Lilies Know A Ghostly Birth *NC17* 1/3

AUTHOR: Rachel Anton
EMAIL: Ranton1013@aol.com
RATING: NC-17.
CATEGORY: S, R.
KEYWORDS: Krycek/Marita
ARCHIVE: Sure
FEEDBACK: Would be lovely.
DISCLAIMER: These character don't belong to me.
SPOILERS: Very small ones for DeadAlive.
SUMMARY: Where do international spies, assassins, and triple-agents hang out in their free time? Starbucks, of course.

NOTE: This story is the third in a series. You can read the first two stories, Crashing in the Same Car and Shades of Scarlett Conquering, here: http://hometown.aol.com/ranton1013/midlength.html

I'm pretty sure this one won't make much sense if you don't read the other two first.

THANKS: To Laura for help with dialogue and inspiration, to Cynthia for working her beta magic, and special thanks to Deslea for convincing me this story needed to be written and helping me make it a hundred times better.

xxxxxx

New York is full of idiots. Most towns are, he knows, but the thing about New York is that it wasn't supposed to be this way.

He remembers when he was an idiot, one of those stupid kids, sitting in some dingy coffee house with a bunch of other stupid kids, talking about Kafka and Kandinsky and Karl Marx. Talking like they knew something about the world, something that didn't come out of their own assholes.

"God, why do you come here?" he asks her with a sweeping hand gesture, encompassing the entire idiotic content of the entire idiotic Starbucks: the wretched book club meeting by the faux fireplace, the black-clad, throwback beatnik couple talking intensely in the corner, the middle-aged, harried mother trying to talk intensely with her disinterested teen-aged daughter, the tacky, gaudily colored decorations, the merchandise rack with seven dollar Starbucks brand mints and thirty dollar Starbucks T-shirts.

Sometimes Alex wonders why he's trying to save humanity. Fuck humanity. It makes him sick, all these people and places and things. What a mess we've made of a perfectly good planet, he thinks. Maybe I should stop fighting the invasion and just let them finish in peace. Maybe we deserve it. Maybe we'd be better off.

"This coffee tastes like mud," he tries again. She's ignoring him, burying her head in that stupid notebook. She was writing when he came in, almost twenty minutes ago, and she only stopped once to give him a perfunctory greeting and ask him for a refill. He hasn't seen her in two damn weeks, and it's all she can do to acknowledge his existence.

She didn't seem to notice his split lip, or if she did, didn't care enough to comment or ask. Just wait till she sees what he did to her car, though. She won't be able to ignore that.

"Look at those fools over there," he sneers, pointing towards the eager beavers by the fire. "Talking about some book like they're goddamn Ph.Ds. They oughtta read a real book. James Joyce? That British faggot. I oughtta go over there and ask them what they think of Nietzsche."

He allows his voice to escalate to the point of rudeness and waits for her to admonish him, but she doesn't. He slaps his hand on the stupid, tiny, round table between them. Nothing.

He can't believe she's not the slightest bit interested in what he's just done. He told her on the phone about his greatest accomplishment- sneaking Mulder the vaccine- but he hadn't had time to share the details. Granted, the details aren't all that important or exciting. In fact, he's growing weary just thinking of them. But she's the only one he can share them with, and they are the only things he's got to share at the moment.

"What are you doing, Marita? What are you writing?"

"Hmm? What? Me?"

Finally, a response. She's still not looking at him though, and her pen is still scratching on the paper. Scratch scratch. Scratch scratch. He'd like to grab that pen and stick it where the sun don't shine.

"Yeah, you. You haven't even touched your coffee. I spent six bucks on that no-fat double mocha latte looty thingy and you haven't even had a sip."

She lifts the cup to her lips, takes a sip, gives him a disgusted glance, and resumes her novella. Is it so strange for him to expect a little conversation with her? Everyone else in this damn place is talking.

"I hope you're not planning on dragging that notebook everywhere we go like Harriet the freaking Spy or something. It's weird, Marita."

"You're one to talk about weird," she mutters.

"Well what the hell is it? You writing me love letters? Not another will, I hope..."

She sighs and puts the pen down on the table. Finally, she looks him directly in the eye, and he's glad for that, and glad for the fact that she doesn't look unhappy. Annoyed, yes, but not unhappy. Thank God it's not another will.

"If you must know, it's a journal."

"A journal? What is that to bring back to your quack shrink or something?"

He doesn't like her seeing a psychiatrist. It makes him nervous. Who knows what she'll think of him when forced to analyze her life through the eyes of a normal person?

"She's not a quack, Alex."

"Well, you'd better be careful what you put in that thing."

"She hasn't even seen most of it. I destroy almost everything I write."

Of course. He shouldn't have expected anything less from his clever little girl scout. First thing they teach you in covert operations school; destroy the evidence. He feels a sudden, strong flush of affection and desire for her. She's in his favorite blouse and her hair's down for a change. Even the grotesque lighting can't hide her appeal.

Still, he wonders why she bothers writing at all if she's not keeping it. What the hell's the point? She's got it all in her head anyway.

"She is a quack. They all are."

"Drink your coffee, Alex," she tells him, rolling her eyes. Then she's writing again and he's back to watching the book club, trying to ignore the onset of his arousal.

There's a girl, sitting on the floor with Finnegan's Wake spread open on her legs. She's not looking at the book, though. She's looking at him. She wants him. Or maybe she's just glaring at him because of his rude comments earlier. Who knows? Who cares?

Alex quickly peruses and assesses her. She's young, probably just out of high school, with long brown hair and dark skin. Her jeans are tight and worn and her sweater's as blue as her eyes. Full lips and breasts, long legs and delicate hands. Not bad for an idiot.

"That girl over there is looking at me."

"You mean you're looking at her," Marita smirks without bothering to take a look herself. Like it's so peculiar for a woman to be interested in him.

"No, she was checking me out. Must be this new coat you got me."

"Why don't you go ask her what she thinks of Nietzsche?"

Under the table he grips one of her silk-clad legs between his calves.

"You want me to ask her back to the apartment?" He winks when her eyes dart up. He's just being juvenile now. You don't have to be a shrink to recognize this moronic ploy. Still, it usually works.

"Sure, Alex. Maybe we can top the night off by getting arrested for statutory rape."

"She's not that young, you think?"

"I dunno. If you're that interested, go ask her."

"I'm not. I'm just trying to get your attention."

She smiles faintly, a ghost of a smile really, and shakes her head.

"Very subtle, Alex."

"Hey, maybe we should make our own book club. But what would we discuss? Hmm...oh, I know!"

He reaches between them, taking advantage of her temporary distraction, and swipes the blasted notebook out from under her hands.

"Hey!" she cries, grabbing for it. "That's personal!"

"We are practically married."

He thinks it should probably concern him that those words roll so easily off his tongue. It should probably concern him that he wants to read her journal in the first place. What the hell is happening to him?

She reaches for the notebook again and he holds it up over his head. Maybe he wants to read it simply because she's so adamantly against the idea. Some part of her must want him to look at it, though. Why else would she be writing it in front of him?

"Damn you, Alex," she sighs, sinking back into her chair. "All right, read it. You know the whole story anyway."

"Don't be such a dud, Marita. Maybe if I read this I'll know more about 'where you're coming from' or something. Isn't that what doctor quack told you my problem was?"

"No, she told me your problem was that you're a sociopath."

He smiles and laughs through his nose. Like you need a fricking diploma to figure that one out.

He puts the notebook on the tabletop and leafs back a few pages to what seems to be the beginning. Several sheets before it have been ripped out.

"Dear diary..." he teases her. She doesn't laugh, or even smile.

He was wrong. She really doesn't want him to read it. She wasn't just being a tease- this is upsetting her. Although that realization piques his curiosity even more, he considers handing the book back to her. She's been more open with him recently, almost annoyingly so, but maybe there are some boundaries he shouldn't be allowed to cross.

Or, maybe it means she's hiding something from him again. Maybe the tumors are back, or maybe she's done something horrible in his two week absence. They've sorted out a division of labor over the past few months, and he's been leaving her alone more or less- letting her do her own work as he does his. Maybe she's been doing things he doesn't know about, things he wouldn't like.

Yes, he has been learning to trust her again, slowly. Yes, he has been learning to let go of a little bit of control, to give her the benefit of the doubt. But maybe he was mistaken about that, too.

He takes a deep breath, and begins to read silently.

xxxxxx

The months following Oron's death passed quickly, in a haze of work and alcohol and sleepless nights. My job at the UN took me overseas just days after the funeral, and I was glad for that. Glad to be relieved my role of the grieving widow so soon, glad to be sent far away and out of the line of suspicion. But it was a difficult time, a lonely and fearful time. It seemed whenever I closed my eyes I saw visions of interrogation, imprisonment, and my own execution.

I thought of Alex often during those months- not with any concern for what he might be enduring as a result of his actions on my behalf, I'm ashamed to say, but with longing. I missed him as much as I had during my marriage, but now my only distraction was work, and I threw myself into it with the little energy I had left. My job and supposed devotion to it were, after all, the reason for the entire mess.

I thought of Alex, but I didn't call him. After that night in his apartment we didn't speak for almost six months. I was afraid, afraid of so many things, and that fear kept me from contacting him until I was back in the States, living in Oron's house in the Hamptons, driving Oron's car, spending Oron's money, seeing ghosts in the halls and crying into my pillow every time I remembered my bed was empty.

Of course, even if he'd been in my bed I wasn't sure what I would have done with him. I couldn't bring myself to think of making love to him or anyone else.

I was drunk when I finally made the call. It seemed like I was drunk all the time that year. Alex was short with me and very unpleasant over the phone, but when I asked him to come over he said yes. I put on my best silk dress, fluffed my hair, and doused myself in perfume like some trashy Bette Davis impersonator in anticipation of his arrival.

I don't think it even occurred to me that he'd be angry, that he had been angry when I called him.

It was raining when he got there. It seems like everything with us happens in the rain. He was in black jeans and a black sweater, his hair shorter and neater than last time I'd seen him. He looked sleek and shiny and new, drenched as he was.

"Welcome to my humble abode," I slurred, wine glass in hand, wanting him on sight despite my long-standing disinterest in all things sexual. I beckoned him in and he followed me wordlessly to the dining room.

"S'nobody here," I told him. "I sent everybody away."

He stood at the head of that obscenely long table with twenty-six empty chairs, staring at me and waiting for...something. Probably an apology, or an explanation. I was too far gone to realize I owed him that.

I took a seat at the head of the table, gesturing for him to join me. He hovered uncertainly for a moment, and then sat down a few chairs away from me.

"I had chef make some food for us. You want some wine?" He shook his head, but I sloppily filled a glass for him and slid it down the table in his direction.

"How much have you had?" he asked coldly.

"How much?"

"To drink."

"Not a lot," I lied. Honestly, I had no idea how much, but it was obviously a lot. His face was turning blurry and I couldn't remember where the food was.

"Are you hungry, Alex? I'm hungry a little."

"No," he sighed. "I'm not hungry, Marita."

"You know this is all mine now?" I asked, giggling a little, staring up at the beautiful mural of stars and sky on the ceiling. "This humongous house, the servants, the cars, the pool and the guest house. I have a guest house! And the penthouse in the city, and the house in Tuscany. It's all mine, Alex. Can you believe it?" I dropped my head to look at him, but the motion made me dizzy and he turned into three people.

"It's very nice," he said. I felt like I was going to vomit. I couldn't think of anything else to say so I was quiet for a long time. I stared at my multiple visions of him, willing them to merge back into one Alex.

He broke the silence with, "I guess you've been busy?"

"Um, yes, very busy. Lots to do."

"You took a trip I suppose?"

"Yes, a trip. Work. You know."

"No, I didn't know. Where were you?"

"Oh, you know. Here and there. Overseas." I couldn't remember the countries.

"They don't have paper overseas? Or phones?"

I couldn't understand what he was asking me, but I finally managed to solidify his image and his face became clear. His jaw was tight and his eyes were nearly black with rage.

"Huh?" I asked, confused.

"Why didn't you write to me, or call me, or send me a fucking smoke signal for God's sake? Something!"

"Uh...I don't..." Yes, I was really on top of things. I'd use my inebriation as an excuse again, but even sober it hadn't occurred to me until that point that he'd want me to call, or that I should have.

"Marita, did you ever think about the fact that I'm the reason you've got this house and those cars and all the money and crap and everything else, and that maybe you should drop me a line once in awhile to let me know you're still alive?"

"Well, um...I...it would have looked funny. I mean, if anyone found out. I mean...."

"You mean you were scared someone would figure out our connection and that if I ended up getting caught you'd be going down with me."

I think that was partially the reason, as much as I hate to admit it. But more than that, I feared his rejection. It was only desperation that had driven me to him now.

"I...I didn't know if you'd want to hear from me. I didn't wanna push."

"Push? You think one phone call is pushing? Jesus Christ, you are so fucking fucked up, Marita!" He slammed his fist on the table and stood up, and I was terrified. He'd never raised a hand to me, and I knew he never would, but seeing him angry is always a little frightening. "I don't even think you realize how fucked up you are!"

"Don't yell at me," I whined, starting to cry. It was sickening. I'll always be grateful to him for not walking out at that moment. "I just...I thought you wanted to throw me out of your apartment that night."

"Well I didn't, did I?"

"Well...no, but..." I choked on a sob, wiped my wet face with my lovely silk sleeve. Everything was spinning again, and I just wanted to die right there. It was all such a mess. "I thought...I thought you hated me. I thought the...the thing...that you did...I thought that was all I'd get."

"You know, Marita, even if you did think that, even if it was true, I can't believe that..." He trailed off with a sigh and ran his hand over his face. "You're just so selfish sometimes. So spoiled," he said quietly.

He was right, obviously, and in a sudden flash of drunken insight- the kind that hits you when you've reached absolute bottom and it's too late to redeem yourself- I recognized what a sad waste I'd made of things. I recognized that there was only one man I'd ever love, and I treated him worse than my maid.

I was woefully unable to articulate that, and settled instead for wailing, "My life is a mess, Alex."

I buried my face in my hands and collapsed onto the tabletop, sobbing. Soon I felt him behind me, rubbing my back in awkward circles.

"Don't cry, Marita. You don't have to cry."

"I hate it here, Alex. It's so big and empty and lonely." And I miss you, I thought. There's no one here to argue with me or tell me when I'm being foolish or remind me what it's like to feel things.

"Why don't you move? This place is like a mausoleum."

So simple for him to say, just like everything else. His suggestions were always logical, they always sounded easy. I wanted to think that I'd changed, that I'd started living my life for myself, but really I was still in a world of appearances. It wouldn't have looked right for me to just move out, and I didn't think it would solve the essential problem anyway.

"Let's get out of here, Rita."

I looked up, slightly cheered by the soothing tone in his voice and the promise of going somewhere else. He handed me a linen napkin from the table and I wiped my face with it.

"Where would we go?"

"I dunno, anywhere. We can drive into the city and go back to my apartment."

"Your apartment?"

I was afraid to go to his apartment. It was so small. Where would I sleep? With him? I didn't know if I was ready for that. I couldn't believe he'd even want me there after everything.

"What's wrong with my apartment?"

"Nothing just...are you sure?"

"Yeah, go pack a bag or something."

So I did. I packed everything I'd need to live in Alex's apartment for a week, and forced myself to throw up before we left.

The drive to the city was long and slow in the rain, and I slept off the remnants of my drunkenness in the passenger seat of Alex's Trans Am.

We stopped for Thai takeout and ate straight from the containers, side by side, on Alex's ugly, brown, fold-out sofa. The apartment was as small and peculiar as I'd remembered it. Nothing matched and the walls were mint green and there was a bucket to catch raindrops from the leaky roof, but it was cozy and it wasn't my dreadful house.

"I am going to sell that place," I announced as we finished our dinner. "And I'm going to give you half the money."

"You don't have to do that."

"I want to." You shouldn't have to live this way, I almost said, but stopped myself, realizing he might be offended. "You deserve it, and I don't need it. I have too much money, Alex. I don't even know what to do with it."

"Well, I appreciate it, but I'm not sure I'm gonna need it. From what I understand FBI agents make a pretty decent salary."

"FBI?" I asked, perplexed. I knew he was graduating soon, that he'd have a Ph.D. and a whole world of opportunity ahead of him. He was going to be a professor or an author or a psychiatrist, not an FBI agent. It was just wrong somehow. It wasn't him. "What are you talking about, Alex? Why in the world would you pick that?"

"I didn't pick it. It's my assignment."

"Your what?"

He rolled his eyes, understandably irritated. "Remember, Rita? How we got here in the first place?"

I must have still been a little tipsy, because it took me a minute or two to put it all together. This was it, his debt to the smoking man. This was the price he was paying for the arrangement of Oron's death. This was the sacrifice he was making for me- his entire future.

"You have to go there because of me..."

"I have a debt to pay."

I put the soggy paper container on the coffee table, my appetite lost.

"You've sold him your soul. Because of me."

"It's not my soul. It's just my job."

I wonder how many times he's said those words to himself. I wonder if he still believes them, if he ever did.

He continued to eat with nonchalance which, in retrospect, must have been feigned. I knew he had dreams, plans, things he'd been working for during the past four years. Working so damn hard. I looked at his little desk, piled high with papers and books and fast food wrappers. He was still working hard, even though his future was now completely out of his control.

"I don't deserve you, Alex."

He shook his head slowly, and I couldn't tell if he agreed with me or not. Didn't really matter, and it still doesn't. It was the truth. I couldn't understand how he could even look me in the eye, how he could keep taking me back, helping me, again and again.

"Look, you don't need to blame yourself, Marita. I knew what I was doing when I made this decision."

"But what are you getting out of it? Nothing."

"Well, I was hoping to see you happy, but since you're as miserable as ever..." He shrugged, putting the remains of his dinner beside mine, and wrapped his arm around me. I let my head sag on his shoulder, feeling like the weight of the world had fallen upon us.

He wanted to see me happy. He may have expressed his desire in the most passive-aggressive manner possible, but I knew the sentiment was real. I resolved to enjoy his company while I had it, to let him see me as happy as I knew how to be. It would never be enough to repay him, but it might be a start.

"Why are you so nice to me?" I asked.

"I dunno. Maybe cause I don't have anybody else to be nice to."

It was at once the saddest and the most touching thing I'd ever heard.

"You're my friend, Rita. My best friend. My only friend."

My throat seemed to close in on itself, and I was afraid I'd start to cry again, but I didn't. I sat beside him, and soon we moved into the bedroom.

The room was small, but more pleasant than the rest of the apartment. The walls were a sedate brownish color, and he had some pretty red Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The futon was uncomfortable and lumpy, but the presence of his half naked body made it much more bearable than my bed at home.

We held each other tight and listened to the rain against his window in the dark. I thought that I wanted him to make love to me, but I was afraid to ask for it. It surprised me to even want it in the first place, and I sensed that if we attempted it I would fail him somehow. I wasn't sure if that part of my body was even functional anymore. I was relatively certain that Oron had ruined me forever.

I wondered how many other women Alex had been with since the last time we'd been together. It had been almost four years. I wasn't sure he'd even want me anymore. And if he did, I wasn't sure I could measure up to what he was probably accustomed to.

He held me like a friend that night, almost like a brother. It reminded me of nights we'd spent together as very small children, before I'd been so twisted and tarnished. It gave me hope, however small, that someday we might be able to regain our innocence. I had no idea that we'd only just begun to lose it.

xxxxxx

end chapter one

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