Initially, the hatred was enough.
It surged within me, unbidden and sour in my mouth when I saw the picture of Alex Krycek in his sweater and leather jacket (the ubiquitous leather jacket), smirking at me, the photo attached to an e-mail consisting of a single word, a place, a town, a village really, in the heart of the former Soviet Union.
It could not be denied.
It was the hatred which fueled me when I discovered that Krycek had moved on--to Ireland, Cambodia, Nicaragua--always just a step ahead, just another town away. The hatred drove me forward, playing hound for a change to Krycek's fox, and like the hound driven to madness by blood lust, I desired only to fall on my prey and rip him to shreds with my gun, with my hands, with my teeth.
It surprised me, this ferocity, welling up from the darkest recesses of my brain, and taking control of me. I acted without taking the time to consider my actions--there was no time for packing, for phone calls, for goodbyes. Krycek was out there, and I was his hunter. I left knowing that Scully would hate me for going, that she would hate me even more for going without her, that she would detest me if or when I returned, with or without my prey, but I was willing to risk that for the chance at Alex Krycek.
Now, standing at her door, beaten, battered, empty-handed, preparing myself to face her red-headed wrath, separated from my own hatred, I am not so certain of my decision.
I had my chance with Krycek, sure, in the Florida Everglades where I took him by surprise, but he has not stayed alive this long by being easy. He beat me, even with one arm, using his knowledge of the terrain to sidle up behind me and club me with what I can only assume was a canoe paddle. I awoke on a train with a ticket in my coat pocket marked Washington D.C. My wallet was also in my pocket, but my Visa card was gone. I hope he used it to get a decent weapon--what kind of asshole hits someone in the head with a canoe paddle?
I considered disembarking at the next station and backtracking then, running a trace on the card on the off-chance that Krycek might have used it. He wouldn't have, of course, not at any place but the stores near the train station--he didn't stay alive this long by being stupid either--but I didn't, not because I didn't have a lead but because I didn't have the hatred anymore.
Perhaps he knocked it out of me.
Ultimately, I returned because I was lonely.
The only life more desolate than that of a fugitive is that of being a fugitive chaser. When you are a fugitive you talk to no one--no waitress, no bus driver, no shop keeper can notice you. If you must work, you work at places with more than one door, places on dark streets frequented by others who wish to be forgotten. Places where no one will look at your face because they don't want to remember it. You sleep sporadically and lightly, jolted awake by the softest sound in your thin-walled acrid yellow motel room splashed with neon from the flickering sign outside the thin filthy drapes. You eat greasy shop food, hamburgers on soggy buns with wilted lettuce, tuna fish that is grey with age, french fries that taste stale even when they're hot, and thick coffee--the runner's friend.
When you're a fugitive, you keep your head down and your ass covered and you do all of these things because it's your life in your hands, because the one time you fuck up and get too friendly with the motel manager, or the guy on the next bar stool, it's your life that's over. In a horrible way, being a fugitive is the most liberating thing you can do because for the only time in your life you consider only yourself. Only you matter, and the rest of the world is a shadow play that goes on around you.
But when you're a fugitive hunter, all you live for is the fugitive.
There's a sick kind of irony in that--that for the last six months I have been living for/with/in Alex Krycek, the only man who could tear me away from the slim comforts of my life, my job, my partner.
And now I'm back.
I want her to be happy to see me, although I know that is almost impossible. I haven't spoken to her in over half a year. I haven't sent her a postcard, or dropped her a line, haven't e-mailed or faxed, haven't reached out and touched her via the friendly fingers of the phone system. Nothing. I couldn't.
I couldn't because I was on the hunt and I didn't have a spare second to consider someone besides Krycek. What was he doing, where was he going, what was his next plan of action? I couldn't even consider myself, let alone worry about the effect of my rash actions on my partner. This is what I tell myself in order to have the strength to press her doorbell, but I know that these reasons are manipulations of the truth.
Lies.
I couldn't get in touch with Scully because to do so would be to change this hunt from my problem into our problem, from my quest into hers, and I didn't want to do that, for her sake.
Another lie.
For my sake. I didn't want to share. I wanted this all for myself, the satisfaction of capturing him, the joy of seeing him suffer, the recriminations and the punishments, to be laid solely on my shoulders, and the instant that I would have heard her voice at the other end of the line, the second I knew I had revealed to her my whereabouts or even that I was still out there, still alive and in pursuit, she would have been with me, in thought if not in deed. And I wanted to be alone.
I was.
I wonder if she thinks I'm dead. I could be, for all she knows. I could have been taken by the Consortium, or by Krycek himself. I could have been just another victim of random violence, my car stolen and my body left unidentified in a ditch. I could have been abducted by aliens for all she knows. This time my behavior is so reprehensible as to be unforgivable, and I wonder what she will do when she discovers that I'm not dead, but I am an asshole. If I'm lucky, she'll kill me quickly.
Whatever she decides to do, I will take it.
That's why I've come here instead of heading to my own house or reporting to Skinner. I'm injured, sure, by not grievously enough to require a doctor, and not suspiciously enough to avoid the hospital if I did need one. I haven't come here for that kind of medicine. I've come to tell her what happened to me over the last six months, because I couldn't tell her when it happened, I've come to admit once again that I have made a mistake and hope that whatever she sees in me will compensate for it. I've come to let her see that I'm alright and to make sure that this time wasn't the last time she will be all right for me. I've come to make sure I'm back.
My finger presses the glowing circle of the doorbell, and it sounds like any other doorbell I've ever heard any other time. It actually sounds like ding, dong. I close my eyes against its joyous familiarity.
"Who is it?" my Scully asks, always the cautious one.
"Avon calling," I say, and she opens the door.
****end****
Author's note: My thanks to J.C. Sun for the inspiration of the original material, her gracious permission for a sequel, and her help in making the vignette sound more like what it was intended to be. Everything good here is because of her. J.