Go Ask Alice... (Part 6 of ?)

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Summary: The return of the Rat everyone loves to hate. Scully gets a glimpse of what Anna is truly capable of, and Mulder & Skinner learn to work together - despite Mulder's handicaps. (HERE THERE BE MAJOR ANGST!!!!! MulderAngst, ScullyAngst, SkinnerAngst, and a little AnnaAngst thrown in for good measure)

Thank you's: Thank you to MulderAngst and all of you wonderful writers & esp. Susan Proto who inspired me by writing the 'Abah' series!

Disclaimer: You know it's coming, and here it is! ALL of the characters, names, descriptions, places, etc. (except Anna & Austaur who belong to me) belong exclusively to Chris Carter and 1013 productions.

Scully woke up with a splitting headache and a horrible taste in her mouth. *Ether. Great.* As she sat up, her memory came back full force. She quickly scanned the room and found she was alone.

"Krycek!" She swore, full of worry. Her thoughts of the death Mulder and Skinner were going to impose on her if *when* they found her were interrupted by footsteps.

Scully inwardly winced as she recognized Krycek's voice. The door opened and Scully looked up, eyeing Krycek wearily.

"Go to Hell, Krycek." Scully spat, a little disconcerted when he lowered his eyelids and cocked his head at her, smiling.

"Now, now, Dana. That's not the way you want to speak to me. That is, if you ever wish to see Alice again."

"Alice in Wonderland. Alice. She didn't tell you? That was a name I gave her quite some time ago. We dated, you know."

Scully's eyes widened as he spoke, and she stared in complete disbelief. "That's not true."

"What? Think I can't get a date? Why, Dana, I'm hurt." Krycek teased, enjoying his game. "Or maybe you think she is too young? She's older than she seems, I assure you." When Scully refused to continue, he sighed and walked over to her. "Seriously, If you promise to behave, I'll let you see her."

"I don't know, maybe I just want to." Krycek shrugged. "You're going to be here a while, so you might want to consider being nice."

Krycek watched her quietly, refusing to get riled over her silly name games. Scully returned his stare.

"Over there," Krycek pointed to a large window on the wall opposite where she was sitting, "Is the backside of the mirror in Alice's room. You have a front row seat to the show."

"Why, the end of the bad guys." Krycek said slyly as he watched Scully walk over to the window and look. She gasped involuntarily as she took in the room before her. They had Anna laid out on a table, fastened down with restraints, in the middle of the room. The restraints seemed almost funny considering the condition she was in. She flinched as Krycek moved up behind her and leaned down to talk into her ear.

"It might not be today, or tomorrow but it will happen. They don't realize who they are dealing with." Krycek smiled as Scully half turned to face him.

"So that's where you were taking her." Krycek looked down into Scully's eyes, studying them. "That would have been very stupid of you. Even her uncle, AD Skinner, knows better than to do that."

"You haven't guessed yet? Why, those idiots are going to heal her. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind that. But as for them, as a strategic move, it is utter insanity. They think they can control her." Krycek said as he stepped back, pressing a button on what seemed to be a small speaker next to the window. "She will kill them."

Scully stared at him as he turned his back and walked out, closing and locking the door behind him.

Mulder was alone; the thought terrified him in a way he never thought it could. The room was completely empty, even Skinner had left to follow Austaur outside in a search for clues.

Mulder rubbed his hands over his dead eyes as he was assaulted by the memories of what had been done to them before. Now, he wasn't there to protect her. Now, he couldn't find her. Now, there was absolutely nothing he could do but sit in the darkness.

Mulder was saved from a full-blown panic attack by, with all irony, Krycek. An image came unbidden to his thoughts and that image alone forced away everything else in his mind.

The very thought of Krycek touching her in that way would have been almost more than Mulder could bear, but his vivid imagination allowed him a virtually perfect image of exactly what Krycek was capable of doing to his Scully. White hot anger flooded through him and forced him out of his self misery.

He actually made it to the front door, but he forgot about the steps after that.

"Fuck!" Mulder yelled as he tumbled down the steps and landed face down in the gravel driveway. Strong arms grabbed him and turned him over; someone was yelling at him. Oh, of course. It was Skinner.

"Scully!" Mulder wailed, and burst into gut wrenching sobs. It was useless. He was useless.

Skinner sighed heavily as he picked his agent up off of the ground and literally carried him back into the house. Mulder was out cold, his sobs cut short as he passed out. Skinner didn't need to look at a watch to know why. He laid Mulder on the couch and stood, looking down at the face that was twisted in sorrow even as he slept.

"We'll find her Mulder." He said, more to reassure himself than his sleeping agent. "We'll find them both. And then," Skinner's eyes hardened. "Krycek will die."

Scully paced the room, coming back to stare through the glass again. She had been throughout her small room looking for ways out but it seemed for now that escape was impossible. All she could do was watch, and wait. Several hours passed before her attention was captured by the commotion beyond the window.

She saw people she was familiar with, and several she was not. Her eyes closed in on someone she knew well, and then she understood what Krycek had meant. Jeremiah Smith, or at least one of the many Jeremiah Smiths that were in various parts of the country, entered the room and walked over to the table where Anna lay. Voices drifted in through the speaker, and she was surprised to see Krycek walk into the room.

"Are you sure you know what you are doing?" Krycek scoffed as he walked over to a far corner of the room, watching the men through half-slitted eyes.

"She will posses no threat to her so long as she is kept on the medication." Man #2 responded, turning and watching Jeremiah Smith with interest. "The minute Mr. Smith is completed, make sure you waste no time in administering the injection. I want no mishaps here."

Krycek glanced across the room and stared at his reflection in the mirror, wondering what Dana Scully thought of this. He flashed her a special grin and winked before he turned his eyes back to the proceedings.

Scully glared at Krycek through the glass, even though she knew he couldn't see her. The doctor in her was screaming questions into her head (What is in the syringe? What will it do to Anna?), the agent in her was mentally tallying the scene, filing away faces and events to be pulled again when she might be able to use them, but Scully herself, Dana Scully, only watched in morbid fascination as Jeremiah Smith lay his hand on Anna's head.

Anna felt a pull, like someone tugging on her hand trying to force her out of the quiet oblivion she lay in. She resisted at first, wanting to heal before she faced that reality again, but the pull was insistent, so she followed warily. Suddenly, energy rushed through her and she mentally cringed, waiting for the hurt to follow. When the pain didn't come she embraced the energy.

It didn't take long for her to realize what was happening, the energy was healing, repairing the damage caused by her recklessness. Returning to herself, she felt the restraints taunt on her arms and pulled on the healing energy greedily. As she lay there healing, she pondered the why of it, listened, and remembered.

Even though Scully was separated from the events in the room by the slick glass, she jumped in surprise with everyone in the room when Anna's eyes popped open. Suddenly, the room fell into chaos.

Completely healed, Anna cut off the energy she was being fed by Jeremiah Smith and reached down, grabbing the energy latent in the earth beneath them. Jeremiah Smith reeled backwards as Anna sat up, using the energy to break the restraints that once held her to the table. She stood on the table and looked around, her face wild with rage as her gaze slid past Krycek to the man seated next to him.

"You rat Bastard! What the Hell do you think you are doing?" Anna spat, fighting the men who were trying to pull her down.

Scully gasped at the sight of Skinner's niece standing there in such fury. Krycek's comments rushed back to her and now she understood them. Without even seeing what Anna was capable of, she realized how much power she held. Scully's eyes fell on Krycek, who was leaning back and smirking, enjoying the commotion. He seemed to know she was looking at him, for he flashed a grin in her direction.

Anna apparently had enough of physically fighting the men who were trying to pin her down, and with a wave of her hand she sent them sprawling across the room. She closed her eyes for a split second, reaching for the power she needed to kill that bastard, but that split second cost her. One of the men had come up from behind and slid the needle into her shoulder, injecting the liquid.

"God DAMNIT!" She swore, turning on the man who still held the syringe in his hand. She glared at him, and he froze, standing stock still with the needle still in mid-air. She turned back around and Scully pulled her hand to her mouth as she watched Anna's eyes glaze over.

Anna felt the drug coursing through her body, invading her and taking her control away. She allowed herself to fall, turning all of her concentration towards burning away the toxin. To everyone in the room it seemed as if she had merely passed out. She lay on the table, breathing heavily, her eyes half open. After a moment of stunned silence, the room erupted.

"Damnit Krycek, you should have warned us!" The man who had been sitting beside him yelled. Krycek just stood up and smiled.

"Sir," a man in white asked from the table. He was monitoring Anna, and his face was troubled. "She is burning off this drug at an alarming rate."

"Shit!" The man frowned, sprinting over to them. "Give her more you moron. If she wakes up..."

No one needed a second warning as to what this girl might do if she awoke and regained her senses. The man in white quickly consulted his chart and began preparing another syringe. Scully began yelling, beating on the window, alarmed at the amount of this mystery drug they were preparing to inject Anna with.

Krycek heard the pounding and smiled. "I have something to attend to. Besides, I might not want to be here when, and it will be when believe me, she comes to."

A minute later, Scully whirled around to see Krycek entering the room. She ran over to him, forcing him against the wall.

"What are they giving her!" Scully yelled, giving Krycek the brunt of the rage she felt over what she had just witnessed. Krycek just smiled down at her. *I would love to rip that smile from your face you bastard.*

They were interrupted as two men walked into the room and stared at the scene before them. Krycek raised his eyebrow at Scully and she backed off, worried.

Krycek nodded and remained where he was until he and Scully were once again alone. When he spoke, his words were all serious.

"Listen to me. What they are giving her is nothing more that a muscle relaxer on steroids. It may prolong the inevitable, but it will not keep them safe. Think Dana, when Alice drank from the bottle on the table in Wonderland, what did it do?"

Scully stared at him in pure confusion. What was Krycek up to? She glanced back over to the window, pondering his question.

*Drink me. Alice grew too big for the house. Ok, what is that supposed to mean?*

By the time Scully figured it out, Krycek was gone. She walked back over to the window and stared out, involuntarily flinching as she watched them place iron shackles in the place where the nylon restraints once were. Even with the amount of drugs in her system, Scully was surprised to see Anna flinch and grimace as the shackles touched her skin.

Suddenly, her eyes were drawn to where the orderly that Anna had somehow stopped. She could see the terror in his eyes, he was still aware! She blinked in disbelief as a man came up beside him and shot him, point blank in the head.

As her mind completed the thought, Scully broke down and cried, her hands sliding against the glass as she crumpled to the floor.

Mulder awoke to an argument. As he pulled himself back from the oblivion of sleep, he recognized the voices as belonging to Austaur and AD Skinner.

*Ouch. Austaur just called Skinner a moron! What the hell is going on?* Mulder sat up quietly, listening.

"What are we supposed to do? Sit around here and wait?" Skinner huffed. "We need to call for help."

"Right. Did your 'Bureau' help you find your agents? They don't even know where you are, much less where Anna and Scully might be. Are you going to waste time by trying to explain why you and both of your agents suddenly disappeared from the hospital?"

Skinner grimaced. Austaur was right, but he hated to admit it. By calling the FBI all he would accomplish is a hunk of wasted time as he faced his superiors and tried to logically explain the impossible. If this were an ordinary day, sometime in the past, he would have handed this case over to Mulder and it would have been solved, or at least he would have an interesting field report to read. He chuckled, feeling just a little bit insane, and glanced over to the couch where Mulder was sleeping.

"Agent Mulder." Skinner said, surprised to see him awake and sitting there quietly.

Austaur glared at the two men, frustrated beyond belief. Time was slipping through their fingers and he had no conception where to start. If Krycek had Anna, then the other men could not be far behind. His greatest fear had been forced into reality.

*Those men. They almost killed all of us, killed to many of us before Anna found out and stopped them. Anna. She saved an entire race and spent the next year lamenting the loss of her man-friend.* Austaur sighed, in spite of himself. *I will never understand her. And now, I can't even feel her presence, but I can't tell these two idiots. I would know if she was dead, I would. So, she is alive somewhere, probably beneath the earth in a steel building. Steel & Iron, the only things we cannot face. The only things we cannot penetrate. The things these morons build from.*

Both Skinner and Austaur turned to Mulder in confusion. They replied in unison. "What?"

"I think Agent Mulder has an idea." Skinner replied, smiling for the first time since Anna's & Scully's disappearance. "Come on, Mulder."

Skinner lead Mulder past Austaur and over to the computer he remembered Anna using. As he guided Mulder to the chair, he realized what Mulder was going to do.

Mulder nodded, running his hands over the tower, finally pushing the button that brought the machine humming into usefulness. Mulder paused, momentarily panicking when he realized that using Windows might be a little difficult. Skinner stared at him, wondering what was causing his agent so much distress. Finally a light dawned and he pulled a chair up next to his agent, grabbing the mouse.

"Anna. Don't ask me how, but she knows them too. Ok, here." Skinner waited. "Damn! Request denied." He turned to Mulder who was trying to grab the mouse.

"Email." Mulder said, placing his hands back on the keyboard. Skinner caught on, and opened the program.

"Ok, you're ready." Skinner watched as Mulder began typing frantically, and marveled at how well they worked together, especially under these extreme circumstances. He chuckled as he read the message.

Frohike - If you don't hook up with me right NOW and include an IRC chat window on your screen with the video, I'll tell Scully about that dream you had a few weeks ago!

Skinner clicked 'send' and was amazed when a few seconds later the computer was blowing up with conferencing requests.

"Damn Mulder!" Skinner said, amused as he waited for the line to be established. "Must have been some dream. Ok, here we go."

Skinner clicked over so the cursor was on the IRC chat window. Mulder began typing before the three amigos appeared on the screen.

"Jesus Mulder! Don't ever do that to me again!" Frohike's voice preceded his picture.

"Hi Skinner. Nice to see you again." Langly offered jokingly, his good nature dropping as he read what Mulder was typing to them.

Mulder's face was covered with concentration as his hands flew over the keyboard, quickly summing up everything that had happened. Skinner watched as Mulder relayed his predicament apathetically, almost in third person.

Mulder kept typing, then he stopped and waited, raising his head to face them directly. Skinner finished reading Mulder's narrative seconds before the Gunmen did and in doing so, had the opportunity to see their reaction. All three of them looked up at the same time and gaped.

The Gunmen held a moment of silence as the puzzle pieces fell into place. Suddenly, they moved into action, Frohike was the only one who remained at the computer. Byers and Langly scrambled around the room, and Skinner could hear the racket of the mess they were making.

"Skinner, ask Austaur," Langly moved back into view, leaning into the computer. "Ask Austaur where Anna kept her journal. She always kept one, it should be a leather-bound book of some type."

"Good idea Langly, I wouldn't have thought of that. I think I still have..." Byers commented from somewhere off screen.

"Yeah. Look for entries from, um, about three years ago I think. She would have written everything down, maybe even the location, or a description." Langly said.

"Mulder, we'll find them. Give us an hour to track down some stuff, and we'll get back to you." Frohike said before the link was cut.

Skinner looked over and saw Mulder squinting at the screen, as if it would help him see. His heart fell just a little before he hardened it and stood up, intending to find Austaur and drag the location of this journal out of him by force. When he turned around, he jumped as he nearly ran into him.

Austaur looked at him sadly, holding the journal in his hands. "I think you will need this, but I didn't give it to you."

Skinner accepted the journal and sat back down, flipping through the pages. "This isn't a journal, it's a damn novel." He grumbled before he fell silent, intent on finding whatever information that was written in here. Suddenly, he found a name and gasped involuntarily.

"Sir?" Mulder said softly, bringing Skinner out of the world he was reading. He started to ask 'what?', but the look on Mulder's face told him exactly what the man wanted.

"I'm sorry Mulder. I just found Alex Krycek's name in my niece's journal. I am allowed to be a bit stunned."

Mulder tilted his head in shock. Anna and Krycek? His thoughts were interrupted when Skinner jumped up and started swearing in a way to make a sailor blush.

"That fucking bastard! If I ever get my hands on him I will make him WISH that I would just kill him! Son of a Bitch! He's a fuckin' dead man!"

Skinner glared down at Mulder and stopped himself, and, taking very, very deep breathes and suppressing the urge to break things, he told Mulder what he had just found out.

"That Rat fucked my niece!" Skinner blushed as soon as he said the words, out loud. He was suddenly glad Mulder couldn't see him.

"Well, um." He stammered, ashamed of himself for wording it quite that way, in quite that temper. After a few attempts, he was able to regain more of his Assistant Director's attitude.

"There are several entries here referring to Krycek as her boyfriend, and the relationship they had together."

Mulder was still in shock. Krycek?! The very thought of him dating anyone was repulsive, the thought of anyone *wanting * to date him was absolutely revolting. He pulled himself out of his thoughts and realized the room had become very silent.

"Sir?" He asked. He shifted in his chair, puzzled as he heard the AD sigh very heavily.

Ok, go easy on me, this is my first submission! ;)
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