from: darkstar (clone347@aol.com)
subject: angst, marita/krycek relationship/character death
title: where broken angels lie 
author: darkstar
spoilers: patient x/one son
rating: pg-13
classification: angst/character death
disclaimer: see part one
summary: see part one

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where broken angels lie 2/2
darkstar
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     "You're alive."

     I know I'm just imagining that actual shock bled though my
voice. I am Alex Krycek. Nothing shocks me. Ha, take that all you
ghosts of dead emotions. There are so many ghosts around here, 
a host of things thought long buried in the shadowlands of the
past. One of them is lying in the bed, staring at me with every
expression possible. I can feel the others around me, fluttering 
inside my chest and pressing against my sould like bat-winged
creatures of the night. Until now I had half-hoped she would have
been dead and things would be simple again. But here she is. 
Against all odds. Alive.

     "I wouldn't quite say that." Her voice, that beautiful voice she
used to wrap around her target like arsenic tainted lace, is 
destroyed. Made raw, splintered, like she's been screaming a lot.

     (Now why does that make you hate? Make you want to kill 
the men who did that to her? She made her choices just like you 
did. It's her fault she wasn't tough enough.)

     I know that. I knew that from day one. But I pushed her 
anyway. As much as I wanted to protect her, to love her, I 
wanted to create her in my own image more. To make her into
someone strong enough to do more than survive- to win. It was
so easy to stitch together the pieces of her ripped and bleeding 
soul. But I never.....never.....meant to hurt her. It was to heal her 
and heal myself in the process.

     (Then she fell apart at the seams and now she's here and I'm
here and we're bleeding inside. Yet again.)

     Ever since I passed her and that weasel Spender in the hallway,
her image has haunted me through dark nights and darker days. 
She was so....gaunt. Haggard. Trembling and pale like Death's 
favorite child. Nothing like the seductive woman made of angel's
blood and dying stars that I used to dream about. Make no 
mistake....I wanted her to suffer as I had suffered, wanted it so 
very very badly until I saw it. Then I nearly parted ways with my 
lunch for only the second time in my life. Maybe part of the 
reason I came back today was to try and prove that I hadn't 
really seen her in that hallway, but instead nothing more than a 
spectral nightmare that faded when stared full in the face.

     I"m staring. As hard as I can. She's not vanishing. In fact 
she's returning my gaze maximum force and I can only taken
so much of those bloodshot eyes. (Eyes that used to be blue but 
now are burned to clear). My feelings are beginning to stir again,
whispering and hissing in my ears and around the corners of my
brain. I strike at them madly, wondering who let them out of 
their cage.

     I think I know. I think she's looking at me right now.
     (So at last we know the truth. Why you never came back,
and hated her, and cursed her name as a traitor. Because she could
make you feel. Forced your to be human when you preferred to 
leave that skeleton buried. It was ok when everything was good, 
but when the trouble started to hit, humanity hurt. So you 
butchered it for the second time. You said it was the final time. 
You're here now because you've fooled yourself into thinking 
you're prepared. That you can face her again. Well gues what,
Alex ol' boy. 
     You were wrong.)

     "Why are you here?" she finally breaks the silence, not aware
that it was seconds away from breaking me. "Did you come to
pay your *respects*? If you have, then know you're far from
the first." Her lips curl in a bitter sneer, but her eyes betray her.
They are pleading with me to say that I am not here for that. As
that. I was never able to teach her how to totally hide her feelings
from her eyes.

     Who, Rita? Who was the first, or the second? Did any of
them ever see you as anything but a pretty face? I want to ask the
questions, but all I reply is a simple "No."

     She doesn't speak, her gaze falling from me to the bed like it is
far too weak to remain aloft. It is then I notice the brutal straps
pinning her to the bed like a butterfly to a vivsection table. Heavy,
leather straps that are bruising her paper flesh. I tell myself I'm
glad. I don't believe it. 

     Because it's a lie. Not the first I've spun for myself over the
years, but one of the more current. I can still remember when I
created it.....

     (A ship, a rotting, disgusting ship. The perfect hideaway for our 
little Dimitri, our key to freedom. No matter how powerful they
tried to be, the men of the Syndicate felt the threat of the 
faceless aliens. So they needed me once again, even though at the
time I wasn't in their service.)

     Rita showed up. I knew they would send her, because she was
the best they had and as much as we acted like we hated each
other, eyes and ears were everywhere. It was almost ironic, that 
she was now being sent against me in the same type of mission 
that brought us together.

     "You think you can pull this off, don't you?" 

     I kissed her like I had been wanting to kiss her for a long time.
     "They give me what I want...." I reply. "I'm going to rule the
world." King and queen, and no one or nothing could ever take
her from my side again.....ever hurt her again. We'd have everything
we could ask for.
     "We've got them on their knees, Alex. Let's get out of this
hole."

     I didn't want to think about consequences right then. So we
left, went to some hotel that I barely remember now. Because
when I got back to my refuge, an impeccably groomed English
man was waiting for me, and my pawn, my salvation was gone.
Instinct screamed through the shock that SHE had dared to 
betray.....ME.

     I believed those instincts. They had plenty of time to convince
me during the seemingly endless days I was locked down there like
some kind of animal without food or water, and only the 
Englishman's not so tender mercies to keep me alive. I hated her
then. With a passion. I defiled her memory with every blasphemy
I knew in English *and* Russian. 

     But when the man asked me over and over where *we* had 
hidden the boy, I knew she hadn't come to me as some assignment.
She was playing the game I had taught her, trying to work both
sides and come out on top. I knew then she was going to Mulder,
that she was trying in her own way to get freedom. I knew and 
I didn't care. I was starving and thirsty and it was so much easier
to be angry with her. 

     That's why I never looked for her when I heard she'd 
disappeared. I knew I could find her, but I didn't want to. Love 
had proved a fatal weakness within me that They were now able
to exploit, so it had to be rooted out. They told me she was dead 
and I let myself believe in what I knew to be a lie.
     Then the nightmares came.

     When I helped them take Scully from Mulder a long five years
ago, I saw the pain and hollow despair in his eyes and I laughed.
Until the evil jester of Fate twisted me into the same dark place,
a prison where I would wake up in the middle of the night stifling
screams and sweating because I *saw* things- unspeakable things-
that they did to her. I felt her screams inside me, heard her call out 
my name. But I couldn't stop them. Not even in the dreams when 
I had two good arms.

     Only now it's worse.
     Now I look at her, and I'm not so sure they were dreams.

* * *

     "So are you planning on telling me to what I owe the honor
of this visit?"

     I prefer the silence but one of us has to speak sometime and 
I'd rather it be me. Why? Well I don't have reasons for anything I 
do so how would I know? All I can say for certain is that talking
keeps my mind off how much I really missed that self-serving 
little fiend. And ok, I'll admit I'm more than a little curious. He 
completely ignored me the last time he saw me.....and then it 
would have been so easy for him to help me. So what is he 
doing here, now, when I know he doesn't have access? Why the 
risk? He has to want *something*. But I don't have anything to 
give. No power. No juicy tidbit of information. No silky beauty. 
No nothing.

     (Except for one thing. That small dream deep inside me where I
close my eyes and wake up anywhere but here. He can't know 
about that. Nobody does.)

     I remember he always used to tell me he knew me better than
I knew myself. Usually when he was trying to reassure me that 
we'dget away with something that nine times out of didn't we 
didn't. He tried to teach me how to maneuver around the 
punishments like he did, but I ended up learning better how to 
stand still and take a beating.

     "Is it that much of a surprise that I would want to see you?"
     The muscles in my back stiffen again as I glare at him. "Yes,
actually, considering you wanted nothing to do with me the one 
time you actually could have helped me.... for once." I notice his 
jaw tighten and plunge ahead, pleased to know I'm getting 
somewhere. "But that wouldn't have worked, now would it? 
You wouldn't have gotten anything from the deal. Just me."
     And he used to think I couldn't play parts. Outside I'm all steel
and poison, but inside I'm crying blood and wondering
*why* I wasn't enough.     

     "I couldn't." He's so calm, so assured. I find myself wanting to
smile instead of snarl. He hasn't changed a bit. But then he has. 
There's something.....melancholy.....inside him today as if he is.....
regretting?
     Not my Alex. No way.

     He continues to speak. "There were complications then. And I
had my own reasons."
     "Didn't you always?
     That draws him closer, pulling him in until he's standing at
the foot of the bed. I watch him fight to contain the emotion 
rippling just under the taut mask of of stoicism. He does a better
job of hiding them from me than he used to. Someone's been 
practicing. "Before you fling your daggers, remember that *you*
were the one to betray *me*. Not vice versa. If you had waited,
everything would have worked out."

     "How many times did you tell me that? Reassured me that 
you'd fix everything. If I listened to you, you'd set me free- wasn't 
that the deal?" So he wants daggers. I can do that. He hasn't seen a 
sliver of the fury churning at a slow boil deep inside me all these
months to know that the one person who ever cared about me
had deserted me. That fury is awakened now, exploding from 
me with the mad abandon of a supernova and he can kill me if
 he wants when it's all over. The truth is no longer my cross to 
bear. Let him hang on it. See if he likes the way it feels.

     He almost speaks but I don't let him. I'm not finished. "You
had more than your chance, Alex. And all you gave me was one 
continual string of 'tomorrows' and 'yesterdays' every time
you left me alone. I tried to keep the faith.....believe me that I did....
but somewhere along the way their bruises and their pain 
overshadowed your empty promises.  I never *let*  you go." I
pause, letting my eyes press into  him before I went on. "They 
had to beat you out of me."

     His voice cuts the air, the edge on his metallic words dull but 
glowing hot, not so different from the knife that he said took his
arm. I wonder if he notices. "But you betrayed me anyway. Just 
like I was one of your victims. Like I was....*nobody. Did they 
ask you to kill me too? To put a bullet in my brain?" His control 
is slipping, just enough to let the acid seep through. "Were you 
supposed to do it before or after you kissed me and whispered 
how much you loved me?" 

     He has a point and it hurts to think that he would believe I 
only used him for my amusement, that I would ever seduce him 
for seduction's sake like I did all the men we killed.... "I accepted 
the orders to kill you." I admit. "But I never intended to obey."

     "It doesn't matter." The mask is firmly back in place almost 
before I could notice it was gone. We are both performing in 
rare form today. I hate that. I want a magic word to turn 
everything back to yesterday. For him to look at me in the way 
he used to when he thought I was asleep or merely not paying 
attention. If he would just do that, all this horror would fade 
away, purgatory slain by heaven's brilliance. There is no heaven 
for us, no ever after or sweet paradise. If we ever found Eden 
in one another, our sins have exiled us and destroyed all roads 
leading back. There is precious little left of what we thought 
we'd always be. The thoughts ebb away the hate inside me, and 
when I speak I find my voice to be slow, deliberate rather 
than widly accusing.

     "They already knew." His good fist clenches then releases 
suddenly. He didn't know that. I feel my throat constrict as the 
crystal needles of tears prick at the back of my eyes. "Right after 
you left to get Dimtri, they came. Yes, I gave them the details......
after they broke three of my ribs, dislocated my shoulder and 
bruised my jaw. There was a choice. Either I got to you, or they 
would. I'm not as stupid as you think. If they had sent anyone 
else, do you think you'd be standing here? I couldn't take another 
one your grand schemes. Another failure. I couldn't stand to 
think of what they'd do to me.

     So I was going to take the boy, steal back my life, and leave 
you to play James Bond's evil twin. I was so sure you'd forget 
about me within a week....." The adrenaline was gone and I fall 
back against the pillows, exhausted. The tears being to smudge 
my vision and thicken my voice as I continue. 
     "No one was supposed to get hurt.....*this*.....was never 
supposed to happen."

     My eyes at last betray me and the tears escape to spill in tiny 
rivers of silent pain down the diseased landscape of my face. I 
can't look at him anymore. It hurts, far too much to bear. The 
heavy veils of my eyelids descend to hide me from his cold 
condemnation. The darkness behind them is moist and thick
 but unable to mask the sadness that impregnates the very air we 
breathe. Head bowed, I await the axe of his final judgment to fall
on me.

     Silence.
     (Why can't he just get it over with? Why does he drag it out?)
     Pain.
     (Has the man not even one shred of mercy within him now
that I am so obviously, pitifully broken? Haven't I paid double 
for my sins?)  
     The heavy weight of a body sitting down on the bed close- so 
close- beside me startles me. The implications stop my heart. I 
know he did not just....

     He did.

     And now he's touching my face, the curve of his thumb 
gliding against my cheekbone to brush away my tears. His fingers 
are so uncertain, hovering around my skin like he is afraid I'll 
shatter under his touch. It is strange, that touch, and it paralyzes 
me. I am deathly afraid to open my eyes.
     (What if this is only a dream.....and I'm about to wake up.....
what if he's only toying with me to punish me fruther....)

     I've forgotten how to breath. Or move. As it is, I have to 
remind my heart that beating is necessary for life. I search for 
spite in his tone when she speaks, but his voice mirrors his touch 
as he pulls my chin toward him. "Rita. Look at me."

     I shake my head and try to stop my hands from trembling. I 
can't. I can't. It will destroy me. Destroy me. But again his voice 
travels through the darkness around me, calling my name like he 
used to in the old times. "Look...at me."

     My eyes creep open, giving my soul time to brace for an 
onslaught of harsh words and bitter hate. Where is it, where is the 
contempt? Not in his eyes..... There is only that regret, that sad 
pity I do not understand. His face is inches from mine and every 
word he speaks cuts me flesh to bone. 
     "I'm sorry they hurt you."

     That.....I was not prepared for. Dumb shock strikes me mute 
as he continues.
     "I'm sorry I couldn't save you from this. From the men who 
did those things you never told me about. From myself." His 
hands again skim the surface of my face, following the lines of 
my forehead to capture the latest tear from my eyelashes. "But 
more than anything else I'm sorry that it has to end this way."

     The same hand that caressed me reaches into his coat and 
withdraws something shiny and black and metal. I'd know his 
gun anywhere. He used to sleep with it under his pillow......

     I still can't breathe but this time it's only because I know why 
he's come. I 'm going to die.

* * *

     She shrinks away from me as far as the straps will allow, 
cold horror awash in her face and eyes. I feel a sickening revulsion
in my gut as I bring the gun out into the light. It was supposed to
be so easy. Walk in and relieve both our pain in one gunshot. But 
now, the feel of her skin eating away at my fingers like acid, the 
fear in her eyes burning like something far worse, I.....can't..... I
can shoot children and husbands and mothers but I can't pull the 
trigger on a woman who betrayed me once, and who now is 
everything but dead. 

      But the mission must be fulfilled. Just not this way. There can
be only one ending to this.

      "No....no...." I reach out for her face, aching to feel her skin
under mine, but she flinches away. "This is yours."
     Her eyes widen then cloud with confusion, and her voice is 
hesistant. "W-ha-t?"

     "For you." I lay the gun beside her on the bed and undo the
straps on her wrists, more than glad to see the hateful things 
off. She stares at me, traces of fear still crackling in the corners 
of her eyes like static electricity. I wish she wouldn't make me tell 
her what's happening, that she would figure it out all on her own.

     "I'm offering you a choice. *The* choice." I eject the clip and
remove every bullet save one. One silver finger of Death, deadly 
to the extreme. When I jam it back into the gun, realization is 
dawning on her face like a rising sun. "You said I never gave you 
anything. Well now I'm giving you one chance- just one- for 
revenge or for freedom. Shoot me if you will. Free yourself if 
you choose."

     Silence is not golden, it is velvet. I can tell that as her fingers 
slowly trace the edge of the gun, almost like she is caressing it, 
and I feel the kind of quiet that chokes off thoughts and smothers 
words before they can be spoken. When I looked in the mirror 
this morning, I was still a young man, but now I feel old. So old. 

     (But they don't care how young we are.....how innocent....she...
.was....they use and they use until all we can do to save the ones 
we love is hand them the means to end their suffering.)

     It isn't murder, no matter who dies here today. It's only 
murder if you're alive. I never was. She used to be, but sitting
face to face with her, I know the woman I loved is dead. It's my 
responsibilty to set her body free.

     It feels like violent hate and hurts like violent love.

     For timeless seconds her fingers dance around the gun until 
they close around the handle. The spider veins just under her 
transparent skin stand out in garish shades of blue and purple and 
red as she pulls it up. Toward me. It takes all of her strength just 
to hold it level with my head as her eyes meet mine in a very 
quiet, solemn way.
     I meet hers in much of the same. 

     "I don't want to kill you." she says, and the gun drops into 
her lap. Her words hang in the air like abandoned children. "I 
might have once. But now....no."

     I claim survival as my god, but part of me wishes she would. 
That I would be the lucky one, the one spared by being destroyed. 
She knows what I am giving her. Not death so much as an ending of 
life. The terrible, slow sickness of life that will kill her in a far more 
horrifying way if I do not intervene.

     And why not take her with me? Defy the odds and spite in
the face of Fate while I carry her out of the compound not caring
what they'll do to me. Because I can't. It's something Mulder 
would do for his Scully. He wouldn't care if she had cut his heart 
out and danced on it, or that she might just die if she didn't get 
the limited medical care that accompanies the tests. He'd just carry 
her away. And he'd succeed. 

     I am not Mulder. I used to envy him his role as the shining
hero. I even went so far as to want to be that kind of white 
knight, even if the armor was black. But not for the world and
surely not for some pathetic Truth. For just one woman. Then 
again, she is no Scully. And I am no one's hero. 

     Deep inside I know that even if I was, even if I did take her 
with me, she'd die. Her health is shattered. They'd catch us before 
we crossed the state line. Me, they'd shoot on sight. They wouldn't 
be so kind to her. She would be dragged back here, to continue living 
death. This is the only escape I can offer her. The only way I can 
fulfill the promises I made to set her free. I never dreamed I'd 
have to kill her to do it. Or watch her kill herself.
     (Can you watch....that.....)

     "Alex?" It is her voice that reaffirms that no, I could not 
watch. She won't look at me, staring straight at her index finger as 
it traces figure eights on the sheets around the gun. "Was there 
ever a time when you said you loved me.....and meant it......?"

     Her words sink deep into my mind like flower petals made 
of molten steel. I can hear in my mind what I want to say to her.
(That there was never a time I did not mean it....even when I 
hated you....especially then .because I wanted you even more......
which is why it burned every time I woke up beside another 
woman who was not you.....)
     But that is not what I tell her.

     "Yes." 

      Her face softened for the merest heartbeat with something 
out of place in this inhuman room. When I see the color of her 
eyes, I don't have to hear what she's going to say. I already know. 
But it doesn't mean I want to acknowledge that. "I've made my 
choice." she says, once again caressing the gun. 
     "And.....I think it's time for you to leave."

     There is no reply I can make other than to rise in silence to 
my feet, my hand covering hers just long enough to feed one last 
time my addiction to her skin. One step to the door.....two 
steps.....three steps....I pause. Something feels incomplete. 
Undone. Something.....

     I turn and walk back to the bed and pull her face toward 
me, brushing a feather light kiss on her forehead, just underneath 
her hairline. Her eyes close, and I touch my lips to her eyelids 
ever so softly, remembering when she used to taste wine made 
from forbidden fruits, heady and seductive.

     ".....Goodbye.....Rita....." 
     It is not enough. It will never be. But I walk away nonetheless.

     And I don't look back.

* * *

     Silence.

     Cold, unfathomable silence. 
     He's gone. He's not coming back. I know that. 

     Why is the room quiet now with such a unearthly silence 
unlike any I have ever head? Why is it so empty? There is no 
trace that he was ever here, save the gun in my hand and the 
ghosts of his kisses on my face. On my eyes, like a blessing or 
was it a eulogy?

     There have been few choices in my life. He has been a part of 
all of them. And now, the final decision lies before me, mine and 
mine alone to end. The instrument is in my hand. All that remains 
is my actions to fulfill the ritual. Freedom is a mere three inches 
of hot lead away from my grasp.

     He's gone. And he told me goodbye. We never said goodbye. 
It sounded so much like forever.....but that's what this is. There
will be no more secret meetings and stolen kisses and whispered 
dreams. No more pain and despair and aching of love lost. 
(Lost but not totally forgotten.)

     My fingers slide over every line of the weapon, every angle. 
Such cruelty. Such beauty. With the slowness of death's carriage, 
I remove the safety. The click is as loud in my ears as the gunshot 
itself. It makes me jump. My hands are firm, however, as I guide 
my savior to rest against my forehead like a corruption of his 
kiss. Then again, maybe this is always what his kisses were.

     And suddenly the white is fading, that hideous white which as
tortured me so long. The pain is fading. I am so very....very.....tired.....
My eyes fall shut like the curtain closing on the final act of a play. 
But I don't see the dark. I don't see the demons that have eaten 
my mind until it is all but destroyed. I don't have to look at the
body they succeeded in demolishing.

     I am sitting in a dark room in Rome, wearing a black dress 
and drinking vodka with a stranger. He's asking me.....
     (Do you want to have a choice.....haveachoicehaveachoice.....)
     "Yes." I whisper.

     And I decide.

* * *
    
     (Was there ever a time?)
     Her voice posseses my mind, growing louder and louder until
it ricochets off every corner of my brain, a crescendo of 
whispsers hurtling toward my senses with the hissing fury of a 
tornado.

    Then I hear the gunshot.
    Then I hear silence.

     T.S. Eliot was wrong. The world ends with a bang, not with a 
whimper, and no one but me has noticed. Nothing tangible
has changed. The mission is over. Done. Was it sacrifice or was it 
revenge? The two are hopelessly entwined, twin serpents sharing
one head and two glistening fangs. But even if I did know the 
truth, whenever I see her face I'll say "I love you" forever. 
 
    Even if I know very pit of my being that it is the only true 
reason she had to die.
     

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finis.
all opinions and feedback are welcomed, so it's ok to feed the 
starving author. for those so inclined, you can find my stories in 
their natural habitat at
http://members.tripod.com/darkstar_phile/index.html

thanX for reading
darkstar