"The Bonny Swans" by Loreena McKennitt, from The Mask and Mirror

Fort Marlene is eerily deserted, abandoned by the men who once claimed it as a second home. Krycek stalks its halls with a dark sense of purpose. There is a piece absent, some clue to Jason Hart's whereabouts.

Something led him to this place. Perhaps it was a dream, but Krycek does not remember his dreams - a small act of mercy by his waking mind. The pinprick of pain in the stump of his shoulder is enough to let him know what he is missing.

Something is still leading him, and it is a moment before he realizes that this something exists outside of his mind, that this something is present at the base itself. It takes him another moment to identify this something as music, a high-pitched, keening wail that cries out to him as if in desperation.

He lets the music guide him.

It bleeds through a closed door, a discarded operating room. He tries the handle. The door opens without resistance.

The walls are draped in velvet, in shadows cast by a flickering candle near a canopy bed. A woman sits on the high-backed chair, her face turned away from him as her long, thin fingers pluck at the strings of a harp. The instrument and her hair are the same cornsilk color. If the music had a color it too would shine this brightly.

No.

The walls are bare except for unidentifiable medical equipment, unflatteringly illuminated by a single bare bulb. The music comes from an old tape recorder, the sole personal belonging of the room's occupant. As the woman turns to face him, he sees that her hair is dyed black, and her failing eyes are shot through with red.

"Hello, Marita," Krycek says.

She does not look surprised to see him, not as she had been the last time. And he is moderately pleased to discover that the thrill of fear that once greeted him every time he saw her has dissipated. Perhaps now they can talk.

"Alex?"

She has converted this sterile room into an even more sterile home. Her bed - two stretchers hastily placed side-by-side, is draped in gray blankets, unmade, shoved in the corner. The absence of windows is probably a blessing, when the light bulb is off.

He shifts from one foot to the other - Marita seems just as uncomfortable as he feels. "I...didn't expect to find you here," he says finally.

"Then...why come at all?"

"I was looking for a man, actually. Perhaps you know him. Dr. Jason Hart..."

At the shudder that courses through her thin body like a shock of electricity, he knows that he has come to the right place.

"But since you're here..."

"Go away," Marita whispers. "Please...just...go away."

He doesn't. There is something grotesquely fascinating about the woman who stands before him. He wonders how the coarse black hair would feel between his fingers, the cracked lips against his own. He is still a man, after all.

Like fucking a corpse, a part of his mind decides, the comparison crass but obvious. The rest of his mind has more important things to consider.

"Where is he, Marita?" His voice is soft, taunting, but he can't control himself.

Her hands move in wild gestures, pushing the air in front of her away as if it was him, fingers still coiling around the invisible strings of her harp. So very broken, he thinks. He could almost pity her.

"I'm sorry," the weaker human impulse inside of him offers, then, "If it makes it any better, I forgive you."

"For what?"

"For betraying me."

She laughs then, harsh, the cry of a vulture. He wonders why her red-rimmed eyes are focused away from him, what visions they take in - or do they see at all? He pictures the signals they could be sending out, twin red sniper beads that target him, waiting for the right moment.

"But the past is the past, isn't it? And I'm here to talk about the future."

"The future?" Marita backs away, seeking the surface of the wall for its spare, cold comfort. "You didn't come here to talk."

"I came here to find Hart."

"To kill him?"

"To...talk."

"You were never a good liar, Alex." She smiles grimly. "You know...don't you? What's coming...what it all means..."

"I was hoping he could tell me."

She shakes her head. He reaches towards the black tangles, catches her face in his hand to bring it close to his. He can barely stand to look at her but his body remembers the motions, and acts without the consent of his eyes.

"Alex...please..." If more words follow, they are lost in his own breath.

His hand reaches to press her to the wall, all the time his mouth moving to whisper, "Where is he, Marita, where is he," until he realizes he has spoken the thought aloud.

And then the music stops abruptly as the tape ends, as if to announce the opening of the door. As he pulls away, she sinks to the floor, her head in her hands, and he does not see the expression of relief on her face as he turns to face this new intruder.

"I'm right here, Alex," Hart says. "What do you want from me?"

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