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Restitution (2/4) (Chapters 3+4)
Deslea R. Judd
Copyright 2003
RATING: R.
DISCLAIMER: Characters not mine. Interpretation mine.
ARCHIVE: Sure, just keep my name and headers.
SPOILERS/TIMEFRAME: Herrenvolk to The Truth.
CATEGORY/KEYWORDS: Angst, romance, mythfic, resfic, Skamperfic,
Krycek/Marita.
SUMMARY: Sometimes, to face the future, you have to face the
past.
CONTENT WARNING: This work includes references to rape.
MORE FIC: http://fiction.deslea.com
FEEDBACK: Love the stuff. deslea@deslea.com.
AWARDS/ELIGIBILITY: Spooky Awards 2003 eligible. Recommended at
Museans and Bright Shiny Objects.
THREE
They arrive at Marita's apartment in Maryland that evening.
"Why do you keep this place?" he wonders, glancing around while
she locks and chains the door. "Doesn't look like you've been
here in years."
"I don't use it often," she concedes, throwing her keys and
wallet on the hall table. "The odd night here and there, when I
have to see Spender. That's all. I haven't really lived in since
you were here." She walks past him, into the lounge room. "Your
weights are still here, if you want them."
"Am I that out of condition?" he wonders.
"You know what I mean. I've made an appointment with your
specialist. You'll need a new socket, at least. He can see you
tomorrow. The orthotist has cleared his schedule. He thinks he
can give us twenty-four hour turnaround."
He follows her in. Makes a grunting sound that she thinks is his
version of thanks.
She drags a drop-sheet off the lounge and folds it up. Dumps it
unceremoniously on the floor. He follows suit with the chairs and
table. He drops down onto the lounge, watching her throw open the
windows. She stands there, breathing the cool night air.
"This place isn't all that secure," he says. "Mulder has the
address."
"Does he?" she says. Frowns.
"Yeah. He got it from the Federal Employee Database. Same time
as he got the New York one. I saw him write it down."
She shrugs. "By the time he knows we're on the scene again,
we'll be gone. It'll be fine."
"Okay."
"You didn't tell me that when we were here last time."
"Didn't have the heart, after the trouble you went to. And I
didn't care too much anyway."
Well, that makes sense. She turns away from the window to face
him. "Do you want to get some dinner?"
He shakes his head. "I'll pass. You eat, though."
"Cramps?"
A loose thread on his jacket seems to capture his attention.
"It's just going to take a while to get used to food again."
"I shopped before I flew out. There are protein shakes in the
refrigerator."
He grimaces. "You think of everything."
"You make that sound like a bad thing."
"Sorry," he says. "It's this place. Mixed feelings."
She swallows down the hurt that rises in her throat. She tries
to convince herself that he can't be expected to feel the way she
does about that time, but she's only partly successful.
Perhaps he sees her conflict in her face, because he says,
"Marita, I didn't mean it like that."
"I knew what you meant. It's okay."
"It was hard for me. Even with you here."
"I know."
"It doesn't mean it wasn't special."
She hates hearing him defend himself to her. "Alex, can we stop
talking about this?"
"All right. Are you going to eat?" He sounds mildly annoyed.
She shakes her head. Thinks about arguing with him, but lets it
pass.
"Do you want to get an early night, then?"
She shrugs. "Fine."
They go to her bedroom, neither of them in particularly good
temper, but the ripple of tension fades as they undress. They
undress matter-of-factly, and separately. Not like lovers. Like
long-married spouses.
They get into bed in silence, and he puts his head on her
shoulder, his arm across her body. It comes to an abrupt end near
her navel. She strokes it, tracing her palm over it, listening to
the rain on the window. Feels slight pressure beneath her breast
when he instinctively tries to draw her closer with the limb he
no longer possesses.
"Why did you do it?" he murmurs against her neck.
"Do what?"
"Come and get me. Back then, I mean."
"Don't know. I just needed to."
She doesn't know, but she can guess. She loved him, even then.
Of course she did.
"How did you know?" he wonders. "I never did ask you."
"Peskow told me." The shock, the terrible anguish of that night
has eased with the passage of time, and she smiles a little in
the dark. "He called you my young man."
She can hear the smirk in his voice. "Thank God for ageing
assassins with a soft spot for young love."
"You're glad I came, then? Despite everything?"
"God, Marita. Do you need to ask?"
She shrugs. Doesn't answer.
Neither does he. But he presses her again, and she knows the
answer anyway.
***
Peskow scared the hell out of her.
She never felt completely safe in the New York apartment after
what they did to her there, and she would have moved if she'd
thought it would help. But they would still have known where she
was, and she gained a certain grim satisfaction from knowing they
hadn't driven her from her home.
But still, she was easily shaken. She was sensitive to the
comings and goings of her neighbours. She learned to identify
them by their paces. Variations in their movements or their
routine could leave her held tight and trembling by the door
until she was sure the intruder had moved on. Her occasional,
unwelcome visitors did nothing to alleviate her brittle nerves.
Fox Mulder came a few days before Peskow. She's proud of the way
she handled herself. She believes even now that he had no idea
how badly he scared her. She even touched him when she had to
wake him, and forced herself not to draw back when he jolted
awake. She took her time moving away from him, hoping she looked
calm and imposing. She flaunted her power, the speed with which
she could get him the documents he needed, and she told him never
to call on her at home again. And he never did.
So she was already on edge when Peskow knocked at her door. For
a long moment, she held his gaze through the gap in the door.
Wondering if she, too, was to be part of the Russian cleanup. She
didn't think so, but why else would he be here?
Perhaps he saw something of her fear in her features. "Marita,
please."
She sighed. Nodded. She closed the door and grabbed her gun from
the hallstand. Put it in her pocket. Its weight was comforting
against her hip.
She unchained the door, opened it, and let him pass.
He sat down on her couch without asking. Normally, she would
have been affronted, but it was a relief, not having to deal with
the social niceties. He looked up at her. His old, lined face was
kind.
"Please come and sit with me, Marita."
She stood there, hugging herself and frowning for a moment
before she complied. "What is it, Vassily?"
"It is about your young man."
"You mean Alex?" she said. "What is it?"
"I try to talk to him on the telephone. They tell me there was
an accident," he said. She looked down at his wrinkled hand on
hers. She barely registered his words. This man she'd thought was
here to kill her was patting her as though she were a frightened
child. It was surreal.
"An accident?" she said. Her first, nightmarish thought was that
Alex was dead, but she didn't really believe it. Not Alex. "He
isn't-"
"No. But he is badly hurt. I thought you would want to know."
"Why, yes," she said vaguely, "yes." A little shaken by how
strongly it affected her. Her first instinct was to go to him, to
be with him, but that was absurd. Yes, he had helped her, but
still. Hell, he would probably be well before she even got there.
"How bad is he?"
"Marita, his arm is gone. It's - I do not know the word -"
"Gone?" she echoed. "I don't-" and then she broke off.
Horrified. She had heard of this in the resistance, but she
hadn't believed it. No-one could be driven to that - could they?
She stared at him. Breathing hard and fast. Shivering all over.
"Amputirovano?" she whispered. "Amputated?"
"Yes," he said. "I am sorry."
She sat forward. Hands over her mouth. Fighting down -
something. Something hard and fierce. Not tears, exactly.
Maybe screams of rage.
"They take so much," she whispered. "So much."
She felt paper. Felt it being pressed into her hand. She took it
mechanically.
"His coordinates, Marita."
She stared down at it. "I should go there," she said. "Shouldn't
I." It wasn't a question.
His hand closed on her shoulder. "Good luck, Marita."
She nodded. "Thank you," she said. Halting. Numb.
She was still staring at the piece of paper when he let himself
out.
***
She wept a lot on the flight to Krasnoyarsk.
She drew stares, clearly Western woman with her fashionable
clothes and her tear-streaked face. The flight from there to
Tunguska was easier; she pulled some strings and took a charter
helicopter. She landed in the grounds of the gulag unannounced,
and it was only later that it occurred to her that she was lucky
not to be shot on sight.
As it happened, however, someone knew she was coming. That was
Peskow's handiwork, she supposed. Her demands to see Alex were
met with cooperation, and if she offended them with her fierce
desperation, they didn't show it. They were kind to her, at least
by the standards they lived with.
"He is delirious," one of the guards told her in stilted
English, leading her to the infirmary. "The stump, it is
infected."
"What happened?" she demanded in his own language.
"There was a fight with the American he brought here," he said,
pausing to search through his keys. "The American stole a truck
and got away. He took Comrade Krycek with him. We found him in
the woods like this the next day." He glanced over his shoulder,
as though fearing being overheard. "There are peasants, you see.
They do not understand. We only test the criminal, but they are
afraid. So they cut off their arm." He said regretfully, "We
think they meant to help him."
She held her head in her hand for a long moment. Swallowing
tears. "Mulder," she said bitterly, looking back up at him. "It's
always Mulder, one way or another."
He unlocked the door, opened it, and let her pass. "I do not
understand."
"The American you speak of," she said as he locked it again
behind them. "He leaves a lot of bodies behind him, that's all."
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I want to take
Comrade Krycek back to America for treatment. Will your superiors
object?"
"Nyet. They would prefer it. We do not have the facilities to
care for him."
"But he'll still have a place here when he returns?"
"Yes. We are not like the people you work for. We keep our
word," he said severely. She flushed, accepting the rebuke. He
nodded to a pair of double doors up ahead. "Would you like to see
him now?"
Marita indicated that she would, and the guard took his leave of
her. She took a deep breath, and then she went through the doors
into the makeshift infirmary.
The sound of her footsteps reverberated in her ears.
She had walked through Chechen battlefields at twenty-one,
through the bodies of the fallen. Some of them were people in her
own corps. She hadn't cried then, nor for a long time after
coming home. She told herself she wouldn't cry now. And she
didn't, but when she drew aside the sheet to reveal his butchered
stump, she sank down shaking onto the bed.
"Oh, Alex," she whispered.
He opened his eyes. Unbelievably, he smiled.
"You're sitting on my arm," he said. He sounded dazed.
"I'm not-" she glanced down. She was sitting where his arm
should have been. Looked back up at his vacant face. Wondered
whether it was delirium, or phantom pain, or both. "Sorry."
"S'okay. They took it, you know."
"Yeah," she whispered. "I know."
He closed his eyes once more.
She swallowed hard. "Alex?" she said, passing her hand over his
forehead. It was hot. Too hot.
"Hmm?"
"I'm going to take you back to America. You can still come here
when you're better," she said, stroking his cheek with the back
of her hand.
"I've missed you, Marita," he mumbled.
She smiled in spite of herself. Kissed his forehead. And then
she brought him home.
***
He cried when they wheeled him off to surgery.
She's seen him shed tears, but the surgery was the only time she
saw him really cry. But his residual limb was too scarred, too
misshapen, too deprived of a blood supply to heal. If he ever
hoped for a prosthetic, a second amputation was the only way.
For three days, he didn't speak to her. Just sat there, staring
dully at the wall. She didn't try to draw him out. She just
stayed by his side, reading and sleeping and watching TV, ready
to be there when he wanted her.
Finally, he did.
"Marita?"
She was nearly asleep on the little fold-out bed, but she
blinked against the dim fluorescent light and sat up.
"Yeah?"
He watched her. Didn't speak. Finally leaned over and took a
lock of her hair between his fingertips.
"Nothing," he said at last. "Get some sleep."
She didn't press him. Just sank back down on her bed.
They watched each other, eyes grave. But sleep was a long time
coming.
***
He came home six days later.
He didn't want her to strap his stump. He didn't want her to do
anything for him, in fact, and he argued about it bitterly.
Finally, she spat that he'd seen her goddamn *cunt* when it was
butchered, so she could see his stump. He sank back in his chair,
and he stared at her, pale and silent while she did what needed
to be done.
"I'm being a prick, aren't I?" he wondered when he found his
voice.
She went on strapping. "Pretty much."
"Would it help if I apologised?"
"Not particularly."
That crooked grin rose in his features. "Would it help if I did
my rehab exercises like a good little boy?"
She looked at him. Still fastening his bandage. Bit back a grin.
"Maybe."
He looked over the side of the chair, down at her calves. "Got
any legwarmers?"
She arched an eyebrow. "Pardon?"
"Well, if I have to exercise, so do you. Unless you object," he
challenged.
"Not at all," she said primly. She got to her feet, dropped a
kiss on his head, and walked to the door.
He stared after her. "What the hell was that for?"
She said over her shoulder, "Because I'm going to work you into
the ground." Sweetly.
He laughed, and she smiled, and then she fled, because she was
trembling with relief, and she didn't want him to see her cry.
***
It was five more weeks before he admitted, haltingly, to his
fear that no woman would want him any more. The irony was that by
then, she knew that she loved him, and she wanted him badly.
"You're wrong, Alex," she said. She didn't say any more than
that, but her hands slowed on his stump. Grew gentle. Her heart
felt heavy and weighted in her chest.
He turned his head. Stared at her. She fastened the bandage. She
didn't look at him.
He pulled away from her when she was done. "I don't want your
pity, Marita," he said in a low voice. "Or your obligation."
Anger flared within her. "You take that back, you son of a
bitch. I thought I'd never feel this way about anyone again." He
frowned. Clearly perplexed. "How *dare* you try and take that
away from me."
He looked at her for a long, long moment. Tangled confusion and
anger in his features. Finally, seemingly at a loss, he got to
his feet and walked out.
She flinched when the door banged shut behind him.
***
She wakes to his hand in her hair and mumbled, fragmentary words
of love in her ears. She's tired, but it's been a long time since
they made love in this room, and she can't bring herself to mind.
His tenderness is slow and heavy, and she can tell that he's
half- asleep himself. She returns his kisses, awkward misdirected
things that they are, and suspects they'll probably fall asleep
again before he can make love to her.
"Want you, Marita," he mumbles.
In his sleepy, docile state, it sounds like an endearment. She
laughs. Ruffles his hair. "How is that different from any other
time?"
He groans. "Don't. I'm half-asleep here."
She laughs again. Runs her hand down his arm. It glides smoothly
past the end of his stump and down his side.
He catches her hand with his. Looks at it, brow furrowed in a
clear effort to concentrate. "Why didn't you mind, Marita?"
So he's been thinking about it too.
"I don't know," she says. "I just loved you. I thought you were
beautiful. I still do." Her eyes mist over in that
sleepy-emotional way she has. She thinks that he springs these
things on her late at night because he knows her defences are
down.
"I think you liked it. Because they hurt me too."
She doesn't want to believe that. She wants to believe that she
loved him for more than that. She starts to pull her hand away.
He pulls her back. Kisses her, slow and tender. Without
reproach.
She realises that even if that was the truth of it, it doesn't
matter any more.
They're still sleepy, but they make love after all.
***
It was nightfall when she found him.
He stood there waiting for her in her bedroom in the dark, a
silhouette in the light of the moon. Watching rain drizzle down
the windowpane. He didn't look at her when she came into the
room.
"Are you mad at me?" he wondered.
"No," she said dully. And she wasn't. She just felt
overwhelmingly sad.
"I'm not trying to hurt you," he said. "I'm just trying to - to
-"
"Please don't." She didn't even know what he wanted to say, but
she was pretty sure she didn't want to hear it. She went and put
her arms around his shoulders from behind. Rested her cheek
against his shoulder. "Alex, it isn't either of those things.
Pity or obligation."
"Isn't it?" he asked, turning his head to look at her.
She shook her head. Ran her fingers through his hair. "I just
wish you could accept that."
He hunched his shoulders and didn't answer. But he didn't pull
away.
"Alex, do you remember how you found me that night? What they
did to me?" He didn't answer, but his hand found hers. Squeezed
her compulsively. "Is that what you see when you look at me?"
He turned around in her arms. "No," he said. Stroked her hair.
"God, no."
"Then why, *why* would this -" she cradled his stump in her hand
through his sleeve "- be all I see in you?"
"I don't-" He broke off, shaking his head. Swallowing hard. He
didn't argue when she took his face between her palms and kissed
him, and soon his lips were as insistent as hers.
He touched his forehead to hers, looking down between them when
she unbuttoned his shirt. "Have you - since -"
She shook her head.
"We don't have to."
She held his gaze in the dark. "I want to."
It wasn't as easy as that, of course. Her body had a memory of
its own, it seemed, and she seized up when he tried to touch her,
even while she ached for him to do it.
He was patient with her. There were a few false starts that
night, and a few frustrated tears. Finally, though, he was
between her thighs, he was inside her, and it was okay. Then, as
arousal outstripped fear, it was good. Then glorious. She cried
out his name in sheer relief when she came.
She felt selfish afterwards. It was a first for him, too, and
that fact went largely unacknowledged by her. But she thinks now
that her unwitting self-absorption salvaged what might have been
a disaster. He was so concerned for her fears that night that he
forgot about his own.
She loves him for that.
There were more firsts to come. He was so gentle with her, and
she pressed him to go harder on her. She hated the idea that
those bastards could dictate how they made love. Finally, he
loosened up, and sometimes it was harder than she really liked,
but it exhilarated her, too. Like a celebration of freedom. A
reclaiming.
Not that the instinct to fear would ever entirely leave her.
There was still a moment of reflexive seizing up when he pushed
her against a wall, even now. But then hunger would wash over
her, because it was Alex, and he only ever touched her on her
terms, and she wanted him so much.
They were parted all too soon.
Once he had his prosthesis, they really couldn't justify his
continued absence from the Russian project. And Marita's own
excuses for her absence from her professional duties, both
legitimate and otherwise, were wearing thin.
So they left the Maryland apartment, and until now they had
never been here together again. She volunteered for United
Nations projects in the former Soviet Union, and a sympathetic
Peskow pulled some strings to get Alex onto courier detail for
all-too-rare trips to the States. They conspired to be together
whenever they could.
It wasn't nearly enough, but it was the best they could do.
FOUR
Their trip to Alex's specialist is brief. A new cast is made of
his stump - it changed along with the rest of his body during his
imprisonment - and then they have the rest of the day to kill. As
Marita had predicted, a new socket is needed, and it won't be
ready until the following morning.
They return to the apartment and screw until lunchtime - partly
desire and partly sheer lack of options. He is used to having the
use of his arm, and while he is able to function without it, it
pisses him off. And she has no wish to spend the day with a
fractious Alex.
"So what's on the agenda?" he asks her over take-out at
lunchtime. If he notices her careful choice of food, he doesn't
mention it. Just sits there with his chopsticks, dipping his
dumplings. He eats lightly, which she supposes is to be expected,
but she hopes his appetite will improve. She'd felt bones on him
that she'd never been able to feel before, and that somehow feels
like more of a maiming than the loss of his arm.
"Shopping," she informs him. "You need some clothes." In fact,
she bought him some before she went to Tunisia, but she thinks
now that they might be too big.
"Okay. What then?"
"Nothing today," she says. "Tomorrow we get your arm, then head
over to the Watergate."
"He's still living there?" he says. "I figured he'd move out
once he offed Diana."
She shakes her head. "He moved his nurse into her apartment, and
he still lives down the hall. Guess his name is still on her
lease."
Alex snorts, a sound of distaste. "I suppose one sidekick is as
good as another in his mind."
"We're all expendable," she says. "Spender included, these
days."
"He's really that out of the loop, then?"
She nods. "They're sending him on wild goose chases to keep him
out of their hair. The latest is some crashed UFO. He doesn't
think I know about it."
"So what do we do?"
"Follow the trail of breadcrumbs until he gives us your dose of
the vaccine. Then we give what we have to Mulder and Scully, and
get the hell out." She could live without even doing that much,
but giving the information to Mulder would piss the old man off,
and that alone is reason enough to do it. And she still feels a
sense of obligation to Mulder, despite everything. It's the one
thing she can still do for Nelson. Probably the last thing she
will ever be able to do for him, in fact.
Alex nods. Thinks it over. "How will we verify the vaccine's
authenticity?"
"We'll get it by requisition order." She doesn't look at him.
He stares at her. "From Fort Marlene?"
She nods. Looks down into her food.
"Have you ever been back there?" he asks at last.
"Once. The resistance freed Jeffrey. I drove the van, told them
where to go. That sort of thing." He nods. "I haven't been
inside." She remembers the last time they were there together,
and swallows hard. There's a haunted look on his face when she
finally meets his gaze again. He's very pale.
"Well," he says at last. Coughs into his hand. "Shopping?"
She rises. Gets rid of their take-out. "Yeah."
***
"Nice threads."
"Hope you're buying them," he parries. He looks pleased anyway.
"As long as I get to take them off you when we get home." She
kisses him while the shop assistant rings up their purchases. The
assistant smiles to herself.
"Thank you, Ma'am," the girl says, handing back her VISA card.
Marita smiles her thanks and tucks it into her pocketbook. She
pulls out three other cards and hands them to Alex. "I had the
banks cancel your old ones."
"Is there anything left on them?" he wonders. "I thought the
prison guards would have cleaned them out, for sure."
"They made a good dent, but there's still some in there, and I
transferred some more from the Swiss account. You won't need me
to keep you for a while yet."
"Thanks." He puts them into his jeans pocket. "All I need now is
a wallet, and I'll feel like a reputable member of society
again."
"We'll make that the next stop, then," she says. "I only want
you being disreputable with me."
Shopping for a wallet is quicker than for clothes. He's not so
fussy about that. He chooses a plain black leather wallet similar
to the one taken from him in Tunisia, and, to her great
amusement, insists on a trip to a photo booth to get a picture of
the two of them to put inside. It's all the funnier for his lack
of appreciation for the humour of it.
"I wish they'd left my wallet," he says afterwards, tucking
their picture inside. "Your letter was in there. I wish they'd
left that."
Her good humour fades.
"Oh," she says. Swallowing hurt. Sees it in his face, too.
"Well," she says after a moment. "Some things are probably best
forgotten anyway."
His eyes are grave. "It meant a lot to me, Marita. Especially
back then."
She feels the heat of shame rise up in her face. "I don't want
to talk about it."
He stares at her. "You're not still beating yourself up over
that, are you? You don't really think you had any choice?"
She hunches her shoulders. "Can we not talk about this? Please?"
He sighs. Watches her for a long moment, then takes her by the
hand. Tugs her back into the photo booth. "Look. Whatever it is
that you're doing to yourself in that head of yours, will you
stop it? For me?"
She forces a smile. Grasps for something to say. Her gaze falls
on the little vanity mirror on the wall. "You made me get a photo
when my hair was a mess, you bastard."
He snorts laughter through his nose. "Then we're even. Come on."
He strokes her hair and kisses her. And then he takes her home.
***
Of course, letting go is never really so simple, no matter how
neatly they put the lid on the fallout. She has never completely
forgiven herself, and she doubts she ever will. The ugly truth is
that she wasn't strong enough. She didn't love enough. And that
truth will haunt her until the end of her days.
She had never really accepted the inevitability that the
Syndicate would learn of her involvement with Alex. They had been
together for close to a year, and she was lulled by their
apparent failure to register on Spender's radar. Incredibly, she
worried more about the daily trials of a long distance
relationship than what would happen if they were ever found out.
In retrospect, she is horrified by her own naivete.
She underestimated the toll their separation took on Alex,
though. That last day in Kazakhstan, she had no inkling of his
plans. If his kisses were more urgent, she wrote it off to
pent-up need after months apart.
"I missed you," he gasped into her hair as she pulled at his
clothes. It was such a stupid thing for them to do, so close to
the burn site. She could still smell the bodies, and she hated
herself for wanting him, but she needed him so much. Especially
now.
"We can't," she managed between kisses. "It isn't safe. It isn't
right." Still tugging at his shirt a little.
He nodded. Pulled back a little. Flushed. He took her hand and
held it still. "I know. I just-"
"Yeah." Reluctantly, she loosened her grip on the fabric.
Smoothed it back into place. Hands trembling with arrested need.
"I hate being so far away."
He stroked her hair. "Same." He looked over his shoulder, out at
the clearing through the trees.
She followed his gaze. Her men were still working, writing notes
and taking pictures. She hadn't been missed. His were more
concerned with the teenaged boy they'd found at the scene.
"What does he know?" she said. Nervous. This whole thing
frightened her. Who had rounded up the abductees to begin with?
And why had they been killed?
He shook his head. "I don't know. But I'm going to find out."
"Be careful, Alex. He could be valuable, depending on what he
knows."
"You think someone might try to steal him?"
"They're going to want to know what he saw. Any one of my men
could be Syndicate people checking up on me. I can't afford to
suppress the information - it could expose us."
"You're right," he said. Looking over his shoulder at the men
again. Said absently, "They'd want him. Maybe enough to risk it."
"Yes," she said. "And there's not really any risk to them in
trying, is there?"
He looked at her once more. Frowning. Almost as though he didn't
know what she was talking about. Then, the lines in his brow
cleared. "No," he said after a moment. "You're absolutely right."
"We should get back," she said. "Before they miss us."
"You need to fix your make-up first," he grinned.
She smiled a little, and she pulled out her compact and did as
he said. Wiped a smear of lipstick from his mouth, as well.
"Marita?"
"Yes?" she said, tucking her compact back into her pocket.
"I want you to get out of Kazakhstan. Today."
She stared at him. "Why?"
"I just - I have a bad feeling about all this. It's probably
nothing, but it would make me feel better. Will you?"
She thought about it. She didn't really need to stay. "I'm sure
it's fine, but if it will make you feel better -"
He nodded. "It really would."
She shrugged. "Okay, then."
He drew her close. "We'll be together again soon, Marita. I
promise."
She held onto him, and hoped that it was true.
***
In the end, she wasn't fast enough.
She was politely detained at the airport in Astana, and driven
to the Russian Federation consulate nearby. She was given a
tastefully-appointed apartment there, but there was a guard
outside the door. She wasn't given a reason for her detainment,
but she could guess. They suspected her of reporting to the
Syndicate.
"We do not want any unpleasantness," the man said, sitting
casually on the fourteenth-century writing table. He had
introduced himself as Anatoly Melnikov, but she didn't believe he
was Russian-born any more than she was. No, Melnikov was
something worse: a Russian loyalist by belief. There would be no
understanding or mercy for her from this man. He would condemn
her, she sensed, for her alliance with the American project. And
she couldn't really blame him.
"Nor do I," she said. "But you must understand, my men will
report that I have been apprehended. It is in everybody's best
interests for this to be resolved as quickly as possible. The
United Nations does not take kindly to the detainment of its
peacekeepers."
"You have not been mistreated, Miss Covarrubias, have you?"
She was forced to concede that this was the case.
"You cared for Alex Krycek after he was wounded last year. We
understand that you are on terms of intimacy with him," he said.
"Is that the case?"
She stared at him. Alex? It was about Alex?
"Yes," she said. It was pointless to deny it.
"Are you aware, Miss Covarrubias, that Alex Krycek absconded
from Tunguska Gulag this afternoon with the boy he apprehended
from the site?"
She sat back in her seat. Stupefied. "He what?" She brought her
hand to her mouth. Genuinely appalled. "I - I had no idea."
"And you don't know whether he had vaccine in his possession?"
She searched Melnikov's face for guidance. Admitting to
knowledge of the vaccine might save her, if she was already
suspected of helping Alex. But if she wasn't - if they were just
going through the motions - it might be a very efficient way of
getting herself killed.
"I don't know anything," she said truthfully. "I haven't spoken
with him. I don't know what he was doing or what he was
planning."
"You were both noted missing from the crime scene for a time,
Miss Covarrubias. Clearly you spoke to him. You don't honestly
expect me to believe he didn't confide in you."
"No," she said. "We didn't speak."
"Then what were you doing?"
"We had sex," she lied, doing her best to look embarrassed. "I
was so relieved to see him. We just-"
"All right, all right, I don't need to know." He looked mildly
disgusted. "Where would he have gone? Back to the States, to be
with you?"
Of course he would, she realised. Why else would he have done
it? But if she said so, they would wait for him. It occurred to
her that they might hold her in hopes of exchanging her for the
boy.
"No," she said. "Not to be with me, anyway." She injected as
much misery into her voice as she could. In the circumstances, it
wasn't difficult. "He doesn't love me, you see." She broke into
sudden tears. They weren't what he thought they were, but they
were real, just the same.
Melnikov made a sound of annoyance, sighed, and left her there.
***
They believed her.
It seemed that they took into account Alex's history of selling
intelligence, combined with her respectable position, and decided
that he was working on his own. Either that, or her detainment
was not worth the possibility of United Nations intervention.
After twelve days, she was released from her tastefully-appointed
room with the apologies of the Kazakhstani government.
Melnikov was not pleased.
"We believe the boy carries the oil-borne virus, Miss
Covarrubias," he said as they drove to the airport. "If you see
Alex, please remember that you have a higher duty here. You have
a distinguished humanitarian service record. I know I can count
on you to make the right decision."
Marita let him go through the motions. Clearly, he'd argued for
them to hold her, and lost. This was his last-ditch effort to use
her, or convert her, or something. She made agreeable noises in
all the right places. But it was his parting words that chilled
her.
"He could infect Alex, too, you know."
She stared at his departing form, and she was still white and
trembling when her plane took off.
***
There was an arrangement of wisteria waiting for her when she
got home.
It came from a local florist. There was no note. She didn't need
one. They weren't her favourite flowers, but she did like them,
and Alex knew it. It was enough to make her let out a long, low
sigh of relief.
She discounted the possibility that he had travelled by air.
That would be impossible if he really had the boy with him. She
made a shortlist of marine arrivals in New York from the Russian
Federation, and zeroed in on one in particular, a commercial
freighter that had left Vladivostok three days after she was
detained, due to arrive in New York Harbor late that night. There
was just enough time, if he'd driven nearly non-stop, and his
cellphone would be in range by now - hence the flowers.
It was all she could do not to go to the terminal. But it was
nightfall, and she was afraid of being followed. Afraid she was
watched, even now, by Melnikov's men. She passed a sleepless
night, but there was dawning hope, too. She believed in Alex. She
believed that if anyone could make it all work out, he could.
She checked in with the Syndicate the following morning. She
joined them in their stuffy, smoke-filled room on East 46th
Street and made her report. Longing for it to be over so she
could go to him. She wasn't sure what she wanted more - to chew
him out for scaring her like that, or to kiss him over and over
again. She suspected she would find a way of doing both.
Alex telephoned with his demands while she was there. Marita
never knew exactly what they were, but she could guess. Either he
demanded to be allowed to work on the Syndicate's vaccine, or he
demanded the vaccine data, in order to trade his way into the
resistance. Either way, the Duke wasn't happy. He stared her down
when Alex rang off, and she shrank back. Sensing the danger.
He adjourned the meeting minutes later.
"Miss Covarrubias," he said as the men prepared to leave. "I'd
like a word with you."
A gnawing feeling sprang up in the pit of her stomach. "What is
it, Sir?" she said, working hard to keep the alarm from her
voice. Watching as the other men filed out of the room. He waited
until the last of them had gone, and that only served to frighten
her more.
"I understand that you were detained in Kazakhstan," he said
when they were alone.
Her eyelids flickered. "There was a misunderstanding. It's been
resolved."
"In fact, you were under suspicion of collusion with Alex
Krycek, were you not?"
"That's correct. Our troops arrived at the burn site at the same
time. We were seen together." Her throat felt very dry.
"That may be," the Duke said, pouring brandy from a decanter.
"Would you like one?"
She doubted she could have gotten it down, let alone kept it
there. "No, thank you."
He set the decanter down again and drank. "But it prompted me to
make some enquiries. You and this Krycek have been on personal
terms for some time, it seems." He watched her, frowning. "I'd
have thought you might have reconsidered the consequences of
working against the interests of the group, Miss Covarrubias.
Especially after what happened the last time."
Did he know that they raped her? She thinks, in retrospect, that
he probably didn't. The Duke would never have agreed to that.
But she wasn't thinking clearly back then. Terror washed over
her. She stood there, breathing shallow, hitching breaths.
"What do you want from me?" she whispered.
He looked at her, irritated, as though mildly surprised by her
stupidity. "I would have thought it was obvious. I want the boy."
Hand the hostage over to them? God. She couldn't. Her mind raced
for alternatives. "I could give him to Mulder," she said rashly.
"Then you could get him from Mulder instead."
"Miss Covarrubias, you're not in a position to make
counter-offers."
The horrible part was, he was absolutely right. She groped for
something. Anything. "But then - then you'd be the only one to
know what he knows. Before the others."
The Duke's drink paused midway to his mouth. She'd hit a nerve
she hadn't known was there.
"How does that benefit you?"
She flushed. Haltingly, she said, "I think he could forgive
that."
He frowned. Finished his drink. "I must say, Miss Covarrubias,
there's no accounting for taste. But your suggestion is an
intriguing one. I accept."
She let out a long, shaky sigh of relief.
"But you will be followed," he warned. "Don't consider
double-crossing me, young lady. You will pay dearly for it. And
so will he."
God, hadn't they suffered enough?
"No, Sir." She had to get out of there. She had to.
"Very well. You may go."
She made to the bathroom before she threw up. She retched until
her stomach was empty, and she stayed there, kneeling before the
elegant old-fashioned toilet, leaning her head against the
ceramic. Weeping hysterically. Tears she had been holding in for
over a year left her in a flood.
She couldn't go through that again. She just couldn't. Not even
for Alex.
She just couldn't. She just-
She wept. And wept. And wept.
***
"You're tense."
Her thighs were clenched. Harder than they'd been since their
very first time. She willed herself to relax, but she was too
tight. She could see the taut lines of her tendon beneath his
hand.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. Staring out the little porthole
window of the captain's quarters. She'd wanted him down in the
bowels of the ship, but the search for more comfortable
surroundings had given her time to think about what they'd done
to her, and what she had to do in order to stop it from happening
again.
"Don't be." He kissed her hair. Gentle. Concerned. "Please tell
me what's wrong."
"Nothing," she said. "I don't know. I'm sorry."
He closed his arm around her. "We shouldn't do this, Marita. Not
when you're like this. You're too dry. I don't want to hurt you."
His words made her grow cold. She was under no illusions about
the gravity of her betrayal. He might never forgive her. This
could be the last time she would be able to touch him this way.
"Oh, Alex, please-" she burst out, and then she broke into sudden
tears.
He drew back a little. "They didn't do something to you, did
they?"
She held her head in her hands. "It's just all hit me. I'm
sorry."
He was perplexed, but he held her until the sobs had been and
gone. When she was calm again, she kissed him, and they made
slow, diffident love, and he fell asleep with his head on her
breast.
She extricated herself, easing him back onto the pillows. Smiled
through tears when he mumbled her name. She went to the captain's
little desk.
She wrote it all out for him on sheets of paper with the
shipping company's letterhead. She left the letter in his jacket,
where he would find it when it was too late for him to do
anything about it. The letter was streaked with tears.
She kissed his sleeping form when she left him.
END OF PART 2