#but it's scully/mulder/skinner at the core ALWAYS and i believe that so much and i always think about them | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ghostbustermelanieking · 6 years

Text

reconsideration

s6 vignette: the beginning, triangle, dreamland, the rain king, tithonus, one son, arcadia, milagro, the unnatural, field trip. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files

summary: Times Mulder and Scully reconsidered the status of their relationship.

note: I realize this is, like, the thinnest premise ever, but season 6 UST is some of the best UST. This story most directly links up to Flights and Renegade (and leads into Auld Acquaintance), but it does contain part of the Tithonus scene from The Fountain. (It is not necessary to read any of these works to understand this story, as they can all technically stand alone.)

She’s been wondering about the kiss.

In the days between their mad escape from Antarctica and their flight back to DC from Australia, she’d been considering the encounter in the hallway. The things she said, the things he said. How close they came to kissing. Some culmination five years deep. The sudden pain in her neck, the way she’d dodged it even though she hadn’t meant to. And then everything that had happened after, blurring together into a horrifying montage. The paramedics, the gunshot. The pain and the cold, the freezing cold. Mulder’s mouth on hers, breathing life into her. He came to Antarctica for her. Antarctica. To the ends of the fucking earth.

Scully is having some trouble wrapping her head around it all, but that doesn’t change what happened. That he saved her, that he said she saved him, made him a whole person. That he tried to kiss her—even if it was only to make her stay, he still wanted to kiss her. Wants to kiss her. And she wanted to kiss him, she has realized. She wants to kiss him back.

She hugs him in the hospital when he gives her the cross back and she leans against his shoulder in the airport like it’s effortless. She faces down the Office of Professional Review back in DC for him, for their X-Files. She meets him at the reflecting pool, tries to reassure him that they can bring down the people who did this, and he tries to push her away in return. He tells her that she was right to want to leave, that he is not going to watch her die. Almost the opposite of what he said in the hallway. He tried to make her stay because he cares about her, and now he is pushing her away because he cares about her. Because he is scared.

She doesn’t know how she would’ve reacted if he’d said these things when she wanted to quit, but she knows how she will react now. He pushes and she pushes back. He was right before, about wanting to quit with a clear conscience, but she can’t do that, there’s too much left to fight for. She takes his hand and repeats his earlier words back to him: “If I quit now, they win.” It’s some sort of reassurance—reassuring him that she isn’t leaving, or maybe reassuring herself that she wouldn’t have left in the first place. She squeezes his hand. She thinks that maybe something can happen between them now. She thinks maybe it’s time.

And then everything goes to hell.

She can’t find what Mulder wants her to find, what he wanted to show OPR. Or rather, what she finds is not what he wanted to hear. They really should have discussed everything before the meeting itself. Mulder is clearly upset with her, and things only escalate when they don’t get the X-Files back. Instead, Jeffrey Spender and Diana Fowley are assigned to it. Scully doesn’t even have time to process it, to maybe have a bit of contempt for the woman who is apparently Mulder’s ex swooping in and taking their jobs from them, because Mulder is too busy feeling betrayed himself. Skinner has led him to a file, some attack in Arizona, and by some paradox, he manages to convince her to go. She doesn’t know what she’s thinking—maybe that they can find more proof, more reason to go back on the X-Files. But Mulder’s theories at the crime scene don’t make sense, even if the evidence doesn’t fit with the crime report.

He is upset with her, at the scene, angry that she is doing exactly what he said has kept him honest, has saved him, and she doesn’t understand it. She tries to understand, takes his hand and repeats his earlier words back to him. “You told me that my science kept you honest. That it made you question your assumptions. That by it, I’d made you a whole person,” she says, trying to remind him. What he’d said was why she’d stayed. “If I change now… it wouldn’t be right, or honest.”

He doesn’t listen. He waxes some poetic bullshit about extraterrestrial life, says, “I’m sorry, Scully, but this time your science is wrong,” before he walks away from her, leaving her blinking in astonishment. Maybe a little hurt. She stayed because he said he needed her. But this is one of the times that she thinks he would like it better if she just wasn’t here to debunk his theories. In this brief moment of chest-stinging hurt, everything Mulder said in that hallway feels like a taunt.

It gets worse. It actually gets worse. They find Gibson half-dead in their car. She convinces Mulder that they need to protect him, but the next thing she knows, Diana Fowley is popping up and dragging Mulder off to chase some lead, leaving her behind to protect the boy. Which she can’t do, apparently; Gibson disappears from the hospital she takes him to. Supposedly, he shows up at wherever Mulder and Fowley went off to, locked in a room with what Mulder claims killed those people in Arizona. He doesn’t reappear.

After it’s all over, Mulder is still unwilling to forgive and forget. He says some biting things that cut her to the core, credits Fowley over her, makes some allusions to Diana not refusing to believe things because of science.

Scully clenches her jaw and plunges on, although she’s not entirely sure why. She reminds him that she doesn’t doubt him, that it comes down to a matter of trust. She asks him to trust her. He has said before that she is the only one he trusts. Maybe she wants that faith back. Maybe she wants him to acknowledge how much he claims to need her. One in five billion, making him a whole person. What else is she supposed to think?

If he is willing to forget what happened in that hallway, then she can forget it, too.

ii.

He is in love with Dana Scully, and he wants to tell her how he feels.

He might be an official time traveler who’s high off his ass on painkillers, but goddamnit, he is in love with her. He has been in love with her for months, years. He wanted to tell her over the summer but he was scared; he thought that if he pushed her away, she would leave and be safe from the X-Files forever. And then he’d been an asshole to her, really fucked it up. But it’s been good since then. Good. They do background checks and manure checks, drive the country like they always have and Mulder books them haunted hotels, passes her glossy brochures over the center console of the car that announce urban legends he can sometimes convince her to chase off hours. They eat together in diners, eat lunch in the break room or go out sometimes in a cliquish way that makes the other bullpen agents whisper. They see each other on the weekend, sometimes, when Mulder isn’t chasing ghosts or ghouls. They spent Halloween looking for demons in a cornfield, and Scully had nearly bent in half laughing at him when it turned out to be kids in crudely-made masks. God, he loves her. He loves her and he wants to tell her.

He can find her anywhere, he proved that today. He found her in 1939. She was beautiful in that wine-colored dress, her hair all curled and her eyes icy the way they get when she is absolutely done with his nonsense. It wasn’t really her, but she was brave and confident and faced down Nazis like it was nothing. She saved the world and he kissed her because he thought he’d never see her again. He deserved that punch. But he is in love with his partner—his partner who is right here beside him. He loves her and he wants to tell her.

“Hey, Scully?” he says as she starts to walk away, rising up on one elbow.

She comes back, standing close so that they are almost nose to nose. “Yes?” she says, very serious.

He looks deeply into her eyes, trying to tell her everything he wants to tell her without even having to speak. When she’s this close, he could kiss her again. Or for the first time. “I love you,” he says, very sincere. He wants her to know.

She rolls her eyes, mutters, “Oh, brother,” and stalks off. And that is the end of that.

Still, he isn’t sorry that he told her. The side of his face stings when he puts it down on the pillow, from where 1939 Scully socked him, and he smiles dopily to himself. She knows, and he will tell her as many times as it takes to make her understand how he feels. How much he cares about her.

He grins at the ceiling. He is in love with his partner. He is in love.

iii.

They fly to Nevada against orders, to investigate some lead an informant gave Mulder. The airport is a couple hours out from their destination, so they rent a car and drive together into the desert. In Area 51, the only thing that is waiting for them is a slew of Men in Black or whatever, who stop them in the middle of the road. There is a confrontation. A light passes over them, and Scully is left blinking, her mind foggy. How much time has passed? She is holding Mulder’s hand.

“Come on, Mulder,” she says, unnerved. “Let’s go.”

—

They don’t talk a lot as they drive away, stirring up red dust behind them. Scully rests her head on the window pane, his fingers tapping the dashboard. Mulder is quiet, his jaw working back and forth as he stares out at the road ahead. “What happened out there, Scully?” he asks finally.

It was a brief, meaningless encounter, completely unmemorable, but it feels like something more and she can’t explain it. She shrugs. “We got stopped. Found nothing,” she says. “What else is new?”

Mulder nods, chewing his lower lip. They pass a diner, the lights startlingly blue. “You hungry?” he offers.

The diner is packed to the brim, something Scully isn’t entirely used to; they usually frequent half-empty shitty places in the middle of the night. There is a family sitting across from them, three kids jammed in one booth, shoving at each other. Scully remembers that she said something about raising families, having something approaching a normal life, on the drive up. It seems like something she said days ago for some reason; she blinks in sleepy confusion. Mulder smudges fingerprints on the glossy menu, waving it at her. He orders her drink for her, exactly the way she likes it. She thinks that sometimes they may be able to read each other’s minds.

“Sorry I dragged you out here for nothing, Scully,” Mulder says after the waiter takes their meal orders and leaves.

Scully pokes at the sugar holder. A baby squeals somewhere across the diner, a couple argues at the counter. The Nevada sky has so much more stars than back in DC. “That’s okay,” she says, more agreeable than she would’ve expected of herself. “Better than background checks.”

Mulder smiles, his teeth too white under the fluorescent lights. She has some faint memory of saying goodbye to him, of sunflower seeds slipping into her palm and through her fingers, clammy from Mulder’s hand, but she has no idea where it came from, because she knows that never happen. Maybe it’s because Mulder has been eating them since the airport. She wonders if his fingers would taste like salt, and then blushes on instinct.

“It’s too bad that lead never panned out, though,” says Mulder, a little regretful, maybe a little bitter, leaving starburst fingerprints in the condensation on the side of his glass. “This was a waste of time.” He snorts out a bitter laugh. “An entire day’s waste of time.”

Scully shrugs, her coat loose around her shoulders. She is unusually jovial, happy to be with him. “It’s like you said, Mulder. This is a normal life.”

Mulder smiles again, almost involuntary. She smiles, too. She steals fries off of his plate when their food comes and he makes a gremlin face at her and she giggles. She has an odd feeling of longing that she can’t explain, and she doesn’t bother to try. They’re in a diner in Nevada, off the clock. Who the hell cares?

Mulder takes a shift driving after they eat, and Scully curls into a ball in her seat and falls asleep. She has some strange dream of standing opposite Mulder in the desert. There are seeds, like the one in that strange non-memory in the diner, and she tells him, I’d kiss you if you weren’t so damn ugly. Well, she notes when she wakes up, the sentiment isn’t entirely off. But still. What the hell is that about?

iv.

They’ve slept in the same bed before, but never quite like this.

Scully can tick off every time they’ve shared a bed. The awkward time in the first year of their partnership where she’d set a token pillow between them and slept on the edge of the mattress (but Mulder sprawls in his sleep, so he’d ended up drooling on her shoulder in the morning, the pillow stuck under his belly). The case in ‘96 where her feet had snuck over on his side every single night. The times she’d fallen asleep in Mulder’s hotel room or he’d fallen asleep in hers. But every time had been different then this somehow, she thinks.

She’d woken up this morning with Mulder’s face half-buried in her neck, an arm thrown over her ribcage, his fingers hot against her side where her shirt had ridden up. His stubble rubbing her neck as he muttered things in his sleep. She had counted to ten in her head. Twenty. And rolled away. His hand had slid over her stomach in a long trail; he snorted and buried his face in the pillow. Scully had shivered, curling into herself on the edge of the bed. And now they are in bed again. He is asleep and she is not and he’s jammed up against her in bed, nose against her upper arm and knees pressing into her leg. Their fingers tangled together on the mattress. Scully stares at the ceiling, ignoring the tickling sensation of Mulder’s breath against her skin. Or trying to.

Sheila was surprised that she isn’t with Mulder. Which apparently the entire town of Kroner can join her in. The missus. Boyfriend. Holman had bid Mulder farewell by saying, “You should try it sometime,” looking at the two of them like he expected something out of them. She supposes her big “relationships-spurning-from-friendship” speech to Sheila didn’t help their Kroner reputation. She doesn’t know why she cares.

Mulder is too warm, jammed up against her with his raspy breathing and the blankets tangled around them. She should move away. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t move away. She told herself that she wasn’t going to do this last summer, after everything with Diana Fowley, after he tried to kiss her and never brought it up. For a little while last fall, in Nevada, she thought she might, but she’d relegated herself, insisted that they are friends and friends only. And despite whatever lover’s pacts some ghosts tried to force them into, despite her falling asleep on his couch at six a.m. on Christmas morning, she has been able to push back the thoughts in her mind of taking their relationship a step further. But now…

Mulder mumbles something in his sleep—something that sounds like the lyrics to Islands in the Stream, which played on repeat at the reunion when one of the speakers glitched—and presses his nose harder against her shoulder. Scully shivers. We are just friends, she tells herself sternly. He’s my best friend. That’s it. That’s all. But Mulder tugs at her hand in his sleep, rolling over so that he lands almost on top of her, and she almost loses her resolve, shivers. She didn’t know it was so cold in Kansas. Or that her partner is a furnace. She shifts in her sleep, cold feet brushing against his feet and trying to wiggle out from under him a bit. Mulder stirs, lifting his head from her shoulder and blinking groggily. “Scully?” he mutters, tugging at her hand before he realizes that he’s holding it and lets it drop. “Oh, jeez, I’m on top of you,” he says, scooting backwards so he’s on the other side of the mattress. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says quietly. She hasn’t moved.

Mulder flops over on his stomach, still half-asleep. “We’ll be home tomorrow,” he mumbles into his pillow.

“Yeah,” says Scully. His hair is sticking up on one side; she resists the urge to pet it down. She turns on her side and closes her eyes, determined to get some sleep tonight. But her words to Sheila are still bouncing around in her head. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before, she’d said. And the person who was just a friend is… suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with.

She wakes up in the morning with her face pressed up against Mulder’s shoulder. She tells herself sternly that it means nothing. She knows she is lying.

When she wakes up in the hospital, Mulder is there. He’s leaning over her hospital bed with his hands in his head. He looks tired, haggard, as if he’s been there for days. Scully has a groggy, overwhelming affection for him, and though she cannot speak, she reaches for him. He looks up, sees her hand moving, and his entire face lights up. “Scully,” he says, engulfing her hand in both of his. “You’re awake.”

She looks up at him, tiredly tries to tell him everything that she is thinking with only her eyes.

Mulder laughs a little, squeezing her fingers. He is practically grinning with relief. “I-I’ll go get your doctor,” he says, standing from his spot next to the bed. Before he puts her hand down, he leans over and kisses her knuckles, and she feels it from head to toe. “You’re gonna be okay,” he says before he leaves. Scully smiles a little to herself. She can’t believe he’s here.

Mulder is there when she wakes up and Mulder continues to be there, through every awkward moment with her mother and brother (both of whom Scully is incredibly relieved to see), through every talk with the doctor, through nearly every moment Scully is conscious for the next two days. She is immensely grateful. She’d missed him. She loves him, she thinks rebelliously to herself one day. She loves him and is so incredibly happy to still be here to tell him so. All those doubts flickering in her mind, leftover from last summer, are gone now. She is ready.

There is a brief moment where she is uncertain, wondering whether or not Fellig was right about immortality, right about love not lasting forever, but she talks herself out of it. She is being ridiculous. People don’t live forever. Life is too short, actually, and she has plenty of proof of that right before her.

Mulder thumb-wrestles her over the blankets tucked around her body, kisses her cheek in farewell every time he leaves. He flies back down to DC with her when she is finally discharged, cracking peanuts between his teeth like makeshift sunflower seeds and trying to distract her with in-flight movies. He visits her frequently in the evenings while she is on medical leave, calls in the middle of the day to complain about Kersh and background checks and the embarrassment of being stuck in the bullpen. He is her best friend and she is in love with him; there was more truth to the things she told Sheila than she thought. She keeps looking for moments to tell him, but keeps coming up short. She doesn’t know how to say it. (They’re both awful at expressing their feelings; is she just supposed to sit him down and say, “Mulder, almost dying has made me realize I’m in love with you?” What about, “So, about that one time you almost kissed me and we never talked about it…?” All utterly ridiculous.) But the time will come. She is confident that the time will come. These things have a way of happening with them.

Later, after the entire ordeal at El Rico Air Force Base, she will attribute the entire thing to what Fellig told her in his apartment. Fear of eternity staring her in the face, loneliness. Vulnerability after almost dying. But she cannot really be in love with him, she tells herself. She cannot.

vi.

He can’t explain why trusting Diana is so important to him.

He is not in love with her. Not anymore. And when he was, it was never as house-on-fire fierce as the way he cares for Scully. But something in him cannot let go of their relationship. Their years together. She remains the only woman he has ever proposed to. The longest relationship he’s ever had. She was there when he discovered the files. He cannot let that go, for some reason. He just can’t.

He doesn’t know why he is so stingingly hurt when Scully is sharp to her in quarantine, because he is done with her romantically and has been for years. She broke his heart. But something in his stomach curdles in annoyance when Scully keeps snapping at her, acts like she’s the enemy. He chides her a little when she gets petty towards Diana, because a part of him is protesting, She isn’t working against me, Scully. She knows how important this is. She left me because the work is important. And he doesn’t know that Scully would go that far for him, for the work. It’s a horrible comparison to make, but it’s true.

The Gunmen turn against her, too. Scully calls him to their apartment, just so she can present all the reasons why Diana is untrustworthy, and Mulder’s annoyance continues to grow. You wouldn’t be saying this if you knew everything she’s done for me, he wants to say to her. What she meant to me, once.

He tells her she is reaching. He tells her she has given him no reason not to trust Diana. He tells her that she is making things personal, and he senses he has gone too far. It’s been personal since Day One, with them. He’d like to take it back almost as soon as he says it, but Scully storms out and Mulder is too annoyed with her to follow her. But Frohike’s glare and the way Byers and Langly avoid his eyes speak volumes.

Embarrassed and maybe a little guilty, he slinks off to find out the truth about Diana, just to prove that he is right. He finds the smoker at her apartment, who offers him a way out. A way to save himself from what’s coming. Himself, he thinks, and Scully, and maybe even Diana. If they can really avoid death on Earth, he and Scully, then it would be wrong to leave behind the woman who is partially the reason he has gotten this far.

Diana comes home and reaffirms her loyalty to him. He tells her how they need to survive and she kisses him. It is a brief kiss, and his mind is buzzing too much to process it all, but he wraps his arms around her on instinct.

—

After it’s all over, he’s overwhelmed with guilt.

He doesn’t go to the air force base because he is chasing a lead with Scully, and he is relieved that they don’t because the entire thing goes up in flames. Diana doesn’t reappear in the immediate days after. Jeffrey Spender gets them back on the X-Files, and then his blood is found staining their office. Scully won’t return his calls.

The guilt is thick in his stomach over the possibility of Diana’s death, the encounter in her apartment. What he perceived as a betrayal of Scully. They may not be together, but he is in love with her. He told her he loves her and he meant it with everything in him. And now, and now. He has hurt her to the point of nearly no communication between them. He has kissed another woman he is not in love with. He has ruined it all.

Diana calls a few days after the entire ordeal, reassuring him that she is alive, and he is relieved. Truly relieved. Maybe some feelings do linger for her, but not in the sense of wanting to actually be with her. It’s mostly nostalgia from his old relationship, mostly loyalty. He’s happy she’s alive. But he’s in love with Scully and he’s pushed her too far away.

He wishes he knew how to make this right.

vii.

She almost resigns after it’s all over.

She gets drunk one night, furious and raving against Mulder, and types up a resignation letter, prints it out and even signs it. She leaves it on the dinner table, determined to give it to Skinner in the morning. She is done with the FBI, the way they’ve scorned her and thrown her out. She is done with the X-Files, tired of the way they beat her up and leave her frustrated and embarrassed when she is proven wrong. She is done with Mulder.

In the morning, she chickens out. It seems ridiculous in the daylight, with the sun shining unevenly across her pillow and her pounding hangover headache. She did hang on this long to resign. Personal interest is all she has, and she can’t give up for her sister or her daughter or herself. And even Mulder. She still cares for Mulder by instinct, knee-jerk reaction.

But there is not going to be a relationship between them now. Not a chance.

In the process of rebuilding their office, reorganizing everything, Scully works quietly, talks as little as possible. The resignation letter stays on her table, like a glaring spotlight. Reminding her of the way she felt when she thought she was leaving. She goes back and forth on it a few times in the weeks following El Rico. She almost changes her mind the day after Diana drops by the office to congratulate Mulder on getting the X-Files back. Mulder almost dies twice. The second time, she is haunted by nightmares of him dying in her arms, gunshot wound to the chest. It breaks her. She can’t resign, she can’t leave him anymore than she could last summer. She has tried, and it doesn’t work. She has not hung on this long, through dead family members and abductions and cancer, to quit because Mulder hurt her feelings. She cares about him, and it is more than a knee-jerk reaction. She isn’t going to resign. She throws the letter out.

But her stance on a relationship between them stays the same. He is her partner, her friend, but nothing more.

xiii.

The Petries has a nice ring to it. Mulder picked the name because of all the Dick Van Dyke Show reruns they’d watched together while Scully was recovering from her gunshot wound. Scully rolled her eyes and smiled a little at the floor when he told her, but sobered up quick. Told him that they had to pronounce it like the dish.

There has been a definite distance between them lately. A distance that only comes down after one of them almost dies. He wishes he knew how to fix this.

Being able to call Scully his wife, though. Being able to put his arm around her and ham it up in front of all the citizens of Arcadia Falls. He kind of likes it—which is unexpected, because he never associated Scully and marriage in his mind until now. He hasn’t been very keen on marriage ever since Diana mailed his ring back, broke off their engagement that had crumbled to nothing at that point. But he could get used to this, coexisting with Scully in a house, their house, sharing a bedroom and eating dinner together. (Maybe without the dorky planned community, though.)

They end up cooking dinner together because neither of them can agree on who should be the one to cook. They’re both terrible at it. Scully rolls up the sleeves of her cute little soccer mom sweater and huffs angrily when she burns the chicken. Mulder abandons the potatoes and pulls out one of the salad kits that Scully had insisted the Bureau buy them. (They’d made a grocery list together, for God’s sake; he loves this case.)

“You liking married life, Scully?” he asks her at the dinner table, after they manage to construct a decent salad.

She snorts a little, stabbing lettuce with her fork. The windows are open, to air out the kitchen from where the chicken was burned, and they are speaking quietly in an attempt not to blow their cover. “Truly blissful, Mulder,” she says dryly. “The honeymoon never ends.”

Mulder chuckles, a little awkwardly, looking down at his plate. “Did you ever daydream about your wedding as a kid, Scully?” he asks.

“Oh, sure, when I was younger.” She drums her finger against the table. “But the daydreams kind of faded in high school, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” says Mulder knowingly.

Scully is still staring at her plate. “I thought I’d get married in my twenties, actually,” she says in a stilted rush, almost like she had to talk herself into saying it.

Mulder’s fork drops from his hand; he was not expecting that. “Really?” he asks in a neutral tone. “What happened?”

Scully shrugs. “I joined the FBI. Broke it off when I saw the full implications of the relationship. I was young, and I thought I was in love. But it would have been a mistake.”

He’d never known that about her. He nods. Scully scrapes her fork through the salad dressing, lifts her chin to meet his eyes. “What about you, Mulder?” she says, and her voice is very serious, like she understands what the answer will be. “Any previous run-ins with marriage?”

He swallows uncertainly. “Diana and I were engaged,” he says carefully. “She broke it off.”

Scully nods, her face neutral. She says just as carefully, “She must have meant a lot to you.”

“She did,” Mulder says. “At one point, she did.”

She holds his gaze for a moment before looking away. Mulder lifts a glass of water to his mouth and gulps a mouthful. It’s too cool sliding down his throat.

He wants to fix this more than anything. He wants Scully to understand why he did what he did, what she means to him. He just wishes he knew how.

ix.

Agent Scully is already in love, Padgett had said, looking straight at him as if he was supposed to have any idea at all what he was talking about. Who Scully could be in love with. If Padgett is even right at all, if he even knows her. Mulder knows that he doesn’t, that he couldn’t possibly know anything about her.

It is stupid to be jealous of him, this creepy little man who has been stalking her for years now. He is not jealous as much as he is furious, wants to shout at him, tear him apart for what he has done to Scully. Padgett does not know her, not the way he does. He is presumptuous, a little voyeuristic shit who thinks he knows and loves a woman because he’s followed her around for a while. He doesn’t know Scully and he is likely a murderer and Mulder wants him gone, wants to make sure he never gets near Scully again.

Agent Scully is already in love. It can’t be true, because Padgett does not know her. Not like he does, not at all. And Mulder doesn’t know who it is that she could possibly be in love with. How he could have missed it. Or if it’s the yearning possibility, the off chance that she might be in love with him…

No. Padgett does not know her. He is lying, playing some new angle. Mulder throws himself into the case, into trying to catch Padgett. It isn’t true, he tells himself. Scully isn’t in love with him. Believing that weasel is the most egotistical thing he could do.

It isn’t until Scully is clinging to him as she sobs hysterically, blood smeared up and down her front, fingers digging desperately into his shoulders, that he considers that it might be true.

His breath on the back of her neck, his nose in her hair, and his arms wrapped all the way around her as they move together, the bat whooshing through the air. Scully giggles helplessly, more delighted than she’s been in months. She feels like she’s in high school again, her heart racing to the point where she’s sure Mulder can hear how nervous she is. How excited.

It’s spring, not very cold at all, but Mulder’s arms are warm around her, the length of her spine pressed to his chest and stomach. Her shoes that are not at all suited for baseball scuff the red dirt. Her feet almost slip out from under her with one swing of the bat, and Mulder’s arms tighten around her, lifting her almost off of her feet as he tries to keep her from falling. Scully belly-laughs, leaning her head back as the bat wavers in her hands. Mulder stumbles backwards under her weight, lowering her to the ground. “I got you,” he huffs, exhausted from holding her up.

Scully lets the bat droop, tapping the dirty ground with its edge. “Yeah,” she says, breathless. She thinks of the latest, unhappy time he had his arms around her like this, while she fell apart on his floor. She thinks of the first moment of arriving at the park, realizing what he meant when he’d said, “Get over here, Scully.” The shivery feeling she’d gotten when he pressed up against her. His lips brush the back of her neck—whether it is on accident or on purpose, she can’t tell, but it makes her think his mouth against hers. The possibilities.

She smiles, leaning back into his chest. “Yeah, you got me.”

xi.

Things are better between them, he thinks. They have been, they are. Less steely silences, less tense conversations. Scully smiles at him now, even bursts into laughter on occasion the way she did on that one golden Saturday. “We should work on the weekend more often,” he’d said the Monday after, a little suggestively, and Scully had smirked back at him just as suggestively. Surprised him so much it almost bowled him over. He loves it.

Things are better between them, their partnership starting to get back to normal, and Mulder is starting to consider the possibility of their friendship finally starting to shift into new territory. (Hey, it only took them a year.) He doesn’t know when or if it will ever happen (although the suggestiveness between them both would suggest that it will), but either way, he’s just grateful to have Scully back. Her friendship, her partnership.

They fuck it up, of course. There is a case in North Carolina, and he presents his theory of UFOs, and she dismisses it, maybe even jokes a little bit about it. And it annoys him, for some reason. “Sounds like crap when you say it,” he says, working his jaw back and forth, wondering why she can never believe him, just once. “I’m just wondering if there’s a connection, Scully,” he adds, defending the theory. “I mean, the conditions of these bodies are reminiscent of certain southwestern cattle mutilations. Those are cases where there’s no physical evidence and they’ve long been associated with UFO activity.”

She replies like she doesn’t know him at all, “Mulder, can’t you just for once, just… for the novelty of it come up with the simplest explanation, the most logical one, instead of automatically jumping to UFOs or Bigfoot or…?”

Irritated, he stands and says, “Scully, in six years, how… how often have I been wrong?” She scoffs. He says, “No, seriously. I mean, every time I bring you a case we go through this perfunctory dance. You tell me I’m not being scientifically rigorous and that I’m off my nut, and then in the end who turns out to be right like 98.9% of the time?” She looks a little hurt now. She says nothing. “I just think I’ve… earned the benefit of the doubt here,” he says, and walks away before either of them can say anything else, because he doesn’t know why this is bothering him this much. He doesn’t know what else he expected.

— As difficult and as frustrating as it’s been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over, he’d said in that hallway. Maybe it’s stupid to keep referencing back to something he said a year ago, something he said to manipulate her into staying. But the sincerely behind it had felt real. Everything that has happened between them lately has felt sincere. And once again, Scully doesn’t know what to think

xii.

He knows it isn’t real as soon as she admits that she is wrong. She knows it isn’t real when everyone tells her she is right, again and again. She never really believed she’d lost him anyway.

Their minds meld together through the mushroom hallucinatory haze. They come together, just like always. That is what they do.

Skinner pulls them out of the ground and puts them in the ambulance together. They reach for each other at the same time, Scully searching blindly. She opens her eyes to look at him when he takes her hand. She doesn’t take her eyes off him. They keep looking at each other until they’re unloaded at the hospital.

She misses him at the hospital, through the haze of drugs and pain. She sleeps on and off for a few days, bandages scratchy against her skin, dreams strange and vivid. She’s cold. She is tired of doubting this—their partnership, how well they work together, whether or not they can never be in a relationship. The only reason they survived was because they’d realized what was happening. That something was wrong. The way that they balance each other out, it’s unmistakable. She misses him.

A few nights after the whole ordeal is over with, she slips out of bed and pads down the hall to his room. He’s awake, staring out the window absently when she steps inside. He turns towards her, startled, and his eyes soften at the sight of her. “You okay?” he rasps.

She nods, stepping closer to the bed. “Couldn’t sleep,” she rasps.

He scoots closer to the inside of the bed, shoulder pressed to the wall. She climbs in beside him, their arms pressed together. He tucks the blankets around them both, brushes some hair off of her face before settling back against the pillow. She takes his hand.

“I’m sorry, Scully,” he rasps.

She shakes her head, intending to tell him to save his voice, but he keeps going. “I shouldn’t have… acted like you were being unreasonable. You… I need you. I need your science, and I need you.”

He squeezes her fingers. She closes her eyes, snuggling into the blankets, reminds herself that he is not dead. She is tired of doubting, of lying to herself. They’re both high off their asses on painkillers, but this time, she believes him. “I need you, too,” she whispers, letting her head fall on his shoulder. “I do. I do.”

He kisses the top of her head. She hums raspily, letting her eyes slip closed.She does need him, she knows now. They need each other.

#xf fanfic #i wrote this #xf rewatch

120 notes · View notes

likos064 · 6 years

Text

Free-Thought Ramblings

No rhyme nor reason

RAMBLING 1

Everything that happened in season 11 was a repeat of something that had happened before. MSIV is the continuation and repeat of Two Fathers/One Son

MSIII - Gethsemane/Redux I & II

This - Kill Switch/Ghost in the Machine

Plus One - IWTB/Requiem - Mulder can go to mental hospitals now? - See Max

The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat - Jose Chung From Outer Space/Alone

Ghouli - Emily

Kitten - Blood/Sleepless/Unrequited/Avatar

Followers - Kill Switch/Ghost in the Machine/War of the Coprophages - killer machines, killer roaches

Familiar - Die Hand die Verletz

Nothing Lasts Forever - Revelations/Hungry/Tooms - organs to survive

MSIV - Two Fathers/One Son

People are jumping to conclusions, if any other season of the X-Files, baring season 8 had been the supposed series finale, people would have been just as upset.

Season 1 - Deep Throat dead, Mulder kidnapped, The X-Files closed down and Mulder and Scully separated

Season 2 - Bill Mulder dead, Mulder dead

Season 3 - Mulder gone, Scully alone with the Alien Bounty Hunter

Season 4 - Mulder dead, Scully dying to make Mulder believe

Season 5 - Diana shot, Gibson gone, The X-Files burned down

Season 6 - Mulder locked up in a hospital. Scully finding a crashed UFO in Africa. Implied rape of Mulder.

Season 7 - Mulder abducted, Scully pregnant, Cigarette Smoking Man dead

Season 8 - Happy Ending

Season 9 - Mulder sentenced to death, Mulder and Scully on the run, Cigarette Smoking Man dead

Season 10 - Mulder dying on the bridge, Scully looking at a UFO

Season 11 - Jackson/William presumed dead, or not, Cigarette Smoking Man dead, Skinner dead, Monica dead, Scully pregnant

RAMBLING 2

Spraying the fields in Kitten being mentioned on the radio by Tad O’Malley in the car in the beginning of Nothing Last Forever ”they are dosing us folks, and now I know what you’re asking why would they dose us, why would they use these planes it’s the same reason chemtrails…”

Mulder about choices being right - referring to William and Scully giving him up for adoption?

Writers and directors being inspired by CW and its superhero TV shows, James Wong explaining that he chose Miles Robbins because he was a heartthrob but not in the CW way.

Carlena Britch’s Juliet’s way of moving and costume is reminiscent of Arrow,

The parkour in My Struggle IV

Mulder sees the missing parts of the gate, presumedly they go back into the church and speak to the priest who tells them about the family, that is why they come to speak to them. She didn’t say anything in confession, so he can tell them without breaking any confidence.

Should the scene have been shown, e.g. Mulder and Scully talking to the priest?

Same with the explanation as to how they found the organs. Scully mentioning the tracker and explaining how they let the organs be stolen. Instead of allowing us to see them do it.

Scully knowing Barbara Beaumont’s age based on a wikipedia with no birth date. Or does she know what year she was a child actress?

Making smoothies out of organs feels like a modern twist on one of the Dracula legends. The one about the Countess who supposedly drank the blood of young virgins.

How come only one of the attached seems to receive any benefit. The Dr. said that he had drained the body of nutrients, is it less like a flow and more like a pump, pumping the blood from the aorta into his body?

Barbara Beaumont so obviously flirting with Mulder in front of Scully, similar to Judy in Plus One. To the extent that she only addresses Mulder at times, the line about women having a little bit of mystery.

Jack Webb

Sunset Boulevard, but with aging, obsession with the past and fighting to reclaim and perserve.

The obsession with age and ageing, usefulness and obscurity. My Struggle III - Children, usefulness, Mulder being recruited by Mr. Y, The Cigarette Smoking Man intending to control William though Scully, and Scully through William, Scully intending to use William to save Mulder, the child’s safety is of a less concern than Mulder’s life, Scully being attacked because she is not useful to Mr. Y, This - Eternal life in cyberspace, Plus One - Children, ageing, fertility, The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat - the past, the malleability of memories, the unreliability of memories, loss of innocence, Ghouli - Children, experiments, fertility, you see what I want you to see, underestimation of women - send them to meet a monster and they… try to kill it, hacking the DoD again, Kitten - Experiments, small town mystery, military men, veterans and disgruntlement, revenge, Rm9sbG93XJz (Followers) - The age of technology, the birth of an AI and our destruction of its core personality, Familiar - Children, death, being replaced, the simplest solution, protection of police when they commit crimes, Nothing Lasts Forever - attempt at reversing ageing, the running joke with Mulder’s glasses, Barbara Beaumont’s comment to Scully about her skin, the sun and whether it is too late, MS IV - Children, fertility, massacre, Tad O’Malley being used, unrealiability of information, lies, deceit, the young will inherit Earth, the Cigarette Smoking Man needing William to put his plan into work.

The last conversation in the church doesn’t make much sense, and it is interesting to see the way most have ignored the pain Scully has caused Mulder. One of the worst things about her leaving him, which I can ignore with just a couple of adjustments in every episode, is that she becomes yet another person who abandons him. It makes her no different, than his mother, father, Phoebe and Diana. You might even argue that Jerry Lamana did the same. Everyone also seem to return only when they need something from him and he never says no. The way David plays it when Scully asks if they are together. His attempt to find words, to compose himself, the hurt that flashes over his face as she seemingly dismisses him.

Mulder’s last line about how he always wondered how this was going to end, also doesn’t make much sense. What has ended?

Would be interesting to know if that was in the script.

Everything’s going so fast, where are the slow moments, the thoughtful shots, the establishing of atmosphere. And the thing I miss the most is Kim Manners favorite thing. Those extreme close ups of David and Gillian’s face being arranged in different ways close together in a scene.

It is difficult to say what has been lost through different directors. Kim wasn’t the only one who put their faces terribly close together. Rob Bowman did the same in The Field Where I Died, and both Kim and Rob did it for the mythology two-parter Terma-Tunguska, they each directed one episode.

They still look way too much at each other’s lips though. That might just be an actor thing.

They divide of the characters in Ghouli. Scully walking closer to the detective than Mulder. Compare to the Pilot where they walk close to each other while the detective is further from them. Was that deliberate to create the idea that even if they have recently met they have known each other longer than this small town detective? They can’t trust each other, but they certainly cannot trust him either.

Technology how proficient they are compared to season 10. Mulder managing to turn a phone into a receiver of Langely’s message in This, despite not having the full instructions. Searching the DarkWeb on his phone.

No summarising or actual paperwork for X-files solved.

Everything looking more expensive. Cars, phones, clothes. Who gave the FBI a bigger budget?

Lack of theorising from Mulder, and lack of banter.

No autopsies.

Season 10 and 11 making up one season of 16 episodes.

RAMBLING 3

William B Davis was right about one thing when he wrote En Ami, he hadn’t gotten to act with Gillian, but there is a more interesting side effect of that and that is that Scully generally doesn’t get confronted with the mythology. She doesn’t make the choice because it is never presented to her with some exceptions in the Erlenmeyer Flask she bluffs her way into a facility and steals an alien embryo to give in exchange for Mulder - she was willing to steal and give away evidence of the truth they had been seeking and that people had already died for.

in Nisei and 731 she is confronted and led to believe that there are experiments but they are human in nature, leprosy colony and in Gethsemane she is told that the government gave her cancer to control Mulder. However, she is not given an option to save herself, Mulder asks Skinner to get him in contact with the Cigarette Smoking Man, but no one thinks to ask Scully if she would like to make a deal. Redux compounds this but once again making offers to Mulder, but never to Scully.

In Emily they once again have an opportunity to make a deal with her, but they don’t. They never offer to help her find Melissa’s killer either. In fact the only confrontation she had was with the Well-Manicured Man was when he explained that she was in danger. X refused to talk to her at all, and Deep Throat only did when there was no other option.

It is not that she is more honest than Mulder and Skinner, it is not that she is incorruptible but that she is seldom placed in a position where her corruptibility is questioned. In En Ami she shows herself being susceptible to what the Cigarette Smoking Man is offering, that is why she leaves with him. If she had been offered Melissa’s killer, a cure for her cancer, a cure for Emily who is to say she wouldn’t have accepted. She did it for Mulder. A biologist that she involved in the case died and she still exchanged the evidence for Mulder. In Paper Clip she asks Mulder to hand in the DAT-tape so that she can see Melissa again.

The Cigarette Smoking Man believes that he can control her through William, or the boy, as he calls him. However, Skinner thought he underestimated her devotion to Mulder. In Season 8 and 9 we are presented with the dilemma of choosing Mulder or William. She never makes the choice but she is at least presented with it. Krychek tries to force Skiner to make the choice, and Jeffrey gives the magnetite to William to stop the Cigarette Smoking Man’s plans.

William is not necessary to make a vaccine, Scully and Einstein use Scully’s blood to create one in My Struggle II, however, he appears to be necessary to save Mulder. When asked whether Mulder is immune we get a scene change before an answer is provided. The paternity issue presented by the Cigarette Smoking Man is for Skinner’s benefit. To lure him into working with him. Monica has already left by then. Mulder and Scully doesn’t seem to suspect anything, and so far they have not been presented with the possibility. (Ignore My Struggle IV at this time)

During the original run, in mythology episodes, the presence of cigarettes and cigarette smoke always indicated the Cigarette Smoking Man. The first time we see Skinner make a stand he has placed a non-smoking sign on his desk. Mulder finds cigarette butts in Krychek’s car after Scully’s abduction. In Wetwired, after Scully has become paranoid she checks the ashtray in the car to see if there are any cigarettes. Mulder assuming that something has happened and smelling the smoke off Skinner thus makes sense in the larger context of the show. Besides, Scully got attacked, Mulder feared that something was wrong and tried to contact Skinner.

One fraction is trying to kill Mulder, he will kill me, says the Cigarette Smoking Man the other Scully, the assassin was the same man Mulder followed to South Carolina, and who was sent away by Mr. Y. We don’t know if Mulder’s words about Scully being able to save everyone led to the attempted murder or if they always intended to get rid of her. They only offer William a seat together with Mulder. Which is odd because generally Mulder always gets offered something that in some way involves Scully: getting her back, being allowed to kill the men responsible for her abduction, the cure for her cancer, her life - the Cigarette Smoking Man expects Mulder to be grateful when he reveals Scully’s immunity in My Struggle II. Mr. Y and Erika Price seem to have another agenda when it comes to Mulder and Scully which makes them different from all the other people from the conspiracy that we have dealt with. The Original Syndicate kept Mulder alive to avoid him becoming a martyr.

RAMBLING 4

The X-Files, and its writes reluctance to portray Mulder as anything but an incidental father.

Scully confers paternity on Mulder at the end of Existence, not for the sake of Mulder, but for the audience. However, paternity is only established when she is willing, see Mulder’s line to Skinner about how it is up to Scully to reveal the father of the baby. The actors play as if though the characters have talked about Mulder being the father, see Scully telling Mulder about the people outside the house when she was giving birth, and his response that leads to him saying that they feared the possibilities. Implying that they’ve spoken about this, off-screen before. The difference between scenes in front of the camera, what they say and how they act and scenes off camera, that are later implied to establish a moment. David’s adlib about telling the kid he went down swinging.

Mulder’s paternity being revoked when he left, and cancelled upon William’s adoption. Scully continuing to be a mother, but Mulder no longer being a father. David’s absence necessitating a removal of Mulder from the story, highlighting Scully’s single parenthood, as well as life as a single mother that is available to be pursued, rather than one who is in a long distance relationship, or as her own mother a woman with an absent boyfriend/lover/significant other/partner.

The underlining of Mulder’s paternity existing only in relation to Scully by James Wong, through the episode Ghouli and in the interview he did about the episode, while undermining him as a father. Focusing on Scully as a mother, highlighting her choices and desires relating to motherhood while ignoring that such would exist for Mulder in terms of fatherhood.

Glen Morgan’s conversation at the end of Home Again detailing Scully’s fears, questions, regrets while ignoring that despite not being present when the baby was given away for adoption, not having a say if such a thing should be done, not needing to sign anything to make it happen, Mulder possessing those things as well.

The consistent undermining of Mulder as a father, the consistent underling of Mulder as an incidental father of Scully’s children, starting with The Jersey Devil in season 1, continuing in Home, Emily, Existence, Founder’s Mutation, Home Again and Ghouli.

The Jersey Devil - Scully wants kids, Mulder is suggested as their father

Home - Scully implying Mulder as a candidate for future children and he seemingly volunteering upon the subject being broached

Emily - Scully being a biological mother making Mulder the father. No paternity is ever established or explored, similar to Memento Mori when they say these are our mother’s but never talk about the fathers. Scully not conferring paternity on Mulder when the opportunity is given. Mulder not assuming parenthood when opportunity is given. Mulder written as a vengeful father, treatment of Scanlon, desperation of his actions. Mulder written as a father but only when Scully allows him, carrying Emily to the car, offering to stay at the hospital with her, bringing flowers to the funeral, staying beside her as she opens the coffin.

Alone - Scully excluding Mulder from knowing the sex of the child. The implication that there is something weird about him wanting to take her to lamaze class.

Existence - Scully naming William after Bill Mulder to establish Mulder as the father. Firstborn sons being given the name of their paternal grandfather.

Founder’s Mutation - Mulder denying missing William. Mulder comforting Scully when her maternity is being questioned and assuring her that it isn’t true. Mulder being at fault for not being a father, left William and Scully, didn’t need to sign adoption papers, denying missing William, shutting down the conversation on their son. His loneliness is his own fault.

Home Again - Scully talking about William, seeing William’s name. Children, creations being discarded by the one who created them. Scully being likened to them. Mulder not being a creator. Mulder not being a contributor, baring Maggie telling him she also has a son named William. The conversation on the log that is mostly Scully voicing her fears and regrets. The implication that answers pertaining to William, his life, his safety only belong to her.

Ghouli - Scully confessing to Jackson/William in the morgue. Establishing Jackson as their child through looking at her DNA. Paternity not needed to be established, see Emily. Mulder being allowed to comfort Scully, Mulder being allowed to stay with Scully in the hospital room, at the gas station. Messages meant for her being delivered to him when she desires. Messages only meant for her. Scully letting him in unlike in Emily. Not pushing him away at the crime scene, Jackson’s house. Jackson talking about his biological mother.

Nothing Lasts Forever - Scully assuming full responsibility over William, his being given up for adoption. Her fears.

Chris and others exploring Mulder as a father. Underlining Mulder as a father, baring who is your baby daddy storyline moments.

Per Manum - Establishing that Mulder and Scully tried IVF.

Three Words - The Lone Gunmen’s implication that Mulder needs to explain his partaking in a certain blessed event.

Empedocles - Mulder brining a gift. Conversation about being like a married couple. Guarding the door to Scully’s hospital room.

Vienen - Tell the kid I went down swinging - admittedly an adlib by David but still

Essence - Mulder not denying being the father but emphasising Scully’s right to tell. Krychek trying to get Skinner to kill the baby or Mulder. The father or the son have to die.

Existence - Scully naming William, Mulder holding the baby in her bedroom.

The entire season nine consistently establishing Mulder’s absence as being due to the father or the son needing to die. The super solidiers showing equal interest in Mulder and William.

Which means that entire storyline, possibly created to explain David Duchovny’s absence being made irrelevant if what the Cigarette Smoking Man said is true. Which for the record I don’t believe, he likes taking credit for other people’s work. I think Jackson’s belief is founded upon the mental connection the two have that I think is dependant on the brain matter stolen from Mulder in the Sixth Extinction episodes.

The End - Mulder talking about his son. The prosecution tormenting Scully with the existence of their love child undermining her as a witness.

I Want to Believe - Mulder talking about their son’s William’s absence causing them both pain.

MS I - Sveta telling Scully that she knows that the two of them have a child together.

MS II - Scully telling Miller that she and Mulder have a son, after establishing that Mulder cannot be saved with the vaccine.

MS III - Scully begging Jeffrey Spender to tell her where William is so they can save Mulder. Scully telling Mulder that they need to find William in order to save him, You need him and I need you. Mulder talking about his son with Mr. Y and Erica Price.

Plus One - Mulder and Scully talking about having another baby. Scully wanting to know if Mulder wants to have a child.

Ghouli - Mulder’s moment with Skinner saying that Jackson was his and Scully’s son William.

Familiar - Mulder telling Emily’s mother that he has a son but he’s grown now.

MS IV - Mulder telling William he is his father. William questioning this, because he doesn’t receive any visions from Mulder and doesn’t appear to be able to send to him either. William protecting Mulder from the goons and the Cigarette Smoking Man. Mulder lamenting not being a father. Scully putting Mulder’s hand on her stomach and telling him he’s a father because she is pregnant. William being necessary for the Cigarette Smoking Man’s plan, the man who has been established since MS III as prioritising killing Mulder. Not hearing whether Mulder is immune or not when Skinner asks the Cigarette Smoking Man in MS III.

Who renamed Jackson, Chris Carter or James Wong? Does the renaming mean something? Is it a hint that we should question Mulder’s paternity, William being named after his father, Fox Mulder’s father, William Mulder to ascertain paternity in Existence.

Paternity of William being an issue due to the implication of lack of consent. Would you be okay if Mulder wasn’t William’s biological father because Scully slept with another man while dating Mulder, tried IVF with someone different - someone else that she knew or an anonymous donor? Which method is preferred? What is more important Mulder being Jackson’s biological father or his creation being consensual?

RAMBLING 5

Not complete lists works in progress.

Ignoring male abductees.

Duane Barry

Max Fenig

Billy Miles

Theresa Nemman’s husband

Mulder

(Jeffrey Spender?)

Scully is a woman and got abducted, focusing on female abductees.

Focusing on maternity while ignoring paternity.

Eve - The children having no fathers, all being women. Killing the adoptive fathers. Fertility clinics like in Small Potatoes?

Memento Mori - The clones telling Mulder these women are our mothers while saying nothing about who the father’s are or if there are any.

Focusing on women’s rights to children while ignoring and sometimes outright denying men the same.

The Jersey Devil - Rob’s enmity towards his ex-wife’s new boyfriend, her being implied to have primary custody.

Aubrey - The implication that BJ does not intend to the sheriff that she’s pregnant.

Never Again - Ed Jerse losing custody of his children.

Terms of Endearment - A man wanting children but a woman wanting a specific type of child and the destruction of those that don’t fit the criteria.

William - Scully giving up William for adoption.

Implied single men with kids, absent or invisible mothers

The Pilot - Billy Miles’s Father, Theresa Nemman’s father

Single women with kids

Conduit - Ruby’s mother

Paternity only being interesting as a crime.

Killing off Scully’s father in season 1 and Mulder’s father in season 2.

Aubrey - BJ’s grandfather being a rapist leading to her committing crimes.

Bill Mulder’s paternity being explored through losing a daughter, a crime in Colony/End Game. Acting like a proper father to Mulder minutes before being killed in Anazazi. His name being given to William.

Home - Not particularly who, but establishing that one of the Peacock brother’s is the father due to the multiple genetic deformities that the dead baby suffers from. Scully having nephewes implying Charlie has kids.

Small Potatoes - Eddie van Blunt impersonating Luke Skywalker and the husbands to impregnate the women and his paternity only being focused on because he is committing a crime.

Christmas Carol/Emily - Marshall Sims, Emily’s adoptive father being implied to work with the conspiracy.

Post Modern Prometheus - Dr. Pomodori being a neglectful father of the great mutato. His own father impregnating the women with methods similar to animal husbandry to create a being that resembles his grandchild.

Luke’s death, being a crime. Doggett’s paternity existing and being explored due to this crime.

Trevor - Paternity being established as reason for a crime.

Paternity on the basis of conferring from women.

Aubrey - The sheriff fathering BJ’s child being a plot point.

Terms of Endearment - The fathering taking place to satisfy a woman’s desires.

The mythology dealing with Mulder’s paternity, conferring Bill Mulder paternity through Teena Mulder while establishing that his biological father is C.G.B. Spender.

Talith Cumi - Establishing a connection between Teena Mulder and C.G.B. Spender to throw doubt on the paternity of her children.

Demons - Continuing to explore that connection, as well as implying that Bill Mulder did not father his children. (Never established if neither Fox nor Samantha was his. If Samantha was Bill Mulder’s that would make her Mulder’s half sister.)

Gethsemane - The government official helping Mulder and Scully being established as a father because they hurt his son in order to get to him.

Christmas Carol/Emily - Bill Scully Jr. being a father through Tara Scully being pregnant.

All Souls - Paternity being implied to explain the girls needing to die.

The Red and the Black/Patient X - C.G.B. Spender being Jeffrey Spender’s father through Cassandra Spender’s conferring.

Two Fathers/One Son - Mulder’s paternity being directly questioned in connection with the mythology.

The Sixth Extinction Amor Fati - Mulder being conferred as a father in the Last Temptation of Christ’s dream by Diana Fowley.

Per Manum - Implying something is wrong with the baby, leading to flashbacks of Mulder and Scully having tried IVF. Mulder as a father though Scully’s conferring.

MS III - The Cigarette Smoking Man implying involvement in the creation of William.

MS IV - Jackson calling the Cigarette Smoking Man his father. The Cigarette Smoking Man killing Mulder while talking about being his father and claiming responsibility of his conception.

Paternity being determined to establish the existence of powers.

Aubrey - BJ being a criminal being due to her grandfather being one.

Small Potatoes - The children fathered by Van Blunt being identified as such through having a tail. (Have these children inherited Eddie Van Blunt’s ability to assume another’s identity?)

All Souls - Angel/human hybrids.

MS IV - Jackson’s ability to receive visions from the Cigarette Smoking Man. (Implication more than establishment, Mulder was able to read minds in Biogenesis. His elevated brain activity due to this resembles Scully’s in MS III.)

Paternity to establish connection to authority.

The Pilot - Theresa Nemman’s dad

Red Museum - One of the tormentor’s being established as the sheriff’s son

RAMBLING 6

Carlena Britch’s character acting as if Mulder and Scully should feel sad that she will go to prison for her crimes by reassuring them that it was worth it. While they pretty much ignore and don’t look too bothered by the consequences of her actions. No personal relationship or sympathy having ever been established with either Mulder or Scully, but still being assumed in the scene.

No true connecting with the victim’s baring Familiar, losing a child, Emily Sims, William.

Playing favourites. Glen Morgan and James Wong’s favouritism of Scully, preferring to write her over Mulder. Glen Morgan’s exclusion of Mulder on the log, being mitigated by David and Gillian’s bond and his ability to act and connect with her while silent. James Wong’s exclusion of Mulder in Ghouli, being mitigated by David and Gillian’s bond and his ability to act while not being given any specific material and connect with her while silent.

Vince Gilligan being able to write for both as well as introducing a new character whose focus doesn’t take away from the established story with Brian Cranston’s character in Drive. Unlike Glen Morgan with Kristin Cloke’s Melissa Ephesian in The Field Where I Died. Vince Gilligan not playing favourites.

Darin Morgan’s reluctance to deal with the characters at all, ignoring most established facts to deconstruct the show while making fun of David Duchovny.

Glen Morgan’s need to torment David Duchovny in his scripts, making Mulder an Elvis fan, Home, Never Again.

Chris Carter not playing favourites, but sometimes letting his fatigue with the characters influence his script in Fight Club and his anger with David leading to him trying to kill Mulder through a brain disease.

RAMBLING 7

Real life and circumstances as well as limits influencing and limiting the episodes. A small budget leading to dark rooms, to avoid the bad CGI being seen and using the format of scaring through implication rather than seeing.

Using up the budget on Ice leading to Space being stock footage from NASA. Several rewrites and scenes being cut due to standards and practices.

Gillian being pregnant leading to Mulder and Scully’s separation and the closing of the X-Files to get Scully back to Quantico. Gillian being pregnant limiting her screen time in the beginning of season 2. Gillian getting pregnant leading to Scully’s abduction. Scully being shown pregnant during the abduction because Gillian was. Perry Reeves being hired for 3 due to being David’s real life girl friend and Chris hoping this would mean she would have chemistry with him since Gillian wasn’t available due to giving birth.

Mulder getting injured because David had twisted his ankle playing squash with Chris. X being changed to a male actor as the female actress they wanted wasn’t available. Truman Capote not playing the role of Jose Chung due to having been dead for 12 years when the episode was recorded. Mulder being an Elvis fan because David is not a fan. Glen Morgan’s wooing of Kristin Cloke leading to her prominent part in The Field Where I Died and his divorce informing Ed Jerse’s situation in Never Again.

Glen Morgan and James Wong choosing to have the Cigarette Smoking Man kill Frohike in their original script for Musing of a Cigarette Smoking Man because Tom Braidwood already had a job on the show as an associate producer. Memento Mori coming about due to Daring Morgan being unable to fulfil his obligations.

The implication that Scully got cancer and would die because Gillian wanted to leave the show, but when she changed her mind a cure was found.

The Unusual Suspects being necessary to give David and Gillian time to film the movie as well as the show.

David needing time off to promote Playing God leading to Christmas Carol.

Michael Buble not appearing in Triangle due to being fired for eating a hot dog.

Mimi Rogers being unavailable for filming Triangle, thus Mulder not seeing her as a singer who betrays him on the Queen Ann.

Arthur Dales character being given a brother with the same name when the original actor suffered a stroke and thus couldn’t reprise his role for The Unnatural.

David wanting to leave the show leading to Mulder’s abduction.

Mitch’s reluctance to become lead leading to the character of John Doggett.

Chris’s reluctance to focus on anything but Doggett in season 8 leading to him nixing David’s idea of exploring Mulder’s trauma after his abduction.

David leaving the show leading to Mulder’s absence in season 9.

Gillian being a single mother because Fox refused to let her leave the show, insisting that she fulfil her contract.

Mulder becoming an absent Dad because Fox refused to let the show end after season 8.

William being given up for adoption due to the difficulty of children in films and the plan to film a second The X-Files movie in 2003.

The second movie being delayed due to a law suit. The second movie’s script being unedited due to the writer’s strike.

Season 10 having only six episodes due to Gillian refusing to do more. Scully finding a coin in her mother’s possessions due to something similar happening to the Morgan brother’s when their mother died an event that also influence The Field Where I Died. Scully saying said coins writing didn’t match any of her and her siblings’s birthday despite being engraved 1964 02 23.

Miles Robbins not looking anything like David and Gillian but still being hired due to James Wong looking for an actor that resembled David not in looks but as an actor.

Had Mulder been established as an Elvis fan before he complained in Irresistible that no one had seen when Scully was forced off the road but numerous people claimed Elvis sightings?

#The X-Files #ramblings #questions #season 1-11 #season 11 #curiosity killed the cat

3 notes · View notes

allyinthekeyofx · 7 years

Text

Dreamcatcher - Chapters 16 & 17

Prologue&chapter 1 Chapters 2&3 Chapters 4&5 Chapters 6&7 Chapters 8&9 Chapters 10&11 Chapters 12&13 Chapters 14&15

Dreamcatcher. May 5th. Time unknown.

Scully's first conscious thought was that she was cold.

Not the kind of chill that comes as a result of leaving her bedroom window open on a blustery night; because on the odd occasions she had made that mistake, awoken shivering slightly as the wind whipped around the old Georgian building she called home, she had simply risen sleepily and closed the window. Wasting no time, she would then cross back over to the bed and huddle beneath the weight of the comforter, hardly even fully awakening before sleep once again overtook her.

But this was different.

This was a cold that invaded her very core, turning her to ice.

Unrelenting, unimaginable cold.

She groaned slightly and reached out a hand to grope for the covers she assumed she had kicked off during the night but instead of soft cotton, her outstretched fingertips connected suddenly with a hard, cold, slightly damp surface, the impact enough to elicit a gasp of pain as the unyielding surface bent the digits back on themselves.

Jolted almost fully awake now, Scully forced her eyes open, bringing her injured hand to her mouth as she did so. But instead of her mouth, she encountered some kind of substance plastered across her parted lips. Slightly glutinous to the touch, it too was freezing.

She tried to open her mouth, to shout for help.

But the tube that snaked down the back of her throat prevented her from making a sound instead caused her to gag reflexively as she began clawing at her face.

Oh, God, Mulder...help me...I can't breathe...

Her efforts to free herself were futile, hampered as she was by a rising sense of horror as she began to recognize her surroundings.

Antarctica.

Mothership.

Tears began to trickle down her face, becoming frozen to her skin even as they gained release, and Scully slammed her eyes shut as she shook her head from side to side.

This is not happening. It's impossible.

Even as she repeated the denial over and over, she could feel a faint fluttering from the hollow of her stomach as the foetus within her turned slightly, nourishing itself in readiness for its birthing, leeching the life force from it’s host as it fed.

She could feel it.

Oh God she could feel it.

And somewhere from deep inside herself as the nightmares continued, Dana Scully began to scream.

XXXX

Eeazy Sleep Motel Cleveland, Ohio 1:20 pm

Mulder raised his arms above his head wearily, stretching deeply as he attempted to release the kinks from his neck. Lack of sleep and too much caffeine had resulted in a headache which had swelled to mammoth proportions as the morning wore on.

Hunching over Scully's laptop for the last three hours had hardly helped matters, and not for the first time he was painfully aware that he wasn't getting any younger.

There was a time, he reflected ruefully, when he could go days without sleep, foregoing rest when in the grip of a difficult case, relying on his endless stores of nervous energy to see him through. Now, though, his body was screaming abuse at him for putting it through this kind of torture.

Pushing forty was not a good age to be pulling an all-nighter, Mulder decided.

As the computer's screen once more blurred and danced before his eyes, Mulder finally removed his glasses and rose gingerly to his feet; ignoring the pain in his head, which he was barely keeping under control with over- the-counter pills, he crossed the small room to where the beverage rack jostled for position with a kettle on the small, chipped shelf. Without bothering to rinse his cup, he simply shook more low budget coffee granules into it and refilled it, not even bothering searching for the cream and sugar.

Slightly more alert as the evil-tasting brew washed over his tongue, he wondered idly if he would soon be dispensing with the water and just chowing down on spoonfuls of the stuff.

It wasn't a pleasant thought.

Despite this, he returned to the laptop; he had chosen to work from Scully's room, telling himself that it was just easier that way, since she already had the computer hooked up to a modem connection but in truth, though, he simply needed to feel close to her.

Face it, Mulder, old buddy, you just can't function without her anymore.

He blinked, as he banged the coffee mug down on the surface violently enough for some of its contents to slosh over the side.

"FUCK!"

Bolting to his feet, he spun around suddenly and slammed a hand into the flimsy wall in front of him, the impact sending a slashing pain up his forearm as his aching muscles protested at this sudden harsh treatment; but the pain itself was a release, allowing him to calm a little.

Where the hell are you, Scully?

Sighing heavily, he grabbed some tissue from Scully's night stand and carefully mopped up the spilt liquid that seemed intent on marking a path towards her computer, unable to prevent a rueful smile as he did so. Scully's ever- present laptop was like an extension of herself -it had accompanied them on every single case they had ever worked on, and she had only one rule regarding it:

He wasn't allowed to use it without her being present to supervise.

Ever.

She would be less than pleased if he wound up returning it to her with its innards clogged with caffeine.

If, of course, he wound up returning it to her at all.

The thought sobered him immediately, and he once again took a seat in front of the glowing screen, tapping his fingers absentmindedly for a few seconds against the wooden desk before, he finally replaced his glasses. An idea had been building inside of him for some time now, pushing up to the surface, demanding his attention.

Felicia Slabbert.

The twelve-year-old girl who, he was pretty sure, held the answers he needed.

Mulder blinked rapidly, and began his search.

XXXX

Dreamcatcher. May 5th Time unknown.

Scully groaned softly, feeling the warm weight of the blankets that covered her. No longer cold, she realized with a sudden jolt of relief that she had been dreaming; just a nightmare that had transported her back into that cold, dark place she had almost succeeded in pushing to the back of her mind.

Occasionally the horror reasserted itself through dreams, but for the most part, she was able to ignore it. To file it away to join all the other horrors she had witnessed over the last six years.

Hiding behind walls, persuading herself that it had never even happened at all.

And slowly, the nightmare receded back to where it belonged and Scully became more aware of voices around her. Whispered voices, voices that seemed to come from far away.

"How's she doing?"

Skinner?

What the hell was Skinner doing in her bedroom? and more to the point, what the hell was he doing in Cleveland?

Scully dragged her mind back, fighting through the layers of fog that seemed to overwhelm her.

And then Mulder's voice, broken, fragile, full of despair.

"Not good. It...it won't be much longer."

She could hear the tears plainly. Could recognize the way he tried to hold them back, unwilling to show weakness in front of their boss.

Much longer? Much longer until what?

Had something happened that she was unaware of?

Scully struggled to open her eyes, panic rising as she realized with horror that her weighted lids refused to cooperate. But through it all, she could feel his hand covering hers. Tempering her fear just a notch. Making it bearable at least.

"I'm sorry, Mulder." Skinner again, his voice also breaking with the strain. "I know how hard you tried. I know how hard you tried to save her, how hard she fought...and I'm here, to ask you to reconsider..."

He trailed off, and Scully felt the weight of Mulder's head as it lowered to rest against her chest.

He was crying.

Crying hard.

Oh, God, Mulder, what is it? What's happened to me?

"Leave me alone."

His words were muffled, she could feel the vibrations of them through her body.

"Mulder...please...quitting the Bureau isn't the answer. It won't bring her back."

"I said, leave me the fuck alone!"

She flinched inwardly at the venom in his tone, listening as Skinner's footsteps eventually receded in answer to Mulder's plea.

And then he was speaking again, his words almost lost in the wracking sobs that seemed intent on tearing her apart inside.

"I'm sorry, Scully. I'm so sorry. I did try...I tried so damn hard...and I know you can't hear me right now..."

I can hear you, Mulder. I can hear you. Oh, God, what's happening to me?

"...but I need you to know that...I tried. I always tried. He promised it would cure you. And I believed him. I’m so sorry Scully, I’m so sorry......”

Scully fought against the buzzing in her ears, straining to hear his whispered words. But slowly, they faded into nothingness as a dreadful realization hit.

Cancer

God, no. This can't be real. Not like this, please not like this.

The buzzing became louder, more insistent, and she was only barely aware as Mulder gathered her violently against him, rocking her gently, smoothing his hands against her hair.

Her last thought was one of abject denial even as his anguished wail imprinted itself on her soul forever.

“Oh, Christ, no, no, no....Scully no, please, no.....you can’t....you can’t .........don’t leave me...oh Christ.... WILL SOMEONE GET A FUCKING DOCTOR IN HERE........"

And then he was gone.

Leaving her once again alone.

XXXXXX

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Eeazy Sleep Motel Cleveland, May 5th 2:14pm

Mulder rocked back in his chair, staring at the computer screen with an expression that bordered on disbelief. He had gone looking for answers - even the slightest clue that might lead him to his partner - but what he had found was so much more than that.

It hadn't been easy accessing the information - much of what he was now seeing was a direct result of Langley's hacking skills rather than any investigative prowess on his part - but eventually, he had been able to gain access to the Child Service's database.

He and Scully had already ascertained that both of Felicia's parents were deceased. That much was just standard background knowledge. It was what they hadn't been told that now seemed to jump out of the screen at him.

The history of this troubled child was laid out in front of him.

Her mother, it seemed, had died during childbirth. A difficult pregnancy had resulted in a sudden onset of preeclampsia. Despite everyone's best efforts, she had lapsed into a coma from which she had never recovered.

Felicia, although premature, had proved to be a fighter and had eventually gone home to be cared for by her father.

And all that was fine. Tragic? Yes. Unusual? No.

What was unusual, though, was that this child was regularly seeing psychiatrists by the age of three. Mulder counted eight different psychiatrists over the next ten years, all with a slightly different take on this child's unique problems. But all were in agreement on one aspect; that the child was extraordinarily bright. Unfortunately, despite being dressed up in flowery language, it was also clear that they all were of the conclusion that, at best, Felicia Slabbert was blessed with an overly active imagination; or, as one eminent doctor so succinctly put it, she was a pathological liar, while yet another floated theories to support that she may also be suffering from some kind of multiple personality disorder.

She had also been plagued by various sleep disorders throughout her young life. From simple nightmares, through night terrors, sleepwalking, sleep apnoea, this kid had experienced all of them at one time or another.

Until last year, when her father perished in the fire that destroyed the child's home.

And then everything had stopped.

No more nightmares, no more terror.

She had been moved to Brackenhurst on Julia Brackenhurst's approval, and aside from the usual grief that would be expected from a girl of Felicia's age, she had settled well.

Mulder shook his head.

No, not settled. She had thrived. The visits to the psychiatrists had lessened over the following months, and it seemed that whatever it was that had plagued her throughout her life had in some unfathomable way, been resolved.

Until now.

Mulder closed his eyes.

Was it possible? Was it possible that this child somehow held a connection to the dream world? That she was able to link into it? To allow others to link into it with her? But if so, then for what purpose? And more to the point, when had it started to go so horribly wrong for her?

Too many questions, and too few answers when all the time, the clock was ticking down for Scully. What was the point of gathering information when it was the information itself that was most perplexing to him?

Think, Mulder. Let it come.

He leaned back and closed his eyes, willing the images inside his head to assimilate, to become ordered.

What was it Caitlin had said?

That he and he alone could bring back Scully, that she needed him to bring her back.

And suddenly, from another time, another place, Scully's voice whispered inside his head. The almost forgotten memory of her brushing a hand across his cheek when, so many years ago, he had arrived feverish and heartsick at her apartment the night his father died.

Her voice. Gentle, cajoling.

Sssshhhhhh it’s okay. Rest. Just rest.

And he had allowed her to lull him into dreams.

Rest. Just rest.

Mulder's eyes snapped open abruptly.

Could it be so simple? Could the answer be so intrinsically simple that he hadn't even seen it?

When was it that he had last slept?

Certainly not since she was taken.

Sleep had been impossible to come by. A redundant luxury, pushed way down to the bottom of his list of priorities by his need to be doing something, anything to find her.

Sleep had been out of the question.

Mulder unconsciously caught his bottom lip between his teeth, chewing thoughtfully as his gaze drifted toward the still unmade bed.

Could it really be so simple? Could it?

XXXX

Dreamcatcher May 5th. Time unknown.

Scully groaned softly, her consciousness urging her slowly through the disappearing layers of sleep. For a while she fought it, her mind still hazy and confused, filled with horrifying images of past nightmares, and she was terribly afraid that if she opened her eyes again, she would be confronted by yet more demons.

But the thought was fleeting, replaced almost immediately by a sense of calm.

There would be no more nightmares.

At least for the moment.

Slowly, carefully, Scully opened her eyes to be confronted with a scene that was dazzling in its beauty. Stretched before her as far as she could see was a wide, blue expanse of water, catching the sun's rays and sparkling with an intensity she had never before experienced. Colourful sea birds dipped and swirled above the water, occasionally disappearing beneath the waves only to reappear seconds later clutching a wriggling prize in their long beaks; smooth emerald turf ended a couple of feet in front of her, transforming seamlessly into powdery, white sand that reflected the sun's glare with an intensity that made her blink. Palm trees waved gently in the breeze, whispering softly to her through softly ruffling leaves.

Paradise?

Or at least some version of it, Scully decided.

Wherever this place was, it was a combination of her fondest dreams and her darkest nightmares. Just as Felicia had told her it was.

She hadn't believed then. Hadn't understood. Now she did.

The Dreamcatcher. Somehow I'm in the Dreamcatcher.

Scully clambered carefully to her feet, ignoring the creak of joints held in one position for too long, and surveyed her surroundings thoughtfully, heart sinking as she turned a full circle and realization hit. The scene before her, which only seconds ago she had found so breathtaking, was repeated exactly at every turn. It shimmered slightly when she changed her perspective, only to settle itself once again with frightening precision.

A paradise with no depth. An illusion.

Nothing is real here, Agent Scully.

Scully bit down on the thought and began to walk forward, tentatively, hands unconsciously held out before her as though to ward off some as yet unseen adversary. A part of her expected she would make no headway, would keep feeling the cool grass beneath her feet as she walked. Like a million childhood nightmares where the bogeyman was gaining, but no matter how fast you ran, you remained in the same place - she expected to just keep feeling the turf.

The transition, when it came a few steps later, was almost shocking in its suddenness and Scully jerked her foot back from where it had burrowed slightly into the warm, fine sand. She remained motionless for long seconds, afraid almost to leave the sanctuary of the firm ground, before finally starting forward once again, heading for the water.

Eventually, the warmth beneath her feet cooled and hardened as she reached the water's edge. Tiny waves broke and played around her toes, dragging the sand beneath them away with each backwards swell. The water itself was cool, but not unpleasantly so, and for a few seconds she marvelled at the contrast between hot and cold.

The sun continued to beat down upon her back, the emerald green flannel of her pyjamas drawing in the heat like a magnet. Down here, closer to the water, the breeze was more pronounced, whipping her hair around her face in its intensity. But the wind too was pleasantly tepid, warmed through by the sun's rays.

But despite the ambient temperature, Scully couldn't help a shiver that worked its way up her back.

Nothing here is real.

And standing here now, looking out across the calm water, Scully had never felt so alone.

XXXX

Eeazy Sleep Motel. May 5th 4:10pm

Despite his exhaustion, sleep had not come easily for Mulder. He had lain fully dressed atop Scully's bed, willing his mind to shut down sufficiently, for his body to relax into sleep.

The scent of his partner had assailed him as he flipped over onto his side and burrowed his head in her pillow. He identified the lingering traces of her shampoo that clung to its surface, and for a while, he had considered changing rooms; maybe sleep would be easier if he was away from the distraction of her. But here, he felt closer to her somehow. Here he felt the connection he suspected was paramount to his success.

So he stayed.

Emptying his mind until he felt his eyes grow heavy; conscious of the Dreamcatcher becoming loose in his curled hand.

Ssshhhhh, rest. Just rest.

Mulder sighed softly through slightly parted lips, relaxing. Letting it happen.

Until finally, he slept.

Continued chapter eighteen

#dreamcatcher #my fic

18 notes · View notes

carefulfears · 7 months

Note

can you pleeeease please pls pls talk about piper maru/apocrypha theeee apex of the early myth arc obviously i just rewatched it and also you rewatched it a few months ago but i rly would like to hear you get super into it. talk about watever you please but i wld love 2 hear stuff about specific scenes/line or plot implications or performances or technical stuff you liked or what have you. i love you xoxo mikey

okay coming back to this because we just watched these together lol but the thing about piper maru/apocrypha is that like...they speak so much for themselves. and they have a lot to say, about the core themes of the series. it's not just the apex of the myth-arc, it's a subtle love letter of everything that the show believes in.

firstly, i've said this before, but that opening sequence of first scully and skinner, then scully and mulder, is so much of what it all boils down to. and, almost in contrast to the rest of the arc, it's relatively loving and hopeful. just not in the sense that everyone wants things to be.

the government is not going to pursue melissa's murder investigation. the FBI does not care. those in power do not care. they have the tools and technology to piece together any crime, but, as scully says:

"in a case of a woman, my sister, who was gunned down in cold blood in a well-lit apartment building by a shooter who left the weapon at the crime scene, we can't even put together enough to keep anybody interested."

scully is always bubbling with this benevolent indignant rage, just under the surface, and it's so moving when it breaks. it's her sister. and no one is even interested.

it matters that skinner tells her that he's fighting it, he's going to appeal. he's going to go over all of the evidence personally, make sure nothing was overlooked. i love the way he tells her that he got the memo last night and debated calling her at home, you can tell that he's been sitting with it all night.

when she goes downstairs, and mulder is buzzing about some ship wreckage that he's already researched coordinates and weather and radiation spots before anyone else got there that morning, the way she smiles is the end of any confusion as to why she stays. it's been 23 years since the last time anyone cared about his dead sister, and he's down there digging. ("i'm just...constantly amazed by you.")

it's nice that someone stays interested. it's nice to spend your life with someone who cares, when no one else does.

later, in san francisco, i always cry when scully drives onto the military base where she grew up, and sees the kids playing. and it flashes to the kids as her and melissa. once again, this episode is a love letter to everything this show believes.

and when she speaks to her old neighbor, it's spelled out in my favorite quote of the franchise: "we bury our dead alive, don't we?"

i always think of @scullysflannel's post on this thematic arc:

But then I also think about “we bury our dead alive” and “nothing disappears without a trace” and how The X-Files is always in conversation with its ghosts...It matters that the show is saying both everything ends and nothing’s ever really over. You can’t stop moving forward, but there’s also a duty to remember, both out of love (“I want to remember how it was”) and to prevent the same things from happening to anyone else. The future won’t be any better unless people honor the ones who came before. Progress on The X-Files is this constant push and pull between hope and tragedy; you can’t have one without the other.

the x-files is always in conversation with its ghosts, and everything buried still speaks.

when the first installment of this two-parter ends, skinner is shot for his unwillingness to abandon melissa's case. and krycek's soul is overridden with visible darkness, before mulder's eyes.

(i also want to talk about krycek lying, in the airport, and telling mulder that he didn't kill his father. but i think that may be a larger post on krycek/mulder and trust.)

(it literally can't be stressed enough that krycek briefly becomes an alien in this episode and mulder doesn't notice. mikey like that one time you were like "if i were possessed by a demon and a guy who i know personally sat next to me on a twenty hour flight and didn't notice at all i would be so mad")

moving on to apocrypha...well...the x-files is about love, you guys. i love scully running into the hospital and holding skinner's hand. most of this episode is a whirlwind of allies, of understandings. and a testament to how much it matters, to have allies. to have someone you can call. to have three friends who will pull off an elaborate ice-rink locker heist. to have someone who will come hold your hand, chase down an ambulance to watch over you.

back at the FBI, pendrell breaks down the data they've collected on skinner's shooter. partial prints and saliva and secretors and hemofactors and chromosome-stains and hair fibers. i love the run-down that they give, it really drives home the point that scully was making in the beginning. they have all of this equipment and all of these resources and all of this science. but what does it matter when no one cares enough to follow through?

ultimately, it's scully that pieces together the evidence, and realizes that the man who shot skinner is the same man who killed melissa. (at the same time, the syndicate is starting to grow impatient with CSM, as the man suspected in the shooting is: "one of yours, isn't he?")

but in the end, there's nothing. they're pulled out of the silos without finding any evidence. they lose krycek, after learning of his involvement. the man who killed melissa is dead in his cell. "nothing vanishes without a trace," but everything can be controlled.

when mulder goes to melissa's grave to tell scully that cardinale is dead, it's one of my favorite details of the series that he's holding flowers. it just makes me tear up that he stopped to bring missy flowers. even though he was just going by to tell scully news. (it was only a year ago that it was missy sitting having coffee with him, or banging on his apartment door. that it was missy who didn't give up on him, when scully was gone. these sisters linger. there's a kind of reverent respect.)

"You know I thought... when we found him, this man that killed Melissa, that...that when we brought him to justice, I would feel some kind of closure. But the truth is no court...no punishment is ever enough."

four years before the show concludes "there is no closure," scully quietly betrays, there is no closure. nothing would ever be enough. her sister is gone. there are no answers, there is no justice, that would make it better. (and what a statement to make)

and the episode ends on scully repeating back: "maybe we bury the dead alive."

as we cut to krycek, locked in the missile silo, banging on the door, crying, screaming for help.

it is on this note that the x-files leaves its most thematically relevant arc. there is no closure. we bury our dead alive. and no one is ever coming to save you.

#i love you more xoxo kae #asks #piper maru #apocrypha

21 notes · View notes

ghostbustermelanieking · 7 years

Text

roaring like the ocean (2/2)

part two of this: Scully deals with her worsening cancer as tensions run high between her and Mulder.

spoilers for gethsemane and redux i. part of my series i rewrite as i rewatch txf.

She goes back to work the next day. Mulder isn't there, and she can't entirely say that she's surprised. She types up the report to send to Skinner and buries herself in paperwork for the rest of the day, slouched in his desk chair. Her eyes steal over to the phone more than once, considering calling to check on him. She doesn't call, and neither does he.

The next day, Friday, Mulder's back at work. Scully is startled when she sees him, jolting in the doorway and stopping suddenly, hand clenched around the doorknob. Mulder looks up from the desk. “Something wrong, Scully?”

“No, I--” She stops, scuffing her fingernails over the doorknob. “No, I'm fine. I'm glad you're feeling better, Mulder.”

He offers her an awkward, overly wide smile when she sits down. And that's when she realizes: Mulder is trying to make up for everything that's happened.

His efforts become more obvious during the day. He takes on the tasks that they both usually hate, doesn't introduce a new case all day, and offers to go pick up lunch at that deli she likes. (She fights him on the work thing, but accepts the lunch offer.) It's a fairly quiet day in that Mulder doesn't pick any fights--serious or non-serious case-related fights. He earnestly tries to make small talk with her over the screen of his laptop. She smiles smally when he can't see a few times. They don't talk about what happened in the attic in Quonochontaug.

At 4:45, she starts to pack up her briefcase. “Got any big plans this weekend?” Mulder asks mildly, pretending he's enthralled in the line of pencils he's pushing together on the desk.

She grins a little to the files she's sliding into the case. “Yes, actually. My mother is hosting a dinner party tomorrow night.”

“Oh,” he says, and she can sense the disappointment in his voice. She grins a little wider; he is very, very obvious and she doesn't even mind. She's missed him, somewhere in her subconscious. She's missed this, them.

“Free and clear on Sunday though,” she says casually. “If you're around.”

“I'd like that,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice.

She scoops up the briefcase and turns to face him. “See you later, Mulder.”

“See you later, Scully.”

---

Saturday brings in her big brother and her mother's priest and a call from Mulder to run off to Canada. He sounds sincere when he apologizes for interrupting her dinner, but her irritation rises as he keeps talking, as Bill keeps looking on furiously. “I just need you to meet me over at the Smithsonian,” he says, and she asks when, and he tells her right away. Bill turns and walks away, disapproval all over his face. Scully sighs heavily, something in her disappointed but something else in her unable to say no. “I'm on my way.”

---

The man Mulder wanted to meet with, Arlinsky, weaves a bullshit tale of an alien body in the ice that Mulder buys completely. Scully stands in the corner and says nothing. She can't believe Mulder pulled her away from her dinner party for this. She can't help but be a little hurt that he went looking for leads this weekend, after he acted like he wanted to spend time with her. To his credit, she should've expected this. Mulder probably had sincere intentions in mind, but he can't resist leads like this. She's seen it again and again, saw it just last weekend, even if he clearly regrets what happened with her. Maybe she should've told him how much worse she's doing, maybe he'd understand then.

“You think it's foolish?” he asks as they walk through the stairwell, her ahead of him.

“I have no opinion, actually,” she says, putting on her coat.

“You have no opinion?” he asks incredulously.

“This is your holy grail, Mulder. Not mine,” she replies pointedly.

“What's that supposed to mean?” He sounds slightly hurt. He's stopped on the stairs behind her; she stops, too, and turns to look at him.

“It just means proving to the world the existence of alien life is not my last dying wish,” she says, and the subtext is not at all subtle. He's standing two steps above her, and their usual height difference is a wide margin but this is ridiculous; she's about eye level with his stomach.

“What about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny?” he retorts, and she sighs and looks away. “This is not some selfish pet project of mine, Scully,” Mulder says, and she wonders if he's trying to let her know that this is not a repeat of last weekend. Or maybe if he's just trying to convince himself. “I'm as skeptical of that man as you are, but proof... definitive proof of sentient beings sharing the same time and existence with us, that would change everything. Every truth we live my would be shaken to the ground. There's no greater revelation imaginable, no greater scientific discovery.”

“You already believe, Mulder. What difference would it make? I mean, what would proof change for you?” She really wants to know. She doesn't have any reason to keep searching, it won't change what little life she has left. She wants to go to dinner parties with her family and spend time with her best friend on the weekend. Proving the existence of extraterrestrials is pretty low on her list of goals. And she just, she just. She just wants to understand why it's so high on Mulder's.

He says some things about lies and proof and the existence of God--and she can understand that, because she is staring the probability of God and an afterlife right in the face, and she thinks she can at least understand why her mother invited Father McCue to dinner. But it doesn't change her answer. She saw her oncologist after work on Thursday; she doesn't have long. “I can't go with you, Mulder,” she says, and almost tells him why.

“Can you at least take a look at those core samples? Tell me if they're a lie? That's all I'm asking.”

She can do that.

---

She studies the ice core, looking for evidence. The lab tech offers to do further testing, and she agrees to come back later and meet him. She goes to meet Bill and her mother for lunch, finishes up some paperwork at the office. A wreck backs up the traffic on her way back to the lab; by the time she reaches her destination, she's twenty minutes late.

A man she doesn't recognize is in the mostly empty lab, at the computer. “Excuse me, I'm looking for Dr. Vitagliano,” she says politely. The man doesn't say anything. “Dr. Vitagliano, is he here?” she prods.

“No, I'm afraid not,” the man says dismissively.

“I'm supposed to meet him here,” says Scully. “Actually, I'm a little late.”

“Sorry,” the man says hurriedly. Blowing her off. He turns to leave, taking the tube that the ice core samples were in with him. She watches dubiously but lets him go; maybe he works for Vitagliano. She moves further into the lab and see the refrigerator open, the other tubes shifted in place and one lying on its side. She jogs to the door, looks up and down the hall and sees the door to the stairwell closing. Behind that door, she finds an empty stairwell, another door. She rattles the doorknob of the other door and finds it locked.

The door suddenly flies open, catching her in the side and shoving her backwards into the opposite wall through pure momentum. Dazed, she scrambles to her feet and towards the strange man. They struggle for a moment and all of a sudden she's falling, tumbling down the stairs and landing hard on the concrete floor. The door at the top of the stairs slams shut behind the man.

They send an ambulance when she calls for help; they find her still lying in the place where she landed because she couldn't find the motivation to move. Everything hurts. They ask about her emergency contact, which is Mulder, and she tells them not to call him. She has no idea where he is. “Call my mother,” she says. “The number's listed.”

They check her out at the hospital and lecture her about taking it easy, about taking time off of work. When she takes off her blouse to trade it for a hospital gown, she finds blood dotting the back.

Her brother shows up with a shirt and an apologetic look. “What are you doing here?” she asks, feeling strangely defensive. She loves Bill, is very glad to see him, but he's played such a small part in her adult life. He didn't even come to see her when she was in the hospital after her abduction because he was discharged somewhere overseas. She isn't used to Bill looming in doorways disapprovingly.

“I picked up the phone when you called Mom's. They said you could use a change of clothes,” Bill says, passing her the shirt.

“Thank you,” Scully says, taking it. “Um… where's Mom?”

“I didn't tell Mom what happened,” he says. She says nothing, continuing to button her shirt. She looks away. “So, what did happen?” Bill prompts.

“I was, uh… knocked down a flight of stairs.” She shrugs, still looking at the ground. “But I'm okay, luckily.” She shrugs a little again, looking up at Bill.

“You're not okay, Dana,” says Bill, and it's too much like what she always, always hears from Mulder. She looks at the ground. She sighs, slow, and looks at him again. He's giving her the sympathetic look she's gotten so used to seeing. “I know about your cancer.”

“I told Mom not to tell you,” she mumbles, avoiding eye contact.

“Why?” Bill urges.

She sighs again, looking at the wall, the ceiling, and him again. This is too hard. “Because it's very personal,” she says out loud. Because I didn't want to pull you away from your work. Because I haven't seen you since Missy’s funeral and I didn't know if you'd come. You didn't come the last time I was dying. He's looking at her with hurt, with disappointment. “Because I don't want sympathy,” she adds.

“You think you can cure yourself,” says Bill, shaking his head in disapproval, and he is still stepping into the role of their father, he still thinks he's in charge. It still drives her crazy. “Mom tells me that you've gotten worse, that your cancer's gone into your bloodstream. What are you doing at work, getting knocked down, beaten up? What are you trying to prove? That you're gonna go out fighting?”

“Oh, now come on, Bill,” she protests immediately, because what he's saying is too much like what she's been telling herself these past few weeks.

He steps closer, anger visible on his face. “Do you know what Mom is going through?” he demands, and it hurts worse than falling down those stairs, worse than the headaches that have become almost constant now. “Why do you think I didn't tell her when they called?”

“What should I be doing?” she demands right back.

“We have a responsibility! Not just to ourselves, but to the people in our lives!”

“Hey, look,” she protests, “just because I haven't bared my soul to you, or to Father McCue, or to God, it doesn't mean that I'm not responsible to what's important to me!”

“To what? To who? This guy, Mulder?” She wants to flinch but she won't let herself. “Well, where is he, Dana? Where is he through all this?”

He still looks furious. She just stares at him. She stares until it's too hard to look, and then she turns away. “Thank you for coming,” she murmurs, scooping up the clothes and turning to leave.

“Dana…” Bill tries, from somewhere behind him. The door smacks shut behind her.

(She'd like to tell herself that she doesn't need anyone. She'd like to be strong enough to say that she wants people to go about their everyday lives, that she wants Mulder to be Mulder and treat her the way he always has. But Mulder is infuriatingly Mulder, and his quest takes precedence over most else as usual, and she can't take it anymore. She needs the parts of Mulder who is strong and sympathetic and there to hold her hand, but those parts come with the whole, the ditching and the disappearing and the constant danger to himself, and she can't admit that she needs him anymore than she could admit that she doesn't. Maybe that's the reason she's still holding on.)

Scully changes in the bathroom. When she comes out, Bill is gone. She'd like to say she's grateful, but she isn't that either.

---

A tech at the FBI helps her track down her attacker, one Michael Kritschgau. She tracks him down in a parking garage, starts to arrest him. “If you arrest me, they'll kill me,” Kritschgau protests as she frisks him.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she snaps.

“The same people who are trying to kill you. The people who gave you your cancer,” he says, and she starts to listen.

The story he tells is too real, too accurate. He gets every detail right: her abduction, the death of Missy and Mulder's father, the black oil, her cancer… Every single thing matches. A string of deception, lies meant to guide Mulder in the opposite direction. Aliens aren't real. She'd like to say she always knew, but all she can think of is how Mulder will react. How horrified he'll be, how crushed. How he'll refuse to believe it.

They meet Mulder at his apartment, tell him everything, and he doesn't believe them. Of course he doesn't. Kritschgau tells him that the body will be gone and he gets up and walks out.

Scully just stands there for a minute, leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed. Then she turns and heads for the door. “You should go ahead and leave, Mr. Kritschgau,” she says.

Kritschgau stands and walks to the door. “And where will you go?”

“With Mulder,” she says. To prove him wrong one last time. But she feels no joy in this. She doesn't know if she ever has.

Mulder barely acknowledges her when she catches up to him. Just unlocks his car and says harshly, “I'm surprised you want to waste your time like this, Scully.”

She bites her lip hard. “It's not a waste of my time, Mulder,” she says, balling her hands in her pockets. “I'm doing this for you.”

He opens the door roughly. “If you were doing anything for me,” he says, voice like sandpaper, “than you wouldn't believe a word that man says.”

Scully digs her fingernails into the cotton of her pocket, says, “You wanted the truth, Mulder. Well, I'm trying to deliver.”

He stares away from her, eyes hard, jaw clenched, and nods once before getting in the car. She rounds the front of the car and gets in the other side. They don't talk on the way to the warehouse.

They find what she expected at the warehouse--nothing. “Dr. Arlinsky?” Mulder calls, approaching the empty autopsy slab and shuffling through the ice and layers of plastic urgently. “It's gone,” he says.

Scully walks past him, surveying the room. She finds a body, says, “Mulder.”

Mulder walks over to join her and groans when he sees the body, blue scrubs stained with red over his heart, unseeing eyes, kneeling beside it. “What?” she asks, concerned.

“It's Arlinsky,” Mulder says grimly. “He's dead.” He closes his eyes briefly before standing up.

Scully notices another body in a tub of water, eyes shut under water tinged red, says, “So is this man.” Mulder walks over to look and immediately winces at the sight. “Who did this, Mulder?” she asks, and he turns and walks away. “Mulder?” she calls.

“What we had here was proof, Scully,” says Mulder, his voice thick. “There's no way it could be anything else.”

“You said it yourself, Mulder--more tests needed to be run.”

He stops and turns back to look at her. “Yeah, but the ice core samples checked out. If the ice hasn't been tampered with, how could the body within be a fake?”

“Cellular material found in the ice core samples were a direct match for what this man Kritschgau described. Hybrid cells, chimeras within the matrix.”

“Do we know for sure that those cells are not extraterrestrial?” he asks, frustrated.

“Mulder, everything this man described--you can't just guess at these details. I'm sorry, but the facts here completely overwhelm any argument against them.”

“Facts overwhelmed by the lies created to support them,” says Mulder stubbornly.

“Mulder, the only lie here is the one that you continue to believe,” she says, weary.

He's hurt, she can see it all over his face. He says fiercely, “After all I've seen and experienced, I refuse to believe that it's not true.”

“Because it's easier to believe the lie, isn't it?” she says coldly.

“What the hell did that guy say to you, that you believe his story?” Mulder demands.

She inhales. “He said the men behind this hoax, behind these lies, gave me this disease to make you believe.”

He's silent. He doesn't say anything in return. The hurt on his face is subtle and audible all at once. All the fight has gone out of him. He turns and walks away, and she doesn't call out to him. She doesn't move. In Kritschgau’s mouth, those words sounded like a confirmation. In her mouth, they sound like an accusation. Out of anyone else's mouth, it might’ve been. Out of Bill’s, out of her mother's Out of Scully's mouth, it is just a plea. Stop, Mulder. Please. Listen to me. But she didn't mean to break him. She never wanted that.

She doesn't run after him. She wouldn't know what to say. How to apologize. She calls a cab, rattles off her location, and finally goes outside to wait, shoes clicking against the pavement. When she gets outside, Mulder is gone.

She doesn't know where to go, but she knows she doesn't want to go home. She goes to her mother's instead. It's late, and her mother answers the door in a bathrobe. “Dana, honey,” she says. “Is everything okay?”

“Did I wake you up?” Her nose is burning; she sniffles and wraps her coat tighter around her. It's too cold, even in May.

“No, I've been awake. Bill's asleep--you know him, he can sleep through anything.” Her mother laughs, too lightly. She's trying to stay positive. Scully sniffles again and wipes her eyes. “Dana, sweetie?” Her mother touches her arm. “What's wrong?”

Scully swallows hard against the lump in her throat. “I'm really sorry, Mom,” she says, and her voice breaks.

“Oh, honey.” Her mother pulls her inside to embrace her. Scully hugs her mother tightly, leans into her and lets herself cry.

They end up on the couch. Her mother brushes hair off of her face when she apologizes again, wipes her cheeks and says, “Dana, this is hard on everyone. But I know you. You're doing the best you can.” Her voice is trembling like she might cry, too, but her smile is sincere.

Scully takes a deep breath, leaning into the back of the couch. “Mom,” she says uncertainly. “If I told you… that the reason I'm ill is because of the work I do with Mulder… would you blame him?”

Her mother's face morphs, uncertain, and she smooths her hair again and again. “Do you?” she says quietly.

Scully remembers Mulder's guilt at her abduction, her cross pooling in the palm of her hand and his voice, gentle, when he assured her it didn't matter if she didn't remember anything. She remembers his reassurance after Melissa’s death, the way he'd given her space to grieve, the way he'd carried himself like he was blaming himself. She remembers him holding her in the hospital, telling her they'd find the men who'd done this to her. She remembers his guilt, soaking everything like a rainfall, after that night in Quonochontaug. She remembers his face, just an hour ago in the warehouse.

“No,” she says, and means it. “No, I don't.”

---

She goes home later, weary in the implications of the evening and the sharp pains in her bones. She checks for voice mails and finds none, goes into her bedroom and starts to take her shirt off before Mulder's voice cuts through the room and scares her half to death: “Keep going, FBI woman.”

She jumps, turning to find him sitting behind her. “Mulder? What are you doing? Why are you sitting in my bedroom in the dark?”

“It was too crowded in my apartment, I couldn't sleep,” he says.

“I'm not kidding, Mulder.”

“Good, ‘cause neither am I. There's a dead man on the floor of my apartment,” he says, crossing the room to her window. “It's only a matter of time before he starts to stink the place up.”

“What are you talking about, Mulder? What's going on?”

He shuts the blinds on the window with a whoosh. “Apparently somebody thinks my life is interesting enough to put on videotape,” he says, turning on a lamp and coming over to her. “My apartment's been under an electronic surveillance for at least 2 months. Look at this. Courtesy of the US government.” He shows her the ID card of a Scott Ostelhoff, Department of Defense.

“That's the dead man in your apartment?” she asks.

“Yeah. He works…” Mulder pauses, continues, “He worked for the Department of Defense.”

“How did he die, Mulder?” she asks warily.

“Gunshot wound to the face.”

Incredulously, she asks, “Have you contacted anyone at the Bureau?”

“I can't do that, Scully. I can't go to the authorities with this,” he replies, frustrated.

“What are you talking about?”

“This man, Ostelhoff, worked for the military,” he says. “Are you beginning to get the picture? Do you see what's happening here?”

“That the hoax is connected to the military, just like Kritschgau said it was.”

“This hoax, your cancer, everything! It just doesn't lead back to the military, it leads right back to the FBI.”

Shocked, she says, “What?” in disbelief.

“I have proof, Scully. Come with me, I'll show you.” He motions for her to follow and she does, into the dark dining room. Mulder flips on the light, saying, “This man, Ostelhoff, was set up in the apartment directly above mine.” He sets papers down on the table as Scully sits. “I caught him trying to destroy phone records on which the same number was called 17 times.”

She takes the small paper in her hand, scanning it. “This is the PBX operator at the Bureau,” she says, recognizing.

“Yeah,” he mutters, stepping away from the table.

“Who'd he be calling at the FBI?” she wants to know.

“I don't know.”

“Mulder, how long has this been going on?”

“Maybe since the beginning, since you joined me on the X-Files.”

“That would mean that for 4 years we've been nothing more than pawns in a game, that it was a lie from the beginning.” Mulder says nothing. “Mulder, these men…” she says, nearly laughing from the insaneness of it all. “You give them your faith and you're supposed to trust them with your life.”

“There are those who can be trusted,” he says, crouching beside her. “What I need to know is who among them is not. I will not allow this treason to prosper, not if they've done this to you.”

“Mulder, we can't go to the Bureau making these accusations.”

“No. But as they lie to us, we can lie to them. A lie to find the truth.”

She looks down at him, sincere and determined with a plan already running through his head. She knows him, and he won't give up. “What do you have in mind?”

He touches her hand but doesn’t make a move to take it, looks up at her seriously. “That body in my apartment, Scully… they won’t know it’s me. It’s unidentifiable. If you tell them that it is me, they’ll think I’m dead, that I committed suicide. And that’ll give me time.”

It sounds insane. She swallows hard. “Time to do what?”

“To break into the Department of Defense. I have Ostelhoff’s card, I can get in. It’ll work.” He’s so earnest, so eager, and it makes her want to put her arms around him. “I can find the people who did this to you, and I can take them down.”

She turns her hand up under his so that they’re matching palms, but makes no move to take it. “Mulder, that’s noble of you,” she says finally, “but I can’t let you…”

“It’s the only way, Scully,” he says empathetically, hand pressing into hers. “We’ll never be able to get those people otherwise. And I owe it to you, to your family… this is something that can’t wait.”

She swallows hard. “You’ll go to prison.”

“Only if I get caught,” he says. His palm is warm, the lines of it more familiar than she ever would've guessed. “And even if I do, it’s a small price to pay.”

She meets his eyes, dark and swollen with emotion. She swallows again. “Mulder, I can’t ask you to do that for me,” she whispers.

“You’re not,” he says firmly. “I’m asking you to do something for me.”

She looks down at their hands, pressed together. “All right,” she whispers, looking back at him. “I’ll do it.”

His face flushes slightly, the hint of a smile tugging at his mouth. They don’t say anything.

She breaks the silence, standing. “It’s late, and you should get some sleep before you go. I’ll make up the couch.”

She turns to go into the living room and his hand curls around hers. “I'm sorry, Scully,” he mumbles. His fingers are calloused and too familiar, his thumb rubbing circles on the lines of her palm. She shivers. “I'm so sorry.”

She doesn't pull away. “For what, Mulder?” she murmurs, turning back to face him. He's standing now, close enough that she can feel all of his body heat.

“For… everything, God. For-for what I said to you after the case at the bowling alley. For Rhode Island, for almost… almost shooting…” He falters, his free hand coming up to her cheek. She inhales sharply as he tucks a strand of hair behind her cheek. “God, Scully, and you're sick because of me,” he croaks sharply.

“That's not…” She gulps and pulls her hand out of his. “That's not what I… Mulder, I didn't mean it like that.”

His eyes are dark; he looks to be on the verge of tears. “It's the truth, though,” he mumbles. “Out of all of the things I'm uncertain about right now, Scully, that is one thing I'm completely confident about. It's my fault you're…” He swallows off the word (dying) and throws in a half-hearted, “Sick,” instead.

She swallows. She can't stand it when he does this. “It's not.”

“It is.” He's nodding.

She crosses her arms tightly over her chest. “It's not,” she hisses through her teeth. She doesn’t know why that makes her so angry, but it does. It is not his goddamn fault and it makes her furious that he thinks it is. “You don't get to be the martyr of the fucking world, Mulder.”

He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing, and she can see the hurt flash across his face. “I'm not…”

“You drill goddamn holes in your head for your sister, almost get yourself killed. Almost get me killed.” She scrubs the air with her hands furiously. The words spill out of her mouth, unthinking, every bitter thing she’s thought over the past two weeks. It's an avalanche and she can't stop it. “And now you're, what, you're going to fake your own death to go looking for a cure for me? It's insane, Mulder, you'll go to prison if you're caught. You're risking everything, and for what? Am I just another cause to add to your list? Something else you can torture and almost kill yourself over?” She regrets it as soon as she says it, she knows that's not the case, he said it a few minutes ago.

He closes his eyes and when he opens them, tears are sliding down his face. “Fuck you, Scully,” he mumbles. “You know it's not like that. You know…”

“Do I, Mulder?” she snaps. She can still remember how much it all hurt: the accusations of her working against him, the gun pointed at her and his furious nodding when she asked if he was going to shoot her. “Let's just look at the past few weeks. Let's look at everything that's happened. You accused me of working against you, yo-you ran off to Rhode Island and almost got yourself killed…”

“You're right!” he nearly shouts. “I did! You're right! I almost killed you, Scully, and I hate myself for it. Is that what you want to hear?”

“No!” she hisses. “That's not at all what I want to hear, Mulder.”

“Well, what the hell do you want?” He motions wildly, jaw clenched hard, cheeks wet. “Do you want me to give up? Do you want me to just sit by and let you get worse? Do you want me to do nothing when I can do something? Is that what you want?”

“No, Mulder. I want…” She swallows hard. Tomorrow, she’ll be telling people he committed suicide. Murder-suicide, she’d thought to herself again and again in that attic. It’s one of her worst fears, losing him. “I don't know what I want. I don't… I don't want you to blame yourself for things you didn't have any control over. I want you to stop blaming yourself for things that aren't your fault, Mulder. I don't want you to pile up all this-this pent-up guilt until it makes you crumble. I don't want you to run off to Rhode Island and almost get yourself killed just because we had a fight.” She swallows hard, eyes burning.

“That wasn't the reason,” he whispers.

Her teeth are clenched so hard her jaw hurts. “And then you run off to Canada because you can't face the fact that you almost shot me…” she says, voice too harsh in her own throat.

“I almost killed you, Scully,” he says, and his eyes are closed again. His voice is shaking, tears still rolling down his face. “You're dying because of me, and I almost killed you, and it's too hard, Scully. It's too fucking hard to watch you die.”

She doesn't say anything. She doesn't know what to say.

“I don't… I don't do well with grief,” he mumbles. “It's no excuse, but I don't. I don't want to think about the fact that you're dying, Scully.” He swallows, scraping a hand over his face. “I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have said those things I said to you at the Spuller case, I shouldn't have called you in Rhode Island…”

“Yes, you should have,” she says, and every part of her body hurts. He doesn't understand, he still doesn't understand. “You should have called me. God, Mulder, you would've died…”

“You're… dying,” he says like it hurts. “Because of me. It's my fault.”

“No, it's not,” she says. “I shouldn't have said that, Mulder, I didn't mean it… I didn't know how else to get through to you. I didn't know how to make you understand. You'd kill yourself for this cause, and I wanted you to understand… Mulder, I have to go tell people that you killed yourself tomorrow, and I can't… I'm worried you're… not going to be okay. After I die.” Her face is wet, and he flinches at her words. She wraps her arms around herself. “Mulder, I've watched you destroy yourself… the only reason I stayed in that attic last week is because I was afraid of what would happen to you. You can't… I don't want you to follow me.” She gulps back a sob, sniffles a little. Mulder is staring at her, eyes wide and wet. “I don't want you to blame yourself. I don't want you to ruin yourself, Mulder. I want you to be okay.”

They're still standing too close; she closes the distance between them and wraps her arms around him tightly. He holds her tentatively, one hand coming up to cup the back of her head. This is it, she thinks. She doesn't know what’ll happen tomorrow, this might be the last time she sees him. This might be the last chance she has to say everything that needs to be said. Her fingernails dig hard into his shoulders. “Promise me, Mulder,” she mumbles into his shirt. “Promise me you won't do something stupid when this is all over. Please.”

He's stroking her hair a little, motion gentle as if he's afraid she'll break. “I don't know what I'd do without you,” he whispers, voice trembling. “Scully…”

“You'll keep going,” she says. “You're strong, I know you are. You'll keep going because you have to. You need to find your sister, and I know you will. You'll find the truth, Mulder.”

“Scully,” he whispers brokenly.

“You'll be okay.” She sniffs, hugging him tighter. “I need you to be okay. I need you to promise me.”

He takes a shaky breath, pressing his nose into her hair. “I promise,” he mumbles.

She presses her cheek into his chest, holds him the way she did in the Quonochontaug attic. “I'm sorry,” she whispers. “Mulder, I'm…”

“I know,” he mumbles to her scalp. “I am, too.” They hold each other tightly in the dim yellow of her dining room.

She thinks, for a split second, about kissing him, but ultimately decides against it. She can't do that to him and leave. And besides, they're both tired and overemotional. They're not in their right minds.

Mulder presses a lengthy kiss to the top of her head and she hugs him hard one time before pulling back. “Tomorrow's gonna be a long day,” she murmurs, reaching up and pushing hair off of his face. His eyes slip closed under her touch. “We should get some rest.”

He swallows. His hand is still on the back of her head. “Yeah, okay.”

“I'll make up the couch.” Her fingers brush over his forehead before she turns away.

She makes up the couch and he crawls in under the blankets. She's unable to leave for a few minutes, overwhelmed with the urge to crawl in beside him. “Goodnight, Mulder,” she says finally.

“Good night, Scully.” He catches at her hand, gently, as she passes and squeezes her fingers. “It's going to be okay,” he says softly, determined. “You're not going to die.”

“Mulder…” she tries. She thinks about telling him that her cancer has metastasized.

“There's a cure out there somewhere,” he says firmly. “And I'm going to find it. I am not going to let this happen to you.” He squeezes her hand hard. “I promise you that.”

She looks down at him sadly, smiles a little. “Good night, Mulder,” she says again softly.

He leans down close to her hand, his nose brushing over her knuckles, his breath tickling her palm for a second before he lets go. “Good night, Scully.”

#i kind of hate this but hey #xf fanfic #xf rewatch #i wrote this

61 notes · View notes