"I Wished on the Moon" by Billie Holiday, from Cocktail Hour

He wakes up beside her.

Krycek feels nothing but a wash of silk against his skin, the fever of the last few days dissolved into muted colors, faded music, the faint scent of a woman's perfume. He opens his eyes to look into the eyes that face him, no longer red, no longer blind. She smiles, strokes the ruined cheek that has somehow, as if overnight, become whole again.

"Dance with me, Alex?" Marita asks.

He rises to fold her in his arms, the slender body swaying in perfect rhythm against his. She is dressed for the evening, her gown slipping off one shoulder, moon-pale in the darkness of the laboratory. There were nights in Russia when he saw her like this, beautiful, perfect. It is only illusion, but it is an illusion from which one might never wake.

And so they dance, her breath a whisper against him, corn-silk hair fluttering in its wind.

"Where is Hart?" he asks, as if to test the veracity of the dream. She will not confirm it. She does not answer.

"Close your eyes," Marita says instead. "Tell me what you see."

"A white room."

"Who is there?"

"A man." Krycek thinks for a moment, then adds, "And his sister."

"Why are they in the room?"

"Someone has been trying to protect them. Someone else has been trying to kill them."

Marita nods against him, and he holds her tighter. "It's all right," he says reassuringly, "they are safe."

The walls around them seem less solid, and Krycek decides that he and Marita are not confined here any longer. He whirls her outside to dance beneath a net of twinkling stars. There is a garden here, where the daylight will never come, where he can dream, in peace, forever.

He kisses her then, beneath the moonlight. Perhaps it will end this way, a love story, a fairy tale, happily ever after. They will stay in the garden, dancing. After everything, he would be content with nothing more than this.

"Where is this place?" Marita asks.

He responds, "Fort Wiekamp."

When she returns the kiss, it drains his breath away, her lips like ice and he collapses, frozen, on a concrete floor. All he can smell is the sick sweetness of rotting flesh, all he can taste is the salt of blood in his mouth.

A smile splits Marita's face beneath the tangles of black hair, and the dream bursts into splinters of glass, a thousand reminders of his unwitting treachery. The pain, upon awakening, is infinitely worse.

"Thank you, Alex," Marita says. "Jason will be most interested to hear about it."

Without another word, she slips away, silk between his fingers. His only purpose now is to stay here, alone in the cold, waiting to die.

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