"Touch, Peel and Stand" by Days of the New, from Days of the New

No one had been prepared for this.

Krycek lets himself into the hospital room, closing the door behind him. His steps are quiet, as if to maintain the stillness here, to avoid disturbing the silent woman on the bed.

There is no chance of that. She will not wake.

He pulls up a chair by her bedside, slipping his hand around hers. If the guard outside should wake, if anyone else should accidentally enter, they will mistake him at first for a friend or family member, or perhaps a worried colleague.and give him enough time to reach for his gun.

Enough time, he thinks, to determine the identity of Scully's would-be killer.

He has little hope that she will recover sufficiently to tell him herself. He must proceed as she would, from the evidence, from the fragments of undeniable truth. It is a strange role to take upon himself, but there is no one else he can trust, not on such short notice.

Her chart is at the foot of the bed, but there is little question of what put her here. Poisoning is not generally the Consortium's style, and regardless, they have no need to kill her now.

He should feel something for her - sympathy, concern - but the closest he can manage is fear. Not for Scully's life - it's all the same to him, he's watched enough innocent women die - but for his own. He is afraid of that vast, lurking *something* which threatens to destroy fifty years of plans, to obliterate the men who have put them into place.

Poor Scully, Krycek thinks, you were never more than a pawn. Did you understand, at the very last, your place in this? What secrets you could tell, if only you could speak.

He releases his grip on her hand, silently marveling at its paleness, its lifelessness. She is still alive, despite everything. Were he a religious man, he might think it miraculous. But then, his own survival seems equally astounding, under the circumstances.

Krycek alternates his attention between the beep of the life support monitor and the closed door behind him. The killer - *killers,* a voice in his head assures him - should have known better than to poison someone in a hospital. He wouldn't have been so careless.

This could, he muses, work out for the best. He can still use her. No one - besides Skinner, and Krycek alone knows where Skinner's loyalties lie - no one knows yet of Scully's latest misfortune. Not Mulder, not the smoker, perhaps not even the colonists. She may be a pawn, but she is Krycek's pawn now, and she is lucky that he at least understands the rules of the game.

He has a sudden, bizarre image of himself as a sort of referee between two warring sides. As the players escalate out of control, the umpire blows the whistle, and it stops. Right here. Krycek grins despite himself. It stops, and he at last recognizes the hand of the man who put Scully in this bed, a former colleague more than knowledgeable in the use of medical narcotics.

How could he not have seen it before?

Now the players may fall as they will, but Krycek is prepared. This landscape, once radically altered beyond recognition, is once again clear to him. He leans over the unconscious woman, her lips cold and motionless beneath his, the receptacle of a brief, almost astonished kiss.

"We're going to be very good friends, Agent Scully," he whispers.

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