As they dragged me to my feed

I was filled with incoherence

Theories of conspiracy

The whole world wants my disappearance

I'll go fighting nail and teeth

You've never seen such perseverance

Going to make you scared of me

'Cause haemoglobin is the key

Haemoglobin

Placebo

Marita comes to see Krycek the day after his surgery. She figures he'll appreciate the breathing space afforded by a day alone, but when she walks in, brushing snow from her shoulders, he doesn't say anything to her. He watches her silently as she places a bag on the bedside cabinet, removes her coat and hangs it up to dry. The whole time he is still, and it unnerves her.

"I brought some food," she says, gesturing towards the bag. He glances at it, then at her. His eyes are a dark and gloomy green, unblinking.

"I got a call from my contact in St. Petersburg," he says finally, his voice a low monotone. He looks far less sick than two days ago, but his forehead is still beaded with sweat, and the dark circles beneath his eyes haven't budged. Marita stares impassively at him, noticing that his lips are tinged with blue. "Did you know that our British friend is looking for me?"

His tone is aggressive in a quiet, dangerous way. Suddenly he is a cornered fox, growling a warning, ready to tear at the throat. She knows he can spot a liar from miles away, can taste the most benign of lies like a snake tastes fear.

"He asked me to find you," she says, and she can see the first cracks in his composure start to form. His jaw twitches, eyes narrow by the smallest margin. His poker face is remarkable. "But he is under the impression that I am out here on UN business. Finding you is a secondary task."

"Looks like you have conflicting interests," Krycek says, barely audible.

Marita fixes him with a stare, unmoved by his anger. He is practically immobile, wounded and sick and, though under normal circumstances he could floor her with one blow, she knows she is in charge now. "I have no intention of acting on his demands, Alex," she says coolly, and he offers a bitter little laugh in response.

Her eyes narrow, becoming hard little blue marbles. She knows he doesn't trust her, and she doesn't expect him to. But after dropping everything to baby-sit him it smarts a little to be brushed off so easily. She's still searching for her next sentence when Krycek struggles to his feet. He is unsteady and braces himself against the wall, the pain in his shattered shoulder intense. The blankets pool at his feet. He yanks angrily at his IV lines and they slither out of his arm, leaking liquid onto the floor.

Marita is momentarily stunned.

"I can get to St. Petersburg without you," he hisses, but he can barely stand and she can see it is killing him just to stay upright. Part of her wants to laugh, but he's breathing through clenched teeth and she can see a pained scream building up in his chest. "Alex, get back into bed."

He ignores her. The hospital pants are loose around his hips and she can see, for the first time, how thin he looks now, the slender curve of his back betraying every vertebra. "Alex, you're sick. Please get back into bed."

"Don't insult my intelligence, Marita." He gropes blindly for his coat, cursing aloud when he realises the nurses have thrown his clothes away - too much blood to wash out, and he dimly remembers that the left sleeve of the coat had been severed along with his arm. He can feel sweat streaming down his face. He wonders if his arm is still there, sheathed in a khaki sleeve, bleeding slowly into the pink-stained snow. Marita is staring at him as if he is an idiot, or crazy, or both. Her hair is gelled back into that infuriatingly perfect arch of pale blonde, her makeup immaculate. Her appearance incenses him. She's sculpted and painted up like a whore and he's losing half his body weight in sweat, bandaged and bruised and missing a goddamn arm. She is taunting him with her perfection, with her wholeness.

Rage boils up inside him like hot bile in his stomach. His muscles are tense and nervous and he wants to run or lash out, anything that will rid him of this burst of violent energy. Against his better judgement, he thumps his fist hard against the wall. The pain ricochets through his arm, dances across his shattered shoulder and goes scattering like white hot bullets through his body. It hurts so much and so sharply that for a second he is convinced his heart is going to burst, his ribs are caving in against his lungs and no breath can fill them. His knees buckle beneath him and suddenly he is on the floor. The linoleum is cold against his feverish skin.

Marita darts across the room as he collapses. She's at his side before he even realises he's fallen. She fights back the urge to yell at him. He is stubborn beyond belief and although she expects this kind of bull-headed behaviour from him it doesn't ease the frustration she feels. Krycek isn't usually full of macho bullshit, she reminds herself, but you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise…

"Alex," she says, commanding. He's staring fixedly at the floor, counting the scuffmarks. Still refusing to admit defeat despite the fact he's dribbling dark blood from all three IV sites and has all but rendered himself immobile. "I'm going to help you stand."

He doesn't respond, but his eyes meet hers for a brief moment and she knows that in his own silent, reproachful way he is thanking her. She loops her arms under his chest, feeling the press of his ribs against her skin, the conspicuous absence of a left arm. "Okay. Raz…dva…tree."

He lets out a little whine of effort as he gets laboriously to his feet, and Marita wonders if he has ever let anyone else see him so vulnerable. He stumbles over to the bed and she helps him lay back down. She picks the blankets up from where they lay on the floor and realises they are dotted with pinkish smears of blood. His arm has stopped bleeding now, but there are dark runnels of dried blood crusted to his skin like crude tattoos.

He closes his eyes against her stare. Her eyes are fierce and her mouth is set into a thin line, disapproving and concerned in equal parts. He doesn't want to hear the lecture he knows is trapped just behind her lips.

She restrains herself. "Alexei," she sighs, sitting down. He stiffens instinctively at the use of his full name; he hates the way it sounds in her mouth, so American and contrived. "How can you be so sharp in one breath and so stupid in the next?"

"Nothing stupid about saving your own ass," he mutters. The agony in his right arm has started to subside now. He can feel each individual bone fragment pulsing against another, a sick ache pounding all the way down to his ankles. She's right, of course, he is stupid. He has set his own healing progress back by god knows how long. He lost control and now Marita knows there are sizeable chinks in his armour. He knows she is clever enough to exploit that if she chooses.

He glances over at her. She is cleverly impassive as always. Her long legs are crossed. He wonders idly if she's wearing stockings.

"I don't intend to turn you in," she says.

He eyes her carefully. Her poker face is outstanding. "Oh?"

She shrugs. "You called me first. You're my priority."

"And if the Brit had called?"

Marita regards him coolly. "He didn't."

He inhales. It hurts deep in his chest. "Marita, I need to know I can trust you."

"There isn't a thing in the world I can say to convince you of that." Her pragmatism is painful. He looks away. It always comes down to this, he and Marita. They circle each other like wolves, keeping a safe distance, testing each other until one snaps and the other runs. Smooth talk doesn't work on her - she is too aloof and too haughty to be charmed. She has never seen him lose his cool until today, and he wonders whether he's already lost the first round.

"Will you come to St. Petersburg with me?" he asks.

She takes a long time to answer. He closes his eyes, concentrating on the rhythmic throb of his broken shoulder. He counts to twenty five before she speaks again.

"I'll stay with you until you're well enough to fend for yourself." For the first time since she arrived in Achinsk there is a little warmth in her tone. Krycek realises then that she never intended to abandon him here. She's been toying with him. There's a merry little sparkle in her eyes and he scowls. Haughty fucking bitch. He stares at her, unblinking, as she rifles through her handbag. He catches a glimpse of a silver lipstick tube, a hotel key card. Pointless, mundane items. He can't bring himself to trust this woman, who travels business class everywhere she goes, who buys expensive antique books she doesn't read. And yet she is all he has right now. He wants to laugh at this farce of a situation but it doesn't seem funny, not really.

Krycek looks down at his arm. His skin is pockmarked with needle holes and ridges of tacky, half-dried blood. "I need my IV's replaced," he says flatly.

"You do," Marita concurs. She has lost interest with her handbag and is now rifling through the bag of food she has brought. "When was the last time you ate anything, Alex? You look like you weigh less than I do."

He shrugs, as if eating isn't important. "Had some soup yesterday."

She frowns, and he's about to snap at her when a nurse knocks politely on the door. She is tiny, a little bird of a woman, pebbly eyes behind round-rimmed glasses. Her name badge says 'Vorobyova'. Krycek almost smiles at this irony.

She notices the tangle of IV lines on the floor and pitter-patters across the room. She says nothing but glares at Krycek as if he were a troublesome child caught drawing on the walls with red crayon.

"Ne delai bol'she tak," the nurse scolds. Krycek looks genuinely apologetic as Nurse Vorobyova scuttles to and fro, reattaching his IV lines and tucking in his blankets. He wants to swat her away but despite her fragility she is tough and efficient.

"Izvini," he says, and she seems appeased by this. He grimaces as the saline IV begins to sting. He wants to laugh at the irony. Alexei Krycek, who can take a bullet in the thigh and keep running, who can crawl for miles despite losing an arm, and here he is, wishing the needle would stop fucking stinging…

Marita regards him with a smile in her eyes, and he realises with surprise that he has never really paid attention to the colour before - a pale blue-green, the colour of Siberian winter, of glacial ice. He usually has a keen eye for detail.

When Nurse Vorobyova leaves, the nervous pitter-patter of her feet growing ever quieter, Krycek settles back against the pillow, feeling the familiar ache in his bones as he relaxes.

"Shall I start making travel arrangements?" she asks him as she stands.

He nods. "It's a big apartment so there'll be room for you too. If you need a cover story to fool our British friend I can have that arranged too."

"You overestimate how much power he has over me," she says wryly, and she shrugs her coat back on over her shoulders, gathers her things. He watches her as she stands and smiles, infuriatingly self assured as ever. "You don't need to cover for me, Alex. My day job can do that."

Russian glossary:

Raz, Dva, Tree – One, Two, Three

Vorobyova – a Russian name derived from the word 'Vorobey', meaning 'Sparrow'

Ne delai bol'she tak – 'Don't do that again'

Izvini – I'm sorry