--" "You don't understand! I lied, yes, but I was planning to get you out of there! If you hadn't escaped--" Mulder twisted Krycek's arm savagely, eliciting a cry of pain. "You got me there in the first place!" he accused roughly. "They used me as a test subject--" "They may have saved....your fucking life," Krycek answered bitterly, gasping for air. Mulder spun him around, slammed him down onto the bed and leaned into him, pinning him by the shoulders. "What the _hell_ does that mean?" Krycek's eyes were wild and dark, his cheeks reddened and decorated with beads of sweat. "It was a vaccine," he whispered, so soft that Mulder had to lean down to hear him. "A vaccine against the black oil. I wouldn't've let them use it on you if I didn't know it was going to work! I had to trick them to get them to give it to you--they didn't know who you were...." "You're saying you orchestrated a _vaccination_ for me?" Krycek nodded. "I don't believe you," Mulder announced fiercely, jabbing his elbow into Krycek's stomach. "How can you say you want to help me when you work for _them?_ How can you possibly expect me to believe that?" "I work for them because I have to," he hissed. "But I'm on the inside, I can help you." "What do you get out of it?" Mulder demanded, punctuating his question with a dig in the ribs and eliciting a gasp from Krycek. "Satisfaction," Krycek answered, with a deliberate leer in spite of the obvious pain. "Didn't I mention that? That's part of the deal. But I think you'd be satisfied as well. Double bonus for you." Mulder suddenly wanted to slam his fist into that smirking, enraging face, but something prevented him. Krycek grinned and his teeth glistened like those of a feral wolf. "C'mon, Fox," he said softly, almost gently. "You're always harping about wanting to find the truth. But you don't mean the truth behind the conspiracies and alien life, do you? Your quest is just to give meaning and purpose to _your_ life. Your quest is to find the truth about yourself." He lowered his voice to the barest whisper. "And I can help you there too." Mulder's could feel his pounding heartbeat--or was it Krycek's? He wet his lips uncertainly, and that's when Krycek leaned abruptly upward and caught them between his own. Mulder didn't punch him. --------------------------------------------------- Scully shook her head slowly, staring as the door closed behind her partner. What was he not telling her? There was more to this than he had let on. She was tempted--oh, so tempted!--to follow him. But this was the kind of game she thought they'd finally stopped playing. They were beyond that, right? She had to trust him. Besides, whatever was bothering him had personal undertones. And she was still uncertain exactly how much right she had to ferret out personal revelations from him. As he had since the beginning, Mulder made the rules. Fine. She'd call him at home in an hour or so with another question about a file, and if he didn't answer, she'd go after him by cell. Thus resolved, she forced herself to push thoughts of her partner aside and returned to the stacks of files on the floor. The nighttime quiet of the building and the increasingly quiet streets outside were conducive to smooth efficiency, and ninety minutes had passed before she noted the time. She was reaching for the phone, intending to call Mulder as planned, when her cell phone trilled to life. Expecting her partner, she dove for it, answered quickly. "Scully." The voice on the other end was not Mulder's. "Dana Scully?" It was a man's voice, a lilting tenor. She frowned. "Yes. Who is this?" "Someone who has an interesting tidbit of information for you." Scully fumbled with the office phone, quickly punching in the number for a trace. Into her cell, she said, "What information would that be?" "A man we both know, someone you want to talk to very badly, can be found at 480 Plato Ave., Apt. 44A, tonight only. I suggest you go right away." She put her hand over the cell phone, spoke rapidly into the office phone. "This is Agent Dana Scully. I need a trace on my cell number _now._" Returning to the cell, she spoke slowly, trying to draw him out. "What man?" "His name is Alex." Involuntarily, Scully gasped. What were the odds? It couldn't be coincidence. Mulder must have known something. "Who _is_ this?" she asked again. "When you catch him, Agent Scully," the man said amiably, "tell him Clerke MacDonald sent you. That will make me very happy." "Wha--" she began, but the line was already dead. "Shit!" she exclaimed, and the agent on the office phone reported: "It wasn't enough time, Agent Scully." "I know that," she answered irritably. "Thank you." She hung up, and immediately punched the speed dial for Mulder's home phone. One. Two. Three. A tinny but familiar voice. "You've reached Fox Mulder. I'm experiencing unusually high call volume at this time and all my agents are busy--" _Dammit._ She hung up and hit the speed dial for his cell, but again, there was no answer. A vision of Mulder lying dead on the floor under Krycek's gleeful gaze flashed through her mind. "Mulder," she said aloud to herself, "if you're chasing Alex Krycek without me I swear I'm gonna shoot you again." She picked up the office phone and dialed up the switchboard. The operator answered. "D.C. police," she said, in a voice that crackled with authority. She was going to need back-up. --------------------------------------------------- 11:24 p.m. Scully had barely touched the brakes all the way to the address. Arriving, she passed the rundown apartment building, then parked around the corner, where, as expected, four unmarked cars were double-parked. Eight uniformed men milled menacingly on the sidewalk. She killed the ignition and hurried over to join them, flashing her badge as she walked. "I'm Agent Scully," she announced, quiet but crisp. "Thank you for coming. I got a phone tip that a wanted and dangerous criminal is inside apartment 44A of that building. We're going to take all precautions going in. Here's the man you're looking for." She handed a photo of Alex Krycek to the nearest officer, who studied it for a moment before passing it along. "This man only has one arm, but don't let that deceive you. He should be considered extremely dangerous," Scully continued. "I'd really like to have him alive, if at all possible, but don't hesitate to shoot to kill if the situation demands it. I want all exits covered and three of you to come with me." She paused, wet her lips uncertainly. "There is a possibility that he has a hostage. Take all precautions." --------------------------------------------------- 11:36 p.m. Mulder gasped and fell backward as Krycek's lips grazed his nipple, as the younger man's skin grazed his own, sending shocks of electric current shooting from his groin to the tips of his fingers and toes. It was all so surreal, so unbelievable--and yet, so _good._ Fox Mulder and Alex Krycek. Naked. When he first heard the ringing, Mulder thought it was his cell phone again, but then Krycek was leaning over the side of the bed, groping for the land line. "Don't answer," Mulder heard himself hiss, just as Krycek had told him each of the two times his cell had rung. "Have to," Krycek whispered, then spoke into the handset. "Hello?" He was close enough that Mulder could hear the voice on the other end, a teasing tenor. "Alex," the unknown man said. "I'm coming up. Hope you're...heheh..._decent._" Then a dial tone. "Shit!" Krycek cried, dropping the phone. He leapt to his feet, tugging Mulder with him. Mulder frowned. "What?" "It's...an ex-lover," Krycek answered quickly, looking as sheepish as a one-armed naked man with a very large, erect cock can. "Clerke. C'mon." He darted for the closet door, opening it. "Hide in here. I'll get rid of him." Mulder shook his head, opened his mouth to refuse, but Krycek cut him off as he grabbed Mulder's gun from the stove. "I'm serious, Mulder. You don't understand. If he finds you here I don't know what he'll do. Get _in the fucking closet!_" With a violent shove, he slammed Mulder into the tiny space, just as the pounding on the door started. --------------------------------------------------- Surrounded by officers, their guns held ready, Scully pounded on the door. When there was no immediate answer, she called, "FBI," and nodded at the man to her right, cocking her Sig. The officer kicked the door open, and what happened next was a split-second blur, but when Scully would replay it in her mind for the rest of her life, it would be technicolor slow-motion. She saw Krycek, naked, turning toward her with his mouth an 'o' of surprise. Raising his gun. She fired. She missed. The bullet slammed into the closet door, and the ensuing scream did not register with her brain until her fingers had automatically squeezed the trigger again, splattering Krycek's blood and brains on the cracked plaster wall. His body slumped to the ground, and only then did the scream sink in. ohgod She raced across the room, jerked open the cheap closet door. Mulder, naked but for his own dark blood, slumped to the floor. Scully dropped to her knees, praying it was a horrible dream. Her fingers wiped frantically at the blood on his chest as she tried to make out the edges of the wound. He gasped for breath beneath her hands, and his eyelids fluttered, shock-wide pupils both seeing her and not seeing her. She turned to the men in the doorway, who were standing still in uncertain shock, gaping at the blood-colored walls, woman and floor, and as if from a distance heard her own voice yelling, "Don't just stand there--call an ambulance!" Someone did, but she knew, despite every hope, that it was too late. "Mulder," she whispered softly, cradling his head in her lap, trying to hold his gaze as if by doing so she could hold onto his life. "Mulder, come _on._" She stroked his hair, trying not to see the blood that trailed from the corner of his mouth. "Mulder," she repeated softly, choking on the word, naming him as he died. --------------------------------------------------- End. Sigh. Wasn't that sweet? I'm glad I stuck with _that_ ending, instead of the one I was ABOUT to write. It might've been more interesting--would've definitely had serious sequel possibilities. Oh yeah, love them sequels. But I had this problem, see. In my alternate ending, MacDonald was going to be Krycek's ex-lover still, but an all-around nice guy instead of the village Mr. Nasty, see? He was going to be all sad that Mulder and Krycek had discovered they were soulmates, and we were all going to feel very sorry for him, until Scully decided she really liked him, and they ended up having a double wedding (Scully and MacDonald, Mulder and Krycek, that is). But never fear, you shippy little hearts, you! Mulder and Scully would still be Really Good Friends, so close in fact that when Scully finally gets pregnant, Mulder decides he wants to experience this miracle with her, so he gets pregnant too! They have all kinds of pregnancy adventures together--sequel possibilities abound. "Morning Sickness In Dudley, Texas," "S/He's Having My Baby," "Nine Minutes, Nine Months"--the list goes on. Mulder and Alex name their baby Alex, Jr., and Scully and MacDonald name theirs Jim. The two boys grow up practically like brothers, and there's a whole series of stories there too, of course. Sorta like the Hardy Boys or something. "Jim and Alex Play Cops 'n' Robbers," "Jim and Alex Abducted by Aliens," "Jim and Alex at the FBI Academy." You get the idea. I was getting really jazzed about the whole thing--you know, creating original secondary characters and developing them and all that--when I suddenly slammed headfirst into the obvious problem. Scully can't get pregnant. Man, reality SUCKS. --------------------------------------------------- REAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: yeah. like anyone WANTS responsibility for this. but i might not be doing this if it weren't for the wonderful support provided by dahlak, flywoman, jordan and marguerite. don't blame them, though, okay? jordan generously plays weblord to the Barnyard, which can be found at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/1063. nascent will handle dark nascent's feedback at nascen...@hotmail.com. Started: 06/30//98 Finished: 08'/17/98