top 5 (or 10 if you have em) scully taking care of mulder moments <3
she said IF i have 10 😭😭😭
1/ sein und zeit
i fear i have talked about this television scene more times than anyone has ever talked about a television scene....like. one, two, three, four, i was even foolishly invited onto a podcast to talk about it more...
my tags here:
she gets down on the Ground. there's something so primal about it. there's such a lack of pretense and sense of desperation about it. the way he hits the table. we so Rarely see him lash out like that. but it's just too much to Bear. like everything in him is just Breaking the only thing that he's even remotely been able to hold onto amidst all of the unbearable loss and trauma in his life has failed. he's fumbling around for anything that might make it better. that audries fic describing him in this moment as an 'addict out of a fix' with 'newborn anger.' “this is the world? this is it?” it's the way that he spends this whole ep cooking up some elaborate mythology about missing children and how they can be found and then the last shot of the episode is that wide shot of all of the children's graves. sometimes he's just wrong. the world is so much fucking darker and uglier sometimes than the way he sees it. and that's what is crashing down around him in this moment. and she's sitting in the wreckage holding him tight.
this is such brave, brave love. i keep thinking about CSM in the following episode, standing in scully's apartment, warning her. "allow him his ignorance, it's what gives him hope."
she doesn't know what will happen to him, to her, to them, when she breaks down the only method of coping that he has. his mother lost her bedrock too, and she didn't survive. from the moment scully enters, you can watch it break her. she does it anyway. she gets down on the ground, and she cries, and she holds him. god, it all just would've been so different, if there'd been just 1 person, 27 years ago.
(thinking about mulder reaching up to hold scully when missy died, and these tags asking: did anyone hold him, when it was his sister?)
i love the show's message on grief (and trauma), in that this is all that is necessary for "closure." there is no "Truth," (and there really isn't any closure, there's no "beyond" the sea). but it matters that someone knows. it matters that someone bears witness. it matters that someone tells you the truth, even when it fucking breaks their heart. sits in the destruction with you.
the exhaustion in her voice the next morning, when she tells skinner, "it's been a hard night for him." she's still wearing her work clothes from the day before. she was up all night. she's tired, and she's scared, and she's sad. it's been a hard 7 years. it's been a hard 27 years.
it makes me tear up every time i see it, the way she blocks him in the doorway. she's not moving. this is just so scully. it's not even starbuck, it's just so scully. she would keep him in that apartment where she could cover him and control what touches him forever, if she could. (she can't, so you're not taking him anywhere without her. the way she looks her boss in the eye and tells him he better book her a flight too. brave love.)
2/ demons
god, this one just makes me sad. this might be the one that makes me saddest. she's dying. she doesn't have it in her, anymore. i talked about this in my newsletter (and i wrote a fic about it once) but this is like...the only time where she never calls him out on what he's doing. she never yells. she never rolls her eyes. she never gets frustrated with him. she doesn't have it in her. she's dying. he will be alone. she won't be here the next time. what can she even do about it?
i always think about this post:
and you know she is thinking about how if she hadn’t been there he would’ve died. and how the next time he does something like this, she won’t have enough life left in her to keep them both alive. she might not even have enough left for herself. and she’ll give whatever she does have left to him, but it won’t be enough to save either of them. she’ll die cold and pale and he’ll burn himself out. and what can she do but hold him? who will he have when she’s gone? what will he do to himself? who will he call?
and these tags:
this is so cautious and tender and apologetic. sorry for all the pain he feels constantly. and sorry that nothing can ease it. and sorry that she is dying and leaving him like this.
she started writing to him as soon as she was diagnosed, begging. begging forgiveness, begging courage, begging grace. begging for him to not feel there was anything more he could've done, to not become the next cause he is lost in. for him to keep going, as she needs to know he's "out there."
but she's seen him hold a gun to himself too many times, and she knows he's coming down with her. and it's such a loss? this is a person she gave up everything, including her life, to follow, because she believed in him and what he wanted to do in the world that much. but things are different now. he won't survive this. he won't be "out there" saving the world.
what can she do? go to rhode island at 5am, wrap him up. stay quiet, stay still, but scream and thrash at anyone who's careless with him. sink down next to him, cover him, hold him. "maybe we need every answer in the world to survive a single question: how long do we have each other?" (x)
(also, her memento mori journal, in general. she sat in that hospital alone, for days, knowing she was going to die. and she wrote letter, after letter, after letter, to him. so that he would have something. so that he wouldn’t be left alone with nothing, again.)
3/ the end
"as mulder appears. the look on his face is of a man who's seeing, smelling, and tasting the loss of everything he has worked for. it's the look of utter defeat. angle on scully at the door. she sees only mulder right now...she moves to him now. putting her arms around him, holding on to keep him from breaking. off this, we fade out. the end." (script)
i think so often about the script notes of this scene. the description of mulder, as absorbed in destruction. everything that he's worked for, literally reduced to (cigarette) ash. scully only focused on him.
in the final angle of the season, you can really see how she's standing in front of him. her fingers clutching him. but when she first grabs him, it's so tentative. it almost feels like she's trying to see if he's still there, if he exists, if his work doesn't.
this is...the whole thing! there's a reason why this was "the end." the final image of this iteration of the series, before everything changes. this is what it is all about. it's mulder walking headfirst into the devastation of the world. drenched in loss. seeing it. smelling it. tasting it. surrounded by it. and it's scully knowing what he'll find even as he's still moving (this script note, from the hallway: "reverse on scully. returning the look. knowing what mulder is going to find. and what it will mean.")
following behind. eyes on him, while he takes in the ash. just holding on for dear life; trying to keep him close, whole.
(also, i love the moment before the fire, at his apartment, after diana was shot. the way scully tells skinner that he can reach her at mulder's if he needs her, because that's where she'll be. he doesn't even have a bed, or anywhere for her to stay!! she's not leaving him.)
4/ paper hearts
oh, starbuck. we are really in it now.
paper hearts is an ahab and starbuck episode, yes. but mostly it's about grief. mostly it's about harsh awakenings. mostly it's about confrontation with fear, scully's included.
one of the most haunting moments of the series, to me, is when they speak to the father of the 14th victim, twenty-one years after his daughter went missing. and through tears, the father says, "i used to think...that missing was worse than dead, because...you never knew what happened. now that i know, i'm glad my wife's not here. she got luckier."
in that moment, as mulder looks over at the photos on the mantle, missing is not worse than dead. it is not worse than knowing. and later that day, in his first scene, roche calls it exactly as it is: "i understand you take this very personally, mulder."
i've written about this scene in the hallway so many times, because it's truly the crux of this episode (my favorite episode).
from my newsletter:
There’s something so viscerally deep about this episode that’s hard to put into words, but to me, it is most palpable in the moment in the hallway when Mulder asks Scully if she believes that his sister was abducted by aliens. And you can see in his face that he knows the answer, and he’s challenging her to come out and say it. You can see in Scully’s that she would rather admit to anything else.
he's challenging her. he's taking their entire dynamic, and throwing it in her face. not to be cruel. not to disrupt. but just to say...so what now? isn't this what you believe?
i don't think that they've ever been so fragile, as in this hallway, honestly. they rarely threaten to break it all down. their entire lives are built on him walking up to tragedy and saying: it was aliens. it was XYZ. and her following behind saying: no. it was a killer, it was a man.
what does that mean? what is she really saying?
this episode is hard on scully. mulder has never been more haunted. there has never been a bigger reminder of what they are actually doing. they are not just chasing little green men, having adventures, studying sewer worms. they are trying to make sense of something that will never make sense. they are trying to find a "truth" that they do not want to know. they are living their lives in mourning, in bereavement, in remembrance, of a missing little girl, and scully is terrified that they'll find her. that it will be exactly like roche threatens. that missing is not worse than dead.
and there is no one else. there is no one else that even knows how haunted he is. how stuck he is, in that childhood bedroom, like he said all those years ago. how deeply sad it is.
it's all of the little things. it's the "you did good work, mulder" in the beginning. it's the way she asks if he's okay to go tell the 14th victim's family. it's way she exclaims "oh my god" when roche says that he just wants to see mulder's face, when he finds samantha's body. one of the few times that we ever see scully lose control, but she just stands up and screams, opens the door and wordlessly waits for mulder to get up and get out of there.
it's the way that she hears "help me, scully" and digs in the dirt, with her bare hands.
(you can tell in his eyes here that he's been crying, and it really gets to me. there's so much that we don't see.)
in the end, they're back in the basement. nothing left but one scrap of tattered fabric, one more lost failure. it's over. she just comes down to check on him.
the progression of scully's face in this last scene is just unbelievably gut-wrenching to me. her smile, when she tells him to get some sleep, and he laughs. the way it disappears when he holds her, and can't see her anymore. with his mother, flashing that smile and hugging her was all that it took to convince her not to worry. when he repeats the same actions with scully, she looks like she could break.
this post:
Episodes like this make me think how alone - not just lonely, but truly alone - Mulder was before her. Nobody lost sleep over him falling apart under the fist of decades old trauma. Nobody grappled with him, let him wrestle his grief against them, and still stayed. Nobody visited him in the hospital, flew to Alaska, lied for him, stayed by his bed for days straight without an extra change of clothes. Nobody else knew he was suffering or wanted to, knew it more than he knew. That end of Paper hearts where she tells him to get some sleep, he laughs at the ridiculousness of it, but also out of incredulity at having someone to wish for better on his behalf. The heartbroken look on her face as he’s laughing into her waist seems to be her coming to the same realisation; “Who looked after you before? How long did you feel like this on your own?”
she is heartbroken. there is so much grief, in being starbuck. there's grief in being needed. there's grief in following ghosts. there's grief in loving someone who is so encased in pain, in loss. he will not go home and get some sleep. a well-placed joke, that smile, a hug, does not convince her that he's okay. he hurts so much, for so long, and he has one person who knows it. and all they do is keep moving: closer and closer to that breaking point that she is so afraid of, and they can't stop.
5/ redux ii
remember when dana scully lied on her death bed and looked up at mulder as he told her that he was not willing to jeopardize skinner to save himself, and she replied, "well, then, you have to lay it on me."
the way he smiles and shakes his head, chokes out "i can't...i can't do that." through tears...they are so kind to each other. all that she has left in the world is her reputation, and she says: take it. take it all. take everything.
she cries when he won't do it.
6/ herrenvolk
okay, i wanna get into some slightly lighter ones, so y'all remember when she nearly fully knocked skinner into the wall, because mulder came in with a (checks notes) scratch on his face?
this is just so scully.
she is so panicked. she just wants to slow him down, to stand between him and the world for even one moment longer.
these tags:
she's almost begging him not to go in. the extent of her worry is heartbreaking. she loves him. it frightens her to know what awaits him.
one of the biggest conflicts of scully's character is that she just cannot stop him, she cannot shield him, she cannot protect him. the way she leans up here, and pulls him to her shoulder. covers him with a blanket. this is what she can do.
there is so much grief in being starbuck!! in loving someone who walks blindly into a world that you do not trust. in following someone into the worst night of their life: over, over, over. years, years, years. in being first mate, holding the responsibility on your shoulders of having to steer in a safe direction, only having one to choose from.
(i also think it's really special, all of the little moments where she checks in. in the previous episode, in the hospital hallway, the way she says "are you okay?" so softly.
in paper clip, when she makes him stop, and says "no, wait, hold on a second...i don't think you've had time to process everything that you've been through."
remnants of the girl who told him she'll cover for him and he should just go get a beer, take some time for himself, after jersey. who suggested he talk to someone, when jerry lamana died. she's always wanted so much for him, but she understands more now. there's still room to pause, for a moment, before he carries on.)
7/ anasazi
ladies, would you shoot your man with a gun, to keep him from endangering himself, while he was being laced with LSD, and then drag him across the country singlehandedly, while he was unconscious, despite him being twice your size? and this, too, is taking care.
the way she says, "i was certain they would have killed you, mulder." and the fear in her voice, his hand on her knee. (she is so young. she really doesn't know what to do, not as often as she seems like she does). the way he says, "thank you. thank you for taking care of me." they are so kind to each other. it'll break your fucking heart.
(i remember asking y'all a few weeks ago, if mulder and scully ever say "i'm sorry," if they ever apologize to each other. and we came up with a couple of times. i'll tell you what, though: not as often as they say "thank you.")
8/ fire
girlbosses when they singlehandedly solve serial murders, to get their best friend's shitty ex away from them!!! okay, i put this one on here because we were talking about it yesterday, but scully really does handle the entire situation with phoebe so perfectly, and that's hard to do, when you're dealing with friends and abusers.
trish, i loved this part of your post yesterday:
scully gives him the space to talk about it, never says too much but she says enough. her phrasing is SO important. she repeats what he just told her in a way that frames it as wrong.
she's a little rabid, lol. we can see it on her face when she's alone, or when mulder's not looking. but around him (around phoebe too) she's calm. she listens, she addresses what he tells her as bad, without pressing. when he tells her that she's off the case, that he doesn't want to expose her to what phoebe is doing, she asks one time: are you sure you don't want help?
he says yes, and she does it anyway. she catches that fucking murderer so that this woman can go home. just, like, an inspiration to us all.
trish's tweet:
really, truly, genuinely. scully solving the case in fire was the absolute best course of action she could have taken. get that woman out of here, an ocean away from mulder. (give him freedom, let him heal, teach him what real love feels like)
(her eyes locked in on him here, phoebe behind her. the way that when phoebe leaves the room, scully says, "you alright?" instantly.)
meeting phoebe just a few months into their partnership made her so fucking crazy like...i make fun of her for being sick in the head in regards to everyone he meets (men and women alike) and never wanting anyone around him other than her but like, my god, can you blame her!!! he's such a gentle person and people are so cruel and it makes her eyes bug out of her head.
yeah, i really don't have much else to say here, you guys. she solved a murder herself, a case that she wasn't even supposed to be working, so that his old gf would go away and stop being mean to him. she doesn't play!!
(also! while we're on the subject of abusive exes, honorable mention to scully cornering diana into an empty room and telling her to "just think" about who mulder is, who he was when she met him, compared to where he is now. "and then try and stand there in front of me. look me in the eye. and tell me mulder wouldn't bust his ass trying to save you.")
9/ deadalive
oh, you guys remember that time she raised him from the dead, right?
scully at 8 months pregnant, sitting in that hospital chair, holding his hand, for days. knowing he can’t feel it, knowing that there’s nothing that says he’ll ever wake up. that it’s impossible. that there is no science…yeah. she just sits there and holds his hand.
i love the moment when she finds out, and she comes barreling through that hallway. she hits skinner first, and starts yelling, “i want to see him. no, i need to see him,” slams her fists into his chest.
then she moves onto doggett. repeats, “i need to see him” through tears. and the way doggett says… “i know. but i wish you wouldn’t.”
she’s loved. they want to protect her, protect her image of mulder as she knew him. but they also both know she will fucking plow them down.
i always think of this fic and feel so ill:
“I pulled you six feet out of the ground,” she whispers, dangerously low. “Because I couldn’t live without you. I gave birth to your child.”
she fed his fish while he was in a casket. she planned a funeral and decorated a nursery alone, at the same time. she ran herself ragged all over the country, trying to keep his work going. she raised him from the dead.
(i also feel that i can throw in here, as related, the time that she busted him out of prison and then abandoned everything in her entire life including her career, her family, and everything she owns, to go on the run from the law and live secretly in seedy motels for years to be with him.)
10/ fight the future
there are too many contenders for my last spot, so i’m gonna keep it simple, and go with the most special movie moment. (of all movies).
from my newsletter:
“Mulder watches the spaceship as it flies overhead, his face glows with a heart-melting grin of childlike wonder and awe.”(x)
That’s exactly what it feels like to me, it’s an innocence and excitement that was so present in season one, that was all over him when he told Scully to come look in the second episode, but that’s rare to see in the later seasons. It’s rare to see at this point in their story, after all that’s happened. They are stranded in Antarctica, both of them injured, both of them freezing in the cold, and they are holding each other and gazing up at the sky. What a perfect thing in their big momentous feature, to bring it all back to what it started with.
there’s such a reverent sentimentality to it, in the simplicity. she had stopped breathing, a few minutes earlier. but when he passes out, she pulls herself up, and grabs onto him. keeps him alive, keeps them both alive, just by holding him close. that’s really the heart of it.
(also, i find it so moving that this film is the only time in the franchise that scully considers leaving, not working with him anymore, and it’s because she thinks she’s not good for him. that she’s holding him back. she never considers him as anything other than wanted, something worth believing in.)
some honorable mentions to: little green men, which i’ve written about here. (especially her secret-signaling him to their secret meet-up place, just to ask if he’s okay). the erlenmeyer flask, which i’ve talked about here. (she literally stops him in the street to tell him that she should have listened to him, and she’s sorry, because she should have trusted his instincts. that means so much, you guys). her telling colton she hopes he falls on his ass after he was making rude comments about mulder in squeeze, screaming at a serial killer that she’ll gas him into hell herself and no one will stop her, if mulder isn’t okay, in beyond the sea….she has threatened and shouted at and smacked around so many people for fucking with him, and this too is care!! (anger meaning you’re worth being angry over, etc etc)
how desperately she became frantic to find their son, after 17 years resigned to never ever looking for him, never ever endangering him that way…because she became convinced that it’s the only thing that would help mulder.
and how important samantha is to her. it matters. it matters, that sam is remembered. that someone else in the world knows. someone knows that they played baseball in the summers, that they fought over the television, that he’s looked for her in every room he’s ever been in. someone else cares about her; not as a white whale, not as a photo on a desk, as a little girl who broke her collarbone because she played on swings too hard. scully listened to her journal, and cried. listened to how much she suffered. how much she just wanted to see her big brother. (scully kept a journal like that, too, once. underwent those same tests. almost died at the hands of those same men. wrote her testimony to that same person.) it’s taking care of mulder, to love samantha. and she does.
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Hunt
(T/HRONE OF GLAS$ SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVEN'T READ PAST Q/UEEN OF SHADOW$ BE WARNED!)
My love for R/owan is boundless, and the series would be infinitely better if he was sick.
This is a multi-part fic of A/elin and R/owan training on a mountain and YEAH! HE HAS A COLD!
not much sneezing yet but it will come I promise
likes comments reblogs always loved and giggled over <3
****
Aelin stalks through the underbrush with lethal silence. Leaves covered with dew from the early morning mist streak across her face, dotting her cheeks. Her prey, a mountain hare the size of her head, nibbles on the sparse grass a few yards away.
She knocks her arrow, slipping in a breath. She can’t wait to see the look on Rowan’s face when she brings back a hare this size. Slowly, she pulls the bowstring back, kissing against her face. The hare turns, startled, breaths coming fast. Now or never–
“hh’rZzSHHh’uh!”
Aelin gasps at the sound that echoes around the mountain. It cracks like a whip, scaring even the crows nesting in trees. The hare takes off and she desperately releases the arrow after her prey. The point finds its home in the thick trunk of a tree rather than the soft neck of the hare.
There goes breakfast. Her stomach growls pitifully. Seething, she rises from the brush and goes to retrieve her arrow.
Five minutes later, Aelin stalks back to the makeshift camp she and Rowan had assembled the night before. The Fae prince had forced her to run from the castle to these distant mountains, shifting in and out of her Fae form to master control, where he then informed her they would be camping for a week out in the elements. And she was to hunt their every meal in between training.
It was a pathetic time, especially with the rain that has settled across the mountain. Damp and cold to her bones, Aelin approaches their campsite. Rowan, appearing much drier than she, sits by the fire she had sparked earlier that morning. He looks oddly run down, like he hadn’t slept much the night before.
Aelin is sure he hadn’t. The mountains were too misty to sleep outside without waking up damp, so they had packed just one tent to keep their baggage light. Lying beside Rowan, last night she had been the private audience to his tossing and turning, grumbling, and finally his snoring.
“You fucking bastard. You scared off breakfast,” she hisses as she approaches, throwing her bow and bundle of arrows down by the tent. Rowan does not look up from the dagger he cleans in his hands.
“And how – snf! – pray tell, did I scare breakfast from here?” He grumbles. Aelin catches the way he sniffles thickly, his nostrils twitching up with the force of it.
She drops her satchel, full of only a bundle of pathetic berries. “You sneezed.” She tries not to give in the warmth that pools in her lower stomach at the memory of the sound. It’s the first time she had ever heard him sneeze, and she was not disappointed. “For someone so keen on silence, I expected you’d know how to sneeze more quietly.”
Rowan doesn’t even grace her taunting with a reply, or a snarl. He just continues rubbing a cloth down the length of his dagger. Strange. He must be feeling really tired if he didn’t bother to punish her for such a remark.
She sits down across from the fire, on a log they’d rolled over so they didn’t sit on wet grass. Feigning interest in destemming the berries she’d picked, she studies him through the crackling flames.
His white hair is loose around his shoulders, creating a curtain that shields the dark tattoo running along his tan face. The tips of his Fae ears poke out just behind the white strands. After weeks of training with him, sleeping out in the elements beside him, she’s learned that he prefers to tie his hair up. It’s so rare to see him with it down.
“More hand to hand combat training today, or magic training?” She asks, breaking the silence that is only marred by the crackling flames.
Rowan sets the dagger aside. “Your job was to hunt. And since you still haven’t caught anything, your job is still to hunt.” He settles his sharp green eyes on her, brows set. If he didn’t piss her off so much, she might actually tremble under his gaze.
She raises her palms in defeat. “Fine, fine. But if you sneeze and scare off my prey again, I won’t be sharing the catch with you.” Even if she’d very much like for him to sneeze again, she’d rather eat first.
In one swoop, she picks up her bow and arrows and satchel again before setting off. With her Fae senses, she could scent a herd of deer in the southwest. Now that would show Rowan. Perhaps she’d bring back a buck, and spear him with its antlers.
As soon as she leaves the camp, nearly out of earshot, she hears the same thunderstrike from before. Perhaps Rowan had been waiting for her to leave.
“hhzjHSHHhieWw!”
A shiver runs down her spine as more startled crows caw in the trees.
****
Two hours later, Aelin returns with a small doe slung across her shoulders.
It’s mid afternoon. She had been lucky a herd was still grazing so late in the morning down by the clearing. She’d been even luckier that Rowan had either gotten his sneezing under control, or learned how to be quiet, because nothing had startled her catch this time.
“Lunch,” she declares to Rowan, dropping the deer to the grass. He hasn’t moved from his spot by the fire. “Is served.”
“It was supposed to be– snf! Breakfast,” he mutters, reaching the dagger at his side from earlier. His voice sounds dulled, like he’s congested.
Aelin rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s not like you helped. And I got us a catch to last us days.” She pats the stomach of the doe proudly. It isn’t very old – there’s still a sprinkling of fawn spots across her back. Aelin feels a twang of guilt for not singling out an older one.
Rowan pinches the bridge of his nose, breathing through his mouth. Aelin hardly has time to prepare before he jerks down towards his crotch, a light mist spraying across his trousers.
“hiHh–... yHhZzSHhhyuu!” A familiar, rushing heat spreads through Aelin’s gut. She swallows, watching as he rubs his nose on his wrist and glares up at her. Is he going to get mad at her for his sneezing?
Rowan chooses not to comment on it, something Aelin is secretly grateful for. “You were– snf! instructed to catch something small. We’re moving camp this afternoon.” He angles the pommel of the dagger towards her.
“What?!”
“Rain is coming tonight and will flood this area. I told you this morning. And now you’ve wasted a young doe’s life.”
A flame of rage flickers to life inside her chest. This is all his fault. “Well, I wouldn’t have wasted jack-shit if you hadn’t ruined my catch earl–”
“Aelin,” he growls, a no-nonsense sound. The tips of his canines poke past his lips. Aelin shuts up immediately.
He stands, crossing the camp in two strides, and shoves the pommel of the knife against her stomach. She glares beneath his gaze. “You missed the catch because you did not act fast enough. Now you can either carry the doe across the mountain, or… hhH—!” His breath snags, eyes looking off into the distance for a split second. Aelin’s heart hammers in her chest.
He quickly recovers and sniffs again, much to her disappointment, and focuses his gaze on her. “Or you can leave it and realise you wasted a young animal’s life for your pride.”
Before she can retort, he turns on his heel and she offers a middle finger to his large, muscular back.
As if sensing her, he says over his shoulder, “And– sNf!– pack up the tent.”
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