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The trees around them were birches, tall, slender, and silver in the moonlight, and Krycek was reminded inevitably, wistfully, of the birch-shingled churches of his childhood. The scales of wood bleached out silver in the rain and sun, leaving them a shining reminder of God's grace toward men.
Of course--he hadn't actually seen those churches until he came to live with his Grandfather. The churches and cathedrals around him when he was mortal were brick and stone, most of them, but painted bright as a woman's kerchief.
He hadn't seen those churches in centuries. He missed them.
"So you believe?" Mulder asked in the third hour of their stakeout.
"Oh, yes," Krycek said.
"I mean really believe--it's a hard nut to swallow for some people, that their own government could be hiding the truth from them."
Krycek blinked. "What? Oh--right, that. I believe in UFOs and I've--I've seen Bigfoot, so if there's no evidence--something must be going on. It's just logical."
"Wait, what did you think I was asking about if not UFOs?"
Krycek glanced at Mulder and back out the window again. "God."
"Aha," Mulder said. "You believe everything."
"No. Only what I've seen with my own eyes." He looked out the window, and when Mulder made only a small incredulous noise, Krycek looked back at him and smiled.
"You just suddenly got a lot more interesting, Agent Krycek," Mulder said.
"Well." He shrugged and worked out his story.
"When did you see Bigfoot?"
"I was younger..." It was 1778, when he'd been fighting under General Washington. They were short on everything from ammunition to boots to rations, and he went out regularly to forage what he could with Alec Newbury, another excellent hunter.
He'd still had a thick accent then: Medieval Russian salted with Elizabethan English and his grandfather's strangely-inflected Spanish. MacKenzie had a Boston accent that could slice cheese. Together they didn't bother speaking, merely grunted.
So it hadn't surprised him when he heard a grunt behind him. He'd turned, expecting to find Alec... "I was gathering pine cones--for the nuts--and I turned and it was just standing there. Looking at me."
"What did it look like?" Mulder asked, leaning forward.
"Like--" Like his girlfriend Linda in 1968. "Like my aunt Linda," he said, and gestured to his head. "Beehive."
"Domed skull?"
"Yeah, exactly. It was huge, about nine foot, and it had hair a few inches long like a gorilla."
"And the smell? Bigfoot is often said to smell like a skunk."
Krycek nodded. "I didn't notice at first because the wind was blowing the other way--which I guess is what drew it to me to begin with--but when the wind shifted it nearly scorched the hairs off my nose."
Mulder's eyes were intense as a puma's on the prowl. "What did it do?" he asked.
"Well--I was a little startled. All I could think to do was offer it my basket of pine cones." He'd held it before him, shocked into dumbness, and the beast had plucked a cone delicately from the basket and crunched it between its massive teeth. "It gave me a rabbit in return. Fair trade, I guess."
More than fair trade. Even a scrawny winter rabbit was better eating than a few paltry pine nuts.
"Fascinating. It didn't see you as a threat at all?"
"It didn't seem to. One skinny kid, no big deal. It patted me on the head and walked away. My hair smelled like skunk when I got back to my friend--he made me jump in the creek before bed."
"How did it walk? Was it apelike or manlike? How were the limb proportions? Did it seem intelligent, or more like an animal? And--did you ever report this? Are you in the X-Files?" His head tilted like a bird, trying to get a better look at him, as if with the right angle he could see into Krycek's soul.
"I didn't report it," Krycek said, "I didn't think there was anything to report. It seemed--not quite like a man, but not really like an animal either."
"Missing link," Mulder said.
"Maybe." More like the spirit creatures he'd seen in England--the red-eyed dog that had chased him three miles until he jumped a creek and it disappeared. His horse was shaking and frothed with sweat afterwards; a week later it went down and died within the day. The Bigfoot had the same spine-prickling feeling of unreality as that dog.
If Mulder knew the extent of Krycek's experience, his knowledge, his *lifeline*--he'd be on him like a red hawk on a field mouse.
"So you're a believer in Bigfoot because he gave you a rabbit," Mulder said, "and you're a believer in God because... what, he gave you a fish?"
Krycek shook his head, wishing he hadn't mentioned that. Of *course* when Mulder spoke of belief he was talking about UFOs, about spirit creatures and all the things Krycek had taken for granted his entire life, not the faith that had troubled him for as long. "I'd rather not talk about it."
"Why?"
"It's personal."
"Come on, Alex--we're bonding! Exchange of personal information is part of the game."
Krycek glanced at him again, wishing he could take a walk. Mulder was leaning over the parking brake right into his personal space. He hadn't... quite... repressed his memories of his years as a lab rat, and Mulder's focus was--
He shook it off. He had a job to do. "So if we're *exchanging* this information, you go first," he said, hoping to make Mulder back off a little.
Mulder didn't back off. "I don't believe in God because a merciful God would never allow my sister to be stolen from her family and never returned. I do believe in aliens due to the same event. Everyone knows that--you said it yourself. So how about you, Alex?"
Krycek pressed against the car door as subtly as he could manage. "What *about* me?"
And Mulder leaned back, finally, letting Krycek breathe. Letting his head clear. Letting him realize that he had fucked up, probably.
Get close to Mulder. Make him trust you. Keep an eye on him. Keep an eye on who he talks to. Keep an eye on what he's doing.
He couldn't do that while hiding from Mulder. He made himself relax--and Mulder had this smug little smile on his face, like he *knew* something. "Kind of jumpy, aren't you?" Mulder said. "Got something to hide?"
"Just not a fan of your cologne," Krycek said.
Mulder laughed. "Well, next time I go shopping, you can come with. Pick a new one out. Get our nails done. It'll be fun."
Krycek ran his hand through his hair, realizing too late that this would leave him irreparably mussed. Great. On top of everything else, now he looked seventeen. "Yeah, I could use a new black dress."
Mulder laughed again. Reached in his pocket and--oh, God, the sunflower seeds. Mulder rolled the window down, letting in the muggy night air, and munched through ten-odd of the wretched things before speaking again. "So. Healthy young Midwestern guy... Lutheran?"
Krycek snorted. "You couldn't be wronger." Suddenly--wondering if his religion was in his files--but it wasn't, so telling the truth wasn't going to compromise this identity.
"Oh? Buddhist?"
"I guess you could be wronger."
Mulder looked him over slowly. "Bad suit... Mormon?"
How was this a bad suit? It was how men dressed these days. "No."
"Central European name... immigrant family? Orthodox?"
"I'm an American," he said sharply, *knowing* that he shouldn't let Mulder provoke him--but he fought for this country before it *was* a country and he had been a citizen since the first *minute* it existed.
Mulder chewed another sunflower seed. "You've got an interesting set of issues, Alex Krycek."
"Yes, I'm Russian Orthodox. And you try--" Try being a kid with accented parents in Reagan's America, he was about to say, but it was out of character, so he waved his hand instead. "Do you really think we're going to see anything tonight?"
"Clumsy segue."
Krycek looked away, out the window; he blew his breath upwards, trying to stir his sticky hair from his forehead. If he could just... shoot this asshole, it would be so much easier, but hew knew--unofficially--that the Smoker had a standing order that Mulder's life be preserved at *all* cost. Any cost. And the Smoker knew how to kill an Immortal. "I believe in what we're doing, Mulder. Why does it matter what religion I am?"
"I like to know who I'm sitting next to."
"Alex Krycek, FBI agent, Cancer, born on the fourth of July, 1969, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at Allegheny General Hospital. I don't know how much I weighed but I'm sure you can look it up."
"You, not your vital statistics. Were you really born on the fourth of July?" Mulder said.
Krycek rubbed his hand through his hair again, no longer caring how rumpled he looked. The humidity in the air was infiltrating his suit; he felt sticky all over, although it wasn't hot. "My mother purposefully held off on the final contractions until after midnight. So yes, I was born at 12:05 AM, July fourth."
"How patriotic."
"She loved this country."
"Czech, right?"
"The name is Czech."
"The name is Czech, but you're American. I heard you the first time."
"Right." In fact there was an entire history, the envy of any Immortal, meticulously documented for any nosy party. His father's side of the family was Czech originally but lived in Russia, his mother was Russian through and through. They moved to the States to join her family.
Krycek even had a rental history. It was beautiful.
He hoped he could stay on the Smoker's good side. Power like that was something a man like him didn't come across all that often. "Can you roll up the window?" he asked.
Mulder spit more shells out onto the ground. "In a minute."
Prerogative of the senior agent. Krycek wrestled out of his suit jacket and instantly regretted it; the breeze from the window chilled his damp shirt. The breeze carried the sound of leaves, a rustle of some small animal, the hoot of an owl. Bark of a dog in the distance--a Labrador or some other large breed, from the depth.
The dog barked again, but this time pitched even lower. Very big dog. Very *very*--"Mulder, do you hear that?"
"What?" Mulder sat up straight.
"That dog sounds odd."
Mulder shoved the bag of seeds into his pocket. "Full moon lasts for three days," he said.
"Full moon--you're not suggesting werewolves?"
"Werewolf, singular, and look at the facts. Dead dogs every month for the past six months, which is exactly when--"
"Quiet," Krycek broke in. The hair on the back of his neck was standing on end.
Mulder raised his eyebrows but stayed quiet.
"Roll up your window. Start the car." He swallowed. "Please."
Mulder hit the button. "You think it's here? Why? Do you hear something?"
He'd seen strange things all his life. *All* his life. After a while, you learned what it felt like. "I just--hear something."
"Let's go find out what it is," Mulder said, and he opened the car door.
"Mulder--!" Krycek slipped out after him. He had his jacket in one hand and his gun in the other. "Mulder, what are you doing?"
"Investigating. You can stay in the car if you're afraid of the dark." Grinning.
Eyes behind him, across the road, yellow and fixed on Mulder's back. He ran the few steps toward Mulder; took the man's shoulder and pointed his gun at the eyes as they blinked out. He fired anyway, once into the blackness.
"What? What did you see?" Mulder spun, searching, obviously not seeing. "Don't shoot it!"
"Mulder--just get in the car and let's get out of here!"
"Go right ahead." And Mulder ran across the road.
"God's *wounds*," Krycek growled under his breath, and followed him.
Every *other* creature on the planet had a sense for its own preservation, but not Mulder, who was jogging along the side of the road, scanning the underbrush. "You've got some kind of feel for this thing, right?" Mulder said. "Do you think you were ever abducted by aliens? Did you feel differently after encountering the Bigfoot?"
"What? No! I could hear it, and then I saw it. No ESP involved."
"I didn't hear anything."
"Sunflower seeds." Krycek heard a crackle and whirled, but saw nothing. "Mulder--do you have a death wish or are you just stubborn?"
"I prefer to call it a quest." Mulder wrestled with something in his pocket--a flashlight.
Krycek stilled his arm. "Turn that on and we'll be blind again."
"We're blind now."
"I'm not."
"Good eyes."
"20/10." He wrapped his jacket around his left arm as padding, just in case. The instinct of hunting was coming back to him slowly. He opened himself to the scents on the air: earth, gas, asphalt, the rich green smell of the leaves, the sharper smell of the thorny bushes, the slight memory of skunk, a hint of musk--
A stronger whiff of musk. Krycek licked his lip and faced into the wind.
Eyes. Yellow eyes. "I see it," Mulder murmured over his shoulder.
Smell of blood. He'd hit it. He pointed his gun at the eyes again, and heard Mulder cock his gun beside him.
The eyes blinked out. Krycek backed up and for once Mulder went with him, back toward the car. Until, of course, he decided to scamper over to the side, and Krycek remembered just how satisfying it was to curse in Welsh.
The wolf hit him from the side. He heard gunshots--he hoped Mulder was alive and not a target--he guarded his throat with his padded arm. If he died in front of Mulder, it was all over, and that gave him strength to jerk his right arm from under the wolf's oddly clutching paw and shoot the creature in the belly.
It gave a pained, manlike cry. Krycek shot it again. It shook its head, ripping his jacket and driving its teeth into his arm; its drool strung over his neck and soaked the collar of his shirt.
Another shot. Not from his gun. The wolf let go and leapt off him; he rolled over, trying to keep it on himself and off Mulder, but he struck his head on the pavement and saw stars for a moment. He heard a cry from Mulder.
Then it was quiet.
Krycek breathed deeply, feeling hot blood ooze across his stomach and healing pain lance through his arm. Bugger. Bugger.
He wasn't going to become a werewolf, was he?
When his head stopped swimming he shoved up onto one elbow to look at Mulder--who, as it turned out, was unconscious.
Krycek looked down at his arm, crackling with Quickening energy. "You sleep through all the best parts," he murmured, and rolled to his feet to get another shirt.
*
Mulder woke up in the back of the car. His head felt like... nuclear bomb, he thought weakly. He groaned.
"We're going to the hospital," Krycek said. "You'll be okay."
"You hurt?" he mumbled.
"Scratches. I'm fine. I had my arm wrapped up in my coat."
"We get the werewolf?"
"Whatever it was, it's long gone."
"Better... keep watch. Catch it." Make a posse. Set up a perimeter. Maybe some big baited cages like the Humane Society used.
"is there anything I can say that'll make you give up and go home?"
"No."
"Yeah," Krycek sighed, "then I'll get right on that. Just let me get some sleep, okay?"
"Sure," Mulder said, full of warm feeling.
End.