"The Best Things" by Filter, from Title of Record

It is too late to visit Samantha by the time they reach New York, so he walks instead, leaving Scully behind at the motel. She hadn't wanted him to leave. She had wanted to talk to him, or at the very least, sit there while he cried.

But he is past tears.

Central Park by moonlight - it sounds like the title of a romance film, and not a good one at that. Besides, there isn't any moon tonight - just-diffused halos around lamps, glimmers of stars through fog. The angel looms silent, and he wonders if he could trace Samantha's bare footsteps through the frosted grass, the frozen earth. He stands at the edge of the fountain and looks up into the stone eyes.

Someone laughs behind him, but he doesn't turn, not even when a familiar voice says his name.

He doesn't respond, pretending he doesn't hear it. If they're going to shoot him, they can shoot him in the back.

"What are you doing here, Krycek?" he asks finally, wearily.

"If I'd been sent to kill you, you'd be buried by now. I've been standing behind you for ten minutes."

Mulder turns, slowly. "I know."

Krycek's face, half-hidden in the shadows, is a mask of angles and harsh planes of light. "You are a good soldier, Mulder," he says, "A good soldier, and a lousy spy."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think you know."

Mulder does know; he knows all too well. The steps to this dance are familiar. He will ask, and Krycek will avoid, and the game will go on, as it must.

Krycek turns his attention to the statue of the angel.

"It's a war memorial, isn't it?" Mulder says.

Krycek shrugs - he doesn't care. Mulder does not particularly care either. He's never been one for statues.

"Bethesda..." Krycek says, sounding thoughtful. "You know the story, Mulder?"

"What story?"

"The angel Bethesda...came down from Heaven in the middle of Jerusalem in the Temple Square. Where her foot touched the ground, a fountain sprang up. They said that anyone who walked through the waters of the fountain would be healed of suffering."

Mulder laughs, a nervous laugh. "Interesting story, Krycek."

Krycek's voice is a whisper in the gathering darkness. "I heard they found your sister. I heard that she's insane."

Civility shudders and dies. "Go to hell," Mulder snarls.

"It must be hard." Krycek is calm, calm and mocking. He can afford to be. "Twenty-five years of searching, and all for nothing."

"Tell me why you're here, or leave. Or I'll make you leave."

A dark chuckle. "Will you?" Mulder sees a flash in the dark, part of a gun, perhaps. "It's all right. It's getting late, and I have...other obligations." He leans over, and for an instant Mulder expects to feel the hot breath and scrape of stubble, a repeat of their last meeting that left him sitting on the floor of his apartment with the world spinning wildly out of kilter.

But Krycek only pats his shoulder in what might have been a gesture of camaraderie, had it not come from the man who had killed his father.

"I just came to see how you were doing." A pause, and then, in an oddly gentle voice, he says, "Goodnight."

Mulder glances at the statue, and when he looks back, Krycek is gone.

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