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randomfoggytiger · 1 year

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The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part IX): Tena Mulder's Suicide and Saving Mulder from Himself

The last of the Mulder Family analyses is here!

Without further ado, here we go~.

Sein und Zeit

While Mulder is investigating a child disappearance that parallels his sister's too closely, his phone rings. He springs up to answer it, vibrating with energy and ready to tackle the next lead. However, he's pulled up short when Tena answers with a soft "Fox? It's me" to his "Mulder" greeting.

His voice immediately softens (“Mom? Hi.”)

Tena immediately launches into the purpose of her call, telling him: “I’m watching the news. That little girl in California-- you’re out there, aren’t you?” Despite the distance in their relationship, she knows her son and his mad pursuit for answers, correctly deducing Mulder would be compelled to solve this case out of a sense of empathy, absolution, or both.

He can’t deny it; though he reflexively shrinks from wanting to discuss a case so close to their pressure points.

“Yes”, he admits, a mix between trepidation, hesitation, and a little shame. “I am.”

Either as a deflection or as a gentle probe into her welfare, Mulder asks “Are you okay, Mom?”

Tena demurs: “When are you coming back here?”

Mulder snaps upright, possibly a little shocked she would care to know anything about his routines.

“Well, I’m not sure, I, y’know, I-I…I dunno.”

“Call when you get back, Fox.”

Tena is tense-- knitted brows and troubled eyes-- but doesn’t betray it in her voice as she bids her son goodbye.

Mulder promises-- “Okay, I will. Um, you take care, Mom--” and hangs up as fast as he can, gritting his jaw slightly.

It’s obvious that, while he loves his mother, the blind trust he had given her regarding his emotions has not recovered. Since Demons's separation and Amor Fati's mild reconnection, the fracture has not fully healed, or even really started to. Mulder knows that his mom loves him; but even when he was comatose, Tena never dropped her pride enough to verbally tell her son that she loved him (she didn't know he could read minds so her confession was only incidental; and while it was nice to know she loved him, Mulder probably felt more hurt that she wouldn’t say it before she signed him over to the man that cut his brain open.) And after Amor Fati it seems the gap has still not been bridged.

While this is sad, it's a huge step for Mulder. He is not letting himself be taken advantage of or duped anymore: there are firm boundaries in place, including when he schedules his life around his mom. Before he would have dropped everything in the midst of an intense and interesting case and flown immediately to her side; now, he has placed her importance firmly where she has placed his in her life. Mulder may have forgiven Tena in the wake of his enlightening experiences while trapped in his own mind, but he has not forgotten.

Tena hears his sharp disconnect,

and hangs up the phone, caught up in her own thoughts as well.

It’s revealed she has been gazing at a photo of her children--

the very same photo CSM had in Redux II--

and contemplating something that her son is not aware of (yet.)

She is also clearly wearing a wedding ring on her left ring finger,

meaning one of many options (or all of them):

1. She kept Bill Mulder’s ring and wore it anyway post divorce. This would be odd because she didn’t wear it previously.

2. She put her wedding ring back on to create a comfort zone of nostalgia: Mrs. Mulder again, with her doting son by her side-- an ode to a happier, more familial time. It would bring a little cheer to the present so that she and her son would have an easier time making peace with her approaching death.

3. She, like the Mulder men, like to wear random wedding rings without being married to anyone. It’s a pattern (seen in the episode Travelers-- post here-- where Bill Mulder and Fox Mulder wear bands without documents or timelines to legally bind them to a wife.)

4. She got married? And her husband was just some guy in the background who was literally shoved out of any room Mulder (and the camera) walked into. Maybe there’s a random guy named Joe who spent an afternoon being shoved around by the investigative team and ignored by everyone else.

While Tena stares at her children, she swallows before stretching her neck: steeling herself against unwanted emotion.

The next we see of Tena she is looking at her emptied photograph frames while leaving a message on Mulder's answering machine:

“Fox, it’s your mother. I’d hoped you’d call upon your return, but I haven’t heard from you. I’m sure you’re busy. There are… so many emotions in me I wouldn’t know where to start. So much I’ve left unsaid for reasons I hope one day you’ll understand.”

As her words play overhead, Tena takes the infamous photo of her children,

plucks it from its frame,

and proceeds to burn it.

As she gazes at the disappearing photo, Tena sighs, tries the straighten-your-back-to-contain-your-emotions trick; but she loses some ground to the fight (crunching her shoulders up, lowering her head, and pinching her face a bit more.)

Mulder is informed sometime soon after that his mother is dead.

Tena Mulder, even in her last moments, was a selfish woman. While Bill Mulder was cowardly and quailed under the iron fist of the Consortium, buddying up with ex-Nazis and sitting on the sidelines while his colleagues hushed up and obliterated the lives of innocent people to keep themselves from being exposed, Tena railed, raged, and finally stewed. If she couldn’t have it the way she wanted-- a happy family life, no abductions, no affairs to taint her moral code-- then she wouldn’t remember any of it. This led her to systematically cut everyone from her life that served as a reminder to everything she wished to forget: her CSM lover (before her daughter was even abducted, post here), her ex-husband (laying all blame at his feet and none at her own, post here), her son (post here.) It’s not simply a matter of burning her children’s photos-- although that’s bad enough. In destroying her past, she destroyed her son’s as well; and with it destroyed any tie Mulder had to his earlier happy childhood, something he always remembered fondly and wanted to recapture through his quest to recover his sister. While Tena viewed her actions as taking control of what she was robbed of by burning up all the lies she lived in the process, she threw in the good with the bad; and cast her baggage onto Mulder, leaving him with wounds grown deeper and deeper and robbing him of the last proof of his former life, family, and sister he treasured.

Mulder and Scully drive up to Tena’s place, navigating their way through the team of investigators. As he numbly walks around the kitchen, Mulder curls in on himself; and when that doesn’t provide enough comfort, he sticks his hand into his mouth like a small, confused child trying to self-soothe.

His mother held a huge place in Mulder’s life, as evidenced by his raw anguish and vulnerability. All those years, their bond was wound tight by their mutual trauma-- but Mulder spent his childhood wrapping his mother in a metaphorical trauma blanket while punishing himself for her pain and for his sister’s abduction. He never had a chance to be taken care of or given support to process his own trauma; and, in his own words, he’s “still walking into that room” every day of his life.

Mulder wilts even more as he’s handed Tena’s suicide pills and explained she used them in conjunction with the gas stove:

Tena left no final note.

Mulder doesn’t see the sense or logic in any of her actions; and wanders around her bedroom, lost, looking for something but not knowing what. Finally, he sits before he falls to pieces, trying to center himself and think more clearly.

As Mulder relates Tena's phone call to Scully, a new theory pops into his head-- the White Whale, the elusive and uncatchable beam of light he can forever chase to keep the ugly realities of his life at bay-- that she had been subdued and killed.

He rushes into this theory with renewed vigor. When emotions start to bubble to the surface again, almost drowning out his words, he uses his hands to demonstrate to Scully what to look for in his mother’s autopsy--

becoming insistent when Scully begs him not to ask her to perform it. His voice is deceptively upbeat, cheerful, a late-stage effect of teaching himself not to upset his mother (or anyone else) with his emotions in times of crisis. Internally, he’s bleeding; externally, he’s ignoring the wound and pursuing the chase. There’s an addictive quality to his hunt for answers: a simultaneous distraction from his needs and a focus for him to stave off discouraged apathy with life’s continual beat downs. He has yet to develop an effective coping strategy (though he has improved a lot since One Breath) since he is so used to running around, half-bandaged, shouting oaths at the world for justice (or vengeance.) As long as there is something to fight for (as his subconscious demonstrated when Amor Fati dream Scully ordered him to “Get up and fight”), Mulder will keep going. Unfortunately, this goal has driven many a more stable and healthily functioning person straight into single-minded madness.

Tena knew these things about her son and still did what she did.

The worst thing about Tena’s uncommunicated suicide is that it pushed Mulder further into unhealthy coping mechanisms: he immediately discounts the evidence,

believing it has been planted and that his mother was murdered. Mulder then jumps to conspiracies, insisting Scully prove him right by autopsying his mother.

Tena's final act put her son in a very, very precarious position: either he pursues her murderers to his grave (an expanded clause on his Samantha Recovery Pact), or fold in on himself in blame, crushed forever. Her death is an unexpected, piercing grief that only serves (despite whatever her intentions were) to strengthen Mulder's one-sided purpose. Not only that, but with the case he was working on and the guilt of his mother’s death (and tangentially Samantha’s abduction) combined, Mulder would have been eaten alive with his belief that Tena's death was preventable and entirely his fault: he had driven up for his dad the night he died-- why hadn't he at least called his mom back? Especially when she had finally, finally, reached out to reconnect with him? Mulder would have concluded that his mother had died thinking that he didn't love or care about her, the ultimate stake in his heart. Always his fault. Always too late. Always a failure that loses his family and gets them killed.

The last we ever hear from Tena Mulder is her phone message Mulder replays over and over. His hyper-focus on trying to decode her words, find a secret somewhere between her sentences, is a failure; and before he can further lose himself in this untruth, his partner saves him. If Scully had not been someone Mulder trusted above all else, he likely would have discredited her autopsy and driven himself crazy. It’s Scully who gives him a modicum of peace about his mother’s death: having suffered a painful, deadly illness herself, she understands the muddied logic of the dying; and she uses Mulder’s trust in her to convince him that his mother did commit suicide because she simply wanted the pain (all of it) to end. While that may or may not be true, Scully believed it for him, so Mulder believed in her.

With no one to blame and no other explanation out of this nightmarish reality, Mulder collapses in grief. It's here we see how devastated, helpless, and toothless Mulder is without his pursuit. Scully saves Mulder from a fate worse than Tena's death, helping him to finally address his injury and start to heal it (and others that it was bleeding over into.) Without her, Mulder would not have been ready to accept Samantha's final gift of peace in Closure.

It’s interesting to reflect on Tena and her husband’s variations on neglect. Bill Mulder created a lot of early damage in his son by erecting immovable barriers between himself and young Mulder. While it was motivated from deep fear of his inabilities and cowardice from confronting his past, Bill at least reached out when he could no longer escape from exposure. In his final hours, he tried to give his son closure, even opening himself up emotionally and revealing his pride that his son was a better man than he. In contrast, Tena was close with her son-- doting, loving, and sharing a bond with him that was layered with trauma and affection (see post here.) Her neglect was emotional: Mulder learned that he had to suppress himself emotionally to care for his broken mother. This set him up for too much reliance and dependence in relationships, leaving him to be easily exploited by others (Phoebe, Diana, Krycek, etc.) and a gun-shy attitude towards emotional vulnerability (see post here.) But, most crucially, when Mulder needed honesty from Tena about her past-- ready to listen empathetically and eager to forgive-- she expunged him from her life, not reentering it for almost three years (not even for his faked suicide); and still maintained a distance that was all her own doing. Both of Mulder’s parents failed him; but in very different ways.

So ends Tena Mulder: the person who molded Fox Mulder into the man he is today with all his virtues and faults, tenderness and stubborn insistence, empathetically bleeding heart and faulty coping mechanisms. While she had been an important part to him for almost all of her son’s life, their final years were filled with too many words left unsaid.

Mentions:

Tena was mentioned once or twice more-- in Within, Mulder visits Raleigh (where she was buried) "every week" and buys a tombstone by her grave (the evidence on that is small, but was never disproven-- or thoroughly questioned-- canonically); and we are shown her grave when Mulder’s “dead” body is buried in Deadalive. (The only other maybe? reference to Tena might be in connection to the doll Mulder gifts Scully in Empedocles: we don’t know its origin, but it's reasonable to assume it was a family heirloom-- likely belonging to Samanatha at some point-- that was stored at the Vineyard. If so, at least Tena didn't burn it.)

We have reached the end of the Mulder Family saga, concluding with Tena's suicide and the impact of this decision on her son. While their relationship started out strong, her excommunication completely nuked it; and her curated, preservative selfishness prevented any further reconnection that she could have had in her final years. She was a woman who adored her son, could shout down CSM and live to tell the tale (post here), and had self-preserving instincts so fierce she could cut someone from her life and never look back. A flawed, neglectful, and stunted person; but one who wasn't evil so much as complicated.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy~

#txf #x-files #The Mulder Family In-Depth #Part VIII #meta #Tena's Suicide Could Have Destroyed Mulder Forever #the x files #xf meta #analysis #Tena #Teena Mulder #Mulder #S7 #Sein und Zeit #S8 #Within #Deadalive #Empedocles #mine

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asifyoudidntknow · 2 years

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I miss you, fic + Adele lyrics

Go easy on me (pun intended), friends. Here is my very first fanfic. I love Adele's song "I miss you" from her 25 album. Whenever I hear it I can't help but think of msr. This fic was born after listening to it on repeat. @today-in-fic

I want every single piece of you I want your heaven and your oceans too Treat me soft but touch me cruel I wanna teach you things you never knew, baby

Bring the floor up to my knees Let me fall into your gravity Then kiss me back to life to see Your body standing over me

When he had busted down his door to find Scully lying on her back, dead still, red blood soaking her chest, he took a sharp intake of breath, but forgot to exhale. The blood was a stark contrast to her bright white blouse and it’s presence a reminder that he had been one step behind Padgett in his psychic game of ludicrousness. Padgett silently stalking Scully, sending her a milagro, then confronting her with his lovelorn thoughts, it made his head ache. Padgett then faced with the realization that Scully’s heart was already spoken for. What a goddamn parody. Mulder refuses to let her sacred heart bleed out for him. He will race to Antartica, make a deal with the devil for the chip that cured her cancer, but he draws the line at fucking with her God. When Scully’s eyes fly open the relief flooding through both of them is palpable. As she claws at him, in shock, and visibly shaken, he realizes how much she needs him. She needs him in ways which he is not sure he is capable of providing. And that scares him.

Baby, don't let the lights go down Baby, don't let the lights go down Baby, don't let the lights go down Lights go down, lights go down Lights go down, lights go down Down, down, down

I miss you when the lights go out It illuminates all my doubts Pull me in, hold me tight Don't let go, baby, give me light

She is gone. Scully is gone. As he lays in this unknown bed, with this unknown woman, her body foreign, it holds nothing for him, just as he suspects the same could be said for her. The only warmth he feels is the weight of a 14-karat gold cross necklace clasped around his neck. As he lies on his back, the cross falls over his sternum and with each breath moves up and down over his aching skin. He wishes that somehow, with each passing breath, that he could breathe life into this symbol of faith that Scully has found so much comfort in. That this life force could bring her back to the land of the living, to him. Last night both he and Kristen wallowed in their states of unrest, finding solace in each other. One night of releasing the built-up tension. Hers didn’t climax until hours later, on the tall grass covered hills under the morning sun in LA. His is slowly seeping from his body with each passing minute she is gone.

I miss you when the lights go out It illuminates all of my doubts Pull me in, hold me tight Don't let go, baby, give me light

She hangs up the phone and punches her pillow down—whether to fluff it or let out some frustration, she doesn’t know. Actually, she does. Of course Mulder ran off again. This time to a town infested with killer cockroaches. And ran into a woman named Bambi. Who the hell is named Bambi? She feels helpless lying here at home in her warm bed. Mulder is a grown man who can take care of himself, but the way he impulsively jumps headfirst sometimes… she’d be lying if she didn’t admit she’d feel better if she was the one there watching his back. Right now, it’s just Bambi and that does not bring her much, if any, comfort. She knows the innocent flirting and bantering meant nothing this evening--just poking some fun, but when it comes to her partnership with Mulder and her responsibility to him, she does not take that lightly. They each had taken an oath to protect the other. Surely, she can’t rely on Bambi. Oh hell, she better get up there.

I love the way your body moves Towards me from across the room Brushing past my every groove No one has me like you do, baby

Bring your heart, I'll bring my soul But be delicate with my ego I wanna step into your great unknown With you and me setting the tone

Of all the moments of his existence, Mulder will never, ever forget the night Scully came to him. Or the way she felt that night. Every single detail is etched into his eidetic memory. The feather light brush of her hair against his skin, the catch of the moonlight in the blue pools of her eyes, the sound of her moan as he entered her for the first time. Heat, friction, oneness. He’s been married to Scully in every other way for so many years, yet not physically. This joining makes him want to throw himself on his knees and kiss the feet of whatever deity gave her this epiphany. He put the ball in her court on this one. He has been ready since that mind altering fungus fucked with his brain and was further sealed when his thoughts intermingled with her deepest fears and desires. It was only a matter of when. He has learned that it is best not to push with her —she usually retreats, but to let her come to her own decision in due time. Scully does not rush, nor does she leave any scenario unturned. Early in their partnership this used to bother him, but over the years he has come to admire and respect that trait. The fact that she came to him is a decision he knows she did not make lightly, and he is in awe of it.

Baby, don't let the lights go down Baby, don't let the lights go down Baby, don't let the lights go down Lights go down, lights go down Lights go down, lights go down Down, down, down

I miss you when the lights go out It illuminates all my doubts Pull me in, hold me tight Don't let go, baby, give me light

It’s 2:53am. Scully finds herself tossing and turning under the sliver of shadows and streetlights dancing through the blinds. The quiet night does not match the inner turmoil she is grappling with. 5 years of the most challenging and astounding work of her career thus far. 5 years of the most challenging and dedicated partnership. She’s been feeling restless lately, both in her career and her partnership. It’s been roadblock after roadblock. Someone always one step ahead in their work. And then there is Mulder. When they had lost their work in the fire and then closed the X-files, he shut down; retreated. Diana had showed up precisely at the right time with her enthusiasm and unwavering belief that aligned with Mulder’s. Needless to say, Scully was not feeling particularly needed. So, this morning when OPR said reassignment she knew she had to make a choice. She would never be challenged enough at some FBI field office across the country, and she didn’t even want to consider who she might be partnered with. Her and Mulder may have had their share of disagreements, but their partnership has always been built on mutual respect and trust. Trusting anyone else within the FBI—especially in the field, seemed absurd. Nothing could hold a candle to the X-files. Or Mulder for that matter. But that was not a matter she wished to dwell on at this hour. Luckily, the knock at her door ensured she wouldn’t have to.

I miss you when the lights go out It illuminates all my doubts Pull me in, hold me tight Don't let go, baby, give me light

We play so dirty in the dark 'Cause we are living worlds apart It only makes it harder, baby It only makes it harder, baby Harder baby, harder baby

I miss you when the lights go out It illuminates all of my doubts Pull me in, hold me tight Don't let go, baby, give me light

He is gone. Mulder is gone. She came to feed his mollies. Keeping them alive is just another act of preserving her faith that he will return. Last time one died under her care she never heard the end of it. She didn’t plan to stay long, forty-two is not the same without Mulder, but when she turns back towards the door an internal tug pulls her in the direction of his bedroom. His bed is still unmade, in haste to leave for the airport probably, yet the rumpled sheets and strewn dress shirt call to her. She slowly picks the shirt up, knowing that this one was discarded because of the stripes. Not Mulder’s first choice. Scully lies down surrounded by him in touch, scent, sight, and sound she begins to relax. Her mind drifts to a week ago when she spent the night here—a tangle of limbs, sweat, and sweet release. She never would have imagined that it may have been the last time she was able to make love with Mulder. She willed herself to focus on the present moment. Deeply breathing in the combination of soap, deodorant and sweat that is so familiar, the crisp and soft feeling of his dress shirt against her cheek, the soft translucent glow of the bedside lamp and the white noise of the bubbling fish tank slowly sink her into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I miss you when the lights go out It illuminates all of my doubts Pull me in, hold me tight Don't let go, baby, give me light

I miss you, I miss you I miss you, I miss you I miss you, I miss you I miss you, I miss you

She misses him. It’s always hardest at night. When it becomes quiet, and she is alone with her thoughts. Her days are busy and filled with surgeries, meetings, research, paperwork, and patient rounds. She rarely has time to think of Mulder, but when she climbs into her cold empty bed—it amplifies the fact that he is not there. She had become so accustomed to him warming the bed before she came home after a long day, his arm slinging over her hip as she curled into him in his half sleep stupor. The middle of the night waking’s when he would slowly whisper how much he missed her and needed her right now. It was good and then, it wasn’t. He would fall asleep on the couch, stopped shaving, his eyes were puffy and hollow. There was no light behind them when he would see her. She tried so hard to help him. Begged him to care for himself. Her worry over him was affecting her work and she needed some space. That’s when she left. She didn’t want to. She never imagined that she would ever do it, but for her sanity it was necessary. Now lying in her cold, empty bed she realizes just how long it’s been. The months turned into years. Years of missing Mulder. She knows he is getting better; she does check in with him from time to time. She knew when the hardness in his voice had started to soften, when she could feel his smile through the phone, the light banter of his teasing returning and his occasional, although more frequent, middle of the night calls. She had become so numb after leaving, but now she ached for him. Ached for his warmth, comfort, and companionship. She misses him and it is overwhelming.

#my fanfic #txf fanfic #msr fanfic #milagro #fight the future #3 #war of the coprophages #all things #within #txf revival #adele lyrics

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