Chapter 11-If You’re Gone
“I think you’re so mean
I think we could try
I think I could need
This in my life
I think I’m just scared
I think too much
I know-this is wrong-”

Skinner sat down on the porch steps and put his head in his hands, exhausted tears threatening.

Mulder was dying—he was sure of it.

After an all night vigil that included countless sponge baths, more painkillers and applying fresh bandages when Mulder ripped his off in a feverish delirium, Skinner felt like he’d accomplished nothing. His lover was unconscious again—he didn’t think it could be called just sleeping—

In between Mulder’s bouts of waking insanity, Skinner had managed to get his kit unpacked, get the generator running, and get some food into himself. He’d tried giving Mulder some broth that he made with freeze dried soup mix and hot water, and only succeeded in making the man vomit all over the comforter.

He’d changed the bedding, murmured a constant litany of prayers, and listened to Mulder argue with a dead man.

And now here it was, the dawning of a new day, and the sun was glorious coming up over the mountains, there was a cool breeze wafting the scent of green growing things around him, and birds sang cheerily from high in the trees.

And Mulder was dying.

He’d have to take him into town. His tired mind immediately began planning the route, how to get that damned tree out of the way, finding a hospital, getting around any unanswerable questions, and a million other things, so that he didn’t register the shadow that fell over him, nor did he notice the source of said shadow until a rough, familiar voice said:

“Get up!”

Skinner flinched at the hard tap on his hurt arm. His head came up with a groan and he reached for his gun before remembering that he’d left it in the cabin.

“I said get up!” Alex Krycek demanded with another hard punch. “We don’t have much time.”

“What the hell--?” Skinner recoiled from the vision of the intense dark haired man, looking much as he had the last time he’d seen him. He was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, with a leather jacket on but unzipped. Black gloves encased his hands, but as Skinner watched him remove them, he noticed that the left arm, which had hung neutrally by his side when he’d seen him last, was moving easily and both hands were clenching into fists.

Skinner knew he had to be dreaming.

He shook his head and was on the verge of pinching himself when Krycek hit him again, harder, nearly toppling him over. Sudden reality crashed down on him and he jumped up from the step, crying out his lover’s name.

“Mulder!”

“He’s alive…for now…”Krycek told him, sounding almost compassionate, and Skinner closed his eyes at the sound, trying desperately to wake up. He had to be sleeping, having a nightmare. He’d killed Alex Krycek another lifetime ago. He’d pulled the trigger once, twice, three times…saved Mulder…saved himself…No, this was definitely a nightmare. Alex Krycek couldn’t be here, grinning wolfishly (and charmingly, some part of his mind insisted) at him.

“Hey, Walter, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” he said. “I’m here to help you—to help Mulder.”

“Fuck you.” Skinner turned away from him, intent on going back into the cabin and figuring out the best way to get Mulder down the mountain. The new and improved, two-armed dream Krycek was also psychic, apparently, and he stopped Skinner cold with his next words.

“You can’t take him down,” he said. 

“He’s dying!” Skinner snarled back.

“If you take him away from here, they’ll find him, and then he’s dead for sure.” Krycek snapped.

Skinner knew he shouldn’t turn around, that he shouldn’t answer. He knew that this was just an apparition, nothing more than his own exhausted worry given a new form.

He turned anyway. “You idiot!” he exclaimed, “I can’t just sit here and—“

Krycek slapped him, cutting the words off in mid sentence. “Boo-fucking-hoo,” he growled, his tone mocking. “I can’t believe what a damned baby you’re being about this, Walter.” Now there was mean good humor in his words, and Skinner remembered that cold yet sexy smile, just as he remembered that old threat: “Push of a button, Walter…”

Krycek was still talking. “Where’s that surly bastard who cuffed my ass to his balcony so long ago? Or has Mulder got you completely pussy-whipped?” This last said with a contemptuous sneer.

With a roar, Skinner came off the porch steps, suddenly not caring if he was talking to a man, a ghost or his own sleep-deprived vapors. He was determined to choke the life out of Alex Krycek in any form.

He landed on the ground with a startled grunt as air was forced from his lungs, and he groaned as his head hit something on the gravel and weed choked land hard enough to make him see stars. He was alone.

He shook his head and took a swipe at his scalp with a hand, discovered blood and groaned again. Dizzily he staggered to his feet, looked around hard, found no one, and remembered Mulder. He stumbled up the steps, letting dark thoughts of insanity and eating bullets bounce around in his mind like moths off of a light bulb, and wondered if he’d make it back to Mulder’s side.

Now Krycek was inside the house, and Skinner came to a sudden halt at the sight of the dark haired young man lounging insolently on the couch in the living room. If he’d needed any more proof of insanity, he’d found it.

“I don’t know what kind of game this is, Krycek,” he tried for a growl, got a tired sigh instead. “And frankly, I don’t care—not about you, or your ghost, or even about myself. Just do whatever the hell you’re here to do, but stay out of my way--I won’t let you let Mulder die.”

“Mulder doesn’t know how lucky he is,” Krycek mused, and Skinner saw the oddest expression cross the man’s face. Remorse, maybe. Fear, or anger. He wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know.

Krycek stood easily, smoothed out an invisible crease in his jeans, and the cynical smile was back on his face. The smile that had always made Skinner want to simultaneously hit him and kiss him. “Well, Walter, my friend,” he said, “this is where it gets tricky.” He moved towards him, and Skinner suddenly felt like his feet were cemented to the floor. When Krycek reached out a hand to him, he could only flinch as cold fingers brushed his cheek. “Mulder can’t be moved, and any doctor’s you might find around here wouldn’t know how to help him anyway.” From a jacket pocket, Krycek pulled out a small vial of amber liquid. “And so, you’re going to have to trust me.”

Skinner missed Krycek’s last words, so transfixed was he by the tiny bottle in the man’s hand. “Anti-virals?” he whispered wonderingly, feeling something too great to be called relief, and wondering if he might faint from it. His fingers twitched, and he leaned forward.

Krycek noticed immediately, and put the vial back in his pocket.

Skinner groaned aloud and wondered if he could risk jumping Krycek for the medicine.

“Don’t be an ass!” Krycek barked at him, easily reading the intent in Skinner’s dark eyes. “I told you I was here to help Mulder. I don’t think letting him die would be doing him any favors.”

“No shit.” This was mumbled quietly, but loud enough to make Krycek smile.

“Listen up, now, Walter. This is where you come in.” The grin disappeared for a moment, and then came back just as toothy and twice as nasty. “First of all, clean yourself up—you look like shit.”  Before Skinner could do more than splutter an objection, Krycek’s voice overrode him. “There’s plenty of hot water now. The generator’s good to go—“ In case Skinner doubted him, he reached over and flicked on a small lamp near the couch.

“What—why—why are you doing this, Krycek?” Skinner felt himself fighting an inner battle with a myriad of emotions: desire for Mulder, anger and confusion at Krycek, dull curiosity at the man’s existence in the first place, rage at himself for his own feelings of helplessness, and overlying it all, a deep exhaustion that almost made him want to weep.

Krycek gave him his moment, and then when he saw that threatening anger was winning the war in Skinner’s eyes, he spoke again, this time sounding soft, almost thoughtful. “Did I say Mulder was lucky? Well, my friend, so are you.”

“Krycek…” Skinner meant it as a warning growl—it came out as an almost defeated sigh.

Krycek gave him a sharp look, and then a frown, and then before Skinner could react, he pulled the older man into his arms, and dragged his head down onto a shoulder.

Skinner struggled briefly, found out just how strong Alex Krycek really was, and gave up, gave in, let all the tension, fear, anguish—all of it—well up and out of him in a great sigh and a barely bit-back sob.

Krycek’s hand was cold on his head, stroking softly, and Skinner just had time to think, ‘so this is insanity,’ and then he was being pushed away. Now he struggled again, this time to stay.

“Now, Walter, go—clean up, let go…” As he spoke, Krycek brushed away the one tear that had slipped free. “I’ll make sure he stays alive for you.” The cynical grin returned, but Skinner thought he saw something wistful in it. “If he dies, you have my permission to shoot me again.”

Skinner couldn’t find a response for that and Krycek shoved him towards the bathroom. After a stumbling start, he found his legs moving him more naturally. But at the washroom door, he turned, all strength and cold dark eyes, and said, “you don’t want to fuck with me, Krycek.”

“You got that right.” Krycek ended the conversation simply by walking out of the room.

In the bathroom, Skinner found new plumbing, clean towels, fresh soap, and something that felt like hope.

In the bedroom, Krycek stood beside the bed, impassively watching Mulder die.

Mulder writhed sluggishly under the covers, while sweat poured off his body and a pitiful groaning sound came out of him.

Pressing his fingers to Mulder’s throat, Krycek found a pulse, and felt it jumping and fluttering erratically under his fingertips.

“You stubborn son-of-a-bitch,” he muttered wonderingly. He glanced out the door—he could hear water running—and added, “you deserve each other.” Something in his tone suggested that this wasn’t the insult it appeared to be.

Not bothering to try and wake the unconscious man, Krycek found the vial in his pocket and thumbed off the cap, while with the other hand he gripped Mulder’s jaw and squeezed hard, forcing his mouth open.

With an almost deliberate lack of compassion, he tipped the contents of the bottle into Mulder’s mouth, and then covered both mouth and nose with his hand, thus keeping the medicine in until lack of air from his nose made Mulder swallow in order to breathe.

When he was satisfied that the drugs were inside the man, Krycek stepped back, threw the empty vial to the floor and gave Mulder a long lingering look, a look that said he remembered a younger man, a man who had not yet come to hate him, a man that looked damned good in a Speedo.  He still looked good to him.

He made a disgusted sound and turned abruptly, not looking back.

When Skinner came out of the bathroom, clean and dressed, he found no sign of Alex Krycek, but four more vials identical to the first one stood like tiny sentinels on the coffee table, along with a hastily scrawled note of instruction.