The Cure

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            That night, I drove myself home. Past the brick gas stations, and scattered suburbs of D.C. Past the café that I happened to regular at every Sunday for breakfast when I was in town. Past the Bureau's entrance, now empty and dark at night fall. I hit the same pothole that seemingly slipped my mind every time I passed Grove's St.

A drizzle had begun as I stopped at the final stoplight as I approached my apartment complex. I let out a prolonged sigh as I stared blankly out onto the intersection road. The blazing red lights from the stop light illuminated the rain as it fell onto my car. The radio had become a faint drone, mingling with the rain as my mind drifted to no place in particular. I had merely half the brain to turn on my windshield wipers. A green light flicked on, and the car pulled into motion once more, almost subconsciously.

Up ahead, I saw the same apartment complex. My mind still wandered as I pulled into my usual parking spot. And I couldn't help that all I could do was sit there. Just mindlessly watching the windshield wipers flick back and force, beating at the thickening rain. I felt almost out of body as I turned off the ignition and stepped out from the silent car. As soon as the rain hit my face, it seemed that I had snapped out of whatever daze I had been in.

I dashed for the door as the rain thundered down on the sidewalk and the roofs of my neighbors cars. I unlocked the door and swept myself inside. The lobby was freezing, and the cold air hit my soaked skin in a second. I shuddered as I stepped into the elevator. It was empty, to my unusual despair, leaving me only more time to linger with my thoughts.

I don't know if I could call them thoughts. There was just something that was eating at me. The elevator doors parted once more, and I made my way down the hall. I stood in front of my door, unlocking it with now shaking hands from the cold. I shut it behind me as I emerged into the emptiness of my apartment, its usual loneliness only exemplified by the rain that droned on and on.

Lights from the street illuminated the room just enough, that it seemed wasteful to turn on a lamp, especially if I was just going to go to bed anyway. As I got dressed for bed and brushed my teeth in the bathroom, I still felt off. It wasn't like me. It was different.

I ignored it and flopped down at last on my couch. It groaned remorsefully as I put my weight on it. I pulled up the same old thick green blanket and flicked on the TV. It opened to the same station I had been watching the night before. It was showing reruns of a debate down in Missouri about something I wasn't there to even be introduced to. Even that was hazy to me.

I ran my hand back through my hair as I stared past the TV. My mind kept drifting back to earlier that evening. I glanced at the clock on my desk. It was nearly 3:30 in the morning. I groaned and drew my gaze away from it. I could tell I wouldn't be able to sleep to peacefully anyway. I glanced back to the spot on my floor. The note still lay there.

Scrawled on the back of a napkin, Things are looking up. Just a few hours before, I had gotten home, seemingly for the night when I found it. Then Krycek practically ambushed me. He thrusted a gun in my face, tackled me to the ground.

"For god's sake, he could have killed me," I muttered, exasperated. He knew where I lived. Honestly, who in D.C. at that point didn't? So, there the note lay, pushed aside in the scuffle. I stared at it blankly. I ran through what Krycek said in my mind. He told me about some war. That he'd been sent by a man to tell me. To get my head out of the ground. One thing still echoed in my mind, Resist or Serve. He was warning me. I knew he was, but at the same time he had given me a new task to juggle.

To rescue a rebel that helped lead the resistance. Against the colonizers. I had just begun to grasp at the straws of what in hell was happening, but he had already thrown me into the fray. And I did just what he asked. Followed the address on the back of the note, to the air force base. I brought Scully along too, wrapping her into this new quest as well. What I had seen in that truck, it all began to make sense then. But the second things began to fall into place, I was captured. And the rebel and the colonizer that had entered that same truck in that blinding light were gone.

But yet, amongst that loss and the threat of war that I hardly believed in looming in the distance, I was still brought back to that moment on my living room floor. It was something mindless and incessant that kept dragging me back there. Instead of focusing on the potential of war and Russian informants and faceless rebels, my mind kept hauling itself back to that moment.

There was something. Something that had invaded and infected my mind like a virus then and kept eating away at it. I rolled over the scene over and over again, my head aching as I tried to think through what Krycek had been saying about the mass burnings. He had jammed a gun into my chest and threatened me, then made me sit up, he had given me the gun at some point and then-

"Oh god damn it," I muttered as I sat up. I rubbed my eyes wearily and flopped back. That was it. That's what had been bothering me. Krycek had kissed me on the cheek. I let out a groan as I sunk into my pillow. Maybe it was a Russian thing. Probably a Russian thing. He was a weird guy anyway. It wasn't even like a peck. A full on kiss, right next to my damn mouth. A bit of a culture shock still hanging on me, I guess. He said something else after that, then he just left. I didn't understand what he said, but I could identify it as Russian.

Probably just a Russian thing. Oh yeah, definitely just a Russian thing. My mind had begun running at a mile a minute. It all came to a screeching halt as I indulged more on the thought. What if it wasn't just a Russian thing? I wanted to jack hammer that idea out of my mind. It was stupid anyway. Of course, it was a Russian thing. For me, it just seemed out of place because I'm just an American. Not very touchy people in my experience. So, it was reasonable that it was just a culture shock for me. And since it was the last thing he did, probably why it was sticking with me.

I still had no clue what he actually said before he left. Maybe it was another threat. Come to think of it, probably. Or something like there's a bomb under your desk that'll go off at 4:38 AM tonight. Something that my shriveled American brain wouldn't understand. Besides that, things had been said and done. I had been shaken by all the events from that evening, sure, but I was doing perfectly fine. I had done what he asked, and there was nothing more I could do at that very moment.

Besides sleep. And honestly, I can admit I am a failure when it comes to that. And grocery shopping. Christ, I need to stop eating out. And so, with a newfound determination to get a good night's sleep, I shut off the TV and rolled onto my back to stare at the dark ceiling. The rain roared down on the apartment building, clattering into the gutter outside my window. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Lightning occasionally lit up the room, in brief, silent flashes.

Pale lights from the street filtered in through my blinds, casting shadows of the pouring rain onto the floor and coffee table. Yet I still couldn't fall asleep. When I was a kid, rain would practically knock me out the second I hit my pillow. Since high school, my sleeping had just gotten worse. I always felt like there was more to do, even if all there was left to do was sleep.

It had gotten me nearly killed some times even, a few times driving too. Once when I had just met Krycek and we were driving. For some stupid reason, I hadn't slept, and I conked out at the wheel. If he hadn't grabbed the wheel, we'd probably both be dead. And honestly, maybe I wouldn't have had to deal with everything that had happened after that.

I chuckled softly to myself. It was odd sounding and muffled by rain in the darkness. Everything seemed to be pointing back to Krycek, one way or another that night.