#<- scully and Mulder count

[hauntingyourself]

Me with any piece of media where two characters have a codependent relationship

[windwenn]

The real happy pride month post

[pookie-mulder]

if you’ve been victimized by Chris Carter’s obsession with the name William, you may be entitled to a venn diagram

[constance-dartagnan]

buck and lucy in 5x11 were the world's first documented case of queerbaiting with a m/f couple

[rosenkranz-isnt-dead]

the x files + text posts yet again

more

[randomfoggytiger]

Even though I am personally not religious, one of my favorite character traits of Scully was her faith despite being a hard nosed scientist. If you had to define her religious beliefs how would you? Would you consider her a hard core catholic, a catholic in name only or something else?

I look forward to a 1000 word prompt XD

The Journey of Scully's Faith, in Brief

Oh, yeah, Scully and her religion.

*cracks knuckles*

Faith was Scully's albatross until all things, a tug-of-war between her initial belief and secondary rationalization.

ATHEISM, AGNOSTICISM, AND THE FEAR OF HER BELIEFS

During the first half of the 90s, religion represented, to Scully, everything she was afraid to believe in: her father's ghost mouthing The Lord's Prayer, her Catholic mother's psychic dreams, her partner's and sister's convictions running concurrent with her struggle against faith.

She began Season 1 as an atheist-- more so than Mulder, perhaps-- using the rigidity of science to explain her world. Even though she wore a cross around her neck, Mulder didn't assume Scully was religious; and Maggie backed up that assumption in S2's Ascension, explaining, "I gave" [Scully's cross] "to her for her birthday." The religious iconography, then, was a memento of Scully's mother, not of her faith... which becomes particularly telling during her Season 3 and 4 struggles.

Why?

CHILDLIKE FAITH

Scully had a proclivity to believe in the supernatural, the unnatural, and the paranormal before, as she states in Quagmire, "I grew up and became a scientist." Science, then, is a shield against the unexplained: in other words, Scully fears what she can't quantify, so turns to science to deny her problem's existence. "Mulder, it doesn't matter," she insists when he prods about the cause of her cancer; "Mulder what difference would it make?" she rebuts whenever he wanders too far into the realm of hypothesis.

Beyond the Sea and Revelations hit upon the same raw nerve. Luther Lee Boggs preyed upon her repressed doubts, calling her a liar when she denied she believes and telling her that all liars "go to hell." Kevin Kryder was saved only through her acceptance, shall we say, of God's hand working through her. In both cases, religious belief-- be it her father's ghost mouthing The Lord's Prayer or a sweet-smelling saint her partner can't detect-- terrifies her.

Why would it terrify her? Because religion isolated her.

CONFUSION AND ITS ISOLATION

We know Scully has attachment issues. We see them explored in A Christmas Carol when she poured her heart out to the social worker-- admitting she kept her heart largely unattached for fear of losing yet another person in her life-- but we know Scully isn't a detached person, either. We know that Scully's greatest fear was being betrayed by Mulder. That was explored in Wetwired, when she collapsed in her mother's arms, confused and sick at heart. We know that Scully grew more and more isolated in her partnership with Mulder; but she adapted to and respected that isolation after years of professional betrayal.

In regard to religion, why would Scully feel isolated? The Scullys are a religious family: her mother dangled reminders in her life with cross necklaces and priest visits, her father prayed as his soul departed, and Bill buried her daughter in his local church.

Because religion, Scully believed, isolates her from herself.

When Scully changed her course from medical school to the FBI, her parents heavily disapproved. That disapproval heavily affected her, even if Melissa helped her work past her hang-ups, even if Scully chose to reframe her transfer as "an act of rebellion." In truth, Scully found "other fathers" to hitch her wagon to, "rebelling" only when she spotted another patch of grass that promised greener pastures. The FBI patted Scully on the head and encouraged her to sign up (pre-Pilot); Mulder patted her on the head and encouraged her to stick around (Squeeze), Ed Jerse patted her on the head and encouraged her to take a walk on the wild side (Never Again), and Daniel Waterston patted her on the head and encouraged her to come back to him (all things.) Every decision that drew Scully away from an old belief was caused by a single-minded focus on one aspect of herself: her parents' pride and joy as a doctor, Daniel Waterston's pride and joy as his med student, the FBI's pride and joy as a field agent, Mulder's pride and joy as his partner, Ed's pride and joy as his salvation. And in each case, Scully grew isolated and paranoid because she lost touch with herself as a whole; and usually fled (if temporarily) to what she considered a 'freer' freedom.

How does this apply to religion? As a child, Scully was a good little Catholic girl who smiled at her mother's cross gift; but was also a bad little Catholic girl that smoked her mother's cigarettes for attention. In medical school, Scully was a good little med student who preened under her teacher's adoration; but was also a "bad" little Catholic woman who "grew up and became a scientist." Before recruitment, Scully was a good little scientist who fled from Daniel Waterston's deception; but was a "bad" little lapsed Catholic that (unintentionally) broke up a home. In Quantico, she was a good little field agent who learned all her lessons; but was also a "bad" little by-the-books student who openly dated her Academy instructor. And she was a good little partner who helped Mulder investigate impossible cases; but was also a "bad" little scientist for "holding" him "back."

In short, Scully hadn't allowed herself to fully accept the dichotomous nature of humanity. She must either be a good little Catholic girl or be someone who wants to explore her wild side. Until Revelations, she believed one must believe in God or science; and science gave her clearer answers that squelched her anxieties.

But then, Beyond the Sea, One Breath, and Revelations happened. Scully was unable to articulate or fully understand what her experience "beyond" had been in One Breath, only that it wasn't something to fear. It forced her to brush up against sentiments lingering from Beyond the Sea, to begin to admit there was a simmering belief she wasn't ready to acknowledge.

Revelations in particular tossed Scully from agnosticism back to belief-- and, again, she feared that belief. "Afraid that God is speaking; but that no one's listening" was a distancing tactic she acknowledged in Irresistible, a way to separate from the emotions broiling uncontrollably below the surface. But it also revealed how effortlessly Scully slipped back into a belief in God-- and that she equated that belief with missed cues and punishment.

Why did Scully think religion is tied with punishment, and how did that isolate her from her other potential believers?

MOTHER MAGGIE

Maggie is the key.

As discussed above, Scully strove for acceptance from her parents or from "other fathers"; and that played an important role in her journey towards personal growth. But Captain Scully was but one-half of the picture. Scully's father served as the cattle prod for professional approval-- he modeled complete focus on climbing rank and keeping emotional burdens out from plain sight-- while her mother served as an emotional and religious one.

Maggie was the one person she could "always trust" and truly felt safe with in Wetwired. It was her mother she turned to for reassurance in Beyond the Sea, it was her mother's sins she smoked on the porch, it was her mother's gift she continued to wear when science dominated her beliefs. But Maggie has never been particularly stringent herself in her religion-- smoking cigarettes (during a time period when everyone did, but the point remains), believing in supernatural dreams, inviting the unbeliever "Fox" to mourn with the family, embracing her son's successful IVF baby in A Christmas Carol, and celebrating her daughter's out-of-wedlock baby in Essence.

It's what Margaret Scully represented, not Maggie herself, that Scully feared: unquestioning, childlike faith.

Unfortunately, we are never given closure to the dynamic Maggie provided. Other than a brief appearance in S8's Essence-- Scully's unruffled independence and Maggie's confidence in her daughter's confidence-- we're never shown that final conclusion. Alas.

A QUESTIONER AT HEART

Again, Scully couldn't reconcile the dichotomy of human nature with her (flawed) perception of religious "good and evil." Good people who do wrong, she presumed, have faltered and must repent. By that metric, evil people who do right do it for the wrong reasons. Moreover, Scully viewed a faith in God through one lens; and thought that if one did not completely believe in everything they didn't understand-- childlike faith-- then God was "speaking to them; but that no one's listening." That she wasn't listening. And what happens to those that know better but aren't listening? They are punished, because they are evil.

Scully is a questioner at heart; and Scully came to believe that questioning her beliefs, that failing to believe in things she couldn't understand, was tantamount to disbelieving in God. That's why her religious episodes can be difficult to rewatch: when facing an Almighty God, Scully cowered into complete, blind obedience-- "Perhaps that's what faith is"-- before casting off those shackles and fleeing back to denial and avoidance. But she couldn't shirk her belief, deep down, no matter her rationalizations.

A RETURN TO BELIEF, AND LIMBO

Post Revelations, Scully left the matter largely alone, resolving to finds answers to her own questions "because of my own reasons" in Memento Mori-- a courageous step for someone who usually put her own needs second.

However, the doomed inevitability of Elegy-- another agency-robbing experience Scully couldn't explain-- set her back; and she continued dodging both her mother's priest and her partner's complicated questions in Gethsemane. Scully would feel like a coward if she ran to God for strength after her absence, but she would also feel like a heretic if she questioned the nature of God's existence.

Maggie became crucial to the cancer arc narrative: it was she who kept trying to reach her daughter, to show her that God wasn't taking account of what she had or hadn't done, what she did or didn't fully believe. Scully finally cracked in Redux II, begging her mother to explain why she still clings to God but denies him-- part of her inability to understand and quantify that dichotomy-- but Maggie didn't understand what Scully was talking about, and tried to soothe her, instead. Scully ended up clinging to Maggie, clinging to Mulder, clinging to the priest before she clung to God, viewing even Mulder as a truer believer than herself.

Season 5, Fight the Future, and Season 6 left Scully in limbo. (A Christmas Carol and Emily were about her daughter and the supernatural, not her faith or belief in God.)

The series didn't return to this topic until Biogenesis, The Sixth Extinction, and Amor Fati, a three-parter that focused on the possibility of aliens creating Earth (or having a hand in its creation.) This changed the wide interpretation of her religious texts and tossed Scully back into fearful questions and self-doubt. She cried in Amor Fati because she "doesn't know what to believe or who to trust"-- a verbal slip back into that feeling of isolation that drove her from religion in the first place. (Diana Fowley was formerly evil, but she died saving Mulder. Did that make her a good person who did wrong, or an evil person who did something right?) Mulder, transformed from his own experience, gave her courage and became her touchstone, regardless.

The answer Amor Fati underlined is that Scully had yet to believe in redemption: one could repent, she thought, but it wouldn't change who they were as a person. That thinking formed the cornerstone of her "good or evil" foundation and separated her from the capability to falter but not to fail-- to "sin" but to be "redeemed."

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Season 7 sets into motion the culmination of religious journey: Amor Fati (as we already discussed), Orison, and all things.

Orison would have been the perfect followup to Revelations: another demon, another series of supernatural signs that only Scully would understand. However, this time she would fail to put the pieces together, and resort to an action against God's will that would put into question the goodness of her soul. Problems with Orison (that it obliterated Irresistible's message, that its side plots cluttered an already cluttered episode, that Pfaster's "affect" on victims didn't match the reaction Scully experienced) aside, the episode didn't give the audience enough information to explain why Scully believed it was the Devil, not PTSD or a trauma reaction, that forced her hand. However, that was Orison's conclusion.

This, then, set Scully in motion to either follow an path of dark self-doubt or forge a new path of enlightenment. Or both.

We know she took the latter (all things) route, but another episode's potential was wasted in the journey from question to conclusion: En Ami. A road trip with the "the Devil in the flesh" would have been the perfect opportunity for Scully to try to prove the depths of her own goodness: putting her life at risk to obtain the cure for all disease. Scientific altruism and religious redemption combined. It would also prove how well CSM knew her, inside and out: using that lure to bait her away from Mulder (and, hopefully, to his own side.) En Ami could easily have discovered the lengths Scully would go to prove herself and the depths CSM's depravity and justification could sink to. Instead, it became a study in how little CSM understood his unknowing captive, and how little the writers understood why or when Scully chose to leap when told "Jump!"

Regardless, we arrive at all things.

ALL THINGS AND PEACE

all things was about enlightenment and self-love (for Daniel Waterston and his daughter-- also curiously named Maggie-- as well): Scully decides what she wants for her life, which voice she wants to hear. It's also the episode where God spoke back.

all things was a bit of a mixed message, especially considering Scully chose to remain Catholic ("my prayers were answered" in Season 8, lighting the church candles in Season 11, etc.) Gillian's episode had clear Buddhist leanings-- the god of "all things", i.e. the god in all things. God wasn't an active force so much as a peace of mind with the right choice (that choice being Mulder.) But it worked, too-- the ending, especially (which was written with the help of Chris Carter, actually. We'll give him a point for this one.) "Mm, I didn't say 'God spoke back'," Scully corrected, which illustrated that she, at last, straddled the dichotomy of her beliefs: a God that will lead but not directly speak. A God whose signs she chose to follow, not one who punished her if she went another way. "Life's just a path", Melissa told her before she ever stepped foot in the FBI (canonically after the Daniel Waterston debacle we return to in all things); and that message wound back around and stuck, seven plus years later.

But why did all things break Scully's fear of isolation through her beliefs (or religion, at large?) Her flawed perception of her mother's God was reworked, with Mulder as Maggie Scully's stand-in: God became a god of "all things", an entity that not only allowed her to make her own choices, ask her own questions, and harbor her own doubts, but also gave her space to decide and time to return.

That reframing of God then helped her to reframe humanity. Mulder came back from a wasted weekend trip to England, empty-handed; yet she simply guided him home, made him tea, and contentedly listened to him ramble about theories she might not fully believe. Scully no longer felt the need to combat his beliefs or justify her own: she knew, now, what she believed, and that was enough. (As an aside, The Unnatural and all things both end on the same note-- Mulder coming to an epiphany and long-windedly spelling it out until he realizes Scully already knows. Interesting.)

CONCLUSION

And thus, we have concluded Scully's journey of faith.

Any further point canon tried to make was simply a retread of better, more complicated resolutions.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[television-overload]

The Most Popular Man in D.C.

(X-Files Fanfic)

[read on AO3]

-.-.-

In the months after Scully is returned from her abduction, Mulder starts getting catcalled on the street on an almost daily basis. At first, he doesn't think much of it, but after a few weeks, he finds it odd enough to mention to her.

She walks into the basement to find him putting pins in a map of D.C., hunched over his desk in concentration.

"Mulder?" she asks with an amused look on her face, paused in the doorway with her eyebrow arched.

With a brief glance up at her, he asks, "Scully, do you think I'm attractive?" Her hand almost slips off the door handle.

Her mouth falls open to answer, but she has no clue what words might come out. What is it he's wanting her to say? He doesn't look like he's joking. In fact, he looks deadly serious.

"I–"

"I just mean, if you saw me on the street, would you—you know—whistle at me?"

His question startles a chuckle from her throat, loosening her tongue. "Whistle?" She stares at him incredulously. Where is this coming from?

"Yeah," he says. "Whistle, wave, shower me with unsolicited compliments?"

Normally, she might laugh, assuming this to be one of the goofy bits he does when he's in a good mood, but something genuinely seems to be concerning him.

"Why do you ask?" she says, brows furrowing as she enters the room fully, shutting the door behind her.

He puts another pin on the map, near the grocery store she knows he goes to near his apartment in Alexandria.

"Scully, in the last month or so, I've been catcalled by random women nearly every day, all over D.C." he begins. "On my run, at the gym, even once when I went to pick up more fish food at the pet store. All over."

"Catcalled, Mulder?" she asks.

"Yes!"

"Is that so unusual?"

His brows slant in clear concern. He needs her reassurance.

"Look, you're a... not wholly unattractive guy," she starts cautiously. "And these places—the gym, the park where you run... You'd be covered in sweat, wearing that— that sleeveless Knicks shirt you have..." She trails off, blushing profusely and hoping her hair conceals it.

"But, the PET store, Scully," he insists, thankfully too worked up to notice her pink cheeks. He gestures wildly at the map before him. "All of these pins are places where I remember it happening. All in the last month."

Oh boy. "Putting that eidetic memory to good use, I see," she says. She surveys his slightly manic appearance, gauging how worried she needs to be about his state of mind.

"There's a clear concentration in certain areas," he says, ignoring her comment. "Look: about four blocks from my apartment, see? There's a cluster of them, all near this corner."

She looks where he is pointing, and indeed, there are six pins huddled close to each other while others are more spread out.

"Do you have a theory?" she can't believe she asks.

"I was hoping you would," he says, a little defeated.

Well, if she's not about to be dragged into a wild goose chase investigation based on some theory he's concocted, then she's back to finding this entire situation hilarious again. "Why should I have a theory?" she asks, suppressing a smile as she crosses her arms and looks up at him.

"I don't know," he says, shrugging awkwardly. "You're a... a woman."

She rolls her eyes. "Thank you for noticing."

"No, but maybe you have some insight. A different perspective."

"Some kind of womanly intuition?" she asks doubtfully, challengingly.

"Well, yeah."

She purses her lips. She has no immediate answer for him, so the office falls silent. He slumps back into his chair, looking far more bedraggled than he ought to at just past 8:00 am.

No, Mulder, she doesn't have some insider secret about the female mind to explain this so-called phenomenon away, but... Man, that is a lot of pins on the map. All in the last month, he says?

Why are her toes tapping incessantly on the floor beneath the desk?

"Mulder," she starts, hardly believing the words that are about to come out of her mouth. "If you're that worried about it, maybe we should go check out some of these areas of concentration."

He looks up at her, just as surprised to hear the suggestion come from her lips.

"Really?"

She wants to roll her eyes again, but there's a knot of something she refuses to acknowledge as jealousy in her chest that prevents her from doing so.

"Only if you're that concerned," she says, hoping she sounds firm and not at all interested in why her partner is getting hit on by women left and right.

He fumbles his way to his feet, stabbing himself in the palm with a pin accidentally in the process. He curses under his breath and shakes his hand out while eagerly shoving his arm in his jacket sleeve. "Okay," he says. "I think we should start by my gym, that's where it happens the most."

"Fine," she agrees stiffly, trying not to picture him breathless after a workout and surrounded by his loving admirers.

She drives, because she needs something to do with her hands. He navigates. It's his steps they're retracing, after all. He knows best what direction they need to head in.

They park on the street, exiting the car and getting a feel of their surroundings.

"There's my gym," he points out. She's not exactly sure what they're looking for, but she keeps her eyes peeled all the same.

After a few minutes spent wandering near the entrance, she's about to call it quits, but then a muscular little brunette calls out from across the street, grinning from ear to ear as she shouts, "Woo! I'd pay your dry cleaning bill just to watch you work out in that suit, handsome!"

Before either of them has time to respond, or even come to terms with what just happened, the woman disappears into a storefront. A yoga studio, Scully deduces from the sign out front.

"See?" Mulder says, swinging his hand out toward the other side of the street. The suddenness of his speech startles her out of her tense posture, and she forces her shoulders to relax.

"I give her points for creativity," she says, marching primly back to the car and throwing the driver's side door open.

The next place they drive is the grocery store, just a stone's throw away from his apartment building. Once again, she parks, and they wander about, but this time, their fellow pedestrians are blissfully silent. She looks around. There's the grocery store. Beside it, a pawn shop. On the other side, a place selling herbal supplements... and possibly also other "herbal" remedies. RadioShack across the street. Not much going on at—she checks her watch—8:47 am.

"Notice anything unusual?" she asks, watching as an older couple hobbles into the grocery store arm-in-arm.

His shoulders lift in a shrug. "It's quieter than usual," he says. "I'm not usually here this early on a week day."

She nods. This stop might have been a bust, but at least she didn't have to hear another cheesy one-liner directed at Mulder.

They're not so lucky at the next, and—she decides—final stop.

About a block down from the coffee shop in Georgetown that he frequents when he has to wake her at an ungodly hour, two women loiter outside a shop advertising high-quality tattoos and piercings. One takes a drag from her cigarette, then calls out, "Let's see a smile on those pouty lips!" The other woman chuckles, puffing out a cloud of smoke.

Mulder gives an awkward smile and nod in their direction, and Scully promptly grabs him by the arm, ushering him hurriedly back to the car.

She stews in silence on the drive back to the Hoover building. She knows she has no right to do so, and yet...

"You see what I mean, Scully?" he asks. "You gotta agree that something's unusual."

Does she? He's an attractive man. YES, okay, she's attracted to him. Can she fault other women for noticing? Maybe they could do to keep their mouths shut and leave him alone, sure, but wouldn't most men kill to have that kind of attention given to them?

"I don't know," she answers, her hands gripping the wheel.

"I'm serious. I've lived here for years, and this has never happened before. Then all of a sudden..."

"You're reading too much into it," she snaps. Then, softening her tone, "I mean, if they won't leave you alone, tell them to back off. Tell them you're an FBI agent and can arrest them for harrassment."

"Scully..."

"It's not an X-File, Mulder," she says decisively. "We've missed enough work as it is. Just forget about it."

His jaw shifts like he's about to argue her point, but instead he says the words she's always longed to hear from him.

"You're probably right."

-.-.-

She tries to forget about it.

On Thursday, he cheekily informs her that he had been called a "handsome devil" that morning while stopping by the bank. Friday, the descriptive term is decidedly less work-friendly, but he saunters in looking quite pleased with himself.

Gee, she sure is glad she told him not to worry about all the attention he's getting. Now, he actually seems to be enjoying it.

The weekend can't come soon enough. At 5:00 on the dot, she bids goodbye to his boyish smile and wishes him a good weekend. At home, she finishes off half a bottle of wine and watches some trashy reality TV until it's bedtime, and she promptly passes out.

-.-.-

Saturday, she wakes up feeling stupid. After popping a few advil, she deep cleans her kitchen, tossing out the now empty bottle of wine and even dusting on top of her cabinets, a task that requires standing precariously on the countertop with a featherduster in hand.

As the clock ticks closer to noon, though, she begrudgingly pulls herself away from her work and readies herself for her afternoon commitment with her sister. On the way to Melissa's dumpy—temporary—apartment, she picks up lunch from her favorite Chinese place. It's been months since Melissa came to town. She's not the kind to stay put in one place for long. If Scully hadn't been abducted, or whatever it was that happened to her, Missy wouldn't have been there in the first place.

The apartment is one she'd found on short notice when she heard what had happened, and came to support their mother throughout the ordeal. It pays by the month, and has a serious ant problem in the kitchen, but otherwise isn't the absolute worst living situation Scully could fathom. She liked having her sister nearby, even if it was only for a while.

Now, the ceaseless call of adventure summons Melissa once more, and it is time to go. Scully had promised to help her pack her things this weekend, and now the day is here.

"You sure you don't want to stay?" she asks, loathing how the sentence makes her sound like her 15 year old self when Missy had first left home for her first (and only) year of college.

"You don't need me, Dana," her sister says. "Besides, you know I can only handle so much of Mom telling me what I should be doing with my life."

"She means well," Scully assures her.

"I know she does," Missy says with a smile. "And I know you're no stranger to doing the complete opposite of what she tells you, too."

Scully breathes out a laugh.

"Come on, help me take these boxes down to the moving truck." Melissa shucks her jacket off, tying it around her waist in preparation for the physical labor it would take to carry multiple loads of boxes down four flights of stairs. One of the worst features of this apartment building is it's permanently broken elevator. Moving in must have been a nightmare.

Bending to pick up her first box, Scully catches a glimpse of something on Missy's right wrist, visible now that her jacket has come off.

"What's that?" she asks, brows furrowing.

"Hmm?" her sister asks. Her eyes follow Dana's to the marking on her skin on the underside of her arm. "Oh, I got that while you were in the hospital. You're like 90% of my impulse control, Dana."

Her teasing tone does not negate the heaviness that comes from mentioning that horrific time for her family. That time when she was all but lost to all those who knew her.

"What is it?" she asks.

Missy sets her box back down, and Scully does the same. "Check it out," she says, drawing closer so Scully can see.

On her wrist is a small cross tattoo, remarkably similar in shape and size to the cross Scully wears around her neck.

Strange. She's fairly certain Melissa hasn't been to mass in years, much to their mother's chagrin.

"Why?" she asks, genuine confusion lacing her voice.

"Don't go all 'Mom' on me, Dane," Missy jokes, smacking her in the shoulder. "It's just a tattoo."

Scully shakes her head. "No, I mean, why that? Why a cross?"

"Oh." Melissa looks down at her wrist in thought, then back up at Dana. "It just... seemed to be the thing to do."

"Something to remember me by?" Scully tries to joke, though she's aware of how morbid that sounds, to live to see the way her sister planned to memorialize her.

"Actually, no," Melissa corrects. "It was your partner."

Huh?

"Mulder?" Scully asks, wondering how on earth her necklace—the symbol of Christianity—relates to her unbelieving partner.

"Yeah, it was— Look, it's not really my place to tell, but I saw the way he relied on that necklace of yours for strength while you were gone. Not once did I see him take it off. It was like, if he didn't let go of it, then he wasn't letting go of you. I admire that."

Scully still doesn't understand. "So, the tattoo..."

"Is a reminder to have hope," Melissa finishes. "To have that same belief in others that Fox had for you, even when things looked hopeless and we almost gave up."

Scully's heart twists painfully.

This marking on her sister's body is tangible proof of what Scully has known all along:

That her partner is something special. That his uncommon belief in the unbelievable leaves an impact, not just on her, but on others whom he interacts with.

She still finds it hard to fathom that there had been weeks and months where Mulder was out there, spending time with her mother and sister while she was missing, or lying comatose on a hospital bed.

"When you came back, and when you got better, I knew it was him that saved you," Missy says softly, as if she can hear her thoughts and doesn't want to disrupt them. "I know it's him."

Her sister's piercing eyes meet hers seriously, and she turns away, lifting the box back into her arms to serve as a distraction.

"We don't want to keep the movers waiting," she says, forcing her thoughts away from Mulder. Away from the dangerous thoughts that had filled her head all week.

Missy's eyes brighten, and she grins.

"Don't keep him waiting," she warns.

-.-.-

Scully hands her sister the last of the boxes, and Missy stands up in the back of the truck, brushing the dust off her hands with a satisfied sigh.

"That's the last of it," she says proudly. "Oh, wait—"

She turns quickly, rummaging through a few boxes before triumphantly extracting a small piece of paper.

"Here, give that back to Fox, will you?" she says, handing it to Scully.

"What's this?" she asks, turning the glossy paper in hand to look at it properly.

In her hand, she holds a photo of Mulder from one of the times he'd been locked up on trespassing charges that ultimately wouldn't hold. He'd gotten a kick out of getting his mugshot taken, and so had requested a copy of it upon his release, and the small sheriff's department in Idaho had granted his wish.

But why did Melissa have it?

"I stole it from his apartment," she says, answering her unspoken question. "Made some copies, spread them around."

"You— you did what with them?"

"Just gave them to some friends," she says, smirking as she plops down on the edge of the truck bed. "You know I make friends wherever I go."

"Yeah, but why?"

The conspiratorial smile on her sister's face comes straight out of their childhood.

"Has Fox been getting an unusual amount of attention when walking around D.C. lately?" she asks nonchalantly, concealing a wider grin.

"Missy, you didn't!" Scully says, her jaw dropping.

"You didn't see him, Dane! He needed a pick-me-up!" Melissa raises her hands in defense, smiling at her sister's reaction.

Scully scoffs, but only to prevent a burst of astonished laughter from escaping. "A pick-me-up, not someone to pick him up," she says in as chastising a voice as she can manage.

Only Melissa would do something like this. She should have known.

"So it did work after all," Missy surmises. "Good. He needed a confidence boost. Has his ego inflated terribly?"

This time, Scully does laugh. "Sure, maybe after he got over the paranoia of suddenly being the most popular man in Washington, D.C."

"I guess it would come as a shock," Missy says, eyes bright with mirth.

Scully smacks her sister in the arm. "He was convinced it was some kind of conspiracy!"

"Oh, well," Missy says. "The real conspiracy is how you won't hit on that man yourself."

She's going to miss her sister, she reminds herself. Just be glad she's been in town this long.

Nope. She still wants to throttle her.

She shakes her head.

"Melissa..."

-.-.-

The compliments—because Scully refuses to call them catcalls—continue for the next few months, though with decreasing frequency.

After thinking it over for the weekend, she decides not to tell him. Maybe some day, years from now, when they can laugh about it.

For now, she lets other women say her thoughts aloud, and delights in the way his cheeks turn rosy when she's with him to hear their cheesy pick-up lines.

She wonders how she didn't notice before, the way these women look just like people Melissa would hang around with. Choker necklaces around their necks, Doc Martin shoes... Mulder was onto something with his map. The gym: across the street from a yoga studio that Missy had gone to a few times. The herbal supplement place, one that Missy had definitely stopped by on occasion. The tattoo parlor. Self-explanatory.

Now that she's in on the secret, whenever it happens, it's like Missy is there for a second. It makes her feel less far away. She thinks of these women being handed a photocopied flyer with Mulder's face on it, and wonders what on earth Missy had specifically told them to do.

Whatever it was, it had been effective.

Funny. She never really pictured introducing her sister to her partner, but now she wonders how she didn't see it before. She's glad Missy stepped in to look after him while she was gone, even if it involved a prank of questionable taste. She wouldn't have expected any less from her sister. And maybe that was just what Mulder needed.

She tells him at the funeral.

It's too early to find the humor in it, like she'd hoped they would someday. But his lips do curl into a small smile. Remembering.

It still happens on occasion after that. And when it does, Mulder takes Scully's hand and whispers, "See? She's never really gone."

Melissa Scully had left her mark on Washington, D.C., even in the short time she'd been there. She left her mark on Mulder in the same way.

Years down the line, when the number of Mulder's admirers has dwindled to one, Scully lies awake, picturing his face as he whispered sweet words to her. His constant. His touchstone.

"You were right, Missy," she breathes into the still air of her lonely apartment. Sometimes it feels haunted by her ghost. Tonight, that brings her comfort. "You were right."

She thinks she hears the echo of a sultry whistle.

-.-.-

Tagging: @today-in-fic @agent-troi @baronessblixen @captainsolocide @cutemothman @deathsbestgirl @edierone @enigmaticxbee @figureofdismay @frogsmulder @hippocampouts @invidiosa @randomfoggytiger @skelavender @teenie-xf

[koschei-the-ginger]

My rating of fake Mulders in the x-files

Ed Jerse - potrayed by Rodney Rowland

younger than Mulder, creepier than Mulder, this guy is supposed to look like him just enough for it to bother you. totally looks like someone who would kill his neighbour. 7/10

Kansas city FBI agent - portrayed by Steve Kiziak

virtually irrecognizable from some angles, eastern european, real life stunt double, even gets his ass beaten to a pulp by Kansas city Scully. I love him. 9.5/10

fake txf movie Mulder portrayed by Gary Shandling - potrayed by real Gary Shandling

appearance wise not a good fit but I love a good internal joke and he's horny enough - 7/10

Agent Miller - potrayed by Robbie Amell

minimal resemblance, zero charisma, character flatter and plainer than a toast bread, he's not even eastern european, he's not even jewish, absolutely terrible -100000000/10

[nefertitisfjordd]

"Oh, yay. A seance. I haven’t done that since high school." "Maybe afterwards we can play postman and spin the bottle."

[ferdieinceladoncity]

I find it incredibly fucking hilarious that in 'the rain king' in the ending scene where all the couples at the high school reunion are slow dancing and kissing, the camera zooms in on a woman with the exact same haircut as scully, leading you to believe for exactly one second that it IS scully, making out on the dance floor, before pulling back and revealing mulder and scully standing amongst all the couples side-to-side. These overtly shippy episodes make me feel like im being toyed with, but I'm not complaining.

[arcticmist0324]

By the age of 30, everyone needs to have several fictional meow meows that they would gladly abandon every single one of their morals to defend.

[windwenn]

feeling so normal about them rn dont even worry

[carefulfears]

mulder and diana literally have the most intense divorced energy anyone could ever have...they have the chemistry of two people who've been married for decades and maybe don't wanna be married anymore, maybe aren't married anymore, but once you're married you're grandfathered in. you're always married. haven't touched each other in years, go most days not even considering the other, but owe each other something, and aren't sure of what it is. diana lies and lies and lies to his face, and then dies to save him. she feels entitled to him, she knows what's best for him, what's his is theirs. always. she was there when he got it. she helped him build it. (she tells him herself: "don't forget that"). so much of what she does appears as she's trying to establish a claim over him, but she doesn't have to try. she just is. she's irreproachable. you don't talk about the wife. (and you don't talk to her, as scully and diana arguing is met only with mulder's impatient, "scully...scully...scully.")

any time she comes up in conversation, his friends are uncomfortable. i love the way byers goes "well....yeah?" when scully asks if he knows diana. he says it like he's surprised that scully didn't know about her. when scully won't stop pressing mulder about diana in one son, all three of the boys tense up. the camera keeps going to their reactions. (you don't talk about the wife. they were there. "i always wondered why they split up.")

scully says "special agent diana fowley" as though maybe if she had one more title to throw in, she would disappear. diana says "fox" like she has something to prove. mulder says "diana" like it communicates everything he doesn't say. and in a way, it does. the first time scully heard him call agent fowley "diana," she knew.

[beesarthur]

Where in the world were Mulder and Scully?

I'm sure someone else has already made this list, but I've decided to keep track of how many U.S. states (and DC) (and Puerto Rico) Mulder and Scully investigate an incident in. Not counting other locations where part of the incident happens but Mulder and Scully never go to (like England in 1:12). (edited 3/27/24 after watching 2:19) This started as a list of US states and I continue to be interested in counting US states and territories, but the time has come to set up the list for other locations as well. This list includes places that Mulder and/or Scully go to during the episode to investigate a case. Action in DC that is not related to a case in DC does not count. If the action is in DC and spills over to Maryland and/or Virginia, I just count DC, but if the thing starts in VA and then things also happen in DC, I count both. I don't know, it's not an exact science, and the DC area is fluid to me. So far we have...

US States & Territories:

Oregon (1:1)

Idaho (1:2, 2:18)

Maryland (1:3, 1:15, 1:21, 1:24, 2:16, 2:17, 3:7, 3:16, 3:23, 4:8, 4:9, 4:16, 4:21, 5:3, FtF, 6:6, 6:12)

Iowa (1:4)

New Jersey (1:5, 2:2)

Pennsylvania (1:6, 2:3, 2:16, 3:9, 4:2, 4:3, 4:12, 4:13, 4:14, 5:13, 5:14, 5:18)

Virginia (1:7, 2:5, 2:6, 2:21, 2:22, 2:23, 3:7, 3:17, 3:24, 4:8, 4:10, 4:16, 4:21, 4:24, 5:1, 5:11, 5:13, 5:17, FtF, 6:7, 6:11)

Alaska (1:8, 2:17)

Texas (1:9, 5:12, FtF)

Wisconsin (1:10, 2:10)

Connecticut (1:11, 2:4)

California (1:11, 2:7, 3:15, 3:19, 4:11, 5:6, 5:7, 6:2, 6:15, 6:16)

Massachusetts (1:12, 1:14, 2:11, 2:16, 3:12, 3:18, 4:10, 4:19)

North Carolina (1:13, 2:15)

Washington, DC (1:16, 2:8, 2:21, 3:14, 3:16, 3:21, 4:16, 4:22, 4:24, 5:1, 5:2, 5:11, 5:18, 6:14)

Tennessee (1:17, 1:18, 4:5)

Washington State (1:17, 1:20, 1:23, 2:9, 3:8, 3:20)

Montana (1:19)

New York (1:22, 2:4, 2:16, 3:16, 4:3, 4:8, 4:9, 4:15, 4:17, 4:18, 6:10)

Puerto Rico (2:1)

Missouri (2:12)

Nebraska (2:12)

Minnesota (2:13, 3:4)

New Hampshire (2:14, 3:13)

Florida (2:20, 3:5, 4:9, 5:4, 6:13)

Arkansas (2:24)

New Mexico (2:25, 3:1)

West Virginia (3:2, 3:9, 3:10, 4:20)

Oklahoma (3:3)

Ohio (3:6, 3:11, 5:18)

North Dakota (3:16)

Georgia (3:22)

Rhode Island (3:24, 4:1, 4:23)

Michigan (4:4, 5:9)

Illinois (4:6, 4:19)

South Carolina (only Skinner 4:21)

Indiana (5:5)

Maine (5:10)

Delaware (5:16, 5:18)

Arizona (6:1)

Nevada (6:2, 6:4, 6:5)

Kansas (6:8)

Places Outside the US:

Norway (2:19)

Hong Kong (3:15)

Canada (Alberta - 4:1, 4:9; Yukon - 4:24)

Russia (4:8; 4:9)

Antarctica (FtF)

Sargasso Sea (6:3)

[randomfoggytiger]

Just rewatched Fresh Bones in a very very long time. What a subdued gem of an episode. I completely forgot the episode existed. There's nothing spectacular about the episode, but I now appreciate Scully's (Gillian's acting) show of reserved fear and almost death. There are little nuances of Mulder looking after her but not quite being 100% all Scully focused.

Thanks to all the GIFs of Seig ...(I can't spell or remember the name of the episode. The one with the witch occult killing off the high school parent board), I went back to rewatch the episode and found a GEM of a Mulder reaction. "Scully" calls Mulder with "I need you", and Mulder jumps into action, runs out of the house and into the car, and races down to the school. No, "what's wrong? What's going on?" but BOOM! Out the door to save her.

We know that Mulder would do anything for Scully or to find her wherever she is taken, but we never see him take a bullet for her, do we? Does "Mondays" count? Did he take a bullet for her in that one? In my head, I take Scully taking a bullet for Mulder when she is shot in Young at Heart because the killer is out to get revenge on Mulder, and she's the way to get to Mulder. To be honest, I do not remember ANY of the revival episodes, so he could have taken a bullet for her in those seasons.

I don't recall a "taking the bullet" moment in the Revival, either, but I haven't seen MSII, III, or IV. (Siiiiiiiigh, gotta do that some day....)

Die Hand Die Verletzt! I forgot that moment of Mulder running immediately without asking for further information, too. He was not going to let this be another Duane Barry call.

I'd say Monday counts, definitely, as Mulder taking a bullet for Scully; and he technically took a bullet for her in Die Hand Die Verletzt: in the shower scene, he rolled over her body to prevent the staff from shooting and killing her first. And I hadn't remembered that, either, until you brought this episode up! :DDDDDD

Lastly, huh. I hadn't considered that Scully quite literally took a bullet for him in Young at Heart, despite my love for that episode and that moment. (She almost took one "for him" in Pusher, but I don't think that falls in the same category.)

[nine-fingered-entity]

scully's right. they should get her a fucking desk. it's been 3.5 seasons.