TITLE: To the Gallows Foot
AUTHOR: Brekke (elseheavens@hotmail.com)
CATERGORY: Spender/Krycek Friendship. Leading up to Post-Col.
RATING: PG.
SPOILERS: One Son.

SUMMARY: For Jeffrey Spender, the end is only the begining.

DISCLAIMER: Not mine.

NOTES:  At the end of One Son, I actually liked Jeffrey Spender,
and I was quite annoyed he was then killed. And I've always had
my own ideas about Krycek and his motives. 

To me, the ratboy is a lot less of a rat than he seems. Of all 
the baddies, I think he'll be the one to turn out to be good.
Hence the purpose of this story, to explore exactly what did 
happen to Spender JNR. after the closing credits.

This is actually a side-plot to a post-colonisation story I've
been writing for some time and which isn't quite finished. But
this story is strictly stand-alone.


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I thought I was dead.

Dead. It was a concept I hadn't really considered before. Not
even working for the FBI. Not even learning the Truth about my 
father's work. I guess I thought I was invincible. 

Right up until my own father shoved a gun in my face and pulled
the trigger, that is. 

Then, I thought I was dead. 

He didn't even wait for me to hit the ground. He was up and out
of my office before the first of my blood began to seep into
the carpet, leaving the foul stench of his cigarettes to keep
me company as I died.

I had a bullet in my skull. I thought I was dead. 

I was wrong.

It could've been minutes, hours maybe, even years before he
came. I don't remember how long it was. I *do* remember thinking
that it was my father coming back to pump a few more bullets
into me. 

It never occured to me that it could be my saviour. 

But it was. Dressed in black jeans and a black leather jacket.

Krycek didn't hesitate for a moment. He immediately crouched over
me, one hand finding the wound and covering it with his palm. 
He seemed to have almost expected to find me there in a pool of
my own blood. But I'll still never forget the expression on 
his face. 

Even though he'd known this was how he'd find me, his face was 
a haunting mixture of fear, horror and regret. If I didn't know
better, I would've sworn there were tears in that cold-blooded
assasin's eyes. 

"Jesus Jeffrey," he exhaled, brushing my hair back with his 
fingers and pressing his palm softly against my wound. "Hold
on."

For one irrational moment, I thought he must've been talking
to someone else. I hardly recognised my own name on his lips.

My real name. My first name.

No one in this business had ever called me by my first name. No
one in this business called *anyone* by their first name. Not
even Mulder and Scully. 

I suppose it was a precaution in this game. Never get close to 
any of the other pieces just in case they're the next ones to 
fall. I remember my father once comparing it to a game of chess, 
where everyone else is a pawn and you are the only piece that 
matters.

Typical kind of comment from that arrogant son of a bitch. 

And yet here was my father's sidekick leaning over me, stroking
my hair, calling me by my first name and begging me to hold on.
I almost opened my mouth to crack a joke, when a sensation in
my skull stopped me.

It began slowly at first. Warmly. It was like a heat that spread
from where the bullet had struck me, and from where Krycek now 
had his hand. Not a searing heat, but a tingling warmth that
was closer to pleasure than pain.

For a very long moment, I thought it must be my death. But then
that moment passed and I found myself still breathing, my heart
still beating and very much alive. Another moment passed and I
also realized that the pain had gone, and so had the wound
beneath Krycek's touch.

My eyes rolled up to meet his gazing down on me with concern.
His hand was no longer pressing against my wound, but curled 
in my hair, stroking softly. 

"Are you okay?" he asked me. 

Sure, Alex. I've just discovered that the world in about to
be colonized by body-sucking aliens, my own father just shot 
me in the head, and now his sidekick has just healed me with
the palm of his hand. Everything is peachy, Krycek. Really.

I groan, pulling myself into a sitting position, not meeting
his gaze. For some reason those dark eyes deepend as they were
with worry, were unnerving. "What do you think?" I mumble.

He doesn't answer. Instead, without a word, he slips his 
prosthetic arm beneath my knees, wraps his good arm around my 
waist, and stands up, taking me in his arms. 

His actions shock me. This is Krycek after all. Shouldn't he
be slinging me over his shoulder and then tossing me in the
nearest dumpster. I peer at his face, trying to make sense of
what is going on.

He seems to sense my question, though his eyes don't meet mine.
"We need them to think you're dead," he tells me. "Otherwise
you won't live long enough to do the work you need to do."

Work? What work? My work is here with Mulder and Scully now. I
grimace, remembering his words that night I saw my first alien.
"So I can be a great man?" I mutter, grimacing as he carries me 
down the stairs to the parking garage to a darkly colored car
parked in the shadows. 

Ford Taurus. Does everyone around here drive Taurus'?

He winces at my words as he deposits me in the passenger seat,
pulling the seat belt around me. "Sorry about that," he mutters.
"I needed to test you. See where your loyalties lie. You were
CGB's son after all." He shut the door and went around to the
driver's side, getting in and starting the car. 

For awhile I merely mulled over what he had said. Then I roved
back through my memories, for all the passing comments I 
overheard about Krycek, everything I'd heard him say and 
everything I'd seen him do, and suddenly it all made perfect
sense to me. 

The son of a bitch had been playing both sides against the
middle.

Krycek, cold-hearted assasin, sidekick to the black-lunged son
of a bitch, and all around nasty piece of work was the good guy.
And quite likely, when it all came down, it was going to be
Krycek, not Mulder, who saved the world.

Wait, that's not right. Not just Krycek. Krycek *and* Mulder.
And Scully and Marita. Probably Skinner as well. And this last 
piece of information was the hardest to digest -- and me as 
well.

Talk about little city-boy making it big.  

I pulled myself out of my ruminations and glanced through the 
window. Realizing for the first time that I had absolutely no
idea where we were. It seemed like we'd left D.C. quite awhile
ago to judge my the scenery.

"Where are we?" I asked Kyrcek raspily.

His head jerked around quickly, and he smiled. Krycek smiled. An
honest-to-god smile. Not a smirk, but a smile. What was the world
coming to?

"I thought you were asleep," he explained. Nice evasion.

I try again. "Where are we going?"

The smile twitches on his lips and stretches a little wider and I
can tell he's going to evade the question again or give some
ambiguous answer. 

Normally, I'd be angry or annoyed, except that the next word that
comes out of his mouth is spoken with such feeling, such pure, 
unadulterated emotion that it is almost compelling. 

And it is a word I've waited such a very long time to hear.

"Home," he tells me like it was the most obvious thing in the 
world, and for the moment, I'm inclined to agree.


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    THE END

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