For The Cause
Missing Scene set just before Tunguska


Krycek hurt. Not the intense suffering that he'd first felt; now... now it was just a dull throb that informed him that it was there, and it wasn't going to go away. Ever since the alien's occupation of his body it had plagued him, until finally the pain slowly started to become a part of his everyday existence and he had given up worrying about it. It took too much energy to contemplate, and he just didn't have the strength to let such a minor matter as pain intrude upon his existence - not if he wanted to retain his sanity... at least for a while longer.

The scruffily-dressed man beside him roughly shoved an elbow into his ribs, and he winced at the smaller flare of pain this caused. "We're sure going to show those yellow bellies not to mess with us... we are the supreme race, you know," the gangly youth offered from behind broken teeth.

Krycek looked at the youth who sat beside him, totally swallowing the bullshit that their leader was spurting. Lapping it up like the stupid, tail-wagging dog that he was. The handsome, dark-haired man let a loose smile slip across his features as he nodded in agreement, surprised that he didn't just burst out with laugher at the men who stood before him. Fools; poor, misguided fools, the lot of them. Krycek knew - he was, after all, an expert on poor, misguided fools, having graduated from the very same class some time before. But not any more, he reminded himself roughly... not any more.

"Did you get the stuff?" The question was asked again, and with a start the ex-FBI agent realised that the words were directed at him.

"Yes sir," he offered in correct military fashion, just the way the leader liked it. It gave the man the impression that they were not really terrorists, not if he treated it like a military campaign. Krycek wondered how many deaths throughout history had been explained away in the same manner. 'It's okay to kill if it's what you believe in.' Even as the thought slipped unbidden into his mind, he knew that he, himself, had been guilty of the same crime. He veered his thoughts away from Agent Mulder and the X-Files with an effort. Swallowing hard, he licked at cracked lips and added, "It's in the van, and I've got the receipts."

"Got the receipts..." the leader repeated with a laugh, looking about at his cohorts to encourage the ripple of titters that accompanied his own manly chuckle. "We don't need receipts, boy," he confided, just a tad too-brightly, before adding, "Just toss them in the trash." Then the man stood back and crossed his arms importantly in front of himself, as he informed the small group, "We don't want anything to tie back to us, now, do we? Least ways, not until we're ready."

This earned him knowledgeable nods of heads, and Krycek fought back the snarling retort that lay just behind his tightly-closed lips. Instead he offered mildly, "I'll get rid of them."

"You do that, son." With that, the leader again went over the plan of attack. The organisation was poor, the attempt ill-equipped, and the project doomed to failure. Krycek could see all the pitfalls clearly, but he kept his mouth shut and acted like a true devotee, nodding where needed, smiling when necessary, and mouthing words of hate when prompted, until finally the meeting began to break up.

As the other members of the group began to file out, the leader caught up with Krycek and laid a friendly arm across the strikingly handsome man's shoulders, saying proudly, "You know your stuff, boy, I'll give you that." Krycek refrained from shrugging the offending arm off and just stood quietly, waiting for the further words that he knew would come, his face covered with an interested expression. "Good thing we came across you when we did."

"Yes sir," he finally answered, when it became obvious that the older man was waiting for a reply. "I sure was lucky that day," he offered as the man began to walk away. Krycek glared after him. He wanted to hit the man, hurt him like he'd been wounded. Yet he knew that no amount of pounding upon the other's flesh would make his own pain go away. Instead he called out, "Thank you sir, and rest assured I know what I've got to do for the cause."

The leader didn't even bother to turn at his words, just raised his hand and waved it in the general direction of Krycek. If he had looked around, he might have seen Krycek pull the receipts from his pocket and look at them for a long, long moment, the hint of a dark shadow slithering across his eyes, then fading. Then he might have witnessed the eerie smile that slowly filtered across Krycek's face, where it rested until it became too painful to let it remain.

"I certainly know what I've got to do for the cause," Krycek repeated again, as he stood alone in the cold, dilapidated barn, the pain no longer so all-consuming.

THE END


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