monikafilefan

[monikafilefan]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Je Souhaite (7x21)

Jenn’s boots clack along the basement office floor as she paces. She hadn’t been exaggerating earlier; her faith in humanity has eroded like time. Even while wielding a power so great that it can pluck billions of people from the earth within a single breath, it’s worthless when all she craves is freedom from its chains. 

The exhale from her deep sigh ruffles the bangs of her black bob. After hours of sneaking peeks within stacks of files labeled with an X and nosing through the back room littered with weird sciencey stuff, she can no longer tamp down her general disgruntlement for another second.

Jenn groans beside the desk of the most recent man to unroll her. “While I admit you making an ass of yourself in that bald guy’s office has been the highlight of my last few decades, I’m bored now.”

“Glad one of us was amused,” Agent Mulder huffs as he carefully types out his final wish. “I’d think snooping through the coolest office in the bureau beats being rolled up in a dusty old rug.”

Leaning against a filing cabinet, she blows a lungful of air across its metal surface, sending dust bunnies to the floor. “Think again. There’s no urge to needlessly concern myself with humanity’s stupidity if I’m not granting wishes.” 

“Because we’re chimpanzees with revolvers?”

“Maybe. But you…” Jenn takes a good look around the subterranean room and chuckles. Dozens of pencils stuck in the ceiling dangle above books on Bigfoot behavior and medical mysteries. Behind her, articles on crop circles hang beside a shitty drawing of a naked cave woman pinned to the wall. “How does your partner put up with you?”

He stops typing and gives her a goofy grin. “That’s one mystery that may never be solved.” 

Ah, she thinks, un mystère du coeur.

Jenn gives a disbelieving eyebrow arch. “She’s a tad too territorial to be a mystery to me.”

“Scully?” he scoffs. “She’s not territorial.”

Jenn rolls her eyes. “I don’t need to use power of perception to see she wants me gone. Look, until you make your final wish, you’re both stuck with my presence.”

“I’m working on it.” He spins back around, nodding at the screen riddled with complicated words. 

Jenn leans over his shoulder. “What, are you a lawyer?”

“Well, I have to be with you,” he accuses. “I'm going to get this last wish perfect. I'm not going to leave you any loopholes. Not going to let you interpret this as an edict to bring back the Third Reich or to make everyone's eyes grow on stalks.”

“Oh, geez. And I was so looking forward to that.”

Jenn’s sarcasm slides into amusement as Agent Scully enters the office, spine stiffening with irritation when she sees Jenn looming. But beneath the redhead’s bravado, there’s tenderness there. She tries to hide it, but it’s easy for Jenn to spot in someone else what she tries to hide in herself.

“Skinner called me, Mulder. Is everything all right?” 

Her concern is as genuine as her lack of surprise. Clearly him making a scene at work is a regular occurrence.

“You don't remember disappearing off the face of the earth for about an hour this morning?

She frowns. “No.”

“Well, I guess everything's okay.”

Jenn eavesdrops from the back room as Agent Scully moves closer to her partner. “Mul—”

She tosses Jenn an antagonistic glare. “Could you give us a minute, please?”

“Sure,” she says. It’s not like Jenn wants to stare at that enormous flying saucer poster anymore anyway.

“Like today?” Agent Scully snaps, but Jenn is already gone. 

Standing outside the office, Jenn thinks about how entertaining it’s been to watch the two of them. Usually, she’s barely able to stomach witnessing the human propensity for self-destruction. But the magic between the agents is as obvious to Jenn as the gem on her face. They can’t see the current connecting them, but it vibrates through the air so strongly it’s impossible not to feel. 

And Jenn has tried very hard not to feel anything anymore.

She’d told Agent Mulder what she would wish for, and aside from the shock of actually being asked, she was truthful. To a point. Listening to the two agents teasingly bicker behind the door begins to soften Jenn’s hardened heart. She’d be lying if she said she doesn’t long for a connection like theirs. Century after century, she suffers imprisonment alone, begging to live freely so badly the pain of it chomps at her every essence with its teeth. She’ll never admit that, though.

No wonder she’s bitchy.

The door swings open for the territorial redhead to walk through and Jenn instantly pops back into the office before she’s hip-checked down the hall. 

“You ready?” she asks Agent Mulder. 

He smiles and flicks off the computer. Before he speaks, a crime scene photo shoved under the keyboard catches Jenn’s eye. It’s of him and Agent Scully together, standing side by side in their FBI windbreakers, their faces inches apart. 

Jenn holds up a hand. 

“Before you start spouting legal jargon, may I suggest you wish for something a little less altruistic than peace on Earth? Since we know what a flop that was, maybe something to do with that pretty partner of yours you were so frantic without?”

“No, I’m not risking...”

“Her again?”

His emerald eyes shine with mirth. “I’m ready for my wish now. Are you?” 

Jenn smiles…

Later, while running her fingers across her gemless cheek in awe, she can no longer say that all of mankind is stupid and selfish.

The soft chatter and clang of cutlery inside the coffeehouse soothes her old soul, and Jenn intends on living the rest of her mortal life moment by moment, enjoying it for what it is, instead of worrying about what it isn't.

“Another cup?” the waitress asks.

“Yes, please,” Jenn says, smiling behind her mug and happily watching the world slip by.

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Archive of Our Own!

@monikafilefan

[monikafilefan]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Theef (7x14)

“I can’t…” Agent Scully gasps. “I can’t see!” 

Robert’s stomach sinks. Oh, God!

She’s blind. That son-of-a-bitch Peattie blinded the only person standing between a madman and what’s left of Robert’s family.

Peattie snatches Agent Scully’s gun from her hands before hiding it and stalks menacingly up the stairs towards Lucy. “Oh, doctor!” he taunts.

“Daddy!” Lucy whimpers as she clings to his back. The shrill sound of Dr. Robert Wieder’s fifteen-year-old daughter, sobbing, frightened for her life is the scariest thing he’s ever heard. 

“Get back!” Robert grips a fire poker in one hand and shields Lucy with the other. “Don’t make me hurt you!”

“Can't hurt the man who ain't got nothing left. You know who I be now? Maybe you can recollect my daughter.”

“I remember! I never forgot!” The night of that horrific bus accident replays in his nightmares more often than not. “I'm... I'm sorry for your loss but I did everything humanly possible to save her.”

Peattie sneers, “You arrogant little man.”

“I did everything I could!” If Peattie had actually seen the state his dying daughter was in, he sure as hell wouldn’t call Robert arrogant. “And when I couldn't do any more I eased her suffering!” 

“By killing her. If I be there... I save her!” 

Robert’s fear flares to anger. “You weren't there!”

While a blind Agent Scully frantically searches for her weapon and Peattie rants on, all Robert can focus on is how terrified Lucy is, weeping behind him.

“So now, little man, I gonna show you what be possible,” Peattie threatens, pointing his knife at each eye and squeezing a creepy doll in his hand. “I gonna show you an eye for an eye.”

Nan’s burned body flashes in Robert’s eyes. His wife and his father-in-law… both their lives stolen by a man who calls him a thief. Over his dead body will his little girl be next.

“You're not going to hurt my daughter!”

“Daddy!” Lucy wails before Peattie presses the knife into the doll, and twists.

Stabbing pain slices into Robert’s heart. Time slows as he closes his eyes. And, he’s back there again…

The emergency room’s doors whoosh open. A gust of air mixed with the scent of motor oil and pungent metal stings Robert’s nose. Blood; lots and lots of blood. 

“I’ve got this one!” he announces through the throng of chaos as he grabs a gurney holding a sobbing woman covered in gaping wounds. “My God…”

Rushing paramedics, shouting nurses, and dozens of moaning patients riddle the room, yet this lithe young lady’s cries of agony echo above them all. Robert swallows down the gag in his throat. Gore like this on someone with a pulse is unprecedented. 

“Can’t move!” she screams. “Hurts!”

“You’re at UFC Medical,” he soothes. “I’m Dr. Weider, what’s your name?” 

Nothing but cries and garbled pleas of pain spill out of her bloody mouth. She’s missing three front teeth and her right eye has blown from its socket.

Christ! 

Robert’s heart races while he shouts orders and administers medication. As he lifts up her tattered dress to assess internal injuries, he gapes in horror. A jagged shard of metal is buried deep within her abdomen. A piece of the city bus must have torn from its frame during the rollover and severed the lumbar region of her spinal cord. It’s incredible she’s even alive at all.

“Hurts… so bad. Please, make it stop,” she begs, grasping weakly at Robert’s hand. Her screams grow more desperate as grueling minutes of life-saving measures pass, but he already knows Jane Doe will never leave this ER alive. “Daddy? Please…”

She sounds so much like Lucy. 

Sympathy stabs him in the gut. This is someone’s daughter. Someone’s little girl, and nothing anyone can do will save her life now. 

All Robert can do is keep her comfortable. Cease her suffering. 

Her nails dig into his skin. “Daddy?”

“It’s okay now,” Robert lies. 

Do no harm, he’d vowed. And that’s exactly what he intends on doing. Cradling Jane Doe’s trembling hand within his, he slowly, secretly, pushes a fatal dose of Morphine directly into her veins. 

“Daddy… Daddy…”

A cacophonous bang rings his ears. 

“Daddy!”

Robert gasps for air. The sharp pain in his chest that’s akin to a nail being hammered through his heart slowly abates as Peattie falls backward down the stairs. Grateful, Robert’s pulse begins to slow. 

It’s over for them all now.

“Daddy?” Lucy cries, cradling his head in her lap. “Please don’t die.” Fat tears roll down his daughter’s cheeks. “Don’t die.”

“Lucy…” Robert pats her hand to reassure her, and himself, that he’s still alive. Though he would’ve gladly given his life for his child the way Peattie likely would have for his own.

Robert fades in and out as paramedics and police file into the cabin beside the relieved-looking FBI agents. Lucy clings to him as he’s strapped onto the gurney. While the medics carry him down the stairs, he looks at his daughter and realizes being Doctor of the Year is nothing compared to being Lucy’s dad.

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Archive of Our Own!

@monikafilefan

[monikafilefan]

🥏 Fic Rec #60: "Sincerely, Fox Mulder" by MonikaFileFan

This gem of a post-ep explores the criminally under-explored shippy potential of ‘One Breath’, an episode brimming with repressed emotions. All that angst finally finds its raw, heart-melting release in a way that captures the tentative, budding something of early MSR. And did I mention Melissa makes a much-appreciated appearance, too?

---

🥏 on AO3

author: @monikafilefan length: short, 2000+ words season: season 2, 2x08 One Breath pairing(s): M/S UST tags: angst, hurt/comfort, Melissa Scully rating: teen/PG-13

Tagging @today-in-fic

[monikafilefan]

For all that Scully “doesn’t believe in soulmates” she very often says stuff like “what if there was only one choice and all the other choices were wrong and there were signs to pay attention to along the way” and “perfect opposite, perfect other” and “even if that were true I wouldn’t change a day”

[monikafilefan]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Closure (7x11)

Amber Lynn is our newest spirit. So young, too young. We all are. I scan the field full of children playing beneath the glowing moon. All of us, forever six, forever eight, forever ten… Then, there’s me: Samantha Ann, forever fourteen. 

All of us, lost souls in starlight. 

Including little Adam. I smile down at his big brown eyes and sad expression. He’s been waiting to be found by his dad almost as long as I have by my brother. 

Long ago, running away from April Base as nothing more than a breathing pin cushion was the best thing I had ever done. Nothing had felt better. And nothing had been more terrifying. But that night was the last night I would ever be scared again. Scared that they would find me and kill me. 

More scared that they would find me and make me live.

But then, a flicker in the dark saved me from bad men and endless tests. A small, shimmery hand had reached out from its pulsing glow. A sense of safety and peace had covered me like a warm blanket as I took its hand in mine. 

Starlight filled me. 

Starlight took it all away…

The bad men may have stolen my memories while I was alive, but every missing moment of my life spent with family, with Fox, now streak through my soul like shooting stars.

Fox.

I can feel him, closer than ever. My hand clenches at my chest. It aches to feel a portion of what’s left of my soul existing outside of my body. But my brother is not ready to see me yet. It has to be the perfect moment for the truth. He needs proof of what came before that flicker in the dark. He must hear, feel, read, the beginning and the middle of my story in my own words before believing my ending. 

More tests. More pain. I hate them. When will it ever end?

I miss my family. My brother. I don’t remember everything, but I know I loved him. I hope he knows that too. 

Why can’t it all go away? I’m too young. I didn’t do anything wrong!

No more. Tonight I’m going to run far, far away. Running for my life, for the rest of my life.

Adam has led my brother to my hidden diary and its painful pieces of my past. Fox needed to fully understand to truly believe. Adam held Fox’s hand as his own dad had kept his eyes closed, not ready to see his son just yet. It has to be his perfect moment to accept Adam’s fate within the stars.

Like my brother has accepted mine.

Time slows while pressure in my ears pulls me through the tree line. The ache in my chest is unbearable as the entire universe narrows to him. 

I gasp. He’s so grown with his long legs and sad eyes. He freezes, staring at Amber Lynn. But I run.  

“Fox!” 

His jaw drops, and I run faster. 

“Samantha…”

Like magnets, we collide. I sling my arms around him and squeeze. God, I missed him. His heart is racing when he finally hugs me back. I bury my face in his shirt and his woodsy scent is so familiar that my eyes blur in pure joy. 

I always believed he’d find me one day. 

I lean back and cup his stubbly cheeks. The stunned smile creasing his mossy eyes gives me the same sense of peace I’d felt the night the starlight welcomed me into the sky.  

We hold each other tight for a long, long time. I’m not surprised he can’t let go. He could never let go of the rope during tug-of-war, either, even when his hands bled and our clothes were caked with dirt. So why would he ever let go of me?

“Samantha,” he cautiously whispers. I stare up at him with teary eyes and press my palm to his large chest, feeling the dark hole in his heart that my presence used to fill shrink with every gentle stroke of his hand through my hair. “It’s really you.”

“Hi, big brother,” I say through a smirk. 

His breath hitches and that big bottom lip of his I’ve always teased him about trembles. But I never could watch Fox cry, so I pinch his arm until he smirks back. 

“I’m sorry, Sam,” he eventually says. His soft voice cracks with regret. “Sorry I couldn’t protect you. Sorry I couldn’t find you. I’m… so sorry.”

His guilt hurts more than his absence ever did. Twenty-one years of missing leaves its mark.

“Fox…” With his hand cradling my face, I shake my head, gazing up at the twinkling sky. There will always be a piece of me scattered within the stars. “Just because I'm gone, doesn’t mean I’m lost, silly.”

He gives a choked laugh. It’s bittersweet and full of ache, but it’s real and it’s warm: everything Fox William is made of.

He hugs me tighter. And I feel it — the part of his soul that has been lost alongside mine for so long. The same part that was cut, carved, and stolen from me bit by bit from the ages of eight to fourteen. But maybe now we’ve found each other’s missing pieces through undying lights in the sky.  

Maybe now, we are whole.

He plants a tender kiss on my head as I loosen our hug. A silent goodbye. 

I can still feel Fox’s warmth wrapped around me as I skip back through the tree line, the echoes of children’s laughter following close behind. 

Once a lost soul wandering the world, I am found. I am free. 

We both are. 

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Archive of Our Own!

@monikafilefan

[monikafilefan]

THE X-FILES | 1x02 'DEEP THROAT'

[monikafilefan]

what true love looks like

their constant through the years 🥹

[monikafilefan]

POANG Pals Secret Valentines 2025 Fic Recs

Happy Valentine's Day to the wonderful @sagan-starstuff! Here are 14 Valentine's fics from throughout the ages. Some smutty, some fluffy, some to sink your teeth into. I hope you've had an amazing day and that you enjoy these fics!

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Smutty smutty smut. They’re on a case with Skinner and Kersh, keeping their relationship a secret and Mulder can’t stop talking dirty. 

Title: Be my valentine, Scully? 

Author: Katy_KT_Katie, @katy-kt-katie

Summary: Just a short un-beta'ed fic for your Valentine's Day!

Length: 3,671

Classification: MSR, smut

Rating: E

Spoilers: 

Favorite line: “Don’t moan, Scully. No fraternizing . You know the rules,” he said playfully.

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While Mulder is still in hiding, Scully goes to do some training out of state. She’s away over Valentine’s Day.

Title: Heaven Scent

Author: admiralty, @admiralty-xfd

Summary: Scully is away, and missing Mulder. (Also, he smells like heaven, but we all knew that.)

Length: 4,888

Classification: MSR, pining

Rating: PG

Spoilers: pre-IWTB

Favorite line: She lifted the shirt to her face, breathing him in, remembering another night when she did the same and felt only hopelessness and loss. This time, she knew exactly where he was. He was only a thousand miles away, here on earth, thinking about her, too.

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We hate Diana, but we love seeing her thwarted.

Title: Cancelled Plans

Author: ScullyLovesQueequeg, @suitablyaggrieved

Summary: Diana Fowley asks Mulder out on a date.

Length: 4,597

Classification: MSR, Jealous Scully

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Post FTF, Diana is there

Favorite line: Mulder turned partway to face her and gave Scully one of his wry smiles. Since Antarctica, the smiles came so easy.

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Short and sweet fluff, Mulder embracing celebrating the holiday more than Scully.

Title: Love is in the Air

Author: mldrgrl, @mldrgrl

Summary: Just a bit of Valentine's Day fluff set in season 7

Length: 771

Classification: MSR, fluff

Rating: G

Spoilers: 

Favorite line: “But, it’s got Snoopy on it and everything.  I think he’s holding up a little sign that says ‘Be Mine’ or something like that.”

“Shut up and kiss me, you idiot.”

“No, that’s not what it says.”

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A pair of fics that are very hot and very satisfying, each in their own way.

Title: Impatient and Intent

Author: Beduini

Summary: Impatient: Sometimes you just can't wait. Season 6 Valentine’s day smut. Intent: A companion piece to Intent. What constitutes a fantasy?

Length: 1,621 and 1,515

Classification: MSR

Rating: E

Spoilers: 

Favorite line: Impatient: Her blue eyes flashed and a smile of pleasure broke out across her face as she ducked her head, trying to hide behind the wave of hair that was now too short to cover her face.

Intent: "Scully..." spoken as if all of the secrets of the universe could be housed in one name.

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This is one to sit with and enjoy, like a glass of good wine. Lying together in bed, Mulder thinks about his life and his relationship with Scully. It’s not fluff but that good MSR is present and correct.  

Title: Sedimentation

Author: Maria Nicole

Summary: Musings on the edge of sleep

Length: 2,302

Classification: MSR

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Orison, Fire

Favorite line: He and Scully will have to muddle through this on their own; maybe every so often she can deliver a State of the Partnership address, Scully in her glasses standing behind a podium telling him that their teamwork skills are good but their communication skills need work and Jesus, Mulder, she'd come to his room with wine and cheese and what had he thought she'd meant? 

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We are truly indebted to @lilydalexf for her rec of this otherwise impossible (?) to find fic. It is short and sweet and it is also tremendous. I love everything about it and somehow the thing I love the most is him calling her disgusting at the very end (to be fair, she is being disgusting).  

Title: it could be sweet

Author: wen

Summary: MSR valentines day no redeeming value fluff fluff fluff.

Length: 1,541

Classification: MSR, fluff

Rating: Not rated

Spoilers: 

Favorite line: She adored this gentleness about him and let him kiss her, very long and very soft, his mouth and tongue tasting of very rich dark chocolate and marshmallows.

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Sweet little fic from the olden days with a guest star.

Title: My Funny Valentine

Author: Britt Mulder

Summary: Scully has a secret admirer.

Length: 1,646

Classification: MSR

Rating: PG

Spoilers: 

Favorite line: She began to pepper kisses below his ear. Mulder didn't know why he was getting all this attention, but liked it.

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A more recent entry, there’s misunderstanding, there’s jealousy, there’s dopey adoration.

Title: Stupid Cupid

Author: mulderwearingglasses, @mulderwearingglasses

Summary: When a work emergency prompts the FBI to call in their best and brightest on Valentine's Day evening, Mulder shows up in a tuxedo, prompting Scully to wonder what kind of hot date he had just abandoned.

Scully must quiet the jealous storm brewing within as the two work together to search for a little boy.

Scully soon finds all is not as it seems, and maybe this won't be the worst Valentine's Day, after all.

Length: 5,325

Classification: MSR, UST, URT, hurt/comfort

Rating: G

Spoilers: 

Favorite line: Well, they were quite literally always together, but they weren’t together together. They simply called each other in the middle of the night when one or the other had a nightmare and knew each other’s coffee order depending on coffee chain and had spare clothes at each other’s places and nursed each other back from the brink of death on countless occasions and had broken down in each other’s arms and spent too many a tension-filled evening falling in love in clandestine seclusion on a shitty motel bed over styrofoam boxes of lukewarm takeout.

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This is a fun Mulder spiralling fic with a nice, fluffy ending.

Title: Suck it, Superman

Author: RationalCashew, @rationalcashew

Summary: Very early relationship. Season 7.

Their relationship is new. Things are going great. And, then, Mulder realizes that it's Valentine's Day and he's planned absolutely nothing.

Length: 2,433

Classification: MSR

Rating: PG

Spoilers: 

Favorite line: He’d gone through a million buzzing thoughts from the coffee table to the door. Including, but not limited to: the night was already ruined and she was going to dump him before they really had a chance to see what happened with this thing; his shirt was terrible and he should’ve changed it; if she dumped him, would she still work with him?

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A misunderstanding leads to some forward movement for our lovable idiots.

Title: Mixed Signals

Author: OnlyTheInevitable, @gaycrouton

Summary: Scully gets flowers from a secret admirer and that, combined with the way Mulder's been acting, prompts her to be honest with herself.

Length: 3,170

Classification: MSR, fluff

Rating: PG

Spoilers: 

Favorite line: “Her secret admirer. He’s been pining after her for years and she’s finally decided to take pity on him,” he told him seriously.

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Short and sweet old school Valentine’s fic from Donna. Scully’s down and Mulder figures out why. 

Title: February 14

Author: Donna

Summary: Valentine’s Day Ditty

Length: 717

Classification: MSR

Rating: G

Spoilers: 

Favorite line: "Well, you may not realize it but it is Valentine’s Day. You give pretty girls things on Valentine’s Day." Her eyebrow rose, but she didn’t comment, just picking up the box and heading toward the kitchen.

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Annika’s story of their first (belated) Valentine’s Day as a couple. Absolutely adorable.

Title: Valentine’s Day is a State of Mind

Author: Baroness_Blixen, @baronessblixen

Summary: Scully thinks Mulder has a case for them but as it turns out, Mulder has planned something else entirely.

Length: 1,251

Classification: MSR, Fluff

Rating: PG

Spoilers: 

Favorite line: “Okay fine, it was three weeks ago. Anyway, you were talking about going to a restaurant and how you haven’t been to a fancy place in ages and I thought, hey, as your bo- your partner?” He sighs before he goes on, “as your Mulder, I should do this. Remember when I asked you about having dinner the other day?”

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There’s the language of flowers, there’s an FBI ball, there’s Diana, there’s declarations of love and there’s smut. What more could you ask for on Valentine’s Day?

Title: ‘Til Stars Align

Author: MonikaFileFan, @monikafilefan

Summary: Mulder and Scully are currently stuck under Kersh’s thumb and banned to the bullpen. It’s the week of Valentine’s Day and Scully also finds herself under romantic admiration from another.

Length: 21,806

Classification: MSR, fluff and smut

Rating: E

Spoilers: Favorite line: “You can do this. You’re Fox freaking Mulder and you’re in love with your partner.

[monikafilefan]

Happy Heart (-Shaped Hail) Day! Fic Recs for Rain King for Valentine's Day (or Any Time)

It's funny how in the fandom circles I tend to spend time in now, Rain King seems to be a pretty beloved episode: super shippy, romantic comedy, multiple fanfic tropes made canon.

When it aired, the online fandom's opinion of this episode was pretty mixed. There was a large contingent of fans who really hated it. (I remember this because I am 4,000 years old.) Season 6 had already been perceived as being too light in tone, and we'd already come off of a run of Triangle, Dreamland I and II, and How the Ghosts Stole Christmas. There was a lot of anxiety about the move to LA killing the show's dark and angsty feel.

Me, I always liked Rain King (and Triangle, and Dreamland I and II, and How the Ghosts Stole Christmas). And while I can identify the tone change in season 6, I don't hate it, nor do I think that the show really loses its darkness and angstiness (a lot comes back in the second half of the season). I'm also not someone who believes comedy is a de facto more stupid or less substantial genre than drama or suspense, so I think that's part of it.

Rain King has generated so, so much fanfic, and most specifically fanfic that zeroes in on this little fun fact: THEY CANONICALLY SHARE A MOTEL ROOM BECAUSE THERE'S ONLY ONE ROOM. Obviously many of the fics I'm recommending below are based on that premise. So here are my Valentine's Day recs based on Rain King. (Even though I think it's not actually set at Valentine's? Because the cold open happens months earlier? There's some kind of timeline hijinks, idk.) But anyway, it's the clearest Valentine's episode we have, so happy Valentine's Day.

Free Merlot at the Cool View Motor Court by Sarie_Fairy @sarie-fairy Scully tries a little experiment with Mulder after the reunion that gets rapidly out of hand. This is smutty fun—the kind of high end sexy times this author is really known for. Dating Kings and Queens - Baroness_Blixen @baronessblixen A pure romantic comedy style plot variation on the ending of Rain King. The agents discuss the last time they've been on a date. Turns out it HASN’T been so long for Scully. This is just so charming. 

Kroner by DM When Mulder finds out about the “flicked switch speech,” he deals with it in a flirty, somewhat less sentimental way that feels very in character to me. I like a fic with dialogue that feels like it goes a little unexpected.

No Big Deal by dreamingofscully @dreamingofscully Scully offers to help Mulder sleep in the hotel. This is UST, but deliiiiiiightfully so, and heavy on the complex feelings.

Can’t Fight This Feeling by mldrgrl  @mldrgrl A sweet and more subtle little feelings reveal after Rain King by an author who does this exact thing well. Also there is slow dancing to 80s music.

Time Enough At Last - baylorrific Absolute textbook classic one room trope, but it stands out for me because I like how it focuses on their mutual discomfort. They’re both so awkward here, even though it’s Mulder POV. I also like how the classic Twilight Zone episode Time Enough At Last is in conversation with what’s happening with the MSR.

There’s No Place Like Kroner - MonikaFileFan @monikafilefan You know what would make a “there’s only one room” Rain King fic extra fun? DIANA. Okay, okay, I admit I wrote this prompt for the exchange, lol, so of course I think it sounds fun. But Monika wrote the actual fic, and you don’t want to miss it.

Pillow Talk - Alelou This is a short piece about a chatty Mulder very carefully putting out feelers in the motel room after the reunion. Sweet and in character.

Land That I Heard Of Once in A Lullabye - leiascully @leiascully In Kroner’s tiny airport, Scully takes stock of where they’ve come from and where they’re going. I love this. It feels especially spot on character-wise for season 6.

All that Lights Upon Us - wonderland @amplifyme This is a very different kind of Rain King fic, part of a series, although it can be read alone. During the events of Rain King they share a first kiss, but this fic is about their conversations afterwards (Mulder and Scully, as well as Mulder and Maggie). Gentle affection, and the process of taking little steps towards one another.

On the Flicking of Switches - SisterSpooky1013 @sisterspooky1013 Mulder initiates an awkward conversation in the motel room after the reunion. SisterSpooky1013 always has her characterization shit together, but I think this is an especially compelling character sketch of season 6 Scully.

Break in the Weather - ATTHS_TWICE @atths--twice Mulder and Scully can’t fly out another night in Kroner, so they kill time by going to a drive-in movie. Honestly, this is just adorable.

Still Raining - Donna When Sheila sends them both a letter a few months later, she alludes to what Scully told her in the bathroom. This raises questions for Mulder.

Stop Me - Gina Rain A little seduction by Mulder in the Kroner motel room. It starts with her feet, if that’s your thing. But it’s not exclusively about feet, if that isn’t lol.

They're SOOOOO MANY great Rain King fics, so drop any I missed in the comments! And if you want to read my Valentine's Day recs last year based on Milagro, they're here.

[monikafilefan]

the way her eyes flutter shut😘she melts!

Happy new year, Scully. Happy new year, Mulder.

[monikafilefan]

Jingle Bells and Jealousy 2

Through the years, we all will be together

If the fates allow

Scully is trying incredibly hard to enjoy herself tonight, humming along to Sinatra, doing her best to refrain from scanning the masses in hopes of seeing Mulder’s distinguished profile amongst the crowd. He’d said he wasn’t coming and she unfortunately believes him. Forced merriment hides her disappointment well. Smiling politely behind her wine glass at coworkers she barely knows, going out of her way to wish A.D. Kersh and his wife a Merry Christmas. She prays her cheery disposition shines a positive light upon, not only herself, but her partner as well. Wherever the hell he is, she thinks, frustrated with herself as much as she is with him.

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now

She tunes out the music to contemplate whether her unintentional evasiveness with Mulder regarding her “date” is the catalyst they need after his concussed “I love you” line in Bermuda she can’t stop thinking about, or just intentionally deceptive on her part. The flame of possessiveness that flared within his eyes when he’d assumed she was dating had sparked intrigue in her own. The fact that she was initially referring to him as her date to Skinner had flown right over her brilliant partner’s head. Throwing accusations her way should have just pissed her off, but it’s been his heated reaction in the aftermath that’s left her oddly reassured in his jealousy. She’d left the bullpen feeling wanted in ways she only fantasizes about alone in bed at night as her fingers slip between her thighs.

Her heart races at that thought.

Not since her rebellious run-in with Jerse has she seen her partner similarly flustered, and she’d be lying if she said it doesn’t thrill her. With Diana Fowley’s unwelcome presence continuously prodding at Scully’s penchant for jealousy, she’d selfishly allowed Mulder’s imaginative mind to run wild with the ridiculous idea that she has somehow found the will to date someone who isn’t him.

Scully bites her lip as guilt churns up waves of nausea in her gut.

“Merry Christmas, Agent Scully,” Agent Fields, whom she recognizes from the bullpen, interrupts her thoughts. The strong scent of bourbon on his breath makes her rock back on her heels. She supposes he’s been drinking from the punch bowl she’d spotted Tom Colton spiking earlier. “Where’s Spooky?”

“Merry Christmas,” she sighs wearily into her wine glass and walks away.

She’s leaving, she decides, as she squeezes her way through the throng of swaying bodies and twinkling decor. She doesn’t really want to be here without Mulder by her side anyway. She’s turned down three drunken dance offers already and Kersh could care less if she’s here to play nice in hopes of getting off desk duty. The more time she spends at this party, the more she wishes she was lounging on Mulder’s couch, sharing cartons of bad Chinese, and watching A Christmas Story.

“Oh!” she squeaks in surprise, bumping into the stalwart chest of the man moving toward her. Her wine spills over the rim of her glass as they nearly knock one another from their feet. “I’m so sorry!”

“No, no!” he laments, holding her close as she finds her footing. “Agent Scully, it’s me who’s sorry. I saw you coming, but I couldn’t move. It’s like a mosh pit in here,” he laughs.

She chuckles in return. “Well, it seems we both got caught in the crowd.”

Holiday music continues to play far too loudly for those who aren’t three sheets to the wind as the man she now realizes is Special Agent Derek Jenkins from the fingerprint lab leans close to hear. He’s a new hire in the lab. A sweet, handsome man who has flirted shamelessly with her three times in the last week… and still, she remains unequivocally uninterested.

“Agent Jenkins, hello.”

“Call me Derek, please.” He steers her towards an empty corner, cupping her dripping wine glass with his palm. “Let me help you.”

“Oh, that’s not necess-” Before Scully protests further, the agent spins around and snags a Santa-shaped napkin from one of the mini round tables sprinkled about the reception hall, thrusting it her way. “I appreciate it.”

He waves a finger by her head. “You have a splash of wine in your hair there. By your eye.” Flustered, Scully swipes the napkin through her hair. “Missed it. I’ll get it.”

He reaches up to pinch the stray strand soaked with wine between his fingertips and tucks it behind her ear.

“Thanks, Agent Jen- Derek.” Hiding her embarrassment, she takes a step back, her shoulder knocking a bundle of mistletoe to the floor that was taped on the wall. She sighs, “I’m not usually this uncoordinated.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Derek grins brightly and picks up the plastic flower, twirling it around his finger. If she’d met him sooner, say six years and one Fox Mulder ago, she could have easily been swept off her feet by his charm. “Where’s Agent Mulder? I mean, uh, not to be abrupt, but you’re not with someone, are you?”

The hopeful gleam in his brown eyes makes her blush. The earnest, puppy dog look of them mimics Mulder when he awaits her opinion on whether or not a case is an X-File.

“I…” Scully finds she has no idea how to answer that layered question without a hint of honesty, and Christmas seems like a terrible time to lie.

Is she with someone? Her mind rewinds to moments of commitment she’d made in the past: shaking her new partner’s hand, risking her life multiple times to keep him that way, then telling him she wouldn’t change a day.

“I suppose I am,” she finally says.

Scully expects her face to flush at the admission. Expects the entirety of the FBI to turn and point at Mrs. Spooky as they collect their bets. Instead, she’s oddly at peace with her confession to someone she hardly knows.

Derek nods in understanding, as if he’d already known the answer, giving her arms a gentle squeeze. “So for clarity’s sake, you’re not interested in pursuing a relationship with… let’s say, someone like me. Not when you’re already in one.”

Scully licks her lips, her breath catching.

She could deny the unyielding hold Mulder has held on her heart since March of ‘93. They’ve never even kissed, for God’s sake. But after years of living and breathing for only each other, she can’t. She won’t.

So she smiles instead, “I suppose not.”

“Your partner, then?” Derek mumbles to himself when instant awareness pulls his pout into a smirk.

Her silence is all the confirmation they need as she and Derek share a good-natured chuckle. This unexpected run-in has somehow left her more content in her feelings than she has in a while. Despite Scully’s unease of Diana’s position in Mulder’s past, personally and professionally, she can no longer repress the way her best friend completes her.

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock

Jingle bells chime in jingle bell time

Another song reverberates through the loudspeaker nearby. The upbeat tempo matches the buoyant shift in Scully’s mood. She barely registers that Derek’s arms are still bracketing hers, or the swift way he leans down to speak closer.

“I suppose I already knew that, but thank you for being honest with me. And with yourself too, it seems,” Derek says knowingly in her ear before pressing the mistletoe into her hand. “Merry Christmas, Agent Scully.”

At that moment, someone in the crowd loses their balance and bumps into Scully from behind, jolting her forward. Derek’s lips accidently graze the corner of her mouth, and remarkably, they both ignore the mishap as if it never happened. Being bounced around like holiday pin balls seems like a regular occurrence tonight.

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Scully replies and turns around just in time to see a flash of familiar green eyes narrowing in on hers.

What a bright time, it's the right time

To rock the night away

“Mulder?” Scully blinks and he’s gone, vanishing within the horde of ugly Christmas sweaters.

Scully’s heart hammers harder with every step she takes toward the opposite side of the room.

Mix and a-mingle in the jingling feet

That's the jingle bell

“Mulder!” she hollers, stretching on tip-toe to see where he’s gone. But it’s worthless. The music is too damn loud and the people too damn tall to make a difference.

That's the jingle bell

As she weaves her way through the maze of tinsel and blow-up reindeer decor, she spots Skinner wiping frosting from his candy cane tie at the dessert table. No wonder she’d never seen Mulder all the way back here. She’s trembling, rubbing her arms with worry by the time she reaches the A.D.. Panic at the realization of what Mulder must have seen and misinterpreted practically radiates through the fuzz of her green sweater.

That's the jingle bell

“Agent Scully, glad to see you’re enjoying yourself.”

“Sir, have you seen Mulder?” she blurts.

Skinner frowns down at an ink-stained paper plate he’s holding with black horns drawn atop Santa’s head. “He left already?”

Her eyes slip shut.

That's the jingle bell rooock

***

Scully shivers as she walks down the snow-dusted sidewalk. Her heels clack purposefully along the pavement, her heart beating in time with her vapored puffs of breath. She’s winded by the time she spots Mulder’s car idling at the curbside. The buttery light from the streetlamp above slices through the thick snowflakes pouring from the sky and illuminating his downcasted profile.

Scully knocks on the window.

Mulder startles, turning his forlorn stare onto hers peering in from the passenger side. He mouths her name in confusion and leans across the car to push open the door for her.

“Hey,” he says, surprised, as she climbs in and shuts the door. “Scully, you’re freezing. Where’s your coat?”

She shrugs and flexes her cold fingers in front of the blast of heat coming through the vents. “Inside where I left it.”

He’s silent for a moment. They both are, as a somber tone falls around them like the snow outside. Mulder frowns and reaches over to gently cradle her icy hands between his. They’re big and warm, and God, she practically melts the moment his plush lips drag across her fingertips.

“You came,” she whispers.

Her voice catches the moment she notices through the dimness how impressively handsome he is tonight. His black tux is taut in all the right places, hugging his strong shoulders and toned thighs perfectly.

He rubs the hot huffs of his breath into her knuckles as his honey-green eyes silently study her. “Where you go, I go, right?”

Her stomach twists tourniquet tight.

This guilt and aggravation is making her nauseous. After Antarctica, Scully knows exactly how true his statement is. She also knows she has every right to date whoever she wants and kiss whomever she pleases. But that’s not what she’s been doing, and as much as she has considered that option previously out of self-preservation, she’s never actually done either of those things for a reason. Even during the darkest days of their partnership, she has never yearned for anyone but him.

Scully laces her fingers through his. “I know.”

“Scully…”

“Shh.” She cuts him off with a bold nuzzle of her chin against their tangled hands, her free one reaching up to straighten his crooked bowtie. “You’re so handsome.”

He chuckles darkly. “Seems as though the Christmas casual memo never made it to my inbox.”

“You wouldn’t have read it anyway,” she teases.

“Ah, you know me well.”

They both smirk, their faces only inches apart, their thumbs gliding easily across one another’s. It seems two glasses of wine have softened her edges and weakened her resolve to keep her hands to herself. Wind whistling as it blows over the hood of the car breaks their locked gaze. The snow is falling faster now, layering the Taurus’s windshield in a pillowy white blanket.

Mulder squeezes her hand.

“I’m sorry, Scully.” His voice breaks. She closes her eyes and squeezes right back. “I’m sorry about a lot of things. But about what I said earlier, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to point fingers — pencils, actually,” he chuffs.

“Mulder.” Her tone conveys how much she finds his apology unnecessary in light of her own envious reactions in recent months. “I know that, too.”

“Being honest, all I want is for you to be happy. No matter who you’re with. But I thought after what happened my hallway it would’ve… Well, I was caught off guard by the thought of you dating,” he mutters with a shrug. “That’s my problem, though. Not yours, Scully.”

“I think I know what you saw in there that upset you, Mulder, but I can assure you it’s not what you’ve assumed.” Her tongue sweeps across her lip. “There was no date. There was no kiss.”

“You- there wasn’t?”

She looks him square in the eyes, because there is no one else.

“No, Mulder. I ran into Agent Jenkins — literally, and we talked. And I have to confess that I realized when you questioned me in the bullpen, I liked that you were territorial of me. It made me feel… vindicated.”

“Because of Diana.” It’s not a question but a statement born of recognition.

Scully nods, her face flushing. “But I only ever wanted to spend tonight with you.”

“Maybe Skinner was right. I do need to pull my head outta my ass,” he mumbles. Her brow arches at that. “I just thought I saw you and Jenkins…”

“But you didn’t.”

“Not really my business, though.” His curious eyes search hers. “Is it?”

She leans forward to rest her cheek against the edge of his headrest. He senses her tactile need and palms her jaw with the hand not clutched within her own. She turns into him as she contemplates her response, cascading her mouth across his thumb. It feels so good, but it’s not only his touch that has her pulse fluttering like a hummingbird, it’s all of him. It’s always been him.

“What if I want it to be?”

“That depends… is that you or the wine talking?”

She scoffs, “ Mulder -”

“How do you feel about me, Scully?” His pout twitches as he stares at her. Into her, with such unfiltered affection Scully’s heart can barely endure it all. “Because I know exactly how I feel about you. You’re my favorite person. My best friend, my one and five billion. And, I love you.”

Tears sting her eyes and her stomach swoops to her knees. She’s warm, flushed, as if her partner is the sun and he has finally shone his rays upon her upturned face.

“God, Mulder.”

“ Head injury aside, I meant what I said in Bermuda.” His forehead touches hers. “I fell in love with you, Scully.”

“W-when?” Her chest is suddenly so tight she can barely breathe. “When did you…”

“Uh, I don’t… I’m not really sure. I just know I did.”

She nods against him, because nodding is all she can do as her heart races and eyes blur. Because she’d wanted to believe his endearing words in Bermuda badly, but she was too afraid to risk it all on her misguided hope. Because as intense and frustrating as their inseparability is sometimes, their connection defies the laws of nature: the sky is blue, the sun is bright, and Scully endlessly loves Mulder.

“Scully?”

“I-” Her lashes flutter away tears. God, she’s dizzy, knowing what she’s about to do next. “I think I’ve always been in love with you, Mulder.”

He inhales sharply, maybe a little surprised by her candor. But then his hand is cradling the back of her arched neck and pulling her into a tight hug, his other arm wrapping around to caress the small of her back. “Scully.”

“You’re the only one, Mulder,” she whispers fiercely as she hugs him back, her cold nose pressed into the warmth of his neck. “You’re my one and five billion, too.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that outside of my dreams,” he whispers into her hair and rocks her back and forth along the seats, quivering in her grip as they cling to each other.

Scully presses a lingering kiss to the humming pulse point in his neck. She can feel his rushing adrenaline thundering under her lips. She smiles, her own heart racing, a little lightheaded after uttering secrets of her heart aloud. But relief of her confession rises like bubbles beneath her skin because she has said it to Mulder: the man she trusts and loves more than anyone.

Mulder pulls back and looks at her. She knows her eyes are wide and wet, her cheeks pink as she tips her chin upward, aching for him to kiss her. “I have mistletoe,” he says wryly.

Scully laughs and reaches into her pocket, pulling out the one she’d knocked from the Bureau’s wall. “Me too.”

He grins, nodding to his own red and green flower shoved in the car’s ashtray. “You think we need them?”

The husk in his voice vibrating against her jaw pulls a deep moan from her mouth. “Mulder, please. ”

He moans back while peppering soft, tender kisses across her jawline, up her cheek, and to the corner of her parted lips. She clutches his tux in her fists and gives it an impatient tug as his mouth finally melds with hers. Their kissing is gentle, insistent, and the way their tongues glide against one another sends tingles straight down her spine.

“Come with me tomorrow,” she mumbles in his mouth. Her eagerness may surprise him, but she wholeheartedly means it. She can’t and won’t hide the thinly veiled tone of desperation. She is desperate for him, after all. “Come to my mother’s.”

“Tomorrow’s Christmas, Scully.”

“I know.” Her hand dips beneath the jacket of his tux to splay her hand over his racing heart. “Christmas won’t mean anything without you, Mulder.”

His chin trembles. “Where you go, I go.”

Scully nearly sobs in relief. She dips her chin to hide her swollen-lipped smirk within the lapel of his tux.

“What're you thinking?” She feels the heat of his breath tickling her skin, his rumbling voice seeping deep into her bones.

Scully thinks that their partnership is not a mundane pairing. That it’s an intricately weaved relationship, a mass of fine-tuned threads tying them together. But she knows she cannot imagine a life without him in it.

“I think…” she lingers with her words, staring at their discarded mistletoe meant for only each other. “I think you should kiss me again, Mulder.”

“Again and again,” he promises before his mouth passionately possesses hers, their bodies tangling like twine.

“More,” she husks, and Mulder’s long leg bumps the radio’s dial, blasting “Jingle Bell Rock” through the speakers.

“And to think I thought I hated this song,” he quips with a nip to her bottom lip, kissing her again and again, just like he’d promised, until the fog on the windows is as thick as the love between them.

That’s the jingle bell rooock

[monikafilefan]

Jingle Bells and Jealousy 1

I realized I never shared my newest fic I wrote on Christmas Eve here. There’s 2 chapters: 1 in Mulder’s pov and 2 in Scully’s.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

Let your heart be light

From now on, our troubles will be out of sight

Mulder scoffs as he draws the final insidious lines onto the smiling image of Santa Claus in front of him.

“Better,” he chuckles wryly.

The black ballpoint’s ink bleeds through the red and white dessert plate where the now new and improved Santa stares up at him. He blows cookie crumbs and remnants of pecan pie off his paper plate to get a good look at his masterpiece. The cookies were bland, but the pie hit the spot.

He feels overdressed and uncomfortable next to coworkers in ugly Christmas sweaters surrounded by tinsel by the pound. Good pie just might be the highlight of the night, Mulder muses sourly.

In a surprising turn of events while wrapping up a post X-File department budget meeting with Skinner this morning, Scully had confirmed that, yes, she was planning to attend the Bureau’s annual Christmas party for the first time in a long time. Mulder almost laughed at her joke — seeing as how they’d both agreed years ago that holiday parties could only serve to further ridicule their spooky department of two — before Skinner boldly stated that he’d hoped to see her there with her plus one. And to Mulder’s utter shock, Scully had blushed, avoided his probing gaze, and nodded. Scully had a date? His jaw had clenched so hard his teeth hurt. From there, Mulder’s plans to spend a quiet Christmas break on his couch with his pretty partner and a carton of Beijing beef had crumbled quicker than the pie crust now littering his lap.

Through the years, we all will be together

If the fates allow

Sinatra croons about fated happiness throughout the Hoover’s reception hall as Mulder slumps further in his seat. He’s only been here a half an hour and already regrets coming. The only plus side is that Diana and Spender are out of town on a case — an X-File, and aren’t here to silently mock his bullpen misery. If Scully hadn’t dropped a last minute bomb about attending this bureaucratic shindig, he sure as hell wouldn’t have either. Should have saved himself the embarrassment, he knows. He should’ve gone for a run instead of stewing in his apartment for three hours before changing his mind and frantically dusting off his tux he didn’t need for front row seats to a waking nightmare cheerfully playing out in front of him.

He isn’t sure his heart can handle what his eyes cannot get enough of: Dana Scully is absolutely gorgeous. Though, she’s always been pretty to him. Even when she emerges from her one star motel room at five a.m., sleepy-eyed and grumpy, rolling her eyes at his new case glee, Fox Mulder is wholly enamored.

But now… Christ. It must be his sorrow kicking him while he’s down again, because Scully has never been more beautiful. The green, form fitting cashmere cardigan looks so good on her with its top two buttons undone and something red and lacy peeking out underneath. It’s festive, flirty. The fine lines of her collarbones rise and fall in time with her shoulders as she sips her wine amongst the crowd. But her luminous appearance is hardly the attribute that attracts him to his partner the most. Her mind, her stubbornness, her heart… all of her has made him fall foolishly and dangerously in love.

And she looks happy without him.

Mulder sighs, sick to his stomach. He doesn’t deserve her attention anyway. His attitude pretty much proved that in the bullpen earlier tonight…

They leave the meeting with Skinner in a blur as Mulder silently reels at the implication of Scully dating, feeling the invisible noose of self-deprecation squeezing tighter.

“I thought you were going to conveniently miss that budget meeting,” Scully comments when they enter the nearly empty bullpen. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Where you, go I go,” he casually admits, trying not to sound as possessive as he feels right now. Because it’s the truth and the promise he’d silently made on his knees as he’d sobbed by her bedside in the Oncology ward.

She huffs a laugh. “Is that an early New Year’s resolution?”

“Not really new.” Mulder flops down in his chair and contemplates further, watching her fiddling with the mess on his tiny desk. He wants to just ask if she’s seeing someone. If she’s finally gotten sick of his shit and moved on, but for the first time in his life, he isn’t sure he wants the truth. “So you’ve decided to attend the Christmas party this year?”

Scully stops stacking files of neglected background checks and gives him a meaningful look. “I have.”

“You don’t think this is just another way to punish us, or you, if you go?” He whispers while pointing a pencil toward Kersh’s office across the hall. “You know how they operate up here.”

“Does enjoying a little Christmas music and conversation really seem like discipline to you?”

“Yes,” he says immediately.

“There’s pie,” she teases, pulling his discarded invitation he never read from the recycling bin and sliding it enticingly across the desk.

As much as he is itching to know more about her party plans, playing cool, calm, and collected feels less desperate. So he feigns disinterest and shrugs, “You know I’m picky about pie.”

Scully cocks her head and crosses her arms. “There’s me.”

“And you’re standing right here like always,” he offhandedly adds, hating his forced indifference more with every dismissive word that rolls off his tongue.

“Like always,” she mumbles. And out of the corner of his eye, he sees her shoulders slump, her arms falling limply to her sides. “Where I go, you go, but not if it includes socializing above subterranean territory?”

Something about the snide way she says that irritates him. Scully’s been just as pissed off about their reassignment to shit duty as he is and has never complained about being in the bowels of the basement with him. Not once.

Whatever reign he’d had on his internal turmoil snaps.

He spins around in his chair and points the pencil at her accusingly. “Am I too much of a loner for you now, is that why you’re bringing a plus one?” he hisses. “A date?”

“Excuse me?” A wave of anger rises within her sea blue eyes. Brow arched, she opens her mouth to rip him a new one he definitely deserves, but then seemingly reconsiders within earshot of others, tilting her head instead. “So what if I am?” she prods, sharp as a scalpel.

It’s unfair, he knows. His agitation and accusation. She’s never mentioned dating anyone before. Has never given him a reason to ask if she was, but the sudden white-hot flare of jealousy in his chest hurts more than her “oh brother” response to his recent love confession than he could have imagined.

Scully is staring at him like she wants to shove him against a wall and choke him with his tie. Mulder’s gut twists.

He tosses the pencil and stands. “Scully, I’m sorr-”

She holds up a halting hand.

“I’m going to the party tonight, Mulder.” Her voice is soft, a little shaky. “With or without you.”

Before Mulder can say another word, Scully turns on her heel and walks out of the bullpen, leaving him alone with a lump in his throat.

Now, Mulder’s heart hammers in time with the beat of the “Little Drummer Boy” echoing off the Bureau’s walls.

He had thought he could handle this soul-crushing feeling of heartbreak when he’d decided to come. He’d told himself he could push his own feelings aside for Scully’s happiness and show up to prove to her he’s really not a hermit intentionally holding her back in life. To remind her that he will do any thing for her. But now, confronted with the reality of her hand caressing another man’s forearm in a room riddled with mistletoe, he finds the sight of it is like a tabloid headline at a gas station checkout people are too ashamed to buy but can’t help indulging in a quick flip-through. Goddammit! His fists clench along the snowflake tablecloth. Like a train wreck, he cannot look away.

“Devil horns on Santa Claus, Mulder?” A.D. Skinner scolds wearily from over his shoulder.

Mulder startles and tears his eyes away from the woman he loves. He should have known he couldn’t wallow at a party in peace. “It’s Krampus, sir.”

“Looks about as cheerful as you do,” Skinner retorts.

Mulder pushes his defiled plate aside. “If I hear one more song about old Saint Nick, I might stuff my ears with marshmallows.”

“As much as you may deserve it after blowing the quarterly budget; again, a party isn’t a punishment, Mulder. Even when you’re off the files.”

The increasing ache in Mulder’s chest disagrees.

“You sound like Scully.”

“Then maybe you should listen.” Skinner nods toward Scully at the opposite side of the room. She’s smiling brightly as the same good-looking agent with dark skin and a gleaming grin hands her a glass of wine. “Agent Scully seems to be enjoying herself.”

“She deserves it,” Mulder mumbles moodily, doing a piss-poor job of ignoring the green-eyed Grinch gnawing a hole in his gut. And it doesn’t make it any less true, his closest, most cherished friend deserves the best.

“She’s said the same thing about you, you know,” Skinner huffs and shakes his head. The twinkling lights decorating the reception hall reflect off his boss’s scalp like a skin-colored disco ball. “Go on, show your tux a good time. Drink some eggnog, make some bullpen buddies. You know, live a little.”

“Dunno, Skinman. Sounds like a bad idea to me.”

“Jesus, Mulder.” Skinner reaches over and snags one of the bundles of mistletoe taped to the hall’s wall and shoves it into Mulder's palm. “Here, consider it my gift to you.”

“Uh,” Mulder blinks. “You shouldn’t have, sir.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Skinner rolls his eyes and pokes at the plastic flower. “For your partner. You know, the woman who — by some miracle, insists on defending you at every turn over the last six years. The same woman I overheard decline multiple dance offers already because of you.”

“How much punch have you had, sir? Because I saw Tom Colton pour a bottle of Jim Beam in there earlier.” Still, his hopeful eyes scan the crowd in search of Scully’s beckoning ones. But her back is turned, her date brazenly tucking a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. Mulder’s heart sinks to his shoes. “She couldn’t have said that about me.”

“Does she really have to?” Skinner asks incredulously.

Mulder tsks and flicks a stray chocolate chip across the table. “Considering she’s here with someone else and has ignored me since I walked in, I’d say so.”

“Well, even I know when your partner’s annoyed with you. More than usual, anyway.” Mulder can only shrug at the big man’s statement. He’s not wrong. “You didn’t tell her you were coming, did you?”

“No, I wasn’t planning to show up at all. Not until-” Mulder stops and groans, his last vestige of hope fading faster than his will to be here.

“Until you were you and jumped to conclusions without supporting evidence? Can’t say I’m surprised.”

“The supporting evidence is currently palming my partner’s back,” Mulder grumbles under his breath as dark thoughts invade his brain. “You heard her in your office,” he says loud enough for Skinner to hear this time. “She’d planned to bring a date before I even knew she was coming.”

Skinner side eyes him. “How do you know she wasn’t talking about you?”

Mulder ponders that prospect as the festive music makes his head pound. He and Scully are in an emotional stalemate as of late. Both treading lightly, trying not to hurt each other, and he fears he's doing a shit job of it. It’s been a domino of disasters between Antarctica and his heated hallway confession, being booted from the files, the Diana debacle, and with Kersh breathing down their necks more and more has undoubtedly tugged hard on their tethered partnership. Mulder would be lying if he said he isn’t worried about losing her more than ever.

“Look, Scully and I are friends,” he responds solemnly. “Best friends. And yeah, I… well, you seem to already know,” he admits in defeat. Somehow, Mulder isn’t embarrassed to confess the unplatonic pull toward his partner to Skinner. His endless love for Scully is practically screaming at this point. “But I’m me. And she…”

“You’re too smart to be this stupid,” Skinner mutters, exasperated.

“Hey,” Mulder scoffs. “She has a date who looks to be the exact kind of man her family would love to see sweep her off her feet. Anyway, I don’t ever want to be the reason she can’t have what makes her happy.”

“For Christ’s sake, Mulder,” Skinner leans down close. “Last month Agent Scully put her ass — and mine — on the line without a second thought to rescue yours from the Bermuda Triangle for a reason. And that’s just one of the recent stunts she's pulled that could’ve cost her her job, and her life. The crazy thing is, I don’t think she cares as long as you’re by her side in the end.”

Mulder clears his rapidly thickening throat to speak, but Skinner shoots him his Shut The Hell Up And Listen look.

“And you’re sulking?” Skinner continues, chuckling to himself. “I know you’re angry about your reassignment. Rightfully so, but now is not the time to show it. You’ve gone head to head with Cancer Man, jumped off a bridge and onto a moving train — and whatever other insane things you’ve done behind my back, let alone Kersh’s, so I know you’re brave enough to haul your ass across this room and enjoy yourself.”

Mulder can’t help but smirk. “Now that’s a pep talk.”

Skinner loosens his candy cane striped tie as his eyes search the crowded room.

“I’ve never known two people so irritatingly stubborn in my life. Consider this my gift to you. Go ask Agent Scully to dance, and apologize for… well, everything, and use that mistletoe for God’s sake.” He slaps a heavy hand on Mulder’s shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “She’s waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass. Don’t blow it.”

Mulder’s mouth hangs open as the A.D. saunters off through the crowd with an unusual pep in his step. If Mulder didn’t know better, he’d think his boss just offered him fatherly advice. He scrubs his hands over his eyes and catches a familiar flash of red hair across the room, feeling a rush of renewed bravery take hold. The big man is right. What the hell is he doing torturing himself instead of seeking out the reason he’s come here?

He wipes the crumbs from his lap and weaves his way through the throng of buzzed and festive Feds. It looks like Kris Kringle threw up Christmas itself here. There are decorations everywhere. As Mulder rounds a corner to follow Scully out into the hallway, an upbeat song blares through the speaker near his ear.

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock

Jingle bells chime in jingle bell time

A group of women in red velvet and green lace bump into him and ask him to dance, tell him how good he looks in a tux, but Mulder doesn’t care. Not when Scully is fifteen feet in front of him, talking awfully close with the man Mulder now recognizes as another new agent in the lab. Her handsome, science nerd date with his hands gently cupping Scully’s arms, smiling sweetly at her as she nods up at him. Mulder freezes. With breath caught in his chest, he watches by the wayside in horror as the man seemingly leans down and presses a lingering kiss to Scully’s upturned lips.

What a bright time, it's the right time

To rock the night away

Mulder’s heart nearly stops.

An explosion of emotion flares in his gut. Frustration, sadness, disappointment… Anger. Anger at himself, at the lucky bastard kissing his one in five billion. He grits his teeth, swallows hard against the molten burn of it all, and turns around before Scully sees the misery on his face.

Mix and a-mingle in the jingling feet

That's the jingle bell

Maybe this is what was supposed to happen tonight: fate telling him he deserves whatever shitty cards he’s dealt. But fuck, he loves her. He loves her fiercely and wants her to be happy. Whether it’s with him, or someone else, it shouldn’t matter as long as she’s living a life she chooses. A life she deserves.

It shouldn’t matter, but goddammit, it does.

So Mulder tamps down tears, and walks away.

That’s the jingle bell

He stalks out of the hall and bursts his way through the double doors, relieved to escape into the snow covered streets. He frantically searches his pockets for his car keys when his fingers get caught on the mistletoe’s hard plastic petals. Instantly, his nose stings and eyes water. He’s not sure if it’s from the pain of his heart shattering or the icy December air. He doubts it matters.

He doubts anything does, anymore.

That’s the jingle bell rooock

[monikafilefan]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Three of a Kind (6x20)

It’s no secret Byers is a dreamer. Has been since the day he’d entered inside Baltimore’s Computer and Electronics Convention a decade ago. The same day he’d met his partners in crime — his best friends. 

The day he’d met her. 

It all started with Susanne Modeski and her incredible tale of deep-state conspiracies hidden from the American people. Since the first moment her pleading blue eyes had latched onto his, John Fitzgerald Byers had never dreamed more desperately.

“She’s here,” Byers mumbles, dazed. Of course she’s engaged. Of course it’s to someone else. “And with him…”

Ten years of searching… of dreaming. How damn delusional he’s been.

Frohike taps the surveillance tape from Susanne’s room against Byers’ hand covering his face. “Hey buddy, you sure you wanna go through with watching this? I know you care about her. I get it, but this might not end the way you hope.”

“I’m not hoping—” Byers chokes, tugging at his tie, irritated. What little hope he’d held for a future with a woman he wasn’t even certain was alive vanished five minutes ago when he saw Grant Ellis kissing her. “My intentions are good, whether Susanne believes so or not.”

“Hell is a road paved of good intentions, my friend,” Frohike retorts. “Uh, speaking of intentions, when Mulder finds out we impersonated him to get Agent Scully here, he’ll intentionally kick our asses if she hasn’t done it first.”

“I know.” A bead of sweat trickles down Byers’ back at the thought of an angry Scully and her protective Mulder. “But he’ll understand.”

Frohike chuffs. “Mulder’s understanding when it comes to manipulating Scully stretches thinner than a fat man’s tighty whities. And you know it.”

“We had little choice. If Agent Scully finds any evidence of wrongdoing during Jimmy’s autopsy, then an asskicking will be worth it.”

Frohike arches a furry, incredulous brow. “Speak for yourself.” 

The door opens and Langly strides in, looking pale and smelling like antiseptic. John cringes at the thought of Jimmy’s autopsy as a fresh wave of worry for Susanne’s safety washes over him.

They debrief their lack of findings and watch the tape taken from Susanne and Grant’s room. John’s stomach sinks at their on-screen domesticity. “She would not marry that man.”

“You don't know him like I do.” The Gunmen startle, turning to see Susanne standing in their hotel room. “I need to talk to you, John, I need to try and explain everything.”

His friends don’t trust her, but Susanne had unknowingly helped create the men they are now. She’d opened their eyes to it all. The governmental secrets. The lies shrouded in half-truths. She doesn't owe him for any of that. But she does owe him an explanation. 

“C'mon,” Langly sighs. Byers blushes, loathing feeling like the lonesome lover-boy of the group. “Let's hit the slots.”

“Watch your back,” Frohike warns Byers before calling Susanne Mata Hari.

Trust or not, Byers refuses to believe she’s some seductive spy. His heart races as Susanne moves closer. His best-case scenario is that she pushes him onto the bed and they make love in a room around the corner from the one she shares with her fiancé. The worst case scenario is that she tells him to get lost and never think of her again.

“You said something about a friend being murdered,” Susanne says.

Byers explains Jimmy’s supposed suicide and alerts she may be in danger, too. 

“I am. Always,” she admits, pacing nervously. “So is Grant. I've thought about this moment so many times. All the things I would say to you if I ever saw you again. And then there you were, at my door, and I…” She trails off, but Byers is barely listening while her watery eyes lock onto his, and it feels exactly like it did when they first met. Like a lightning strike straight to the chest. “…He reminded me of you. Grant,” she confesses. 

Byers blinks back tears. 

“Susanne—” 

“John, I don’t want to hurt you, but Grant isn’t who you think. You don’t know him and I’m not brainwashed,” she pleads, and Byers isn’t sure if she’s trying to convince him or herself. “You’re paranoid.”

He scoffs, “You’re the one who warned us years ago, Susanne. It was you who pushed us to look past the placating façade and find the truth within the lie. ‘That no matter how paranoid we are, we’re not paranoid enough.’ Remember?”

“Of course. I wasn’t lying. But things have changed, John.” 

He purses his lips, frustrated. The lips Susanne had pressed the sweetest of kisses to once before, leaving him loose-limbed and love-struck just moments before she was forcefully shoved into the back of a car, never to be heard from again. Until now.

He’s spent ten years clinging to a fantasy of a future with her. A marriage, a mortgage, three kids and a dog. An entire life. What a fool he is. 

With a solemn nod, Byers clenches his eyes shut. “Of course they have.” 

“John?” Susanne whispers, suddenly only a breath away, her cool hand cupping the scruff of his jaw as her lips brush against his ear. “Someday you’ll realize you’re too good for me. So very good.” She kisses his cheek tenderly and his eyes fly open. “Someday.”

Susanne leans back to wipe away the tears rolling down her face. 

“Someday…” Byers mumbles back and wonders if maybe there is more for him than one woman. Maybe everything in his life has turned out exactly the way it’s supposed to. “Maybe.”

It all may have started with Susanne Modeski, but with Frohike, Langly, Mulder, and Scully in his life, John holds hope that spending reality with his friends turns out to be more fulfilling than a dream could ever be. 

***

Hours later, she stands before Byers under the glimmer of Vegas lights, her dead fiancé’s engagement ring within his palm, and her plush lips pressed against his own. 

“Someday,” she promises, and Byers smiles. 

Maybe…

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Archive of Our Own!

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[monikafilefan]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Trevor (6x17)

Jasper, Mississippi

1992

A shrill scream rips through the paper thin walls of the house. 

“June!” Jackie pounds on the door. When her sister had called in a panic, Jackie hadn’t thought twice before breaking every traffic law there is to get here. “Pinker, leave her alone!”

The door flies open with Pinker glaring down at her. The asshole’s barely out of work and already abusing June. “Stay outta this, Jackie,” he barks.

Behind him, her sister’s crying on the floor, cradling her pregnant belly. 

“Never.” Anger urges Jackie on as she shoves her way past him. “June, you okay?” 

“She’s fine,” Pinker interrupts. “Stupid for threatenin’ to take what’s mine, but fine. She ain’t keepin’ my kid from me. Are ya, June?”

June shakes her head, trembling within Jackie’s arms, but Jackie has had enough. “You’re a real bastard, Pinker.”

He laughs and takes a swig from his beer before slamming the front door. Both women hold their breath until they hear his Buick revving in the driveway and the sound of its tires screeching down the road. 

“June, you have to leave him,” Jackie pleads. “You have to.” 

“How? If I run, yeah he might forget about me for a while. Even find a new girlfriend. But he’ll never stop lookin’ for his child. Never.” 

“If you don’t leave soon, he could end up killin’ you both!” Jackie fights back tears as she presses her palm to her own achingly flat belly. The small bump where her tiny baby once lived before she lost it is now painfully, depressingly, gone. “June, please. I can’t lose you, too.”

“Jackie, you know I never planned for—” June points to her pregnancy. “This. To be a mother. Pinker, though… he really wants to be a father. And that scares me more than his temper ever could.” 

“That’s why you gotta leave! There ain’t nothin’ good about staying with Pinker Rawls.” Jackie wants to just throw clothes in a bag and drag her sister out of here. But she knows from experience that leaving has to be June’s choice. 

“Might not need to. Pinker says he’s got another plan to get quick cash,” June whispers. “Somethin’ risky. But he doesn’t know I have a plan of my own.” Her bloodshot eyes water as she squeezes Jackie’s hand. “One I hope you’ll agree to help me with.”

As frustrating as it is to watch helplessly as her sister suffers time and time again, Jackie can deny her nothing. “Always, June...” 

***

Jackson, Mississippi

1999

He’s a killer, Jackie thinks as she listens to June cry behind the locked pantry door. He walks through walls and kills people. This isn’t the run-of-the-mill controlling man slapping his woman around. This is something very different.

And it sure as hell isn’t good. 

“It's all right,” Pinker tells a stunned Trevor. He appears terrified when Pinker pulls up a chair beside him after watching his Aunt June being screamed at by a strange man and thrown in the pantry. “It's gonna be all right. D-d-don't be upset. I ain't mad at you, buddy.”

Jackie’s son has never seen violence against women before. She’s made damn sure of that, and her teeth clench at the sight of her sweet boy frozen with fear. June was right nearly eight years ago. With Pinker in their lives, living in fear is never gonna stop. Never. 

Unless someone finally forces him to.

“It's okay, Trevor,” Jackie soothes. “Mama's here, okay?” 

Pinker says he wants what’s his, but Trevor’s not a possession. He’s a smart, sensitive seven-year-old who knows nothing of clenched fists, screaming fits, or having to ignore bruises on his mama’s skin that his daddy gave her. All Trevor knows is unconditional love. 

And that has absolutely nothing to do with Wilson Pinker Rawls. 

“You got some stuff you want to pack up? Some toys and stuff?” Pinker asks. He’s trying to keep his cool with Trevor, but real dads — real men — don’t frighten their sons and yank women around by their hair. “Trevor...? Jackie?”

He’s desperate now. Dangerous. But so is a mother protecting her child.

”Trevor, go. Go and pack some stuff, okay?”

Her son is nervous as he stands to walk away, “Okay.”

“He's a good boy,” Pinker praises. Like he’s proud of someone he, thankfully, had no hand in raising. 

While she stares down at the boiling soup, the memory of June placing a newborn Trevor Andrew in her arms, asking her to be his mama — to love and protect him — flashes before Jackie’s eyes. Her fingers wrap around the pot’s glass handle as she continues fulfilling the promise she’d made all those years ago… 

Always.

Jackie flings the boiling soup at Pinker. And it passes right through his face. 

The panicking thud of her heart fights against her ribs, but she can’t afford to fall apart. Jackie reacts to the look of fury in Pinker’s eyes and swings the pot upward, bouncing the glass off of his skull. 

“Trevor, run!” Jackie yells as she fights for their lives, whacking Pinker in the head again. Then she’s suddenly on the floor, screaming as his fist slams into her face.

Everything goes black… until someone is shaking her awake. “Jackie? Jackie, wake up!” 

Her jaw hurts and the copper taste of blood coats her tongue. Jackie’s eyes flutter open to see June hovering above. “Trevor—”

“Pinker won’t get him. I promise.”

Jackie’s eyes roll as the room spins. She’s about to pass out again. “I’ll fuckin’ kill him, June,” she slurs. “I swear…” 

“He won’t touch Trevor,” June says so seriously that Jackie instantly believes her. “This mess is my fault. A mess I helped make years ago. I’ll be the one to clean it up.”

And for the very first time, Jackie is the one trusting in her sister to keep her son safe.

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Archive of Our Own!

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[monikafilefan]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | Two Fathers (6x11)

The hospital’s quarantine room is quiet and nearly as dark as the sky outside it. My charge sleeps, but as an FBI agent on guard, I do not. My only duty is to watch this woman, to keep vigil…

“My son doesn’t believe his own mother,” Cassandra’s raspy voice cuts through my thoughts. I startle while her piercing blue eyes seem to glow in darkness. “But that doesn’t change the fact that his life is in danger. Maybe it always will be.”

I am not a mother, so I say nothing. But the intense stare mingling with the scent of stale cigarettes that emanates from this once ill, wheelchair-bound woman gives me pause. I set aside a mind-numbing magazine I pretend to read and really look at the anomaly of Cassandra Spender.  

She is pink-cheeked and healthy. Brimming with life. Yet, all I see is death. 

“Think I could get some privacy?” Cassandra asks tersely, frustrated at my silence. 

Swinging her legs off the bed, Cassandra huffs as her bare feet slap across the floor and into the bathroom. Soft sounds of crying echo within its walls, followed by acrid smoke wafting beneath the doorframe. Minutes pass as Cassandra cries between audible drags from her Morley Lights. She sobs and sobs, until she suddenly stops, the door’s lock clicking abruptly. 

It is unprecedented, but the hair on the back of my neck prickles. I uncross my legs, stand, and knock. “Open up, Cassandra.”

Silence. 

“Open the door. Now.” There is a slim chance of her harming herself. Slim, yet not impossible. “Do it, or I will.”

With a swift snap, the door swings open, and a furious Cassandra steps out. Her blue eyes blaze with anger. Decades worth of suffering has nowhere to go but to overflow from her lashes and pour down her pale skin.

“Do what you want,” she scoffs. “I never have a say, anyway.”

Shockingly, something akin to sympathy tugs within me. She doesn’t know. She has no idea what she is, what she has become. “You do now. Just your existence says more than you realize.”

Cassandra only blinks, not comprehending. 

“Everything has changed, Cassandra. You’re special beyond the abductions, beyond the tests. You are the one.”

She gasps, what’s left of her cigarette falling to the floor. “You’re one of them. Like my bastard ex-husband.”

“No,” I shake my head. “Quite the opposite.”

Cassandra wipes the tears from her face and steps away from me. “I don’t know what you want or why you’re telling me this now, but I don’t trust you.”

I nod, tucking the long black strands of hair behind my ears, and offer up an elusive truth she has earned the right to hear. “You are the product of twenty-five years worth of a genetic genome project come to fruition through selfish means. You are the first successful alien-human hybrid — the key to everything, Cassandra, and the Syndicate behind the project knows it. Soon, the Colonists will know it too; it is only a matter of time. Proof of hybridization will be irrefutable. Colonization will begin.”

“No!” Cassandra’s chin trembles as she stares down at her hands, as if searching for a lie that does not exist. “Those sonsabitches. Those goddamn bastards… When?”

“The timetable has changed rapidly due to their sudden success.” I remove my suit jacket, getting comfortable telling a tale most would deem science fiction. “The Syndicate plans to trade you for their family collateral.”

“I am collateral, dammit!” Cassandra brings one shaky hand up over her mouth and the other to rub the nape of her neck.

“Yes, the microchip. We know about its power. What it can do, what it can cure. Feel that familiar pull in the back of your neck?”

“It leads me to them,” she spits the words out like poison. 

“Perhaps.” I recall the redheaded agent visited her earlier and add, “But ask yourself what else that pull can lead you to, and to whom.”

Cassandra slowly shakes her head. “Who the hell are you?”

“I am the resistance,” I say, reaching up to sink my manicured nails into the brown flesh of my face, and ripping it to shreds. “And I cannot let them have you.”

As my fingers dig and tear my skin mask away, Cassandra recoils. “Oh my god! Oh my god!”

I offer a reassuring hand in her panic. This new-bred hybrid fully understanding her fate in the endgame of the Syndicate's project is vital. Her simple existence can bring the selfish faction to ashes.

“Don’t touch me!” Cassandra shrieks, throwing her hands out. “No more tests, no more pain! No more, damn you!”

That is not our plan for her. But as I try sending her a mental message to calm down, an ear-piercing screeching noise rips through my skull like a white-hot electrical storm inside my brain. I whimper and cradle my head within my hands, staring up at Cassandra in awe. 

She is silent as she puts on my jacket, gaping down at me with wide eyes while I writhe along the floor. You, I try to say inside her mind, but mine is nearly melting my brain stem. You are too dangerous to save the world.

Blackness pulls me under.

***

I awake to a prickling sensation as familiar as my own featureless face. Another of my kind is near. I rise from the floor, my head throbbing, as shame of my failure consumes me. 

Cassandra Spender is gone.

Where is the hybrid? my fellow Rebel wordlessly demands as we flee. You know it is imperative we find her before the Syndicate does.

I did this. The truth was too much. I will find her.

No. His fire stick flares to life. You have failed.

And all I see is death…

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Archive of Our Own!

@monikafilefan

[monikafilefan]

i hope you dont mind me asking but do you know any msr multi-chapter ivf pre-relationship fics? pining... angst... eventual romance or slow burn, etc...

(i hate reading established relationship) (preferably on ao3)

please and thanks.

i love this ask!!! i won’t add any fics i’ve written or any au’s for this but i’ll throw in a few multiple ch canon-related fics on ao3 off the top of my head i’ve enjoyed. there’s sooo many more that i know i’ve left off though😬

*Fox Mulder, Closet Romantic

*Someday Your Child May Cry

*Unobserved

*Between Sorrow and Bliss

*Culmination

*The I in Team

[monikafilefan]

All Eyes Lead to the Truth | The Beginning (6x01)

Make no mistake, Agent Fowley. Handle Mulder, or we will. 

The threat-laced promise shoots through Diana’s brain like a ricocheted bullet. While she pleads for Fox to accompany her in search of the entity, she runs a finger across the freshly healed gunshot wound on her ribcage. The ache serves as a harsh reminder. Her task is clear. 

And the stakes have never been higher. 

“I was given this assignment, Fox, okay?” she explains as he leaves Agent Scully’s side and marches up to Diana’s car to confront her. “They offered it to me. I took the chance…”

“I'm listening.”

“…To make sure someone served your interests. Someone who believes in the work.” If she has to pull on the thread of their shared paranormal past to reel him in, she will. “Hey, you and I found the X-Files together. Don't forget that.”

His suspicion spikes. “Who sent you?”

“I'm here on my own.” It’s a truth-coated lie. If she can’t persuade him to leave behind his partner and the most important eight-year-old weapon in their arsenal currently lying in their backseat, then Diana’s life won't be the only one on the line. 

“Why? To convince me of your noble intentions?”

“Listen to me.” An irritation rises that only years of practice arguing with stubborn men can elicit. “That thing is somewhere inside the Number Four reactor building. Now, we can let them find it and destroy it, or go find it ourselves. You need proof, Fox. You're so close.” Too close. Everyone knows it, especially Gibson Praise. “Why can't you see that?”

This is the first time they’ve spoken freely since his near-death escapade to the bottom of the earth, and for many reasons, Diana cannot risk his refusal now. She is prepared to do whatever it takes to handle him by steering his attention away from the boy to keep them safe. To urge Fox into an allied position under her watchful eye where he fully trusts her again. 

Her and only her. 

Fox hesitates as he stares at his waiting partner, then agrees. Diana exhales in relief as he folds himself into the passenger seat of her car. She glances at Agent Scully through the windshield as she throws the Taurus into reverse. Even in darkness, Diana can see big blue eyes brimming with vulnerability. 

***

Fox fidgets with the dirty ashtray as she turns onto the highway. “I quit smoking years ago. Same time as you, remember?”

He shrugs. ”Ya never know.”

“Well, I know you’re mad, and I know you don’t want to talk about the X-Files. But I also know you can’t move past this unless you have your say.”

“What else is there to say other than you really know how to twist a knife?” 

“I didn’t stab you in the back, Fox.”

“Agent Spender sitting at my desk says otherwise,” he retorts. “I want my ergonomic cushion back, by the way.” 

Her eyes roll. “Look, I fought for you to join me. Argued our unique expertise would be invaluable—”

“Fought for me to join you,” he huffs. “Thanks for the effort, but I have a partner.”

“You do,” Diana sighs. Dana Scully is a much larger problem than anyone could have anticipated. Fortunately for Diana, her new partner, Jeffrey, is as pretentious as he is pliable. “And I have no desire to argue about partners. But I’m here now, Fox. Let’s do what we do best and get proof.” 

She reaches out and places her palm atop Fox’s knee. He stares at it — her silent plea for him to listen. To believe her, like he’d done so easily before she’d left him and their marriage behind for secrets shrouded in cigarette smoke. 

He nods, “Okay.”

***

Minutes and miles fly by as she and Fox debate the details. Though their camaraderie is comforting, her duplicity is burdensome as she ruminates on how dangerous this familiar dance they’re doing is. But at the moment, she doesn’t give a damn. 

“You're not under the impression what we're looking for makes sense in any conventional way?” Diana prods.

“No,” he scoffs, a little awed at the bluntness of her unconventionality. “No, but it’s nice to hear someone else thinks it, too.”

Handle Mulder, or we will. 

The stark reminder pops their comfortable bubble of calm.

“Earlier, you wondered whose errands I was running,” Diana divulges. She suddenly feels the need to placate herself just as much as him tonight. “They’re my own, Fox.” 

He hums, considering her confession.

While it is true she’d naïvely made her own dangerous choices to get to where she is, sometimes lying to herself is easier than admitting free will is no longer hers without risk. God, how she’d wanted to be part of the Project back then — had reveled in its ground-breaking, para-scientific research when recruited out of Berlin. But now, watching as Fox’s trust in her grows, Diana feels a sharp stab of guilt slicing at her Syndicate-twisted ties. 

“There is risk seeking this thing out,” she warns. 

“Risk is my middle name,” he jokes, softening.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d believe you.”

He turns away and looks out the window. “You always did.” 

Her hands clench in time with her chest. 

The Syndicate is right about one thing, at least: Fox Mulder is dangerous. Yes, he’s emotionally damaged — partly because of her — and before seeing him again, she’d questioned whether she'd become emotionally numb in turn. But she cares about him deeply. And until recently, had nearly forgotten just how much. 

Dangerous, indeed. 

Under the security lights of the looming facility, Diana allows herself to indulge in Fox’s handsome features. This man loved her once. Maybe he could again. But will their past remain where they left it, or will history repeat itself?

Handle Mulder, or we will. 

“No matter the outcome, Fox, just remember that I’m protecting the work. Our work.”

For the first time in a long time, what Diana Fowley says feels like the truth. 

Read the rest of All Eyes Lead to the Truth on Archive of Our Own!

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