MJ

"Jesus said to them, 'Have you never read in the Scriptures: "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes"'?" Matthew XXI:42

Abishag's Tale

By MJ

"Now King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the King a young virgin; and let her stand before the King, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the King may get heat. So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the King. And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the King, and ministered to him; but the King knew her not." I Kings I: 1–4

"I'm nobody's boy," I spat at the man standing three feet away from me as two of his goons held me by the shoulders. I still had two arms then, and I'd gladly have used either on all of them if I hadn't been restrained.

"Ah, I forgot. You Americans use expressions so differently. I assure you, Alex, that I was not referring to you as a slave when I called you 'my boy.' " The Brit turned up the corners of his lips in a close-mouthed smile. Close-mouthed, that's him. "I'm merely displaying a certain affection for you that your former mentor seems to lack. Otherwise, he wouldn't have attempted that rather obvious car bomb, would he? I, on the other hand, am offering you a position."

"What do you want?" I was nearly snarling.

"I think you'll be surprised at how little I'm asking of you, Alex. And at just how much you'll get in return."

»»»

I sit at the huge oak library table, reviewing files. He sits across from me, drinking tea and reading his mail. I'm studying. I am, in fact, an understudy of sorts now, learning from him what the smoker wouldn't tell me. The Brit expects a conflict in the ranks, as if there isn't enough of one already. I can see from what he's showing me that he's planning to have me move back into a position within the Consortium if anything happens to him. He seems to expect that something will indeed happen.

I adjust my collar while reading. I haven't worn suits since the days I worked across from Mulder at the Bureau. And these suits are nothing like the cheap crap I bought as cover. I go to his tailor, and I go when I please. My leash is longer than I'd expected.

»»»

"I can promise you, Alex, that I won't lay a hand on you. Not in that way. However, I do have several…expectations? You will be present when I want you; you will dress as I ask you to. And, although I will not touch you myself, you will understand that I…enjoy watching."

"What?"

"I am not a young man, Alex. I'm no longer able to do anything I please. However, I enjoy watching attractive young men enjoy themselves. And you are a particularly attractive young man, as you no doubt know; I'm sure you've used it to your advantage often enough."

I stare. "I'm not a trained monkey. What do you think I'm going to do, perform on demand with someone I don't know?"

He looks back at me, shaking his head. "Although I believe that your former employer did expect just that from you when you were handling certain matters for him, I hardly expect that of you. I simply expect to be allowed to watch you pleasuring yourself. Do you think you can handle that?" I nod. In exchange for learning the smoker's secrets and permitting myself to be decorative, I play with myself as a spectator sport? Hell, I've been asked for worse, a lot worse. He wants me to be a toyboy while he grooms me for this job? All right, I can do toyboy.

»»»

He passes a piece of correspondence to me across the table, silently. No one not connected with the Consortium would know it for what it is, but I recognize its meaning. He watches me, silently, as I file it in one of the folders in front of me. He nods, then returns his attention to the tea. Apparently, I'm learning what he wants me to know.

He came to my room last night about two hours after dinner, in his silk dressing gown and flannels. I had been watching the reruns on Channel Four. I switched it off when he entered. I didn't think they were the appropriate counterpoint to what he had in mind for the evening, and Sky News at Ten just wasn't it, either. The Brit ensconced himself in an armchair across from my bed and made himself comfortable, while I set to trying to make him a bit less comfortable.

I seem to get approval from him for doing a bit of a striptease first. He tries not to react, but he squirms when I do it. So I do it regularly. It's a cheap thrill for both of us; he likes the show, and I…well, he doesn't do anything for me, but the idea of putting on a show, working for the audience…that does it. Tie and then shirt, off slowly, facing him. Then the pants. His upper lip twitches while he watches. My fingers circling my nipples. Pinching them, making them stand out.

Down on the bed, one hand caressing my chest, the other sliding slowly down my side. I can feel his eyes burning into me, as they always do. He won't touch me. He never has. He watches, and he thinks his thoughts. Fine, I think mine, too. He never asks, and I don't tell. He knows, though. He knows.

»»»

"An interesting set of assignments your previous mentor gave you, Alex." We are in the drawing room, looking over papers.

"Oh?" Playing stupid. I can do that. Sometimes too well.

"Your time in the FBI. Working with Fox Mulder. A very interesting young man, Mr. Mulder. And not an unattractive one."

"What of it?" That was too close to home. What had the smoker told him? Why he'd decided to try killing me? Because an agent who's bedding his target and falls in love with him is too much of a liability? Hell, the Brit would probably have loved watching the two of us, that was for sure. And if he'd seen the tape the smoker had gotten of us that one night at Mulder's, I'm sure he had loved watching. The smoker had curled his lip over that one himself, but it had been a sneer.

("You act very well, Alex. Maybe a little too well. You certainly seemed to put a great deal of…feeling…into your session with Agent Mulder. You won't be needing to do any more of that, however. As I've scheduled matters, you'll be disappearing from his life very soon. I do hope there haven't been any…unfortunate…entanglements…on your part.")

"I'm aware that I've asked you to put on a show, as it were, for me on occasion. I've laid claim to your body, even though I'll never touch it. Your heart, Alex, is entirely your own, however."

"I beg your pardon?" Now I'm even starting to sound like the Brit. Alex Krycek, upper-class twit. Fucking amazing.

"You think about him." Plain, direct, in my face. "When I watch you. Your face, my boy. You're thinking of someone. I presume it's your Mr. Mulder."

"What if it is?"

"You're a lucky young man, Alex. You've had the opportunity to love someone." He looks across the drawing room at a picture of his grandchildren. "Not everyone has it. I hope they will." He returns to the papers.

»»»

He's watching me pump myself, steadily, more and more rapidly as my excitement mounts. I let myself go, pretending that my hand is Mulder's mouth, that my own groans of pleasure are being made to a lover and not to the air above me. It's the only way I can keep myself going until orgasm, to have that picture of making love to Mulder in my mind at the time. The Brit knows it, knows I don't think of him, has made it clear more than once that if my body cooperates with his need, he couldn't care less why it does. Whatever gives him his kicks, as long as he leaves me mine.

I come all over my hand, hot spurts splattering my hand, my stomach, my chest. The Brit lets a contented sigh escape from his lips. Whatever he gets from my show, he's gotten it again. I've gotten one more unrequited fantasy about a man I love who'd now like to kill me. And in a few days, the cycle will repeat. I'll make love to Mulder in my mind, the Brit will get off watching me thinking about another man. I'd say it wasn't fair to him, but it's his arrangement, after all.

»»»

A call from the smoker. What the hell does he want? A meeting. Some new Consortium crisis, no doubt. My mentor is more concerned about his grandson's leg. Once I'd have agreed with the smoker. But a grandson. That means something to this man. His grandfather's grandfather claimed this estate, and he waits for his own grandson to do the same. Both men have killed to meet their goals. Only one of them, however, is a killer. I'd like to survive. I'd like to think that Mulder will survive. After his exposure to the Russian experiments, he should. A man who plans for his grandchildren, or a man who's spent his life killing. Which one understands survival better?

Blown up by the smoker, or dinner companion and entertainment for the Brit?

I'll help his butler get the kid to the doctor while he goes to the damn smoker's meeting.

»»»

He's done with morning tea, done with his mail. He rises, preparing to leave the room. He comes up behind me with an elegant hand on my shoulder, squeezing me gently through the striped silk of my shirt.. I raise my hand to his, press it against him, pushing him further into the muscle of my arm.

"Not much longer, Alex."

"What?"

"Not much longer. You'll be taking over for me soon, I'm afraid."

"Why? What's happening?"

"A great many things I wish weren't. If anything should happen to me…if I disappear for any reason…you will contact our old friend. He will want you back on his payroll. Actually, he will have no choice. Do it, Alex. Don't ask questions now; when he offers you a position, you will accept it. My own plans will have been set by then, and nothing he can do will stop them. You will be there to see that they are carried out."

"When is this happening?"

"I can't tell you, Alex. The time frame is…doubtful. I'm afraid I'll need to enlist the cooperation of your beloved Mr. Mulder, however."

"Fox? What do you—"

"My dear boy, really, I have no intention of harming a hair on your Mr. Mulder's head. I need him, and he will need me, to carry out a mission that will be to our mutual benefit. It may be that when all of this is over…well, best, I suppose, not to speculate, eh?"

I look up at him questioningly.

"Should anything happen to me, Alex, you'll find that you've been amply provided for. I shouldn't fear that."

I shake my head. "No. That's not it. I mean…is this necessary?"

"When my plans go into effect, dear boy, I'm afraid that if I fail to disappear of my own volition, our friends may see to it that I disappear through theirs. I prefer a choice in the matter." His hand slides out from under mine, and he heads for the library door.

This isn't right. Doesn't he understand that? It doesn't have to work this way…does it? There are parts of this business I still don't understand, parts I may never understand, but why he should need to do this now…

If you had told me when I took this combination understudy / kept boy gig that I'd react like this…

»»»

We're in London now, at his city house. He's flying out of Heathrow in a day or so. I wanted to fly to DC with him, but he's refusing. Fear that I'll see Mulder? I don't think so. Fear that I'll see what happens to him? More likely. But does he fear that I'll tell the smoking bastard his plans if I see them, or is he trying to spare me something?

And why am I afraid that it's the second option?

We're out for dinner tonight, dining quite well. His own cook is excellent, but he wanted to, as he says, celebrate before he leaves. The thought of a wake crosses my mind, but I keep silent about that over the duck in raspberry coulis, and the poached salmon in beurre blanc. My job as his escort is to be attractive, well-dressed, and amusing. I pride myself on my looks; I'm vain. He's spent his own money on my clothing; I know I'm dressed to his satisfaction. Discussing funeral arrangements is not amusing. I settle on observations about the other restaurant patrons and watch him laugh. If he's going down, I'm going along as far as I can with him. At the very least, unlike the smoker, he's always been upfront with me.

But it's more than that, isn't it?

It's more.

I'm not dependent on the Brit, not by a longshot. But he's done some things the smoker would never do. He's given me knowledge. He's trained me for certain tasks personally. His own exit, if not his demise, makes me financially independent of the smoker, as do the papers he's given me. He's turned me from a pawn into a player. He's given me freedom, even as I've obligingly been his little kept pet. Apparently he's seen something in me that I've never seen myself.

Unlike the smoker, he's an optimist. The man believes in a future. Even if he's not there for it. I admire him.

It's more than that, isn't it?

Yeah, it's more.

He's never touched me. He's never called me anything more personal than "my dear boy." I've normally called him "sir," though he's ordered me to lose the title more than once when I've addressed him. And good lord, he's more than old enough to be my father…though for his age, I have to admit, he's kept up remarkably. And our most intimate moments have been conducted with the trappings of a business contract.

But it's more. And we both know it.

»»»

As I thought, he comes to my room about an hour and a half after we return to the house. I'd realized this would happen; I've taken a few pains tonight. Candles and incense; I look good in candlelight and I know it. He pays for the show, after all. But it's a mood thing too, I suppose. Certainly more elegant than the bedside lamp. He may not get to see this show again; closing night ought to be made worth his while.

I lie on the bed, rubbing my body with massage oil. He ought to like that…yes, I thought so. Ah, he's noticing. Not my usual routine tonight. I'm not handling myself the same way; I'm not moving the way I usually do.

I'm not thinking about Fox Mulder.

I have the rest of my life to think about Fox Mulder. But this is the last night I may ever spend with this man, even though we've barely ever touched one another.

There has been more between us than watcher and watched, all of this time. More than rent boy and John. For one night, I think I can acknowledge that truth.

For one night, I can think of him.

The Beloved Disciple (mirror to Abishag's Tale)

By Merri-Todd Webster

"When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, 'Verily, verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.'

"Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake.

"Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.

"Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake.

"He then lying on Jesus' breast, saith unto him, 'Lord, who is it?'"

John 13: 21–25

"You are working for me now, my boy. And I will not have you dressed like that."

He was still filthy and disheveled from the explosion that had not, fortunately, killed him. How like the smoker to indulge in such a messy, gaudy means of assassination, and one so likely to fail. No matter. The smoker's misjudgment had worked to my good: Alex Krycek, filthy, dishevelled, and furious, standing with bowed head and tensed shoulders in my library.

He exploded in anger, doing with words what my sturdy employees would not allow him to do with fists. "I'm nobody's boy!"

"Ah, I forgot. You Americans use expressions so differently. I assure you, Alex, that I was not referring to you as a slave when I called you 'my boy.' " I smiled, a gesture which, I could see, did not reassure him at all. "I'm merely displaying a certain affection for you that your former mentor seems to lack. Otherwise, he wouldn't have attempted that rather obvious car bomb, would he? I, on the other hand, am offering you a position."

I studied him closely to see how he'd react. Mr. Krycek had come running to me like a stray cat once the smoker had made it clear that he was thrown out on the street. Now, however, he was as sullen and resentful as a stray cat might be when it is taken to the surgery for medical care.

"What do you want?" He was almost snarling, weak kitten that he was. I signalled my guards to release their grip on the young man. When he held still, I rose from my chair and approached him. He smelled of the explosion, of heat and flame and burning metal.

"I think you'll be surprised at how little I'm asking of you, Alex. And at just how much you'll get in return."

I had only to look toward the door, and Tomkins came in. Sometimes I believe he is telepathic. "Take Mr. Krycek to the guest room in the west wing, and see that he's allowed to bathe, to sleep, and to eat whatever he wants."

Poor hungry stray cat, I thought, as Alex shrugged and followed my man out of the library. Do you even know what you're really hungry for?

»»»

I did not send for Alex for three days. Occasionally I saw him walking the grounds, a dark stormcloud passing among the carefully tended prize roses. He had submitted to the instructions I sent regarding him; his hair had been cut to my liking, his tattered and stained clothes replaced with flattering items from Savile Row. He was, in his own right, as rare and beautiful a specimen as any of my roses; all the more beautiful for being strikingly imperfect. His features are irregular, after all; his pedigree is, at best, uncertain; and yet he is beautiful. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

When I summoned him, at last, to the library, he was wearing a moss-green pullover that made his eyes—irresistible. Smoky green, with lashes that might rival Cleopatra's.

"How are you feeling, my boy?" I gestured him to a seat on the other side of my desk.

"I'm fine. Sir."

"Good." I poured him a cup of tea—Tomkins knows when to stay away—and offered it to him. To his credit, Alex accepted the cup without protest and sipped it quite genteelly.

"I think you're ready to be told what your duties are."

The boy looked at me through those astonishing lashes. The lower half of his face was masked by the poised cup.

"Sir?"

"I have a lot to offer you, Alex. A home, an income, a certain—polish. And knowledge that will place you in a very secure position within the organization. As my…protege, you need not fear the smoker ever again." I risked a smile. "But in return, I do ask for certain privileges."

I received a wary stray-cat look. "I suppose it's about sex."

I frowned. "I can promise you, Alex, that I won't lay a hand on you. Not in that way. However, I do have several expectations? You will be present when I want you; you will dress as I ask you to. And, although I will not touch you myself, you will understand that I enjoy watching."

"What?" Sweet innocent boy, he actually looked puzzled.

"I am not a young man, Alex. I'm no longer able to do anything I please. However, I enjoy watching attractive young men enjoy themselves. And you are a particularly attractive young man, as you no doubt know; I'm sure you've used it to your advantage often enough."

He stared at me, now openly hostile. "I'm not a trained monkey. What do you think I'm going to do, perform on demand with someone I don't know?"

Sighing, I shook my head. "Although I believe that your former employer did expect just that from you when you were handling certain matters for him, I should hardly ask that of you. I simply wish to be allowed to watch you pleasuring yourself. Do you think you can handle that?"

I watched his reaction very carefully, the lowering of the eyes, the way he bit his lower lip. How I should have liked to do that myself…but one grows old. Then he nodded. I smiled encouragingly.

"I think we shall get on very well, my boy."

He was exquisite. More exquisite than I'd dreamed. A born performer, with a body as unpredictably beautiful as his face. Of course my person was not arousing to him—I should be a fool to think it was—yet my presence was. The presence of the audience, of the admiring gaze. I never took my eyes from him as he slowly removed the elegant ensemble we'd bought together only that day, the tie, the blazer, the shirt, and finally the pants, showing me all that fine skin, so very white.…As I said, he was exquisite, and no part of him was an exception. He could have been no more surprised than I was that my body as well as my mind responded; I had my first climax in, well, more than a few years. Not that I betrayed it. But it must have been because Alex was so very special.

By the third or fourth time we'd trysted, I was certain I knew what he was thinking. Who it was that he was seeing, remembering, when I was viewing him.

"I'm aware that I've asked you to put on a show, as it were, for me on occasion. I've laid claim to your body, even though I'll never touch it. Your heart, Alex, is entirely your own, however."

"I beg your pardon?" Ah, how amusing. He was learning—even beginning to sound like me.

"You think about him. When I watch you." He looked quite astonished. "Your face, my boy. You're thinking of someone. I presume it's your Mr. Mulder."

He dared a little insolence. "What if it is?"

I smiled indulgently. "You're a lucky young man, Alex. You've had the opportunity to love someone." I could not help but look across the drawing room to the picture of my grandchildren. "Not everyone has it. I hope they will."

I saw by the characteristic lowering of his head that my words affected him. He did love Mulder, strange as it might seem. Not so strange that he should find Mulder desirable, but that was clearly not all there was to it.

Nor were our late-night meetings all there was to our relationship. Mr. Krycek was a wonderfully fast study, an apt pupil who'd never before been properly educated. Already bilingual, in a few weeks, he could ape my accent so skillfully, he could pass for my own son. As I'd promised, I polished him, bringing out the gloss, and I informed him, passing on everything he would need to know to take my place in the game—without giving away to certain others that he had done so.

And I took him to dinner, to parties, to the theatre and the opera. I force-fed him culture as a mother bird force-feeds her young. He'd no idea how he was starving for it, nor how swiftly and easily he adapted to that larger world to which I introduced him. I wanted him to see, after all, precisely what we were fighting for.

All too soon, it was over. Unlike some of my countrymen, I know when to step aside, let the young have their day. All too quickly, Alex was ready to play the role for which I'd groomed him. The next move of the great game had to be made.

For the first time, I touched him, really touched him. I laid my hand on his shoulder, and he placed his hand on mine, accepting that touch, asking for more. I held onto his warm young flesh for strength as I tried to explain to him what must happen.

"Should anything happen to me, Alex, you'll find that you've been amply provided for. I shouldn't fear that."

He shook his head. His smooth chin brushed the backs of my fingers. "No. That's not it. I mean, is this necessary?"

"When my plans go into effect, dear boy, I'm afraid that if I fail to disappear of my own volition, our friends may see to it that I disappear through theirs. I prefer a choice in the matter."

The dear boy must have known that it would be our last night together. At dinner he sparkled more than the champagne; he was witty and elegant and a great many heads turned, a great many eyes telegraphed admiration, and envy. And now that I come to his room, he has lit candles instead of the lamp, the creamy beeswax candles that smell so heavenly as they burn, and some sort of incense. I am walking into a pillar of cloud.

For the first time, he touches me. Alex takes my hand and kisses it, softly, before undressing and lying down on the bed. I settle myself in the armchair, as I normally do, and observe that he has opened a bottle of massage oil. The smell of sandalwood floods my eyes as he pours the oil out and rubs it between his palms. As always, exquisite. I feel my tired old body stir a bit.

Then he smoothes his hands down over his chest, over those little dark nipples I have watched so avidly, down to his belly, and something is different. For just a moment, he cups his genitals in two oiled hands, and at that moment I realise: His eyes are on me.

Ah, Alex, you make an old man weep. Tonight he is with me. Not with the beautiful Mr. Mulder, not with his fantasies. With me.

And I am with him as he caresses himself, arouses himself slowly, draws out his pleasure to pleasure the both of us. So very beautiful, so exquisite, so perfectly imperfect. Once again, for the last time, I reach my climax as he reaches his, one last gift from this fragile, crotchety body, not so much to myself as a tribute to him.

He lies panting on the bed, his warm breath stirring the flames of the nearest candles. Biting my lip, I rise and go to him, pausing beside the bed. "Alex—may I…my dear boy…."

He holds out his arms, smiling. Still with me. Shedding my robe but not my pyjamas, I stretch out beside him—his embrace is so warm—and cradle his head on my breast.

Jerusalem (unpaired story)

by MJ

Announce it in Judah, proclaim it in Jerusalem, say, "Sound the message in the countryside, shout the message aloud: Mobilise! Take to the fortified towns! Signpost the way to Zion! Run! Do not delay! For I am bringing disaster from the north, an immense calamity. The lion is up from his thicket, the destroyer of nations is on his way, he has come down from his home to reduce your land to a desert; your towns will be in ruins, uninhabited." Jeremiah 4: v–vii, New Jerusalem Bible

He looks out over the Somerset countryside, at land that has been in his family since before the United States was a dream in anyone's mind. We are in the library of the "new" house. In the States, you couldn't imagine a house this age. The "old" house burned down in 1683, according to the family records. This "new" house was begun in 1690 and added-onto for two hundred years. It has seen every war I can think of except the Spanish Armada; it survived bombing raids in World War Two. Its current owner stands thinking, doing the work of modern warfare. The leaders of modern wars see no action; they sit, plan, and direct others who often stay equally clean.

It's the ones like me who wind up in the trenches, only you can't find where the trenches are any more, and sometimes, like now, the whole damn world is on the front lines. This time, worse yet, the enemy is not only invisible, but most of the intended victims don't even believe that the enemy exists.

The enemy exists, all right. I've had the fucking thing in my own body. There's a war with it, and some people know. The Russian peasants took my arm to try to save me from them; they didn't even know I'd already been there, done that. The man across from me knows it, knows I've been in the trenches, has sent me back into them repeatedly. Why do I still do it? Because no one else can. Because at the end of this tunnel, I will be a very powerful man.

So I follow orders—Alex Krycek, who listens to no one. I study his papers, listen to the history of the struggle; I study the enemy, alien and human. I carry out the assignments he no longer can. And I…give him what else he needs. At night, in my rooms. He doesn't stay, doesn't even touch me. That was the other end of this deal. And it surprises me that I am not disturbed by this peculiar intimacy, that I even look forward to it. I'm closer to this man, over twice my age, than I am to the lover whose bed I didn't share nearly long enough.

He knows I've been in love with Fox Mulder, that I have been for…years. And he's done nothing to challenge that. But then, I feel that I've known this man forever, the same as I do with Mulder. When I first met him, when I started working for the project, I could swear that I'd heard his voice somewhere else. I only wish I could imagine why the offspring of two Cold War immigrant college teachers thinks he would ever have known this man or his family. I've never even seen my own family's family home, or my own family's former land from back before the Revolution. Well, I have, but not under lawful entry, you know. So I couldn't stay long enough to enjoy it.

It's sunset now. There's a spectacular view from these windows. The sky must be really something tonight; he's calling me over to see it. He drops an arm around my shoulder, smiles sadly at the view, at the children, that won't be here much longer if Spender's cronies win. Five hundred years' worth of his family's history, and then his family's future, that goes up in flames if his old friends make out as they planned. But they don't know what we plan to do to them first. Spender and Strughold are going to find that out the hard way.

He's humming something quietly, under his breath. I don't recognize it; I look at him, questioning.

"Oh." He clears his throat. "William Blake, Alex." He recites; doesn't sing, though he used to be a choir boy once.

"'And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God on England's pleasant pastures seen? And did the countenance divine shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here among those dark satanic mills?'

"A bit of a stretch, but a glorious image. The fields of this land as the New Jerusalem. I think I prefer that to colonisation, dear boy. Svetlana always loved this view. I think it nearly persuaded her that there is a God."

I've never heard him mention that name before. I wonder who she was. I only know one Svetlana myself: "My mother is a Svetlana." And a good Soviet atheist, though my father was a believer, his grandfather a priest in the family's old village.

"I know. A remarkable woman." What? I hope to God he doesn't see my face before I compose it, before my double take. He drops the arm from around me, blinks hard—I've never seen him tear up, but I think he's close—and leaves the room.

William Blake. All I know about Blake is that tiger poem I read in school as a kid. Blake, huh? Well, I'm in a library. Yeah, there's a well-worn modern edition of Blake, at eye level. Not much like the leather-bound sets or the first editions around most of the room; this is something he actually reads. Regularly, judging from the wear. It falls open near whatever it was he was quoting:

"I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land."

I look out the windows again. Shit, now I'm the one blinking. Oh, yeah, the view right now sure as hell beats colonization. Resist or serve. Not a lot of choice there, is there? I can see two of his grandchildren running across the lawn with their border collie, a present from their grandmother. Their grandfather ran as a child on this same lawn how long ago? And his own grandfather, in another century, and his grandfather's grandfather. This is his house, his land, his family. It always has been, he plans that it always will be. You die, the land and the family go on. Jerusalem's inhabitants die, but the holy wall remains. That's as close as humans get to eternity. The aliens get closer to immortality. I wonder if it gets them any closer to God. My father would say no. I know Spender and Strughold. I think my father would have been right.

A rap at the window. He's outside, motioning for me to come out through the French window and join him for a walk around the grounds. Our feet, like Blake's Jesus, on solid British ground. I put the Blake down and join him on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Benjamin's Tale (paired with Joseph's Tale, following)

By Merri-Todd Webster

"And they journeyed from Bethel: and there was but a little way to come to Ephrath; and Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour.

"And it came to pass as her soul was in departing (for she died) that she called his name Benoni; but his father called him Benjamin." Genesis 36:16, 18, AV. [Benoni means "son of my sorrow"; Benjamin means "son of my right hand", that is, the favored son.]

He had never seen the dark man before. That was how he thought of him—the dark man. Dark hair that moved in the wind like a crow's feathers and a long dark coat with dark pants and dark shoes underneath. And dark gloves covering his hands. He didn't look like a nice man, with all those dark clothes and that frown on his face, pulling his dark eyebrows together. His leg throbbed painfully, so that he had to bite his lip to keep from crying, and seeing this strange dark man hovering over him did not make him feel any better.

The dark man stooped, his hands hanging loosely between his thighs. Seen closer to, he didn't look quite so scary. He was younger than Daddy and had pretty green eyes, with long thick lashes kind of like Daddy's friend that you weren't supposed to talk about, especially not to Mummy. His smile, though, made the little boy think of the way the big bad wolf must have smiled at Little Red Riding Hood from inside her grandmama's bonnet, ready to eat her up.

"What's your name, son?"

He hiccupped, trying to keep the tears back. "Benjamin, sir."

"Hi, Benjamin. You can call me Alex, and you don't have to call me 'sir', okay? Tomkins and I are going to take you to the hospital so they can fix that leg."

Benjamin looked distrustfully at the dark gloved hands that reached out for him. "Where's Tomkins?" He knew Grandpapa's butler, he knew old Tomkins was a Safe Person. He still wasn't sure about this Alex. He didn't look very Safe at all.

Alex dropped his hands and bit his lip. "He's waiting by the car, waiting to drive really fast to take you there. But you have to let me carry you to the car, Ben, you can't walk on that leg."

That was true. He was sure he couldn't walk, he'd tried. It hurt terribly, and the grownups kept saying it was broken. Benjamin nodded, and the dark gloved hands scooped him up easily. He was careful not touch the broken place, and that made Benjamin feel a little better, but not much. He lay boneless against the chest of the stranger, Alex's chest, still trying not to cry but failing. It was bad enough that he'd broken his leg and it hurt terribly and Daddy would be so disappointed if he cried, but now this strange man was stealing him away and he couldn't do anything about it.

They came to the end of the long hallway, and Benjamin's heart lightened. There was Grandpapa, his hands folded behind his back, and he smiled as they came toward him. Benjamin wound his arms around his grandfather's neck as the old man stooped and kissed him.

"There's a good boy. You'll be more careful the next time you climb the old yew, won't you, then? Alex will take care of you, and everything will be all right. Won't it, Alex?" He looked sharply at Alex.

"Yes, sir," Alex replied. "Everything will be all right." He was not looking at Benjamin but at Grandpapa, though he smiled reassuringly.

Alex carried him out to the car and sure enough, Tomkins was waiting there, standing still and straight as he always did until it was time for him to do something. As they came up, he got into the driver's seat, and then Alex put Benjamin carefully in the back and slid in beside him, and Tomkins took off very fast.

Benjamin was not worried about the fast driving because the big car was very safe, and Tomkins was a good driver. But it felt better to lean on a grown-up; it was hard, otherwise, to ignore the pain. He wished Grandmama were here so that she would hold him in her lap and sing to him. Despite himself, he whimpered.

"You okay, Benjamin?"

Benjamin snuffled, nodded, then admitted shamefacedly, "It hurts."

Alex made a small noise in his throat. "I know it does, kiddo. But Tomkins is driving as fast as he can."

Cautiously, Benjamin leaned toward Alex, hoping he would not be pushed away. He felt cold, and he remembered that he had felt warmer when Alex was holding him, carrying him. "Daddy says big boys shouldn't cry, no matter how much it hurts."

Alex made another strange noise that was maybe a nasty laugh. "Yeah, that's what daddies say, but I don't think you're a really big boy, yet, do you, Benjamin? I won't tell if you want to cry a little bit, and Tomkins won't, either."

Greatly daring, Benjamin leaned over so that his head was almost touching the man's arm. "It hurts a lot. I feel dizzy."

Even though he'd been hoping for it, he was surprised when Alex put a hand on his head. "Come on and lie down, Ben."

Benjamin put his head down on Alex's thigh, on top of the black coat. He didn't think Alex could see him, since he was lying on his side facing the back of the front seat, so he slipped his thumb into his mouth, which he was strictly not supposed to do. That helped the hurt a little, and he was able to think.

"Nobody calls me 'Ben'," he said after a moment.

Alex's hand slid lightly over the boy's hair. "Do you mind if I call you that?"

Benjamin briefly considered the issue. "No."

"Good." The hand continued to stroke his hair, and the stroking along with sucking his thumb and lying down made the sick feeling almost go away. He had to wake up, sort of, when Alex asked him a question.

"What does your grandfather call you, Ben?"

"He calls me his dear boy. Sometimes his special boy. Or just Benjamin."

"Hmmh."

Benjamin sucked his thumb a little more. "Are you Grandpapa's friend?" he asked.

"I work for him," Alex said, after a pause.

Benjamin turned over, onto his back, hiding his wet thumb in his pants pocket. "Sometimes Grandpapa has a friend like you."

"LIke me how?" Alex asked. He was frowning. Benjamin hoped he hadn't said The Wrong Thing.

"Like—like—" Benjamin struggled to convey concepts which were not in his vocabulary, like "handsome" or "beautiful" or "attractive." "Like they go places with him, and he buys them things. And sometimes they help him." His thumb strayed toward his mouth, and he wiped it on his hip, rubbing. "Some of them haven't been very nice to me."

Alex's mouth twisted up for a moment in that way grown-ups had. "They were stupid not to be nice to a boy like you, Ben." He smoothed the bangs off of Benjamin's damp forehead.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Benjamin asked, scanning Alex's face.

"Yes, you may," said Alex, just as Grandpapa would have.

Benjamin pursed his lips, rolled his eyes toward Tomkins in the driver's seat and then back toward Alex, and whispered solemnly, "Daddy has a friend. A special friend. She lives far away and I'm not supposed to ever talk about her in front of Mummy. It feels funny to keep secrets from Mummy. Once she gave me a present, though. Daddy's friend, I mean."

Alex smiled, reminding Benjamin of the big bad wolf again. "That was smart of her, Ben. —How's the leg?"

"It still hurts, but not so bad."

Alex squeezed Ben's shoulder gently. "We're almost there."

Benjamin did not remember much, later, about the hospital. Everything was white and moved very fast. Mostly he remembered waking up and being offered some strawberry ice cream, which he ate, feeling the throbbing of his leg now contained and dulled, encased in the stiff, heavy cast that was still damp inside. He watched some "Sesame Street" episodes on the telly, only he wasn't supposed to call it the telly, and then Grandmama came in to see him. She hugged him, smelling of roses.

"How's my good boy, then?"

"All right, Grandmama. It doesn't hurt so much any more. I tried not to cry too much."

She patted his cheek gently. "The doctors say you were very good and did everything they asked you to."

Drowsily, he nodded. "They let me have ice cream."

"Oh, that must have been lovely."

Benjamin drifted for a moment, giddy with medications he did not remember receiving. He came to himself again and voiced his one clear thought: "Where's Alex?"

"Right here, kiddo."

Grandmama turned, looking surprised, as Alex came into the room. He was carrying his long dark coat over one arm, showing a maroon sweater underneath, and had a bunch of balloons in the other hand. Smiling, he tied the balloons to the foot of Benjamin's bed.

"You came through with flying colors, Ben."

Benjamin raised his hand toward the pretty balloons, pink and silver and green and blue, the pink one in the shape of a heart. "Alex carried me to the car and held my hand through all the bad stuff, Grandmama, he helped me a lot."

"Did he now…." Grandmama sounded as if she didn't quite believe this. Alex reached over and ruffled Benjamin's hair, something Grandpapa often did.

"He was as good as gold, ma'am, really brave. Hospitals are scary places, aren't they, Ben?"

Ben nodded, shuddering, and he saw that Alex kind of shuddered, too. Grandmama was watching them with an odd expression on her face, which bothered Benjamin, so to make it go away, he asked a question.

"When is Grandpapa coming to see me?"

Alex and Grandmama looked at one another in a very funny way. Then Grandmama said, "Excuse me, boys, I must go speak to Tomkins," and hurried out of the room. Ben looked up at Alex, who leaned his elbows on the railing and bent low over the bed.

"I've got a secret to tell you, Ben, but you mustn't tell anyone, ever, okay?"

"Okay…."

"This is like the secret about Daddy's friend, only even more important. Don't tell anyone. Ever. Especially not your mommy and daddy."

Okay…." Ben tried to sit up, but his head was woozy from all the medicine. Alex pushed him gently back onto the pillow and patted his chest.

"Your grandfather had to go away for a while. Probably a long while. And he has to make certain people think that he's, well, dead."

Benjamin's eyes filled with hot tears. "Grandpapa's dead?"

Alex shook his head fiercely. "No! No, he just has to pretend. Because of a very important game that he plays." Alex bit his lip. "Like, you know, when you get 'out' in a game and you have to pretend you aren't there any longer."

Benjamin snuffled hard and wiped his eyes. "Oh. Oh, I get it. I think I get it."

"Good boy." Alex ruffled his hair. "Because he's 'out' in the game, he won't be able to see you for a while. But he told me I could tell you about this and that you could come visit him after a while."

"How soon?"

Alex's mouth turned down at the corners. "Not for a while. But I'll see him, and your grandmother will see him, and we'll tell him how good you were for the doctors and how you're getting better."

Benjamin nodded. "Okay…."

He did not remember falling asleep at the hospital. His stay there was boring, although Alex visited him often and told funny stories that made Ben laugh even though he didn't really understand them. Tomkins took him home, a few days later, and then his mother flew with him to Grandmama's place in Scotland while his broken leg got better. He did not see Alex for more than two weeks, and he almost forgot about the dark man who had carried him to the car and brought him balloons and told him it was all right to cry.

Then one day Grandmama brought in a tea tray with enough for two people and said, "There's someone to see you, Ben my love."

At first Benjamin did not recognize the tall, smiling man with the gaily-wrapped package under his arm. Only when he thought that Grandmama didn't use to call him 'Ben' did he look at the stranger and cry, "Alex!"

Alex smiled at him, a very nice smile indeed, and sat down carefully on the edge of the bed. "How's the leg, Ben?"

"I'll be on crutches, soon!"

"Good boy."

"Would you sign my cast?"

"If you want." Alex pulled a pen out of his blazer pocket and leaned over Ben's leg. Ben sat up to see what Alex was writing.

"Best wishes," Alex said slowly, "from your…friend…Alex."

"Thanks!"

"You're welcome. Want some tea?"

"Not really."

"Well, I do." Alex poured himself a cup of tea, added some lemon, and then stuffed a whole scone in his mouth. Ben giggled.

"Is that for me?" He pointed to the shiny package. Alex glanced at it as if he'd forgotten it was under his arm.

"This? Oh, yeah. It's for you." Alex handed it over and ate another scone while Benjamin ripped into the shiny striped paper and tore at the tough brown cardboard box underneath.

"Here—let me help you with that."

A knife flicked out of Alex's hand. "Take your hands away, Benny-boy." Ben raised his hands over his head as Alex ran the knife through the sticky brown packing tape. "There you go."

Ben dug through the straw-like stuff that filled the box until, crowing with joy, he pulled out a large stuffed bear with glossy fur that was almost black. "A teddy!"

"That's what it is." Alex grinned and Ben grinned back.

"Thank you, Alex!" Ben leaned forward and threw his arms around Alex's neck.

A moment later, Alex returned the hug, patting Ben lightly on the back. "Thank you, Ben, but it's not really from me." He drew back and put his hands on Ben's shoulders. "Remember our secret? The one not to talk about?"

Ben nodded, putting his finger over his lips.

"That's who it's from."

Benjamin squeezed the dark-furred bear tightly, grinning into the top of its head. Its fur was just about the color of Alex's hair, and its eyes were green.

Joseph's Tale (mirror to Benjamin's Tale)

By MJ

"Your son Joseph says this: 'God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me without delay. You will live in the region of Goshen where you will be near me, you, your children, and your grandchildren…Give my father a full report of the honour I enjoy in Egypt, and of all you have seen; and quickly bring my father down here.' Then throwing his arms round the neck of his brother Benjamin he wept; and Benjamin wept on his shoulder." Genesis 45:9–14, New Jerusalem Bible

Before I came here, I thought that Somerset was a soap opera my mother used to watch. But no, it's a county in England. We didn't get English counties in geography class in high school. This is most definitely the country, but the phrase "country house" over here doesn't have anything to do with cutesy cottage decor and geese with blue neck-bows that you see in Stateside grocery store women's magazines. This place is about as small a cottage as a Newport "beach house" is a shack. I'd been here for weeks before I didn't need a road map to get from my bedroom to the dining room for breakfast. A family could live in one wing of this house and never meet the family living in the other end if they didn't want to.

Which is why, although his grandchildren had been here for a good three weeks, I hadn't come face to face with any of them. Of course, their nanny, their tutor, and Miss Gilchrist thought it their duty to keep the brood away from Bad Influences, and I think Miss Gilchrist, whatever her job with these children is, determined that I was a Bad Influence within thirty seconds of meeting me.

Don't get me wrong, I like kids. Usually with cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, and mashed sweet potatoes with the marshmallows all over top. Hey, I may be vicious, but you can't say I'm not a patriot. I told Gilchrist that, and I meant it. No place like the States for a nice, roasted toddler with giblet gravy. Anyway, Miss Gilchrist apparently decided the grandchildren should be kept far away from me. I'm not sure if she thought I'd really cook and eat them, or if she thought it was her solemn duty to protect the children's minds from the impression that their grandfather was keeping a harem of pretty young men.

I didn't have time to deal with these kids anyway, cute as they were. We had a major strike against Spender planned, something that had the chance to blow the whole balance of power in the project into shreds if it worked, and I didn't have playtime with kidlets budgeted into my days.

But I needed to get away from the papers and the planning for a bit; I needed to clear my head, to come up with some other ways we could use the vaccine I'd brought back from Russia that hadn't been turned over to the project —you didn't think we gave them the whole lot I took from Russia, now really —to their disadvantage. It was chilly out, but a beautiful day; I thought that a stroll around the grounds for half an hour might clear my head.

He was standing at the library window, watching them romping on the front lawn with a look of absolute delight. He loves those children like nothing I've ever seen. I interrupted him long enough to tell him that I was going for a walk over by the rose garden. He turned away from the window just long enough to nod and give me a very slight smile; then he turned his attention back to the rousing game of tag that was happening outside.

I slipped on an overcoat, and the gloves I've taken to wearing, and had just stepped round to his prize-winning Elizabethan old roses, when I heard two things. The first was a very loud, very young screech. The second was Tomkins, who came chasing after me a minute later. One of the swarm had broken his leg while tagging the next It; the master had asked if I would help Tomkins run his grandson to the hospital, as there was a dreadfully important call, and the master might be running to the City any minute.

I've done worse things in my life and not been bothered; of course I'd do it. It was a break from the mind-numbing paperwork of world domination and international conspiracy that day to do something vaguely associated with Real Life. The old man had been teaching me about the real world I'd managed to forget in the process of working with Spender; cleaning up after kids is as real as the opera, or Renoir, or a thousand other things he loved to talk about. Maybe more so. The aliens don't care about kids any more than they do about Western civilization; in fact, they'd chomped on some kid in Texas, Spender's people were saying.

I came around front and had no trouble finding the victim at all—his youngest grandson, his absolute favorite, from what little he'd said to me. Our victim was curled up on the ground under the yew tree, where he'd taken a very nasty fall for a young man his age and size. I bent over, took a good look—I think I frightened the poor kid, because I know I made a face when I saw that leg. I know the kid wanted to cry pretty badly; I could see that puffy, blubbery look they get when something cry-worthy has happened, but he was holding it back big time. I forced the grimace off my face and tried for a smile, which probably didn't help a lot. The angle on that leg—the kid might as well have been in one of Spender's explosions.

"What's your name, son?"

He hiccupped, trying to keep the tears back. "Benjamin, sir"

"Hi, Benjamin. You can call me Alex, and you don't have to call me 'sir', okay? Tomkins and I are going to take you to the hospital so they can fix that leg."

"Where's Tomkins?" Benjamin was a smart kid, I gave him credit. He'd never seen me before and he didn't trust me for dirt. Whether that was his parents' doing, to keep him safe from kidnapping, or whether his grandfather had drilled him on the fine art of not winding up like Samantha Mulder, I didn't know. It was good training either way. But it wasn't really helpful in trying to get him to the doctor right now. I bit my lip and decided to try reason; kids usually do understand it.

"He's waiting by the car, waiting to drive really fast to take you there. But you have to let me carry you to the car, Ben, you can't walk on that leg.

Benjamin nodded at me, I could see he knew he wasn't moving on his own, so I got under his upper body with my right arm and tried as inconspicuously as possible to adjust my left arm to support his legs. He didn't weigh that much, but try carrying someone when you only have one arm. He leaned up against me, and I could feel his chest heaving with the effort not to cry.

I know what that feels like. I spent more than enough nights at his age with the covers over my head, trying the same trick so my father wouldn't hear me. .

His grandfather was outside, waiting for Benjamin to be loaded in the car. Which was fortunate, because I really wanted him to tell Ben that it was okay to go with me, that yeah, Alex Krycek's a liar, a thief, and a killer, but that doesn't mean you can't trust him. Ben gave his grandfather an enormous hug, and he got a kiss back in return. Whatever that man thinks of me, I'm sure as hell not Ben. From the look he gave that boy, I think God's a distant second on his list compared to his grandson. "There's a good boy. You'll be more careful the next time you climb the old yew, won't you? Alex will take care of you, and everything will be all right. Won't it, Alex?"

I knew he wasn't talking only about Ben. He'd just entrusted me with his grandson, but from the look he was giving me, I gathered we might be due for a rapid acceleration of plans. He could only be heading out of town to meet with Spender or that rich toad Strughold if he was being called to the City right now. Damn. And I was now his second-in-command in his own operations. If anything happened…

"Yes, sir. Everything will be all right." It was just going to have to be.

I got him out to the Mercedes and found Tomkins waiting for us, looking to see if I needed help getting Ben into the car. I seemed to be doing okay, so he climbed into the driver's seat, and once Ben was settled we took off like a bat out of hell. I got Tomkins drunk once and found out he used to race cars. Bet the old man doesn't know what happens to the Jaguar when there's no family at the house..

The kid was doing a good job of trying to control himself, better than I'd have done at his age, a little too stoic. Finally, he gave a big snuffle of some sort. "You okay, Benjamin?"

"It hurts."

Of course it hurts. Tell me about it. I remember when my father—but that's another story, from another time, from an Alex Krycek I don't remember. "I know it does, son. But Tomkins is driving as fast as he can."

Ben snuggled up against me as much as he could considering the leg. Now that he knew I was safe, he'd decided to get closer, and that was fine. I wish I could have trusted adults when I was a kid. "Daddy says big boys shouldn't cry, no matter how much it hurts." Yeah, mine said that too. Usually when he'd done something first.

I had to snort, otherwise I'd have cursed, and the kid didn't need that —besides, his grandfather would kill me. "Yeah, that's what daddies say, but I don't think you're a really big boy, yet, do you, Benjamin? I won't tell if you want to cry a little bit, and Tomkins won't, either." Let's ignore that Fox cries on a dime. Bet his father'd like knowing about that. It's been a long time since I really cried. Getting it beaten out of you is pretty strong conditioning. And the project always wondered why I don't feel pain.

"It hurts a lot. I feel dizzy."

"Come on and lie down, Ben." I got my hand on his head and let him get settled against my leg. He wasn't too old to suck his thumb; the old bitch Gilchrist hadn't gotten that juvenile pleasure out of his life yet. Good for him.

"Nobody calls me 'Ben'." Factual, not resentful.

I ruffled the kid's hair, watched him snuggle in deeper. "Do you mind if I call you that?"

"No."

"Good."

"What does your grandfather call you, Ben?"

"He calls me his dear boy. Sometimes his special boy. Or just Benjamin." He would be formal. I've never seen him not formal. "Are you Grandpapa's friend?" Ben asked. Gilchrist hadn't protected the little brat too much, had she? I wondered exactly what Ben knew about his grandfather's arrangements, voted for the nondisclosure that had kept me alive this long. "I work for him."

"Sometimes Grandpapa has a special friend. Usually his friend is a man. Some of them haven't been very nice to me."

I'm not sure if that constituted too much information or not enough—I knew what his grandfather would have done to a few of his previous toyboys if he'd known any of that. Obviously his little friends didn't—apparently he usually leaves his business out of his personal arrangements. "They were stupid not to be nice to a boy like you, Ben." Big time stupid. For more reasons than one.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Aha, I'm trustworthy. Thank you.

"Yes, you may." Lord, I sounded like my mother there. It must be a genetic response to kidspeak.

"Daddy has a friend. A special friend. She lives far away and I'm not supposed to ever talk about her in front of Mummy. It feels funny to keep secrets from Mummy. Once she gave me a present, though. Daddy's friend, I mean."

I smiled. Knowledge, as they say, is power. That sounded like a useful piece of knowledge. I wondered if my employer knew about that. If he didn't, he'd certainly appreciate knowing. "That was smart of her, Ben." And dumb of daddy, thank you very much. "—How's the leg?"

"It still hurts, but not so bad." The pain was starting to make him numb; just as well, really. We were nearly at the hospital anyway.

I wasn't comfortable with that call my employer had gotten when I left. I was torn between checking in and doing guard duty on Ben. But I realized that nothing could happen tonight other than a project planning meeting; he wouldn't need to act the very next day, surely. However, if they caught wind of anything, Benjamin was all too exposed. They have a thing about family members, or Spender does. So I voted for guard duty until I got word. Then Ben's grandmother arrived. While I was on an important mission. Well, two, actually, because I did call in. I heard Ben speaking when I got back up to his room. "Where's Alex?"

"Right here, kiddo." I figured every kid his age needs balloons, and they'd had some in the gift shop. So I bought out all the ones they had done up. If Ben held them himself, he'd have floated away, so I tied them to the bedframe. The nurses could hate me later. "You came through with flying colors, Ben."

"Alex carried me to the car and held my hand through all the bad stuff, Grandmama, he helped me a lot."

"Did he now…." She didn't have to be that incredulous, did she? I knew she figured my primary function was family hit man, but really. After I shook off what I thought might be a vague insult to my babysitting skills, it occurred to me to wonder if she'd gotten the news herself. Oh, of course she had. Otherwise he'd have been here himself.

"He was as good as gold, madam, and very brave. Hospitals are scary places, aren't they, Ben?" God forbid he ever has some of the hospital experiences Fox Mulder's had, or I've had.

She was looking distracted. That didn't surprise me, from what I'd been told myself. I don't think she'd been prepared for the news to come this soon.

"When is Grandpapa coming to see me?" I looked at her; she stared back, looking a bit more ill than Ben had earlier. She really hadn't been prepared for it to happen yet, had she? I wasn't, myself, but at least I'd been there with her husband. She wasn't going to have the chance to see him, I realized.

"Excuse me, boys, I must go speak to Tomkins." She rushed out. She's a tough woman, but this task was just a bit much even for her.

I crouched over at Ben's side, whispering. "I've got a secret to tell you, Ben, but you mustn't tell anyone, ever, okay?"

"Okay…." He looked thrilled to hear a Secret. He wouldn't be so thrilled once he'd heard it. Why do I get stuck with these things?

"This is like the secret about Daddy's friend, only even more important." Was it ever. "Don't tell anyone. Okay?"

"Okay." Eyes as wide as a doped-up kid could get them. I liked him.

And here it went. Wonderful. "Your grandfather had to go away for a while. Probably a long while. And he has to make certain people think that he's, well, dead."

Ben started crying—fortunately, quietly.. "Grandpapa's dead?"

"No! No, he just has to pretend. Because of a very important game that he plays." Yeah, only the most important game on earth—human survival. "Like, you know, when you get 'out' in a game and you have to pretend you aren't there any longer."

Benjamin snuffled hard and wiped his eyes. "Oh. Oh, I get it. I think I get it." I thought so too. He was, after all, the tag champion of the grandchild brood.

"Good boy. Because he's out in the game, you won't be able to see you for a while. But he told me I could tell you about this and that you could come visit him after a while." That was taking a few liberties with my actual phone call earlier, but not many. I'd get forgiven one of these days.

"How soon?"

"Not for a while. But I'll see him, and your grandmother will see him, and we'll tell him how good you were for the doctors and how you're getting better." It would be a while before either of us saw him, as well, but I wasn't telling Ben that. He wouldn't appreciate it, I knew.

Tomkins took him home, a few days later, back to his mother and that lout of a father, while I ran down to help finish off the business we'd planned. The last thing he did, after he left my bed and before I dropped him off for his flight was to give me a list of instructions about Ben, who was up at the house in Scotland, "Grandmama's house" as Ben would think of it. I gues the wolf had to go pay a visit to grandma's house now.

I entered his bedroom at Grandmama's preceded by Grandmama, a maid, a huge tray of scones and cakes and a teapot that could serve a few thousand. Recovery burns up calories, I'm told. I have a pretty good appetite myself, especially for cream scones, I've discovered. "There's someone to see you, Ben my love."

"Alex!"

It was good to see young Master Benjamin, I had to admit. The kid was growing on me; I could see why he was the favorite. I parked myself at the edge of the bed, up near him, and honest to God, I thought of Christopher Robin. Yeah, I read Winnie the Pooh as a kid. Spies read books too, you know. "How's the leg, Ben?"

"I'll be on crutches, soon!"

"Good boy."

"Would you sign my cast?" He was practically bouncing. One or two other signatures on it, from what I guessed o be neighboring children up here. No daddy, and no Evil Gilchrist Woman on it. The handwriting styles suggested I was the first adult he'd asked, which I think is an honor of some sort. So of course, I had to.

"If you want." I'd worn a tweed hacking blazer over old corduroys; fortunately, I had a map marker in one of the pockets, which I thought would look better than a regular pen. Ben sat up to see what I was writing.

"Best wishes," I recited as I wrote, "from your…friend…Alex."

"Thanks!" Kids are the same everywhere. I got my casts signed, too, when I was a kid.

"You're welcome. Want some tea?"

"Not really." Not hungry? I doubted it. I was starving. If he saw me eat something, he'd start eating, too.

If that Gilchrist bitch ever leaves, I ought to tell Ben's family I can do twice the job she could without even trying. If I want to give up my current work, that is. When all of this is over, maybe I'll be a rich, powerful man who teaches kids how to be spies. It looks like I'd be good at it. "Well, I do." I poured a cup of tea, found the lemon, and snagged a cream scone. If only they had Russian tea instead, I'd have been a happy man. My mother made the best tea I've ever drunk.

"Is that for me?" Ben pointed to the shiny package I'd been carrying. Kids and packages. It might as well have been Christmas.

"This? Oh, yeah. It's for you." I handed it over, which gave me time to go after another scone. The clerk at Harrod's had wrapped it very well when I'd said it was going to Scotland with me. Ben was able to deal with the paper after a moment, but the cardboard box underneath was proving a little bit tricky. Fortunately, there are lots of uses for switchblades. I never go anywhere without one. "Here—let me help you with that. "Take your hands away, Benny-boy." He moved them way far away really quickly—he's got good reflexes—and I cut through the packing tape. I hate that stuff with the strings in it. "There you go."

Ben went back to his quest with a vengeance, scarfing through the packing ramie and generally making a mess of the bed. Finally he struck pay dirt and nearly screamed. "A teddy!"

"That's what it is."

"Thank you, Alex!" Ben leaned forward and gave me the hug of my life.

So I hugged him back and passed on the latest news. "Thank you, Ben, but it's not really from me. Remember our secret? The one not to talk about?"

Ben nodded, putting his finger over his lips.

"That's who it's from."

Ben nodded at me, looking at the bear in near wonder. "Is it really, truly?"

"Yes, it is, Ben." He gazed at the bear again thoughtfully, finally burying his nose in its fur. The thing was nearly as big as he was. Christopher Robin, indeed, but the bear was too chocolate-brown to be a Pooh. "It's a smashing, big bear. I'll name it Alex." A pause. "If you don't mind."

Spender once told me that the aliens had the secret of immortality. He looked forward to finding it for himself, the wrinkled old bastard. I don't think we need aliens for immortality. I think immortality is when someone names their bear for you.

Rahab's Tale (unpaired)

By MJ

"But Joshua had said unto the two men that had spied out the country, Go into the harlot's house, and bring out thence the woman, and all that she hath, as ye sware unto her. And the young men that were spies went in, and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had…And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein…And Joshua saved Rahab the harlot alive, and her father's household, and all that she had; and she dwelleth in Israel even unto this day; because she hid the messengers, which Joshua sent to spy out Jericho." Joshua 6: xxii—xxv [Thanks to Kass and JiM for beta and comments. For Merri-Todd Webster, who also loves the Bible, John Neville, and Nick.]

The message was hand-delivered, hand-written. The stationery cost a week's worth of my former salary, if I was any judge. I'd thought that will readings only took place in television murder mysteries. Now I was invited to one.

The solicitor's office made the Consortium headquarters in New York look cheap. There was enough oak paneling, enough leather, enough antiques, to open a store. It stood to reason. The old man had never settled for doing anything halfway. Naturally, his solicitor's offices dated back to the current gentleman's great-grandfather's practice. I should have expected it.

I wasn't the only person present, by any means. His wife was there, a pillar of restraint. They rarely lived under the same roof, but she had been devoted to him in her own way, as had I, in mine. Like Bill Mulder's wife, she also had a fair knowledge of the Consortium's activities, though not a complete working understanding of its plans. His three children were there—the heir and his two sisters. I had met his grandchildren, but never his children; all three, even the youngest, were older than I was. My stomach turned. I knew, without a doubt, exactly what this looked like to them. Their father's young trick was walking off with a chunk of the estate. They probably wanted me dead more than the smoker did.

Nothing could be further from the truth than what they were thinking. And yet they couldn't have been more correct. But they'd never know that. Not if I had anything to do with it. The closest we had ever been physically had been the night before he flew to DC. We spent the night in the same bed; he held me. He never took off more than his dressing gown. But these three —hell, the heir hadn't even bothered to visit his son in the hospital when the boy broke his leg; he couldn't be bothered. No more had any of the three bothered to worry about their father in years. But when they heard he was dead—oh, when the will was read, there they were, waiting for their handout. Scared that daddy's toyboy was going to take their justly deserved earnings from them.

They'd worked so hard for their money, after all.

His wife looked over at me, smiled grimly, nodded. She'd been there at the house one day while I was studying that smoking bastard Spender's files. She knew her husband was teaching me his business, whatever else might have been happening between us. She stopped me at one point, shortly before tea. We were alone in the library; she had been writing a few letters. She cleared her throat, standing at my side.

"Mr. Krycek. Alex." I turned, looked up at her. "Spender. Do you know him?"

"I used to work for him. Until he tried to kill me."

"He tries to kill everyone, eventually. If you ever have the chance…kill him before he kills my husband."

"Do you really think he'd dare to try?"

"I don't think he'd dare not to try, if the opportunity arises." She rang for the tea at that point, dropped the conversation. I know she thinks that the smoker planted the explosives in her husband's car. Car bombs, after all, are his speed. I think the old man planted it himself, personally. He knew that if Spender won, there wasn't anything left to live for anyway, and his own health, if he won, was hardly the best any more. As long as his grandchildren, he'd said, had a future, his own was highly irrelevant.

Oh, Christ Jesus, they're gonna try skinning me alive. The son and the older sister, especially, if I'm guessing right. That man's easy to read; he's dumb as an ox. I'd have him beaten at poker so fast it wouldn't be funny; maybe I should challenge him to an all-night poker session for his cut of the estate. The flat in Mayfair—he probably wanted it for that little so-called actress his wife doesn't know about. I don't know quite what I'll do with it yet—it's fairly ostentatious for a safe house—but then, maybe I don't really need a safe house any more.

It's not that I can't take on anyone who tries getting the upper hand with me. Of course I can. It's the embarrassment of knowing what they're thinking. And why. And realizing that I really can't take them on in the way I'd like. It wouldn't be—sporting. And I owe it to their father. They may not have cared about him before today, but he cared about them, or their children at any rate. So I let the embarrassment slide. There are other ways to get even with them. Later. Besides, their mother understands what's happening here, though they never will.

The Cayman Islands bank account. Yeah, that's going over like a lead balloon, too. They're going to try to find out what it would take to buy me off. They think I was there to be pretty and stupid. They've got a few things to learn, haven't they? I think I'll make sure they learn them. Nothing that would work up his wife, however. She hasn't done anything wrong by me yet, and I don't think she would. We both know the score here. And I have to admit I respect her. Down to the ice in her veins.

He said he'd take care of me if anything happened. I didn't expect this.

Oh. They don't care about their father's business papers and files. They just want the money, thank you very much. Good. I'll be able to sort through the documents and move what I need out of there. I'll be very happy to get the stuff and get out of their sight. Once I'm done with them. Don't think I'm done, not by a longshot. They think I was there just for decoration? They'll find out just how decorative Alex Krycek is when he's pissed.

They have nothing to complain about. The heir gets the house, the property, the income from the estate. He needs it with what he spends on that bimbo of his. The older sister—she gets the town house, the cars, the investments. The youngest, Daddy's favorite, gets the art collection, plus all of the proceeds on one of his enormous insurance policies. Besides, the Earl would be marrying her next year anyway; it's not like she's ever going to be hard up. What Swiss bank account? He never even told me about that one. I ought to just settle down with the cash and get listed in the stud book. Only I don't want the female attention…and I don't want the attention. Besides, I can't settle down. Not yet. I promised him I'd move back into the Consortium. I promised him—and her—that I'd deal with Spender and his cronies. That's what the old man trained me for. I owe it to him to do the job.

And then I owe him one other thing.

Going back after Fox.

He knew that's what I've wanted. He told me so. He'd be disappointed in me if I didn't at least try.

Funny disposition of property, this. I saw his records when I worked with him. There's a house in Switzerland, I thought. A couple of other offshore accounts. Wait, if it doesn't get listed—I think I'm right here—the surviving spouse takes them. Right?

Of course, she's got the insurance proceeds, and the other house in Scotland, the one her parents left her. She's in very good shape.

It's funny. I miss the old man already. It took me a long time to realize how I really felt about him. Maybe I'm getting soft. They say we'll all meet again someday. I wonder how soon I'll meet up with him.

The reading appears to be over. The solicitor says a few words to the old lady, politely, obsequiously, the same way I used to speak to her husband. Then he speaks to the children, rather generally, and then to me, regarding dispositions. He returns to the heir, with whom he'll have the most business. Someday that will probably include handling the man's divorce. His wife will figure it out sometime. A well-placed phone call or two someday will see to that, won't it?

The solicitor's done with the discussion. The formality of the whole ritual has been fascinating. The heir is coming my way. looking murderous. The old lady apparently sees it; she takes my arm immediately, thaws out long enough to give me a blinding smile. "Mr. Krycek, would you be so kind as to help me to my car?"

That's got them in their tracks. Let them wonder.

She turns to me on the walk down the steep staircase. "The funeral, Alex. I expect you'll be there. Please escort me."

"Certainly."

"It will be a closed casket funeral, you understand. After all, the explosion…" Her children are behind us on the steps. I know they're listening to every word we're saying. And they're confused as hell. They deserve it.

Dealing with the smoker will be a comparative pleasure after dealing with them. I expect his call any day now. Condolences, I'm sure. And an offer of re-employment I've been told not to refuse. The old man had plans for Spender. And I'm the one who…um…executes…them.

"Then, Alex, there is a small matter I need you to help me with. A matter of business, you understand."

"Yes, ma'am."

"There's a house in Geneva. I believe I'll need to go there immediately afterwards. It would be in both of our interests if you would care to escort me." She looks at me significantly. I nod. And say nothing. The old man handled this matter very well indeed.

After all, there's a very good reason for a closed casket funeral in this case.

When there's no body, there's nothing to show.

I look forward to Geneva. I hear it's lovely there this time of year.

A Fire of Coals (paired with Hagar's Tale, following)

By Merri-Todd Webster

"As soon as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread.…Jesus saith unto them, 'Come and dine'." John 21: 9, 12, AV

The lake is lovely this time of year. Of course, what am I saying? It's lovely year-round, so lovely it's almost a cliche. And yet, the subtle changes from season to season prevent it from cloying on one. It is as splendid in its stark winter austerity as it is now in the full bloom of summer.

Tomkins clears his throat softly. I had not heard him enter. I turn from looking out the window. "The plane has arrived, sir."

"Very good."

Once, I would have gone out to the airfield to watch the plane come in. I cannot afford to do so, now. Eyes are always watching, even here in the Alps. So I merely continue to stand by the window, watching the wind stir the line of evergreens in the distance, hoping with a foolish hope that there will be two passengers on that plane.

"Dearest."

Her voice is as quiet as ever, tinged with a hint of Scotland still, after all these years. It was the thing that charmed me about her, so many decades ago: It betrayed that she possessed her own mind. Smiling in memory, I turn to greet her—and see him standing beside her.

Alex waits as my wife comes forward. I take her hands in mine and press my lips to her cheek. She returns the salute with unusual warmth. "My dear."

"It's good to see you again, dear heart."

She steps back and then walks over to the window. "I'd forgotten what a lovely view you have here," she murmurs, gazing out into the distance. I hold out my hand to Alex.

"My dear boy."

He takes my hand, looking almost as surprised at the sight of me as I feel at the sight of him, and I cannot resist the impulse to fold him in my arms. Elisabeth is, after all, not looking at us, as she has not looked on so many occasions when I needed her to look away. She is a wise woman. I feel his arms come around me just as I step back and let go.

"Who knows?" he asks in a low voice. I have always cherished the sound of his voice, soft and rough together; no similes do it justice.

"The three of us. Tomkins. A few others whose loyalty I can rely on." I shake my head lightly. "No one within the syndicate."

"You're sure?"

"As sure as I can be." I take another step away from him and turn toward Elisabeth. "Are you up for tea, my dear?"

Tomkins serves the tea, and it is all very civilised. Elisabeth talks of the children and the grandchildren as if I were not officially dead. I shall miss visiting with my grandson, my son's boy, and the other little ones, but not my children, I am sorry to say. They have never had an inkling of the work I do; they have cared only for the money it brought them.

Elisabeth wipes her mouth carefully after the second scone and says, "Well, dearest, I really must go and lie down after our flight, if you don't mind."

"Of course not, my dear." Tomkins reappears as if by magic, as always, and with a clasp of my hand and a brief pat on the shoulder for Alex, Elisabeth leaves us alone. I follow her with my eyes until they have started up the grand staircase, out of my sight.

Smiling, I turn to Alex. "Now, my dear boy, you may tell me what is really going on."

It is a most interesting tale he has to tell, one which occupies us for hours. I let him go on, asking the questions that must be asked, answering those which he must answer, until I can no longer stifle my yawns.

"I am sorry, dear boy, but you must let the old man go to his hot bath, and to his early bedtime. We can resume talking in the morning, hmm?" I squeeze his shoulder briefly. "Good night, Alex."

His reply comes from behind me. "Good night, sir."

Tomkins has already drawn my bath. A love for hot baths is one of my few personal indulgences, and the only way I can compose these old bones for sleep. Well, perhaps not the only way, but the best way possible, most of the time. Tomkins has added a bit of fragrant salts to the water, some elusive scent which reminds me of the incense at the cathedral where I sang as a boy, somewhere in Wales.…I have nearly fallen asleep in the tub when I hear an unfamiliar footstep.

"Who's there?" The bathwater sloshes wildly as I try to sit up.

"It's me, sir. Alex."

He is standing just outside the bathroom door. Weary anew, I sag back into the soothing heat of the water.

"What is it, my boy?"

"I thought you might like my…company."

Something stirs deep within me, as if an old sere branch had put forth a tiny leaf after many barren springtimes. I hesitate, then breathe out and feel that tiny leaf unfold.

"Send in Tomkins, Alex, and I'll come to your rooms directly."

"Yes, sir."

I hear Alex walk away and, soon thereafter, Tomkins approach. He is his usual impassive self as he helps me out of the tub and does most of the work of drying me off—tasks I had not wanted Alex to do for me. Our relationship is too…fragile for that. And my joints ache despite the bath…but perhaps that won't matter, shortly.

I knock at the door of his room, a thing I never used to do. Once I entered unbidden, needing no permission. But things have changed between us. They cannot be what they used to. No matter what I need.

The door opens, and there is Alex, smiling, wrapped in a dressing gown from the closet. How young he looks, and yet how long he has been a part of this game we play. I do not regret sacrificing my place at the board so that he may join the play. I only hope he wins. That we all win.

He startles me greatly by putting his arms around me. It is a real embrace though a very careful one; he holds me as if I might break, and indeed, I might.

"I've missed you," he whispers. Does he know, then, how much his voice excites me?

I smile, raising my hand to touch his cheek lightly. "I've missed you, too, my dear boy. But you've done well without me."

He steps back but does not quite let go of me. "You've trained me well. You deserve the credit."

"Not all of it, Alex." I simply look at him for a moment, seeing everything in him that he cannot see in himself. "You've been an apt pupil, and you've applied your lessons ingeniously."

The smile we share speaks of too many dangerous things, too many risks successfully taken. "And Mr. Mulder?" I query, touching on a subject I've avoided till now.

Alex's face changes; his expression closes, shutters itself against me, and he half turns away. "He'll listen. He'll have to. But I didn't want to talk about Mulder tonight."

Folding my hands, I compose myself to answer more questions before allowing myself a few hours' sleep. "What is it then, my boy?"

He turns back, his eyes meeting mine through those impossible lashes, and then his mouth, dear God, his mouth brushes my cheek.

"Alex…." Not in decades have I felt so helpless.

"I want to touch you," he whispers. "I want you to touch me."

The shudder that goes through me is as hot as fire, but the flame is green, the colour of Alex's beseeching eyes. I am being burnt alive by the touch of this beautiful boy's mouth, so soft, yet he must surely have left a brand.

"Alex…." I sound as helpless as I feel. "Alex, you don't owe me this. You don't owe me anything."

"It's not a debt." His breath brushes that burning spot on my skin.

"Alex, please." I ought to move away from him, yet I simply cannot, even though he is no longer touching me. "Don't…spoil what we had. This would be a mistake—"

He kisses me.

It's all over.

His mouth touches mine just long enough for me to be certain that he means what he says, that he wants to be touched, that he is not kissing me as a man might kiss his father. And I can no longer resist the beauty that is being offered me. My soul is too dry to refuse this precious nourishment.

Alex undresses and lies down on the bed, just as he used to. Only now I leave my dressing gown on a chair and lie down beside him, laying my hand on his chest. As he did the night before I flew to DC, he takes my hand and kisses it, then cradles it to his cheek. The roughness of his beard, the softness of his lips, both are like warm water running over my hand, my hand which is stiff and dry and withered like a fallen branch, and yet something within me is blooming. Something is blazing here like a fire of coals.

For so long I only watched him, drank in his beauty as he pleasured himself, knew that behind his closed eyes he was thinking of someone else, of a man as young and desirable as himself. I never blamed him. I knew he did not want me to touch him; I had promised I wouldn't. It wouldn't have been…right.

It is right now, here and now, with the fire on the hearth blazing and the warmth of his young body keeping me warm. Is this how David felt, with Abishag in his bed? I touch his face and his chest, his nipples, draw my fingers down the thin line of hair that graces his belly, take hold with aching fingers of the organ that, inexplicably, impossibly, stands erect between his thighs.

Alex sighs, a long rippling sigh like the sound of waves rushing over the sandy shore. He turns toward me, onto his side, and slips his hand inside my tunic, pressing it against my heart. A young, warm, strong hand, a hand that could kill me easily, in an instant. My fingers throb too much to clutch him tightly—I touch the tip of his sex, moist and so sensitive. His hand glides down to touch mine, but I am not erect. There is only so much the body will do.

I take my hand away. "Touch yourself, Alex, dear boy…."

Obediently he wraps his fingers around himself, looking into my eyes as he does so. Beautiful boy, exquisite child, the very sweetest.…I kiss his chest and his nipples and his face and, finally, his mouth, as he reaches his climax.

Was it my name he tried to say? I would like to believe that it was.

It is so warm here in Alex's bed, with his arms around me, his tousled head on my shoulder. I believe I'll stay.

Hagar's Tale (mirrors "A Fire of Coals")

By MJ

"And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife." Genesis 16:iii

This wasn't my first trip to Switzerland. I've been an errand boy for a long time; I've done my part making the usual deliveries. Usually to Lucerne, however, or other more out-of-the-way places, never to Geneva. Everything I've heard is true, I decide as I ride with the bereaved widow from the airport to the family's house. I'm glad for the driver; I wouldn't know how to navigate my way in these parts. It feels odd, however, to be, dare I say, sitting with the grownups. I'm used to the lower echelons—being the errand boy, being the flunky, not being the one who hands everything off to the little guys. It's different being a player

He'd told me this. He'd spent a great deal of his own time and money to teach me this. Now his children squabble over the furnishings in his city house and whether the Rembrandt there passed with the furnishings or as part of the art collection.

But I know something they don't know. Their father is here, in a monstrously large chalet near a lake. And he cares to see them no more than they would care to know this fact, now that they have what they think of as his bones. A memory from my childhood Sunday School classes comes back- the dice cast for Jesus' garments. That's what those three reminded me of. Fighting over his worldly goods, when they'd never cared at all about him.

It suddenly occurs to me that he doesn't know I'm coming with Elisabeth. She hadn't been able to contact him after the events; it was hardly safe to try.

The driver turns up a poorly paved path between trees, and the house comes into view. He's on the terrace, pacing as he so often did in his library back in England.

She calls over to him, alerting him to our presence. He turns, faces us, looks taken aback for half a second, then smiles. I can only presume that it is my presence that surprised him; I know that he expected her. I also know my place; I've spent years with the Consortium learning to know it. I may be a player now, but a good chess player knows when to draw back. This is their moment, not mine; I wait.

"My dear." They clasp hands, kiss. Both too well bred by half to let me, Tomkins, or the driver see anything remotely resembling a display.

"It's good to see you again, dear heart."

"I'd forgotten what a lovely view you have here." She turns to look out over the lake. The view is amazing, I have to agree. I'm more amazed, however, by the look on his face. His hand is out towards me; his eyes—oh, never mind. I can't describe it anyway.

"My dear boy." I take his hand. The grip—he's stronger yet than you might think to look at him. And it finally dawns on me just how much I really have missed him.

For a moment, while his wife admires the view towards the slopes, we embrace. He draws back, and I let go reluctantly. This is the only human who's cared about me for my own sake since I was a child, with the possible exception of Fox. And it's been so long, I'm not sure how much was really there between us, how much is an invention of my memory. And one of them—well, one of them doesn't hate me now.

Besides, you have to know him. If you don't know him, you don't know just how deeply this man cares. About everything. Politics. Art. Music. Things I'd never paid the slightest attention to, until he showed me that they mattered. And that Spender and his bunch of egomaniacal cronies would cheerfully throw it all over to be puppet leaders for a bunch of pasty-faced, cranially overendowed goons who'd like their very own planet full of drones. I've met the aliens. If they have a culture, I don't want to know about it. They haven't got any personality, I'll give you that. No wonder they get along with that smoking bastard.

But in his words, I digress. The three of us have tea, and then Elisabeth excuses herself to lie down. It wasn't the easiest flight, as those private jets ride pretty rough, and she's not that young herself. He keeps me there to fill him in on events since his death. Of which, like Mark Twain's, the reports were greatly exaggerated.

I have to fill him in on Spender's call, of course; as he'd predicted, the smoker was only too happy to see my face now that I'd inherited his archenemy's papers. Now that I knew just what there was to know about him and his little gray pals. And, of course, on Strughold, who has mysteriously withdrawn to some hot, sandy part of Africa with the bees in his…bonnet. I got the vaccine from Russia, my mentor got it to Fox; I don't know what Strughold plans to do with his pollination project now. Eventually, when we win, it won't matter. And we will win, for the success I will have in destroying the man who tried to kill me, and in defeating his cronies, will be due to what I have learned from the man in this room with me.

Oh, yes. I have to tell him about the will reading. That goes without saying. He chuckles at the thought of his son's mistress discovering that there's no jewelry or flat coming to her from the proceedings. She won't last long anyway. Especially after the wife gets those photos I sent. There, I knew he'd like that touch.

We've talked for—what, three hours? Maybe more. It's late; even I am tired, and he must be exhausted. He excuses himself to bathe and go to bed; I finally investigate my quarters. Like the rest of this house, they are exquisitely comfortable; this is a gilded prison in which he has placed himself in protective custody. Perhaps for the rest of his life, if he dies before I finish with Spender. I think over these things as I undress. Then, pulling on the dressing gown which Tomkins laid out for me while I talked, I go down the hall.

"What is it, my boy?" he calls from the next room.

"I thought you might like my…company."

Silence for a moment. I wonder if I've done something wrong in this. I've never come to him before; always, he came to me when he chose to do so. But then, I no longer work for him; I'm now a free agent. I think I may allow myself this luxury. It's been some time…and then, after all, I need him as well as he needs me. Whether he knows it or not.

Then he speaks. "Send in Tomkins, Alex, and I'll come to your rooms directly."

"Yes, sir."

He knocks. I didn't expect that of him. He never used to. But, as I said earlier, things are different now. And so they must be different between us as well. I let him in, shut the door behind him, and proceed to shock him once again by taking him in my arms. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too, my dear boy. But you've done well without me."

Something suggests to me that he hasn't quite taken my point yet. "You've trained me well. You deserve the credit."

"Not all of it, Alex." He flatters me, not that I don't like flattery. He's made me who I am now, whether he admits it or not. And I am, I suppose, better for it.

Shit. Why does he have to ask me about Fox? Fox isn't why I'm here, isn't why I've asked him to meet me. Fox is…Fox. Fox is…difficult. Fox is…someone I can worry over for the rest of my life. I don't have forever with the man in this room, and the incidents of the past weeks have only served to remind me of his inevitable mortality. "Mulder? He'll listen. He'll have to. But I didn't want to talk about Mulder tonight."

"What is it then, my boy?"

How can I make this any plainer? I draw him up against me, as close as I can bring him without any force, and I lean forward, and I…kiss him.

I can't believe that he didn't expect it.

"Alex…." My God, I swear he's blushing. A much different consternation than I saw on Fox's face that one time, when I kissed his cheek, but then, these are far different circumstances. I'm not kissing a man I loved who hates my existence. And I didn't invite him here to chat about Fox Mulder, or the price of Argentine industrial bonds, either. I need him. As I needed him with me the night before he left for Washington. Only this time, I know he'll be alive the next day.

"I want to touch you. I want you to touch me."

"Alex…Alex, you don't owe me this. You don't owe me anything."

"It's not a debt."

"Alex, please. Don't…spoil what we had. This would be a mistake—"

Oh, I have no intention of spoiling anything. None at all. And I'm about to prove it.

I kiss him. Not another brush on the cheek, not a peck. Nothing as undignified as a grapple, but enough of a kiss to be emphatic. And I feel him, finally, letting go. Relaxing, finally, against me. Good; I want him to. Otherwise I can't bring him along with me.

He's afraid of this. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised; how long has it been since another man has asked him to bed? But why should I not want him with me now? He's recreated me in his image, after all, and it's an image he's tried to teach me to appreciate. He looks at himself, sees age, arthritis, decay. I see…something else. Intelligence. Humor. Concern. I think of him, suddenly, with his grandchildren. Of course; love. An awkward word for this thing between the two of us, but I don't know another one, I don't know a better one. Not in English.

I throw off my robe and slide onto the eiderdown; I sit up, waiting for him to join me. Off with the dressing gown, which falls on a chair where he once would have sat to watch me. I want none of that. Sex may be a spectator sport; this is not. I want him with me.

He comes to me as he did in London, his nightclothes still on. He must think it's a concession to me, although I'm sure he's also cold; after all, this is Switzerland, not the Riviera. And he may never understand that what I see of him is not what he sees of himself. He compares himself to his youth; I know him only as he is now. And the man he is now is the man I've asked to join me here; I don't do ghosts.

Which is why I've left off with my fantasies about Fox. I won't have my own ghosts in bed with us, either.

I take his hands, draw him closer; it is at moments like this that I can feel how frail he may be, but I can also feel how strong he once was, and how brightly the fires still burn inside. His hands are much like mine. They have loved; they have killed. They may be more tired than mine, they may be stiff now, but they have a lifetime of his experiences behind them, experiences which in our time together before, he had only begun to share with me.

There is so much to know. About him, about myself. About this conspiracy that has surrounded us for most of his life, and has existed for longer than I have lived. About a world that he knows far better than I do, and that he wants desperately to save from his own colleagues. Right now, however, I will settle for learning more only about ourselves.

He reaches for me now, his hands shaking not with age or infirmity, but his own desire. He touches me, draws his hands down my body, feeling me respond. And I do respond, surprised though he is by the fact. I wouldn't have asked him to come here otherwise. His lack of erection is no surprise; as much as he wants to be with me, all things are not always possible. I've known all along that this has been a problem for him. It doesn't matter; this isn't about a quick fuck.

He takes his hand away from me, places my own on my erection. "Touch yourself, Alex, dear boy…." It isn't only that he has no erection, or that his hands are weakened with his arthritis; I know quite well that he really does enjoy watching me do this. His own pleasure has been evident every time. This time, however, is a cooperative effort. I don't mind an audience, really—hell, I'm an exhibitionist, I know I look good—but I do prefer a partner. And now, he is one. He touches me, kisses me; I knew there was more to him than simply being a voyeur, and there is. Much more.

Our eyes are locked, his mouth is on mine, his hand rests on my fist, when I come.

As in London, he makes no move to leave. Good. This is where I want him tonight, with me under handworked quilts and linen sheets still smelling of lavender, the logs in this room's ancient fireplace sending up showers of sparks as they crumble into coals in the fire.

It's good to be home.

Elisabeth's Tale (paired with Bilhah's Tale, following—takes place during the preceding two stories)

By Merri-Todd Webster

"And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren." Luke 1:36, Authorised Version

It must be difficult for you to understand why I'm not angry.

You see, my husband and I are relics of a bygone age. No one expected us to be in love when we married. It was all arranged. It was a suitable match, and we were quite compatible, really, though he has always preferred the city and I the country. We were always considerate of one another's feelings, and we had quite similar approaches to the rearing of children, so it all worked out quite well. Even when I began to have some understanding of my husband's real work, and what it meant for…all of us.

But we were never in love. We were never expected to be. It wasn't something I expected of him, not something necessary to our marriage. We were quite happy without it.

So I was not terribly shocked, you see, when he told me that he had always preferred the company of other men. Younger men.

I had suspected as much. Not that he ever gave me cause to feel jealous, or behaved in any way inappropriately. But a woman knows, as they say.…Our youngest was four when we agreed that three children were enough, that we no longer wished to live together in an—intimate way, and that we should each be free to pursue discreet liaisons, as long as we did not publicly humiliate the other.

Don't look so shocked, child. We English can be civilised, too.

He was always very discreet. He kept them out of my sight when we visited together. He supported me more than generously—his family was much wealthier than mine. He consulted me on everything that had to do with the estate, the inheritance, and the welfare of the children. We became better friends, I think, once we ceased to pretend a desire which was not there. And I entertained an old friend from my school days one Christmas and found myself falling in love, perhaps for the first time in my life. Douglas and I have been together for many years now, and he is a good friend to the family, to my husband, and supportive of his work.

The first time I met you, I knew you were different. The mere fact that you were permitted to meet me signalled that difference. There have been some…companions, in the past, who never even knew I was alive; they were allowed to assume that he was a widower. I was content that it should be so. But you were introduced to me not as a mere companion, but as a protege. As the man he was training to take over his position in the syndicate. His heir, in that way. It was only by seeing the way he looked at you that I knew something more was going on.

I don't know if you've realised it, Alex, and I think you should know. He has fallen in love with you. And you have been more…loving to him than you can imagine. He is so lonely, in many ways, for all the friendship he and I have shared. You have shared responsibilities, dilemmas, that I could not. And you have gifted him with your beauty. Don't try to blush—I know quite well you know what you're doing with those eyes. It is an asset. You have used it wisely in gaining his attention, and you have kept his attention with your intelligence and your aptitude for the work. You would not have remained in his favor if your looks were all you had to offer. Nor should I be sitting here telling you these things. I have the respect for you that he does, my boy. He has chosen well in choosing you.

I shall have to go back to Scotland soon, lest I arouse suspicion. But this house here is in your name now—yes, he would have told you that—so you may visit as often as you like. I want you to take care of him, Alex, good care of him. He needs you not only to continue his work, but to love him as much as you are able. Don't tell me that you are not capable of that. You're a good liar, my dear, but not that good. I've seen too many pretty boys who were interested only in his money and his breeding, and how it would make their reputation to be known as one of his paramours. You are not one of those. You came to him for work, I know—he told me about that—but you've stayed with him for love, whether you know it or not.

Now. After he sees me off, he will want his bath and his bed. Go to him then, my boy. Don't wait for him to come to you. Go to him and do what your heart tells you. Oh, you still have a heart, Alex. I can hear it beating. And so can you.

Bilhah's Tale (mirror to Elisabeth's Tale)

By MJ

"And she [Rebecca] said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her." Genesis 30:iii

She sits down in the room with me, up from her after-travel nap. Her husband has excused himself from my presence to get ready for bed, though that will be more than an hour from now. She's terribly elegant, in a rather severe way, and there's no disguising, even to me, that although her suit is old, it's a hand-tailored Chanel. Even I can spot that; I could have even before her husband taught me about clothing. The pearls are also real. The woman is a menace, I admit it. She seems to like me, though I can't think why. She rings Tomkins for brandy for both of us.

I know what my presence has looked like. I'm very well aware of what her children were thinking at the will reading and the funeral, and though she finds it difficult to believe, I'm actually slightly embarrassed. Which is odd, because I've never really cared what people think of me, just as long as they don't try to kill me.

It looks exactly like some cute, stupid guy made himself a living by selling himself to a rich, elderly man. It looks exactly like I batted my eyelashes at him until I conned him into writing me into his will. And now his kids think I'm hanging around to amuse his widow. God.

And for some reason, it really matters a great deal to me that she's aware that all of that simply isn't true. That she does know that Alex Krycek may be good-looking and a conniving bastard, but he isn't cute and he isn't stupid. Not, of course, that she isn't in on this game herself. For a couple that has lived apart, they are amazingly close, closer than many couples I've seen. Unlike many couples, they are actually friends, which must account for it. Bill Mulder had a lot of acquaintances. But no friends. Not even his wife, not his son, and he didn't have a dog.

She's an extremely unusual woman. I thought I'd met some tough ones. Fox's partner Scully. That Covarrubias bitch. Fox's mother. My mother. You know what? All pikers. This woman could kill an intruder, arrange the overthrow of a Mitteleuropean government, and crash every computer at NORAD without spilling a drop of the tea she'd be pouring at the time. I should have known it before. Her husband took me to see her last year when she won the Somerset hunt cup. She rides to hounds as if there's a war on, not a hunt. I don't think I've ever seen a couple that was more alike.

She has surprised me every time I've encountered her. Asking me to kill Spender—which I admit is pretty high on my own list. Wondering if I'd help with her grandson. Taking me out for a few hours' shooting and an earful of Consortium history the day after the hunt. Backing me up in front of her children at the will reading and the funeral. And now…now I'm listening to her telling me to look after her husband.

Actually, I'm listening to my mentor's wife doing something vaguely equivalent to giving me her blessing as her husband's lover.

She tells me that he loves me. I've…suspected that. He's a fool to let himself do it, I think, but he seems to see in me what I do not, as I see in him what he does not see in himself. She claims to know that I love him. Does she really know that, or does she merely guess well? I thought I was less transparent. I can't afford to be transparent, not with what I have to do to Spender.

It doesn't so much surprise me that she's right about me…as it surprises me that I could feel that way at this point. About anybody, even about Fox Mulder. And her husband definitely is not Fox. Come on, I get up in the morning and read my who-to-kill-today list. Then I plot the overthrow of a multinational organization. Then I go out, get my hands—well, hand—dirty; I kill an alien, or someone I really don't like, or I hack a government computer and start a small international crisis, or I get to blow something up. I'm not inherently warm and fuzzy, like some people. In fact, I think I'd like killing warm, fuzzy type people. Big hugs! Yeah, right. So I don't kick dogs, and I don't hurt kids—not past sewing their eyelids shut when they've got that alien black oil thing. And I once helped an elderly hit man across the street. So much for my natural warmth and humanity. So how the hell I wind up feeling like this about her husband…is beyond me. I…I just do. It's ridiculous.

To top that all off, she thinks this is absolutely wonderful. Most wives would kill you —by which I mean me—for that, at least figuratively, and she of all people could do it for real quite cheerfully.

Either the air's really thin up here, or I'm about ready to faint. It must be the air; Alex Krycek never passes out. Of course, nothing startles me, either. Right?

You have to realize, when her husband brought me on board, I was out for revenge. I thought maybe I could put myself in a position to get back at Spender. That was all I wanted. But there was this night, maybe six weeks after I'd arrived; we were in his library, and out of the blue, he started talking to me about World War II. About the French Occupation, the Nazis and the Vichy government. He was looking straight into the fire, drinking brandy, and at first I didn't even get that he was talking to me. And it took me three days to understand what he'd really said.

He'd been coming to my rooms at night once or twice a week before that. After that night, he waited two weeks, waiting for me first to understand him, and then to appreciate that his interest in having me pursuing his goals with him meant as much if not more to him than whatever we had going on at night.

I've worked with men who wanted nothing of me but my particular job skills. I've been in relationships, such as they were, with men who were interested in nothing but whatever looks or sexual technique I've got. The possibility that a shared vision could be as important, or more important, to two people than what happens with them in the sack, and that those things could, just possibly, go together had never occurred to me before this.

She thinks she doesn't love him. And she may be right, she doesn't—not what you'd call "that" way. She leads her own life, she has her own lover. But if she doesn't love him "that" way, she still loves him. I respect that. I don't even know if I could do for him what she's done. I'm not that unselfish. I'm not unselfish at all—selfish is what I do best.

And she's trying to persuade me that I should quite selfishly lure him into spending tonight in my bed. I don't think she'll have to twist my arm—I hate that phrase these days—very hard to convince me. I'd…love to.

Remembrance of Things Past (paired with Of Time and Tides, following)

By MJ

Myrtle Beach. It must have been—when? Oh, around 1972, I'd guess, the year before Samantha Mulder was abducted. We always spent part of the cold season in Myrtle Beach, all of us. Well, not ALL of us; that would be far too many people, but all of the New York and D.C. crowd. The Mulders were there, as always. Protocol, always protocol; one of the things I remember best. Women and children had their space; dads were on a working holiday and met together. They saw the families in the evenings. You just did not interrupt the dads; what they were doing was too important.

We did Myrtle Beach for years. First we rented out hotels in their entirety; then we built our own compound along the beach just for our own crew. The other vacationers thought we were snobs; no, we were just very private, but then, we had reason to be. Snobs? I suppose we had reason to be snobs, too—after all, come the great events of the future, we would be left with the world in our hands and the hands of our children. Myrtle Beach was in many ways our dress rehearsal for the lives we would lead once our husbands had finished negotiations with our colleagues.

Myrtle Beach was extremely revealing every year if you kept your mouth shut while the other women suntanned and just watched and listened. I remember when I first noticed that Teena Mulder was having an affair—oh, I don't blame her a bit. He was so handsome back then. Not like now, with all the smoking. And Bill Mulder—I still shudder. Nothing overtly wrong with him, you understand, but not …well, not the sort of man your mother would automatically love. Too reserved; absolutely withdrawn. I wondered back then if he drank. Today—well, today I wonder if he didn't need Prozac to have been invented for him. He could walk into any room and everything would shift gears. It was never the same with him there. No wonder Fox is the way he is. The poor boy. I was so pleased when he went to Oxford. We all expected our children to become the second generation of our work, and most of them have, but when it came to Bill Mulder, I was so happy that his son got out. At least, I think Fox was his. He looks no more like Bill than he does like the obvious candidate, but then he takes after his mother. But Fox abdicated the toy throne everyone had set up for their children, who would become the next generation of the new world order that no one knew about but us; he just didn't know what it is that he was giving up.

Excuse me for rambling. I've spent forty-four years of my life with the English language; you'd think I could tell a story straight through. Teena Mulder was a fairly good friend of mine, though I didn't see her often. She was up in Massachusetts all the time, and almost never came to D.C. with her husband; my husband and I did research together at Johns Hopkins under an alleged contract from the U.S. Navy, and I only got to visit the Cape for a few days in the summer. But we each had two children, we were both better educated than most of the other wives, and Teena played a formidable hand of bridge. I hated being excluded from the men's discussions—after all, I worked with them—and Teena understood that. She also didn't resent that I worked with the men, which a few of the other wives seemed to do. Either I was a poor mother for working so much, or I was a threat to them for being around the men in the first place. Excuse me, but I have a doctorate in biochemical engineering from Leningrad; do you think I even enjoyed talking to most of their stupid, stuffy businessman husbands? I take that back. The one Englishman was a pleasure to talk to, very knowledgeable about world affairs. And Strughold himself—actually, a very expert engineer, though people forget it constantly. Back then he was making his second billion in electronic engineering.

Fox, Teena's son, was an absolute joy at the beach. A natural swimmer, very good. A little fish, my mother would have said. And he did look a great deal like her. He had always been a very cute child, but as he got taller and thinner he looked increasingly like her. Not quite feminine, you understand, but…really quite beautiful. Strange word for most boys, but that was it. Now, of course—well, you've seen him. It's hardly surprising the turn things took with our children; just look at him. And I'm sure he doesn't remember 1972 in the least. One of these days he really will have to be told.

My daughter is a fine swimmer herself. She always was. Another little fish. She tried out for the Olympics, you know, in the butterfly. She just missed making the Olympic team. She and Fox were always having a race out to the rocks and back, the best out of three circuits. Now, my boy, my baby -oh. Quick on his feet, and he could always run faster than anyone, but all of his natural grace and dexterity absolutely vanished near water. Just like the Mulder children, you couldn't have had two less alike…and I know that both of mine had the same parents and no genetic manipulation. Even my boy's facility with languages is purely inherited; alien hybridization isn't needed for very much if anything by my thinking. English, Russian, German, and Spanish. Did I mention French? He tends to use it in Canada; I'm afraid he wouldn't pass for a Frenchman at all with that Quebecois patois of his. He passes as Spanish and Mexican very nicely, however, and he once convinced Strughold, back when he was in high school, that he was a Venezuelan oil broker on the telephone. Now, that was funny. Even Strughold enjoyed it, and he has no sense of humor whatsoever. Germans. Ha. But, as I say, not a swimmer.

Anyway, my pride and joy, my little deer, must have been all of six. And he absolutely worshipped Fox. At least it meant I got time to myself. Fox and Tatiana would swim, and Sascha would sit near the rocks and watch them until he got sunburned and looked like a little Tartar or Mongol. They would come in for lunch, then, and I spent a couple of hours with them; then they went out to make more trouble. Fox, Tatiana, and Samantha, with Sascha trailing in the rear behind his idol, distracted occasionally by seashells, insects, and an occasional crab. It was all very good. Those were wonderful times, back before the rift in the ranks. Well, that had to come too, after what we discovered. When your so-called colleagues are planning to destroy you, do you keep doing business with them or do you call them on it? You can resist, or your business is taken over. In our case, the business is an entire planet. Take your pick—resist or serve, as Sascha says. But then, he's always understood the problem. He listened to that nice English business friend of ours, not Teena's husband or, worse yet, her lover, who's quite demented on the subject these days, you know.

Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Fox and Tatiana were racing again, to the rocks and back, in what was really slightly rough water. Most of the swimmers wouldn't risk it that day, but those two were strong swimmers; I was hardly concerned for them, nor was Teena, who was teaching me some bridge strategies she'd learned in Boston during the fall. Samantha and Sascha were sitting in the sand building a really lovely sand fortress. Unstable, of course, not just because it was sand, but because Sascha was showing Samantha how to sculpt sand into bridges, and turrets, and all manner of ethereal, unsupported fairytale architecture. It comes from living in a household of engineers.

Sand castles. Is that all we were building? My English friend said as much, back before he died. That wasn't so long ago—a car fire in Washington. It was quite dreadful. Things…just haven't gone as some of us had planned. Personally, I blame Spender for that. He's so…oh, what's the word? Self-absorbed. He doesn't really care, you know. As long as he survives, the rest of the planet could die. He wouldn't mind, as long as our friends—we thought they were our friends then, you see—told him he could run his own dead planet.

Excuse me, I'm rambling. A prerogative of old age, you know. The current was strong out there, as I said, and Sascha and Samantha watched their castles get knocked down by the incoming water. Then my baby…he decided as only six year olds do, that it would be such fun to test the water coming in over his sandy spot. Waves came in, and he and Samantha began challenging them, standing up and waiting for the surf to roll in and break over them. One wave, then another, some smaller, some larger. The children were laughing; they loved to do that. I summered along the Black Sea as a child; I know what fun it is. But then, a huge wave. Enormous, coming in with the choppy current. It knocked Samantha down into the sand. Sascha was smaller. It knocked him down, too, but when the water receded, it took Sascha along with it.

He yelled, of course, and I screamed for Tatiana. I have no idea where the lifeguard was; probably off looking for a date. Tati heard me, but so did Teena's son. And he saw Sascha first. He swam ahead of Tati, grabbed hold of Sascha, who was delighted to be saved by his hero, completely overwhelmed.

I have no idea if Sascha knows that Fox saved his life back then. I'm sure that Fox doesn't remember a bit of it, from what Sascha tells me. He usually tries to kill Svetlana Krycek's son these days. Poor Sascha, he's always been just a little bit in love with Teena's son.

In my philosophy class at Leningrad, my professor posed the following problem: suppose you are shown a lovely child, then given a gun and ordered to kill it. Say that you refuse, because it is wrong to kill a child in cold blood. Then you are told that the future is known; this child will grow to be Adolph Hitler. Is it then right to kill the one child to prevent the probable death and suffering of millions? Our families had lived through Hitler's attack on the Motherland; we all said yes, of course.

I wonder if Fox ever studied that problem at university. I wonder how he would feel if he remembered that he saved the boy who later killed his father. If I were Sascha, I wouldn't remind him.

Of Time and Tides (mirror to Remembrance of Things Past)

By Merri-Todd Webster

You know, he has no idea that I remember him as a boy. He certainly does not remember me from those days. I wonder if he remembers at all those winters in Myrtle Beach—such a warm place, too hot even in winter for an Englishman like myself. Yet in those days it was a pleasant little town not completely ruined by its tourism, by the inevitable exploitation of its quite beautiful beaches. Yes, I remember, too, the little vendor near our compound, the hotdogs and pretzels and caramel corn. I once bought your Sascha a bag of the caramel corn—he ate it all by himself and was so ill, do you remember?

In any case, I remember him well. A stocky little boy with darkly tanned skin, brown hair lightened by the sun, and those same astonishing green eyes. Even then those eyes were like a fire; he could stare down adults who had no idea why they should be intimidated by this little boy who spoke more languages than they did. He was quite beautiful, a wild boy who ran faster and wrestled harder and shouted more loudly than anyone, but very intelligent, unmistakably intelligent, and deeply fond of his family. Oh, I don't think there was another family so close as yours at Myrtle Beach. I think that's what attracted Teena Mulder and her children to you and yours, my dear—the happiness you shared as a family, as open and as ordinary as the sunshine. And the respect, as well as love, which you and Oleg shared with one another. How I still miss those chess games with your husband. And I am still sorry that you and Elisabeth never had a chance to meet, but by 1972, she and I had lived apart for many years. People would have talked about our closeness as they did about Teena's estrangement from Bill Mulder. Neither situation would have seemed right.

I used to watch them running on the beach, little Sascha, as you called him, at the end of the line, after the older children. He was only, what…six? seven? Ahead of him, Samantha Mulder, her long braids swinging, and the longer-legged Tatiana—what an exquisite girl she was, and is—and in the lead, Fox Mulder. Fox Mulder. He was twelve or fourteen, just old enough to pique my…interest, although of course I never behaved with any hint of impropriety. Still, I couldn't help noticing how handsome he was and how little attention his parents paid him. He was wild as a weed, wild in a different way than your little Kubla Khan. He and Samantha were both very fond of you, you know. Oh, yes, I remember. And Sascha was terribly fond of Fox Mulder. He was only half Mulder's age then, yet he would follow him anywhere on those short sturdy legs, even into the water. Odd that Sascha, so strong and graceful on land, all but sank like a stone in the water. I saw those four children playing together, many times. If not for Tatiana's willingness to play with him, carrying him into the waves, dancing with him, dunking him now and again as older sisters must, as my older sister did to me, he might not have gone near the water. He might not have gone near the water if his beloved Fox had not been such a dedicated swimmer.

I was not on the beach that day when the wave swept little Sascha Krycek away, into the Atlantic, and Fox Mulder rescued him. As you may recall, I went to the beach very rarely; I preferred the English coastlines, harsh, rocky, wild, austere. Myrtle Beach was too tame. But I heard of it briefly from you, at the time, and then Teena told me about it herself, many years later. I'm not sure why. It is, indeed, ironic that the same boy who rescued Alex, once, has tried so many times since then to kill him. Alex has told me himself that Mulder believes Alex means to kill him. If he only knew how many times he's repaid that debt, how often Alex has saved his life.…Or what a favor he did Fox, as well as the rest of us, by killing that oaf, Bill Mulder.

Well, it's been good to see you again, my dear. Yes, I expect Alex back around the twenty-fifth; this house is his, you know. I'm quite comfortable here. And he is quite safe. He does not know that I have watched him since he was a little boy, that his parents were my dear friends, that I maintain contact with you even now, and that I know he has always loved Fox Mulder. That I knew he loved Fox long before he knew it himself.

Your little Sascha is my dearest companion, the inheritor of my work. He sits on the porch with me, often, and looks at the lake. He will never go swimming again, but it doesn't matter.

Saul's Tale: In Two Parts (unpaired)

By Merri-Todd Webster

I: The Armour-Bearer

(And David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him greatly, and he became his armour bearer.…And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, David took an harp and played it with his hand: So Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. —I Samuel 16:21, 23, AV)

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I miss him.

Those are simple words to convey the depth of what I feel. It is an ache not unlike the ache of arthritis in my hands, constant, dull, unyielding. An ache like the loss of a tooth, a gap which the tongue searches out again and again.

I miss him. I have never allowed myself to miss anyone.

I love my grandson Benjamin above all my other children and grandchildren, but I never miss him. When he is away from me, he is safe, out of the reach of the dangers from which I have spent my life protecting him. When he is with me, it is a joy, but his absence is clean and simple, like the cutting away of dead stalks which have no more life or feeling. In his absence the work goes on.

Now Alex does my work for me, and oh, how I miss him.

I pace the halls at night, unable to sleep. Tomkins knows why, but mercifully, he says nothing. Elisabeth writes me long letters, diverting me with talk of the sheep, the hunt, the cup our granddaughter Alicia won, and mentioning, as if casually, that she heard from him, that they spoke briefly on the phone. I read and re-read Blake, Dante, Shakespeare, Eliot, Auden, far into the night, falling asleep at last in Alex's room, in the armchair where once I only watched him, sitting upright with the book fallen from between my stiff old fingers.

Geneva is lovely—even its cloudy grey days are beautiful, at least to an old Londoner like me—but with Alex gone, I don't care. He has taken over my work, you see, and I have nothing to do but miss him, worry about him. The lake, the mountains, the wildflowers give me no joy without him by my side, listening with that little half-smile on his face as I ramble on about botany, history, plate tectonics. We spent so many hours walking together—I taught him how to walk, Americans are all so bound to their four-wheeled drive—around the lake, and up into the foothills, and back again in the evening to a soak in the tub, and the sweetness of his body in the darkness of the curtained bed.

How to describe what Alex gave me in giving me his body, and his heart? It was…new, something I'd never had before. It was as new as what I had with Peter, my first lover, at Oxford; as new as what I had with Elisabeth in the first days of our marriage, the discovery that I could feel some of that same ardour with a woman—we were passionate together and it was good, though the passion did not last. It was something other than either of those loves, and certainly far different from what I'd bought with my patronage of young men before him. If I accomplish nothing else, at least I've convinced Alex that he is more, far more than merely a pretty boy, or a hired killer.

Before we parted—before I sent him out to work for Spender—in that last moment before he left me in the limousine, he said, "I love you." And my heart broke. Every instinct begged me to keep him always by my side; all the wisdom of my years told me I had to send him forth. I held him close to me and told him what I had to tell him, that he must play the game for me, and win, for me, for Benjamin, for all of us. When he closed the door behind him, I covered my face with my hands and wept, trusting in Tomkins neither to see, nor to hear, nor to speak.

I look out at the lake in the mornings as I sip my tea, eat half of a scone or a few bites of sausage before pushing my plate away. No matter what its weather, there is a dark cloud hanging over me. I am depressed, as people like to say now. When I was young, one was never depressed. One kept a stiff up lip and carried on, regardless. Now I am old, and Alex carries on, and I wait. Wait to hear how the game is going; wait to hear that he is well; wait to hear Tomkins announce him. Only his presence can dispel the gloom that hangs over me, as only the harp of David could dispel the torments of Saul. But David was also Saul's armour-bearer, and then the commander of his armies, and the husband of his daughter.

I look up from the Times and see a sight which I cannot believe, yet it fills me with hope. Tomkins has come in, and he is…smiling.

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II: A Meeting at Endor

(Then Saul said unto his servants, "Seek out for me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of her." And his servants said to him, "Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor." So Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night, and he said, "I pray thee divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me up him whom I shall name unto thee." —I Samuel 28: 7-8, AV)

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As soon as I saw Alex's face, I knew my boy hadn't been able to handle it.

I had hoped, you see. Even I can still hope. I hoped I could—make something of the boy. Of my son. My son. That he could follow in my footsteps. I hoped. But hope is a pipe dream, and it disappears faster than smoke on the exhale. I knew he'd blown it as soon as I saw Alex's face.

It twists my gut that Alex Krycek should be the one to tell me. Of course, he has to be the one to tell me. I sent him along as back-up. Not because he's such a good driver. I knew that if Jeffrey—failed, Alex could be counted on to finish the job. Even to finish Jeffrey, if I asked him. Though I'll do my boy the honor of doing that myself.

No, what galled me wasn't that Alex had to step in and take over. What galled me was hearing about it from him. The way he does it. He sits right on the edge of my old couch as if he's too good for the place. He sits on my old couch with that little smirk on his face and tells me—with obvious self-satisfaction—that Jeffrey almost puked at the sight of the dead shapeshifter.

He's dressed better than I've ever seen him. He must have learned it from the old Brit. I've never cared what I looked like or what people thought about me; why should I care when I've got the power to kill them or keep them alive? It doesn't matter to me if I look less important than I am. But the old man was upper-crust, the kind of blueblood who learns how to pick a tailor at the same time as he learns how to pick a horse or a gun or a wife, and his taste has rubbed off on Krycek. A silk shirt, a long black coat, very expensive, pants that won't wrinkle no matter what you do to them. Not quite a dandy like the old man, but—a far cry from the ambitious kid in a cheap suit that I saw at a track meet at Quantico, or the thug in a beat-up leather jacket, his eyes swimming with the black oil, that I shut the door on at the missile silo.

Not for the first time, I wonder what really went on between those two. Krycek had asked his lordship for protection against me, and he'd gotten it. The Englishman and I—never been able to stand the sight of each other. But every man has his vice; I get mine out of a vending machine for three dollars a pack. I know what kind of candy the old man liked. And even if I'm not interested, I know Alex Krycek must look pretty sweet to a man with those tastes. I'm just not sure if Alex is any good at being a boytoy. He did a lousy job of seducing Mulder, after all. Yet he looks calm, confident, and just a little bit—contemptuous, as he tells me how Jeffrey turned his back on me. Went after his mother. Threw away everything I had to give him.

I have to admit, even as I blow cheap cigarette smoke onto those expensive tailor-made clothes, the old man succeeded in something where I've failed. I hate to say it, but, well, it's true. He took a nobody as his protege and made him a player; he put Alex Krycek, the son of Russian immigrants that nobody trusted, the man who bungled with Mulder, into a position where we have to listen to him. To take him into account. And along the way, he cleaned up his grammar, improved his wardrobe, and probably took him to the opera.

As for me, I had a son, by the woman who was the key to the whole project. Cassandra's son.…I groomed him carefully—I thought—from a distance, to take over my hand and play the cards I'd chosen. And now my old rival's pretty, well-groomed successor sits on my couch and tells me Jeffrey is a failure. And, by inference, so am I.

I take a long drag of my cigarette—it's burnt down almost to my lips—and blow it out into his face. We all pay a price for getting what we want. Alex's price, right now, is that he has to work with me. The way his eyes squint up even as he grins right into the smoke tells me he hasn't forgotten the car bomb, or Hong Kong, or the silo. And neither have I. Just what did you tell him, old man? How much does he know? If I believed in ghosts, I'd look for an apparition in the smoke, conjure up the ghost of his lordship. For now, I just listen to Alex. And wait.

Yehudit's Tale (paired with Naaman's Tale)

By MJ

Now Pharaoh's daughter went down to bathe in the river, while her maids walked along the riverside. Among the reeds she noticed the basket, and she sent her maid to fetch it. She opened it and saw the child; the baby was crying. Feeling sorry for it, she said, "This is one of the little Hebrews." The child's sister then said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and find you a nurse among the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?" "Yes," said Pharaoh's daughter, and the girl went out and called the child's own mother. Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this child away and nurse it for me. I shall pay you myself for doing so." So the woman took the child away and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, who treated him like a son; she named him Moses "because," she said, "I drew him out of the sea." Exodus 2:v-x, NJB

Ah, my friend, it is good to see you. It has been far too long. This is not much like Somerset, is it? I've not seen Geneva in years. When I found the plane ticket and a note with a telephone number and passcode in my son's handwriting, I said, "Ah, Svetlana, it is just like old times." But I never expected to see you of all people at the other end of the flight. I had heard—yes, the explosion. All of us had heard. Teena Mulder, they tell me, was quite unmoved, but consider her friends. I had thought that smoking fool of a lover of hers had finally gotten to you, just as he tried to do with my son.

So Sascha works for you now. That pleases me. He could not have done better. Spender, that smoking madman, is a crisis waiting to happen, and I have always said so. Always. How Teena Mulder could have ever—oh, let's not even talk of it; it's far too unpleasant a thought. There are far better things we have to discuss. Tea? Yes, please. I hope it's strong; I'm a Russian, not one of you soft Westerners. That's a joke, dear. Yes, I know you knew it was.

I saw my boy a few weeks ago. He dropped in on his way between…well, between. He didn't tell me what you had him doing, and I knew better than to ask. You'll tell me if you want me to know. He looked very good, I must tell you. He's changed a great deal since he came to work for you. Oleg and I—the Party put us both through school, you know; my family were laborers. And in the States, we put Sascha through college because we were teaching college; we'd never have afforded it if the college or the Consortium hadn't covered the expenses. Of course, the Consortium still took care of its own back then—back before Spender started having members poaching from their own families, back before he turned us all against each other in his own bid for power.

But—where was I? Oleg and I gave Sascha everything we could, but certain things we could not give him, you understand, because we did not have them ourselves. I can break down the molecular structure of anything and reassemble it, but what fork to use? How to dress? Music—music Sascha understood. I played the piano a bit, and Oleg's father was a cellist, you know, in Budapest. But beyond that? You cannot give what you do not have. You, my old friend —you have given him everything that his mother here wishes she could have given him herself. I don't mean the money; you know that. And to think that he is moving into power—that like you, he has the opportunity to block that smoking barbarian…

A beautiful view of the lake, I agree. Yes, another biscuit. Your cook is Swiss? Of course. I will go to the kitchen later. Chicken Kiev, borscht, blini, piroshki—I think I will teach her to cook while I am visiting. When Sascha gets here, we will surprise him with a Russian dinner, and you will see his face when your cook serves him mama's borscht.

You know, tovarisch, I am not a fool. And my eyes have always worked very well indeed. I remember back at Myrtle Beach, watching you looking over all of the lovely young men on the beach in the summers, and I remember how you looked at Teena Mulder's boy that summer his voice—and everything else—changed. And I know my son. He was a lovely, chubby little thing as a boy, but he grew into one of the lovely young men on the beach himself. With his own eye on the other lovely young men. When he was at the FBI, you know…he and Teena's son…yes, of course you knew. I had hoped…once…but Spender managed to ruin that for both of them, just the way he's always tries to ruin everyone's lives. He is miserable, though he'd never admit it, so everyone else has to suffer.

The thing is, my dear, Sascha hasn't said anything to me, but I would be a total fool if I didn't realize that there was something more going on with the two of you than your simply teaching Sascha the business. I know that this is so. Don't even bother to look embarrassed, my friend. Sascha's a grown man; it's his business, not mine, as long as he's happy. I'm an old woman now; I've seen a great many things in a great many places. I can hardly claim to be scandalized.

No, don't do that. I told you not to bother looking embarrassed; don't try apologizing to me either. I'm an old woman, and one of the prerogatives of old age, as you certainly ought to know yourself, is that you can finally have the luxury of speaking freely. His heart's still broken about the business with Teena's son, but it's perfectly obvious to me that he loves you. The poor boy started blushing and closing his eyes every time he mentioned your name, you know. Yes, of course; I'm perfectly serious.

And as for you, there's no fool like an old fool. You're in love with Sascha yourself, and don't tell me you're not. The least you could do is stop looking like death every time anyone mentions that Fox Mulder in the same breath as Sascha. And keeping those boys of yours back in London was one thing—yes, of course I knew about that business—but that's not exactly what you've been doing with Sascha, is it?

I thanked you before for giving him what his father and I couldn't, but what you've been doing, you know, is playing Pygmalion. Turning Sascha not just into a man who understands why the Project must fail, why Spender has to be stopped…but into your companion, not just a temporary diversion. Don't try telling me you took all of those shop clerks and tailors' assistants to the opera with you…or that you let yourself be photographed at museum events or at public hunts with them. You know you didn't.

No more than you taught any of them to tell Handel from Vivaldi, or Cabernet from Beaujolais, or Renoir from Degas, or Worth from Balenciaga, did you? Tell me all you like that Sascha had to learn culture to understand the need for the survival of civilization—you still had to turn him into someone who cares about the same things that you do, who shares the same interests, the same values, in the process. That's not a bad thing, of course. But it makes him into someone who interests you, as well. Because he has his own ideas, his own opinions; he's learned from you, but he's not your exact mirror.

He's been good for you, hasn't he? Someone you could show all of this to, someone who could argue back, someone else who could also talk about the Project, who could work on it with you.

He's been a good son to me, as well. I'm proud of him. As you must be.

Take care of him for me, eh? For your old friend Svetlana? Hurt one hair on his head, my old friend, and you know I will kill you myself.

Ah, you were going to introduce me to your cook. She must learn to make borscht and piroshki before Sascha comes back next week. Then we will eat and have a party. Just like the old days in Myrtle Beach.

And then, I think, these old bones could use a nap before dinner, if you don't mind. The kitchen is this way? Until later, then. Das vidanya, tovarisch.

Naaman's Tale (paired with, though not a mirror to, Yehudit's Tale)

By Merri-Todd Webster

And Naaman said, "Shall there not then, I pray thee, be given to thy servant two mules' burden of earth? for thy servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the LORD. In this thing the LORD pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon: when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the LORD pardon thy servant this thing." II Kings 5:17–18

He's not a bad lad, after all. Funny to say that about someone who does murder for pay, but it's true. If he were just a good shot with a gun, a quick hand with a knife, or just a pretty face, my master would never have taken him on.

The first time I saw him, I thought, This one's different. I've seen a lot of fair-faced lads come and go—they all thought they were a lot bigger in the world than they deserved to be, but they found out—but I knew Krycek was going to be different. It wasn't just that Master said the boy would be working for him; that's been the official word on a lot of these goops. Makes it look better, don't you know. I can't put my finger on it—no, wait, yes, I can. He was dangerous. I took one look at Alex Krycek—dirty as if he'd just come out of a furnace, touchy as a cat with a singed tail—and knew he was a dangerous blighter if there ever was one. Dangerous as Master, almost.

You wouldn't know it to look at him now, but my master is a holy terror. I've been with him for over thirty years now, and I can remember when he didn't sit back and let others do his dirty work. He don't always, even now, you know. He's hard, when he needs to be. He feels nothing he don't want to feel. For all his fine manners, he can turn on you like a knife in your hand, and cut you to pieces, if he has to. He makes a good friend—a good master—and a bad enemy, let me tell you. He doesn't like weakness and won't keep it around him. Not for long—that's why few of those pretty lads lasted with him. His missus is just like him, for all they haven't lived together since before I came to him, and their children all just like mashed potatoes, soft and buttery, whining when things don't go their way. It doesn't figure, but there it is.

At any rate, I spotted pretty soon that this Krycek was about as weak as an adder, and he really was working for Master. Not that he didn't work for him by night as by day, if you know what I mean, but he did work by day. Master was teaching him The Business—the real work he does, the work none of those pudding children of his know about. So that's how it is, I says to myself. He's found a proper heir at last.

I got to know the lad a little better one night when he took me out to the pub and stood me a few drinks. With a name like that, I thought he'd be brought up to drink only vodka, but damned if he didn't order an black-and-tan and put away as many of them as I did. I seem to remember telling him that I was a race car driver once, before a bad smash-up that convinced me to look for a safer line of work. We both had a good laugh about my current situation being that "safer line of work". I also might have told him that it was getting caught with my knickers down and one of my pit crew having his way with me that really got me out of racing. Time to quit before my name was on every dirty rag in the United Kingdom, in big red letters. So now you know why I don't mind the master's pretty friends.

But Krycek really showed what he was made of when little Benjie fell out of the yew tree and broke his leg. Master couldn't attend to it himself—I know that could have broken his heart if he'd let it—and I was surprised that he turned to Alex to do it instead. Griffin was there, after all—cold bitch that she is, but she is in charge of the children, as much of a mum or a dad as the little tykes ever see. But he turned to Alex and I have to say, he took care of our little boy right. He didn't turn all sugary-sweet just because he was speaking to a child, but he wasn't harsh, either. He was kinder to the boy than I thought he had in him, for all he can bat his eyelashes and charm anybody he wants to, man or woman or stone. He didn't try to charm Benjamin; no, I got the feeling he knew what it was like to be hurting and feel you mustn't cry, no matter what. His kindness was real because it had real hurt behind it. And he spent a lot of time with the boy in hospital that he didn't really have to. I liked Alex better after that.

When it came time for the master to disappear, I wasn't surprised that Alex was one of the few who knew. It made sense, after all, with him taking over the business. I was surprised when he came to Geneva with the missus, though. They seemed to understand one another, just so. The master had kept his boys out of her sight, mostly—sometimes she came to have a look without asking—but he was always careful not to hurt her feelings. I don't think he ever had any of those friends till well after they'd separated. Nor did she do him a bad turn by parading around in the City with her lover, whatsisname. She stayed in the country with her Scot, mostly, and when master and missus had to appear together in public, they always did it properly.

Well, right before she left Geneva, she asked me to bring two brandies and let Mr. Krycek know she would like to see him. Oh, I wanted to be a fly on the wall for that meeting! I was sure she'd never spoken to any of the playmates before, but of course she must know he'd taken over the business—she knew all about that, though she wasn't involved in it. Still, the missus went back to the air field, the master went in for his usual bath, and I had another surprise when Alex came to tell me master was finished and wanted my help. Seeing the master in his bath now, was he?

He spent the night with Alex, then, and I'll swear before God and man, that's never happened before. Not with a one of them. The other boys were lucky if they got to stay overnight at the big house, instead of having himself come to visit them. So what's going on here? I says to myself. I figured it out when I brought breakfast to the library, as usual, and caught 'em staring at each other like lovesick calves. Oh ho, I thought. The master had thawed at last, and the clever green-eyed lad had the old man's heart. What would happen now?

I've been watching to see what would happen, ever since. Wondering if anything would change. If Alex would disappoint. But Krycek flies back to Geneva from time to time—this house is in his name—and once, an elderly woman with a thick accent and a snow-white bun piled up on her head came to visit, and turned out to be Krycek's mother. She was another holy terror—taught cook to make piroshki, had us all laughing like fools at bawdy jokes. I mind me of Benny Hill in a dress.

Then there was the time they parted at the airport, the last time Krycek left Geneva. Master took a huge risk in coming out in the car. He did it for Alex. Servants don't see or hear anything, of course, but I'll never forget how the master wept after Alex said, "I love you," kissed him goodbye, and got out of the car. I'd never seen anything like that nor thought to. It made me feel queer about being there, about the whole thing.

At any rate, as far as I can see, Alex is doing what master trained him how to do, doing it well and reliable, and that's what matters. And when he does come to visit, master still sleeps in Alex's bed. So it's all right with me, as far as it goes. I take care of my master. And so does Alex Krycek.

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Uparshin (conclusion—see Saul's Tale and Naaman's Tale)

By MJ

"…you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. Therefore he sent the hand that wrote the inscription. "This is the inscription that was written: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Uparsin. "This is what these words mean: Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians." Daniel 5: xxiii–xxviii

As I was told, he did indeed call. Believing my mentor, his co-conspirator and chief opponent, dead, suddenly the man who tried to kill me wants me back. Why? To try to kill me again? To try to find out what my mentor had told me of the conspiracy?

I leave the chateau, conscious as always that it may be for the last time. He risks riding to the airport with me; the windows of the limousine are darkened, and we cannot be seen. His hand rests possessively on my knee during the trip; I make no effort to move it. I have been his employee…his student…his lover, finally; the latter far more unexpected and far more gratifying than either of us could have imagined. It is, I suppose, a peculiar relationship that exists between us, and once I would have thought the very existence of it demeaning. But I know better now than to believe that; I know better, because for the first time in my life I am voluntarily in a relationship which has centered around my own emotions and not around merely relieving the ache in my groin.

The driver pulls up at the doors to the boarding area. Before exiting, however, I turn to the man who has given me the power to confront, and, I hope, to destroy, the man who wanted me dead. He casts an eye over me —over my tailoring, then my features, as if memorizing me should I fail to return. Finally, pleased, he nods in evident approval. He reaches out, cups my cheek in his hand. "My dear Alex…" I lean into the gesture and kiss him, kiss him deeply, as if it is the last kiss I will ever share with anyone.

I break the kiss reluctantly, my hand on his elegantly clad shoulder. I press my cheek to his. The faint tang of bay rum. "I love you. And…thank you."

He draws away, looks into my face, blinking away a tear I pretend I can't see. "My dear boy, I…" A brief embrace, weak but suggestive of the power his body must once have held. "Oh, Alex." A rueful partial smile. "This is your game now, dear boy. Your only choice is to play it to win. You'll come see me again at the end of the round." I nod, fighting back a tear of my own, exit the limo, feel for my ticket to New York.

Spender looks at me as if he's never seen me before. Perhaps he never really has. I'm a player now; he knows I worked for the presumed dearly departed; he knows I've done his work, and he knows I have his money. Greeting me as an equal obviously galls him, and I enjoy the hell out of it. You don't know the half of it, old man, but your sorry ass is gonna find out before I'm done. He doesn't know what to make of me—tailored suit, silk shirt with no tie, clean fingernails—I'm not his little thug any more, I'm a partner, and he hates it. Because I know him and I know his dirty little secrets. Even the ones he keeps from his so-called friends.

He deals me into the game right away, has me run the meeting with the elders along with him, pretending to show me off. The elders aren't comfortable, and there's no reason they should be. I'm half their age, have all of their secrets, and they know I know some things that they don't. My right to be among them is indisputable, which makes it better than several of their claims. The mantle draped over my shoulders by my mentor is far too visible to all of them.

Damn the smoking bastard; he still thinks he's got enough slack to jerk my leash, does he? He's in for a round of personal discovery, I think. My mentor's knowledge, my tactics…let me just make Spender suffer for it, hmm? A little suffering's good for the soul, I keep hearing. Let's see if he has one.

I lie in bed in the hotel room, alone. It would be easy to do what I've always done, go out, find myself some company for the night that either does or doesn't look too much like Fox Mulder. I can afford now to rent it if I want to; there are plenty of services only too happy to find a man with enough cash some six-foot tall, slender, brown-haired company who won't ask questions if you call them by the wrong name in bed. For an extra fee, they'll stay till breakfast, and it saves the work of going out and looking for a lay for the night. I don't bother this time. I'm too lonely for a pair of silk pajamas beside me, a faint snore against my ear, the scent of lavender bath salts, the touch of hands against my skin, infinitely gentle, surprised that I respond to them as I do; a whispered "you beautiful boy" in my ear as I shudder against the man whose hands are bringing me that pleasure.

Spender thinks he can use me as a flunky still, huh? I think I'll let him do that. Not only will I hear his plans, but I'll be able to ruin what I please. A flunky, as I know so well, can become much closer to a man than his equals can. I'll drive him around, of course. I'll play chauffeur and gofer on this trip. Keep my own mouth shut and listen to him talk until my opening arrives. Then…he's a dead man. Maybe not a corpse, but a dead man. As if he isn't already, now that I've targeted him. The writing, as they say, is on the wall.

Such a challenging assignment. Driving Spender's son to a house in Maryland, letting him do an assassination. An alien assassination, I gather, from the stiletto device he's been furnished. The boy—and he is a boy—can't do it, I can see that. Even before the time the smoker had co-opted me, I was no innocent. His son is. He doesn't understand this, he's never killed another human, let alone faced the actual enemy, for whom he's obviously, and woefully, unprepared.

What's Spender's point? Blooding his son, offering him his first kill? Does he want the boy to fail, to be killed—a perfectly likely result? Am I supposed to observe, clean up the mess, report? Spender and I are probably the only two who can handle this work in the upper echelons…I can't imagine that fool Strughold taking out a shapeshifter. My mentor, however…there's another story, one he told me one night in bed, a secret shared with me after I'd managed to coax his body into response with my mouth. I know a few things more than I did since I took out my last alien, and I intend to use them.

There—see, I knew the boy couldn't handle it. College, the Academy —he's still a boy, greener than I ever was. I grab the icepick, and…up, into the cranial area, puncturing the alien equivalent of the medulla…into the center, taking out what would be the limbic system if they were human…keeping away from the acrid green muck they have as an excuse for blood and for spinal fluid. The boy watches in absolute shock, then in horror as the acid, exposed to oxygen, does its work on the body. I let him watch; he needs to see this for himself, to see what his father's capable of letting happen to this planet. The Babylonian captivity of Earth, thank you very much.

He doesn't get it, does he? I see I have some work to do here. Mr. Spender, allow me to educate your son as to the facts of the case. Your father, child, is a fucking traitor to the entire planet, let alone the human species, and he expects to be the head of the Vichy government of Earth when the great day comes. All hail King Nebuchadnezzer. Simple, isn't it, Jeffrey? And your daddy wants you to be Crown Prince and help him out. Even take over after him, maybe. Just remember, your sweet, lovable daddy sold your mommy to the aliens for a little medical research along the lines of that nice Doctor Mengele's work while he was at it. He's such a caring kind of guy, Jeff. Keeps a well-stoked furnace for his friends and relatives. A truly great man.

"I'll be my own great man." Yes, Jeffrey, you will. Maybe as a martyr, maybe in the lion's den…but you will. Now that you know about your mother…now that you've actually seen that Fox Mulder is right, that your father's set you up to destroy your own job…

How sharper than a serpent's tooth, Spender…Enjoy dying, nice and slow, starting with your baby boy turning on you. I said you were a dead man, and you'll start feeling like one very, very soon.

Hey, Fox. Hope you enjoy the help. Maybe you'll find out about it someday. But I've got a few things to finish up on Spender's case, and a return ticket to Geneva with my name on it…and someone waiting for me at the other end. All I've got to do now is finish walking out of the furnace, and watch the flames rise around the rest of them.

Geneva's lovely this time of year.

"'…are you prepared to prostrate yourselves and worship the statue I have made? If you refuse to worship it, you will be thrown forthwith into the burning fiery furnace; then which of the gods could save you from my power?'…And they walked in the heart of the flames, praising God and blessing the Lord.…so that the fire did not touch them at all and caused them no pain or distress." Daniel 3: xv–l, New Jerusalem Bible