The Return (5/12)
by charvill

Email: charityharvill@yahoo.com 
Genre: MSR 
Spoilers: Post-IWTB
Summary: There are some things you just can't escape.


I sift through the piles of papers on my desk, wondering when
my life turned into such a monotonous, boring sack of bullshit.

"Wow, who did you have to sleep with to get digs like this?"

My head snaps up at the voice that has haunted my nightmares
for the last ten years of my life. There's no fucking way... 

"Oh, Walter, don't act so surprised. You worked with the X-
Files team long enough to know that not everything you see can
be believed," says the man who I know should, by all accounts,
be dead and roasting in a pit of fire.

I am immediately crossing the room to grab him by the throat,
thrusting him backwards. His head --- the one I put a bullet in
eight years before --- hits the wall with a sickening thud, but he
continues smirking at me.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Krycek?" I growl. 

"Well, I'd be glad to answer that, but I'm finding it a little
difficult to speak with your hand around my windpipe." I let go
without stepping back. "Thank you. It seems that a friend of
ours is very sick and needs our help."

Scully. The cancer. Shit. "How the hell do you know about
that?"

He smiles again and I find myself wishing I hadn't left my Sig
in the desk drawer. "You're asking the wrong questions,
Walter. Try again."

I take a deep breath, thinking of my former agent and what this
man might have over her. I decide that kicking his ass can wait.
"How are you proposing we," my throat constricts at using that
term with whatever "he" is, "do that?"

"I know what can cure her."

"You're full of shit," I respond, calling his bluff. I've played this
game too many times to have one pulled over on me again. "If
there was a way to get rid of this thing for good, she would
have already found it."

"Well, that's debatable." He pushes past me to take a seat in my
chair and props his feet on the desk. The vein on my forehead
begins pulsating. "I mean, if she was aware of what I know
then she probably wouldn't be in this position right now." 

"Cut the cryptic bullshit. I assume you came back from the
dead for a reason, so spit it out already."

He laughs so hard that I hope for a second the movement might
tip my chair backwards and throw him onto the ground.
Instead, he gracefully pulls a sheet of paper from his coat
pocket.

"Wanna know what this is?"

"You tell me."

Pushing himself to his feet, he says, "It's good to see that you
haven't lost your tenacity, Skinner. Oh excuse me," --- he puts
his hands up, as if in apology --- "Deputy Director Skinner."

"Did you come back from the dead just to congratulate me,
Krycek?"

He shakes his head. "If you only knew..."

"Apparently," I retort, my tone dripping sarcasm. I am slowly
losing my last bit of patience. "The paper?"

"Ah, yes. Here." He hands it over and I pause --- paranoia
getting the best of me --- before taking it from him.

On the yellow legal paper, an address is scrawled. One that I
haven't seen in seven years and fervently prayed would never
be known by any associate of mine --- especially one such as
this. I lunge for him, but he is too quick and I'm left clutching
my fists around the air he recently vacated.

"How did you get this?"

"Don't worry," he says, side-stepping the question once again.
"The boy is completely safe."

Despite the air-conditioning in the room that is keeping the
entire building at a pleasant seventy-four degrees, my body is
sweltering; rivulets of sweat run down my brow, behind my
glasses, and into my eyes. I blink twice to clear the burning
sensation they bring and wait, knowing that *he* knows he
now has me by the balls.

"Like I said before, I know exactly what can make Scully's
cancer go away. Permanently."

"And the address?"

"Let's just say I need you to arrange a reunion."

A thousand alarms sound in the back of my mind. "So, why not
give this directly to her?"

"Well, she did give the boy away, am I right?"

"To protect him," I argue. The irony ---knowing the danger the
boy may now be in --- rips a hole through my chest.

"Not the smartest move, in my opinion. I wonder what Daddy
would have done if he'd been there?" He stops when my head
snaps up to stare daggers through him. "But, as I was saying
before so rudely interrupted, this can all be fixed. With your
help, of course."

A chill courses down my spine. "What do you stand to gain
from all this?"

"Tsk, tsk, Deputy Director" he rebukes, waving his finger back
and forth. "A man in your position knows better than to ask
things like that."

And he is right. But that has never stopped me before, and it
isn't going to now. "I need some assurance from you that no
harm will come to the boy --- or Scully or Mulder, for that
matter --- if I make this happen."

He takes a step towards me, his eyes narrowing. "You have two
options, Deputy Director: bring the boy to Scully and she lives,
or refuse and she dies."

Hatred for a world that would be so cruel and unjust fills me as
I watch him stroll over to the side door of my office. He comes
to a halt just as he reaches for the handle and without turning
around says, "and if you are thinking about sending the FBI out
to protect or move him into a safe house, then you should know
that I've already planned for such course of action. Let's just say
it won't be pretty."

And, just like that, he was gone.


END PART 5/?

Author's Note: Don't forget that it was CC who once
commented in an interview "No one ever truly dies on the
XF" or something along those lines, lol