#‘the mulder with a missing limb’

[carefulfears]

thinking about tena taking the photos of her children out of the frames and burning them before she died and mulder’s first reaction being “this is all she had left of us”

and how he could’ve said “this is all she had left of her,” but he didn’t, and he’s right. it is all there was left of them. all there was left of two kids playing baseball and arguing over a board game. all there was left of him before he was walking into the same room every day, before he was chasing ghosts, before no one talked about it.

all there was left of there being nothing to chase, of being still, of being a whole person to someone, knowing where you stand in the world.

it’s all she had left of her children, together and complete for some of the last times, and it’s crime scene evidence to cover up.

[leiascully]

X-Files OctoberFicFest Day 25: Insomnia

When he can't sleep, he talks to her.

Sometimes she isn't even there. He turns on his side, stares into the dark imagining he can see her curled up in his armchair. His mind can usually fill in enough of her side of an argument to be convincing, but he always misses the real deal. The actual Scully always manages to surprise him with some association he hasn't made or some unexpected willingness to follow the wild path his thoughts tread.

Tonight she calls. He picks up the phone on the first ring.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she says. "I don't know. I couldn't sleep."

"Me either."

For a minute, she says nothing. He listens to the barely audible sound of her breath. He can hear her shift in her bed. "It was weird today."

"It was," he agrees.

She sighs. "I suppose in some ways it's a mercy that we're still upset by the things we witness. We haven't become jaded or too accustomed to it."

"Yeah." He tucks the handset between his head and the pillow and pulls his blanket over himself. "It's good that we're disturbed."

"Should we tell him?"

"I thought that was going to be my question."

"But Mulder, it looks so bad."

"I know." He shifts. "I don't know why Skinner thought buying a toupee was a good idea. Do you think he's dating again?"

"I hope not," she says. "I don't know many women who would be drawn to someone wearing what looked like roadkill on their heads."

"Or men," Mulder says. "I assume."

They're quiet again for a bit.

"We should tell him," she says at last.

"We should." He yawns. "If he expects anyone to tell him the truth, it ought to be us. I'll just say, 'Walter, you're a damn fine looking man. Put down the hairpiece and walk away.'"

"You might get a date that way," she teases.

"As long as he buys me a nice dinner," he jokes back.

There's more silence. It's the soft, gentle kind that soothes his mind like a wordless lullaby. He feels his limbs becoming heavier. His thoughts are slow and they drift away when he tries to catch them.

"Mulder." She's mumbling. "I'm falling asleep."

"Good," he says. "Me too."

"Are you going to hang up?"

"No," he says.

"Okay," she says. "That's good."

"Yeah," he says. "It's good."

He wakes up with the receiver still pressed against his cheek and sunlight just starting to sift into his apartment. On the other end of the line, Scully is snoring just a little. He smiles to himself and hangs up. He hopes her dreams were sweet.

[cecilysass]

Negotiation

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

They’ve been debating which case to work on next week so long that the car windows are all Rorschach test splotches of fog.

There’s a moment’s lull in conversation. Mulder reaches into the console, fishes out his bag of seeds and pulls it apart. His eyes lock on twin silhouettes in trench coats moving through the mist about twenty feet outside their car.

“You know, I hear they’re more than just partners,” he offers in a conversational tone.

“Who?”

“Gillis and Perez,” Mulder says, cracking open a sunflower seed, gesturing out the front windshield. “That’s the water cooler gossip, anyway.”

“Spending a lot of time at the water cooler, Mulder?”

“I’m in the know, Scully.”

They’ve been waiting in the car outside a row of weather-battered warehouses for two hours, part of a coordinated raid that hasn’t gotten its go-ahead yet. There have been days of briefings and prep, but something seems to have gone to shit, because they’re sitting positioned with practically the entire Bureau twiddling their thumbs. Dressed for action with no place to go.

Mulder suspects they’re probably not really necessary in this operation, which is about the size of the invasion of Normandy. They’d probably not be missed if they drove off and went to pick up some hamburgers.

But they’re nothing if not team players. And besides, this isn’t so bad. Scully sighs next to him, and he subtly glances at her. She’s leaning back against the seat, the soft arch of her neck exposed and her lips slightly parted. There are worse ways to spend an evening.

He turns back to watching Gillis and Perez through the front window. They’re dutifully walking the perimeter of the closest building.

The two agents don’t look overtly romantic, he decides. If it’s true, they’re discreet. They do walk side by side, very little distance between them, but they don’t touch one another. Gillis is a tall woman, so she stands almost at Perez’s height, and their heads keep arching towards one another to talk.

He wonders what they’re talking about. It could be anything—the raid, the weather, their favorite sexual positions.

Scully’s eyes track them, too, seeming to note every possible tiny physical clue.

“Hmm,” she says slowly and thoughtfully, “I admit, that’s interesting.”

“Interesting that it’s an open secret and there don’t seem to be any repercussions?”

“Yes,” Scully says, pushing back against the seat and stretching out her limbs like a cat. “And interesting in other ways, too.” She reaches down and, peeking first, helps herself to some of his sunflower seeds, her small hand slipping into the bag’s interior without crackling the wrapper.

Mulder makes an affirmative humming sound. “I thought so, too.”

“I mean, on some level it’s perfectly understandable,” Scully adds, placing some seeds between her lips, her eyes still focused out the window where the pair have disappeared around the corner. “They’re both very attractive. It’s hard to date in this job. People have needs.”

Mulder glances at her warily again. Jaw working on his own handful of seeds, he doesn’t answer right away, cautiously processing this statement. “Sure,” he says mildly. “I guess you’re right.”

And then the car is quiet, only the sound of cracking seeds and the rustling of the bag as he reaches for more.

“Actually,” Scully says casually, “it makes me think that we could do something like that.”

Mulder turns to her. “Something like what?”

“What Gillis and Perez are doing.”

“What?” He blinks rapidly. “Are you being serious?”

“Yes,” she says. Staring out the front window, she certainly appears serious, if a little uptight.

“You’re teasing, right?”

She looks down and carefully smooths the dark pants she wore for the raid, as if she has just noticed many sudden wrinkles. “If you don’t want to, fine. I was just raising the idea.”

“Raising… the idea,” he repeats, bewildered.

“Okay, Mulder,” she says with a small sigh. “I get it. It’s out of the question.”

“I’m just shocked that you would bring it up like … that you would just … it’s unexpected.”

“Let’s change the subject then. How do you like the Knicks this year?”

“I mean…” Mulder runs his hands down the sides of his face, dragging his cheeks. “What are you suggesting, exactly? How would you see it working?”

Scully’s eyes flash to his. “I’m not suggesting something in particular. It would be open to negotiation.”

“Open to negotiation,” Mulder says, shaking his head in disbelief. “Jesus, Scully.”

“What’s your concern exactly?”

“So this would be a ‘meeting needs’ kind of deal,” he says, using finger quotes. “A ‘taking care of basic urges’ situation.”

“That’s one possibility,” she says brusquely.

Mulder’s head twists rapidly back towards her. “What are the other possibilities?”

“Well,” Scully says. Her face changes color. “It could be a little more traditional than that, I suppose.”

“Traditional like what?”

“I don’t know, Mulder,” she says, throwing her hands up. “It would be open to negotiation. Is there an arrangement you would prefer?”

“To be honest,” he says, “I’d prefer not to have an arrangement at all.”

“Then we certainly don’t have to discuss it any more.” Her lips draw tightly.

“No, no,” he says, and he reaches out to place his hand on hers without thinking. “That came out wrong.”

“Mulder,” she says, stiffening under his touch, “let’s just gracefully drop it, okay? I regret bringing it up.”

“I just don’t want an arrangement,” he repeats meaningfully. “I don’t want a negotiation.”

“I get it,” she says shortly, jerking her hand out from under his.

“No,” he says. “No, you don’t.” He takes a deep breath. “It’s not that I don’t want … what you suggest. I’ve thought about it. A lot. Maybe too much.”

Scully’s mouth twitches at the corners as she apparently absorbs this. “Okay,” she responds. A pause. “Then why not?”

Mulder rubs his temples aggressively.

“I don’t think I could do it without … all of it. I mean, that’s not strictly true. I could do it. I’m only human. But I think it would end … really badly.”

“End badly how?”

“I don’t know about you, but to me sometimes it seems like things are too complicated between us already. This would be upping the ante. I’m pretty sure I’d always be wanting the whole thing.”

She’s confused. “What do you mean by ‘all of it?’ The ‘whole thing?’ We could negotiate that, if you wanted it. Make it part of the arrangement.”

“Scully,” he says in a fond, exasperated tone. “You can’t negotiate being in love. You know that, right?”

He thinks for a moment she’s not going to respond.

“And that’s what … you want?”

“Well, it’s probably not something I’m going to have a ton of willpower about, so don’t test me,” he says with a rueful hitch in his voice. “But in my experience, it’s a bad idea to enter into a sexual relationship with someone you’re in love with if they’re not in love with you.”

Scully is very still, apparently reacting to the implied revelation. He steels himself for more.

“I admit, I’ve done it in the past,” Mulder says. He’s proud of how calm he sounds. “I might even be prone to it, whatever that says about me. It’s ended in spectacular fucking heartbreak. You think it will work out, that you’ll convince the person, and it feels real. But it’s not. And in those cases, it wasn’t like…” He breaks off. “Well, it wasn’t like this partnership. Which, as I hope you know, is ... already different from most other kinds of relationships. I just think this would be a lot worse. More painful.” He hesitates before saying the last word. “Devastating.”

They don’t say anything for a moment. Scully has a strange, almost dazed expression on her face.

“Gillis and Perez,” Scully says, gesturing to where they’d walked around the corner. “Is that a meeting-basic-needs situation?”

“I have no idea,” Mulder says. “Maybe. Or maybe they’re one another’s soulmates. I don’t know. Water cooler didn’t cover that.”

She nods once. He hears her toying with the edge of the sunflower seed bag.

“For what it’s worth,” she says, after a moment, “I didn’t bring up the meeting-basic-needs idea. You did.”

Mulder’s brow furrows. “Did I? I thought you mentioned ‘needs.’”

“I used the word ‘negotiation,’” she continues, in her precise work voice. “Which doesn’t really reveal anything about the feelings of any of the parties. It just means parameters would have to be agreed on in advance.”

“I guess,” Mulder says doubtfully.

“I don’t know if it would be as risky as you’re thinking,” she adds with finality. “It seems to me that you’re making some faulty assumptions.”

“I don’t think I am,” Mulder says stubbornly. “I know myself pretty well, and I know my feelings.”

“Yes,” she replies, “but you don’t know mine.”

A pause.

“No,” he says in a different tone. “Now that you mention it, no, I guess I don’t.”

“It never occurred to me that we would have an arrangement without … attachment. I suppose I took the attachment for granted.”

“Attachment?”

She nods shortly.

“And by attachment, you mean…?”

She bites her lip and rolls her eyes. “Mulder.”

“That embarrasses you, Scully? Talking about feelings?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Just a little hard to believe when you were propositioning me for sex a few minutes ago.”

“I wouldn’t describe it as propositioning you for sex,” she says huffily.

“No? Come on. You were basically like: let’s negotiate a contract and take your pants off, Mulder.”

“That’s not what I was like,” she replies, flushing.

“I know what I heard.”

“I was only trying to say that maybe we should talk about this option … that we don’t ever talk about,” she says tightly. “That we both think about.”

“Scully—”

“An option that’s literally sitting right in front of us. That Gillis and Perez chose for themselves.”

He squirms in his seat, then pulls in a long, slow breath. “Yeah.” He’s not looking at her. “You’re right.”

“You were the one that made me sound so…” She composes herself. “You were the one that took feelings out of the equation.”

He steals a careful look at her. “I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t respond, and she’s looking away from him, but he suspects, from past experience with the various cadences of her voice, that she’s got tears in her eyes.

“I should have realized you had some protections up, too, Scully,” he adds roughly.

She looks down at her hands.

“Scully,” he tries, gently, “just to be clear in negotiation here—are you saying that … it might be possible for you and me to have a relationship where both parties hold equivalent feelings?”

She lifts her head, and there are indeed tears pooling in the corners of her clear blue eyes. “Don’t you know me at all? Haven’t you been paying any attention?”

He reaches over and takes her hand in his. Her small fingers feel gritty, like the salt coating his sunflower seeds.

“I thought I was paying attention,” he says. “But then you go and do something really, really surprising.”

“I thought I was being logical,” she says primly, looking down again.

He places a finger under her chin and tips her face up. “Very logical,” he says in a low, playful voice. “Nothing says logical like initiating a relationship with Fox Mulder.”

[randomfoggytiger]

"Just Sing Anything"

Fictober, Day 5

*-*-*-*-*

The beast was stalking furiously below, tail slashing and breaking the undergrowth in rage. Every so often it would abruptly halt, snapping and snarling at the rivulets of blood leaking from its eye, trying to recalibrate in the barriers of its new limitations. Scully's shot had been lucky. But though the animal couldn't see, it could smell; and the scent of fear sweat and lingering cologne kept it looping, again and again, around their tree. Mulder's tree: Scully and he had run in different directions, she to burrow away on the ground and he to scramble up the trunk haphazardly, trying to keep his charge from falling and his shoes from slipping.

Little Moss Ingram was burying her terrified, snuffling, shivering face into the side of his body. With each roaring, thrashing circuit, her shoulders shuddered more uncontrollably; and Mulder expected an impending eruption with more and more certainty. Though the monster was harder of hearing than most, a shriek of any kind would be impossible to miss.

"Moss, how did you scare away the bad man in your dreams?" he asked, rubbing her back methodically, drawing her closer and tighter in. He needed to resituate them on the branch. He needed Scully, he needed the search party. He needed a night off after three back-to-back-to-backs. His limbs ached.

There was no answer at first, not until Mulder changed plans and drew the girl fully into his lap, scooting and maneuvering awkwardly until she was wholly consumed by his coat.

"My dad woke me up. And he stayed with me," Moss whispered, thin, dirt-coated hair snarling in his buttons. "He sang the monster away."

"What did he sing?" A flicker of movement to the south caught his eye-- a figure edging the perimeter. Scully, on the move; and wisely scouting for backup instead of heroically charging in. Good.

"He sang...."

A horrendous cracking, slow and demonstrative, sounded below. Likely the log he'd used as a distraction earlier. It splintered, shattered like a skull slowly crushed under the weight of an industrial double drum roller tractor. The VCU, he thought, despite the throbbing in his pulse points, left its mark. "What did he sing?"

"Singing in the Rain," Moss replied, clinging to Mulder's shirt. She sniffed. Sniffed again, choked on a whimper in her throat.

"Did it make the bad man go away?"

"No. But it helped me get back to sleep."

He was going to tell her about his own bad dreams; tell her about his own father soothing him to sleep, a study away, in the dark. But the creature stood on its hind paws and screamed, first-- screamed so violently that the air electrified with its howls of pain and fury. Moss launched closer, wailing her little heart out in agony; and Mulder did his best to shield her ears and hush her cries.

"I'm singing," he began, discordant and hurried, not knowing what else to do, "in the rain. Yes singing--" Hurry, Scully, "--in the rain."

Although his perch passenger was still sobbing, her pitch was lowering. Mulder stopped her frantic attempts to tear the buttons from her hair; held her hands while he earnestly insisted, "What a glorious feeling. And I'm ha--," and deftly switched supporting arms so he could free her, "--appy again."

"Moss," moaned the beast, pleading and starving and growling behind its teeth. "Mosssssssss."

"What's the next verse, Moss." She'd stopped shaking, stopped all movement. Shock. "You've got to help me remember."

"I'm... laughing" was barely audible, "at the clouds" a hair stronger. "So dark up above--"

"The sun's in my heart and I'm--," Mulder continued, swaying her in a slight upbeat, waiting until she finished his verse.

"--Ready for love."

The beast was screaming, thrashing; breaking, roaring.

Moss dug her little fist in the fabric above his heart. "He can't find us," she realized, stuttering, afraid of their good luck.

Mulder bowed his head over hers, trying to block the incoming rain. "It won't find us. I promise."

*-*-*-*-*

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

Tagging @today-in-fic and @xffictober24.

[numinousmysteries]

Vanquish by Wisdom Hellish Wiles (9/9)

On AO3 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

@today-in-fic

I started this story in October 2017 after first seeing the season 11 trailer, forgot about it for six years, and then finally finished it. Compared to what some other amazing writers in this fandom are creating, it's honestly not great, but coming back to it helped me remember that writing can be fun. I hope to keep writing and hopefully keep improving. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoy my vision for how the show could have ended.

As a baby, William moved the mobile above his crib using his mind. As a teenager, he employed his psychic powers to save his birth parents’ lives by spontaneously killing an entire cadre of black ops forces and, presumably, the smoking man and Reyes as well. And yet, in Scully’s mind, neither of those facts were the most impressive thing about her son.

To her, it was simply that he was there—alive and in front of her in the flesh. She wanted to stop time and catalog every detail of his body the way she and Mulder did days after he was born, laying him out on her bed and silently marveling at his tiny toes, chubby limbs, and rosebud mouth. She wanted to run her hands over his face and memorize every feature. Her baby was almost a man and he was just as perfect to her as the day he was born.

There was so much that she missed and so much she doesn’t know. When did he take his first steps? What’s his favorite food? Was he a cautious rule-follower like herself or was he constantly pushing the limits like his father? She’d never get those years back and she’d never forgive herself for giving him away, but in that moment all that mattered was that they were together again.

Mulder’s eyes reflected her astonishment back at her. In their almost 30 years together, they’d learned to communicate without words. A glance, a wink, or a nod could convey missives of emotion. As they stood in the driveway, too stunned to move, she could tell he was as overwhelmed—by shock, by love, by awe—as she was.

“Come on,” William said. “There might be others coming. Let’s go.”

Her son’s voice. Low and deep like his father’s.

“Yeah, Scully,” Mulder said, reaching for her hand. “We better get going.”

She could only nod in response and let Mulder lead them both back to their car.

“You call each other by your last names,” William said. She could tell it wasn’t a question but him logging a fact about them, or confirming one he had already sensed.

“We work together,” Scully said. “And it just stuck.”

William nodded. She was grateful he didn’t ask any questions about her and Mulder’s current relationship that she couldn’t answer. Working together the past couple of months had been good for them. They’d found their old rhythm and had been spending more time together outside of work as well, but she hadn’t felt ready to move back in yet.

Back at the car, Scully realized she didn't know where they’d go. Would they bring William back to DC with them? If colonization was imminent, she needed to get started on developing a vaccine as soon as possible.

“Can we go get my parents?” William asked, as if reading her mind. “They’re probably worried about me.”

Mulder smiled. “Sure,” he said.

“Sorry,” William said sheepishly. “I mean my adoptive parents. That’s just…what I’ve always called them.”

“Don’t apologize, William,” said Scully, even though she admitted to herself that it cut like a knife to hear her son refer to strangers as his parents. “I’m thankful you were placed with a good family who took care of you all these years.”

“Yeah,” Mulder responded. “And I do imagine they’d be worried about you.”

******

They arrived in Wyoming the following morning. William slept on the plane but Mulder and Scully, sitting on either side of him, stayed awake—both keeping guard and watching him in awe.

“This is where you grew up?” Scully asked, after William directed them to a small but well-kept farmhouse.

“Yup, lived here my whole life—well, that I can remember.”

Scully nodded. His childhood must’ve been so different from the one she could’ve given him. Instead of living in a city, he had fields to run and roam in. She wondered if he played baseball like his father and what kind of games he invented for himself when he was little to stay busy in this wide open space.

As they approached the house they noticed the front door was open and the screen door was swinging on its hinges.

“Do your parents normally leave the door open like that?” Mulder asked.

“No,” William said. “That’s weird.”

“I’m going to go check it out,” Mulder said, reaching for his gun. “You two wait in the car.”

It was the first time Scully was alone with her son since finding him the night before. She sat in the passenger seat stealing glimpses of him in the rearview mirror.

“This must be a lot to take in,” she said.

William shrugged his shoulders. “I always knew I was different. Monica told me about you guys.”

Scully swallowed. She wanted to ask Wiliam so many questions but it was impossible to even know where to start. How do you make up for fifteen years—an entire life in his case? She had once known every inch of skin on his tiny body and now he was essentially a stranger. Did he have any scars? Any broken bones? She didn’t know what he liked to eat or his favorite movie.

“Have you ever seen The Exorcist?” he asked from the backseat, startling Scully.

“It’s one of my favorite movies,” she said.

“Me too. My parents don’t watch any horror movies but I started downloading some classics and I love them.”

“William, were you reading my thoughts just now? Why did you bring up The Exorcist?”

“I guess I had a sense of what you were thinking,” he said. “It’s not so clear cut like listening to someone talk out loud but I get sentiments and sometimes words. It’s strong with you. And Mulder, too.”

“Could you read your parents like that?”

“Yeah, I got better at it over time.”

Mulder emerged alone from the house. He jogged back to the car and knocked on Scully’s window, gesturing for her to come with him. She followed him to the front porch.

“Scully, there are two bodies inside. A middle-aged white male and female. Looks like gunshot wounds. I think I can guess who they are and I’d rather not ask William to have to identify them.”

“Shit,” Scully said. “What do we do?”

They heard William’s car door open and watched as he came to stand with them. “They’re dead, aren’t they?”

“Oh, William,” Scully sighed.

“I had a feeling,” he said, looking down at his sneakers.

“Is there anyone else we should try to find? Any other family or friends?” Mulder asked.

William shook his head. He was still looking down but Scully could see him starting to cry.

“I’m so sorry, William,” Scully said. She embraced her son and felt his tears dampening her blouse. Mulder stepped closer and wrapped his arms around both of them.

They were three broken people. Parents who’d lost their child and a child who’d lost his parents, but somehow they were also a family. They just had to find a way to pick up the pieces and find each other once again.

*****

Mulder and Scully offered to move to William’s hometown in Wyoming for him to finish up high school and start their vaccine research there, but he felt no connection to the place without his adopted parents. If anything, he was desperate for a fresh start. His old town was filled with reminders of what he’d lost.

So instead Wiliam moved into their home in Virginia. It was an older, more rundown house but he could tell they had made it a home. He preferred that it wasn’t in the heart of the city because it was less of a dramatic change from his childhood home. Mulder explained that he and Scully had been giving each other some space and she had her own apartment, but as soon as they were back from Wyoming she started every night at the house and slowly moved her belongings back.

There was a spare room on the second floor for him to move his things into.

“I know this is uncomfortable,” said Scully, showing him to his room. “We love you so much, but we know you’re still just getting to know us. I don’t want to rush you into anything you’re not ready for.”

“What was in here before?” William said.

“Nothing,” Mulder said. “We never spoke about it, but I think we both hoped you’d be here one day.”

They’d had nearly everything from his old bedroom shipped out to Virginia to try to make the transition smooth. At first he told them he didn’t mind starting over, but as he sat in his new-old room he realized he appreciated the small comforts of home—his snow globe collection, his family photos, and his worn-in baseball glove.

“We should have a catch sometime,” Mulder said, picking up the glove.

“I’d like that.”

They had a lot of work to do. They were racing against an unseen clock to beat the invasion. Scully had already taken blood and saliva samples from William to try to isolate his alien DNA to create a vaccine. They had some old associates who were going to help with the science but there was still the issue of convincing the entire global population to take a vaccine to prevent the colonization of the planet–without inciting mass panic.

William had faith in his birth parents, though. Every night they told him about their old cases which never failed to thrill him. And each day the awkward silences between the three of them started filling up with inside jokes, spirited arguments, and stories of the past that helped close the fifteen-year gap since the last time they were together.

They were careful about giving him space and typically after dinner he’d retreat to his room while his parents sat and talked on the front porch. He couldn’t hear what they were saying but it was comforting to hear their voices drifting up through his bedroom window.

One night around a month after moving in, he decided to join them outside. Scully smiled and scooted over, making room for him to sit in between them on the bench.

“I know you guys keep saying I don’t have to thank you for taking me in,” William started, “but I really do appreciate it. Growing up, I never thought I’d meet you or that if I did… you wouldn’t want anything to do with me because of…who I am and what I can do.”

“William, we love you for being exactly who you are. As I’m sure you’ve started to realize, the two of us aren’t exactly the picture of normalcy either. I think, together, we make a great team,” said Scully.

“Now we just have to save the world,” William said smiling.

“No pressure, right?” Mulder chuckled.

His parents draped their arms around him from either side and he felt himself relaxing against them. For the first time in his life he felt like he was exactly where he should be.

[slippinmickeys]

The Mesas of Deuteronilus Mensae (19/?)

When Mulder woke, he felt a distinct sense of something missing, like a twinge on a phantom limb. He half-rolled over on his cot and pressed his nose into the side of his pillow which still carried the scent of Scully. He huffed deeply and felt a surge of dopamine hit his bloodstream.

With a quick glance at his clock, he saw that it was morning, but still fairly early, and remembered that all of the shield crew didn’t have to leave their racks until almost midday, but he rolled over and sat up anyway, wiping a hand across tired eyes. He would rather be tired and spend time with Scully than sleep – an odd sensation for a guy who could nap with the best of them.

He’d always known how it would go, when and if he and Scully got together — he was under no misapprehension. Like an itch that was under the skin, they wouldn’t be able to get enough of each other, they wouldn’t want to be apart. The thing about being one of the first Mars colonists though – they would have to be. For various missions and even just day-to-day tasks, they would be separated by rooms, miles, even sols. It was going to hurt. But the coming back together: meals grabbed in the mess, the occasional duty they were both assigned, and, he now knew from experience – stolen nights together in one or the other’s quarters – would be sweeter than a gulp of mountain air after a fresh rain. And being that they’d been breathing nothing but canned and scrubbed air for the better part of the last year – Mulder knew from sweet.

He took a quick shower in the lav and hustled to the medical bay, trying to appear as though he weren’t rushing when every cell of his body was telling him to go faster. When she met his eyes from the doorway with the brightest of smiles, he could have floated to her side on pure exhilaration.

“Morning,” he said, smiling back, feeling ever-so-slightly shy and dopey.

“Hey,” she said, and looked down at the floor briefly, clearly feeling the same way. She was hunched over shipping kits made of plastic and metal. Mulder noticed that there were five or six similar containers on the exam table, which she glanced at briefly as she rose to stand. “Didn’t think I’d see you for at least a few more hours.”

“I didn’t come at a bad time, did I?” he asked, suddenly just a tiny bit unsure.

“No!” she said quickly, and then blushed. Another surge of dopamine hit Mulder’s bloodstream. “No,” she said again, regaining a little composure. “I just know the commander didn’t put a wake-up order on you guys this morning and I thought you might sleep in.”

“I’d rather be here,” he said, taking a step into the room.

She was wearing a white jumpsuit today, which made her look particularly trim and highlighted the bright shade of her hair. She seemed to get more beautiful by the sol. By the hour. By the minute.

“I’m going to put you to work,” she said, friendly but haughty, thrusting her chin out. “We have to go over all the base medications – which is going to feel like your worst class in graduate school, I might point out – and I still haven’t put away the supplies that got tossed when Robo-2 failed.”

Mulder raised his brows. “Will I be working closely with you while engaged in all this sadistic labor?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“Then don’t threaten me with a good time, Scully.”

She smiled.

They began by going over the meds, which was just as tedious and awful as she warned him it would be. He ended up having to get a pad of paper and take notes while Scully gave him a comprehensive run-down of everything they had on base. Considering NASA had tried to cover just about every medical eventuality, it took quite a bit of time.

“The computer will help you with diagnoses if you need to run something quickly,” she said, “and the Flight Surgeon at Mission Control can handle anything that’s not acute.” He knew all of this, of course, and had studied it all while en route on board the Larunda, but it was good to see where it all was being stored, and to get a better feel for the medical bay.

Scully stood. “That’s it on compulsory duty,” she said. “Feel free to head back and try to get a little more sleep, Mulder. I know you must be exhausted.”

He fought the urge to yawn, but stood and stretched.

“I was adequately put through my paces last night, I admit,” he said, even though he knew she was talking about the fatigue he was experiencing due to the rigors of the magnetic shield mission. He stepped into her space, forcing her to look up at him, which she did with a sly smile.

“ Adequately ?” she intoned, teasing him.

“More than adequate,” he said. “Scully,” his voice dropped to a whisper and he leaned down even more, until their noses were almost touching. “Last night was… out of this world.”

She threw back her head and let rip an undignified guffaw which energized him more than any sleep ever could.

“Come on,” he said, still smiling and moving over to the payload cases that she’d stacked on the exam table, the edges on some stained a rusty orange from where they’d sat in the powdery regolith. “Let me help you with these.”

She grinned and moved over with him, and they began to check the structure of each container before opening it and cataloguing what was inside, after which they unpacked each one, filling the medical bay with the rest of its complement of supplies. When they were on the second to last kit, Mulder turned it from where it sat on the metal gurney.

“Structure seems fine,” he reported to Scully, who had a laptop open on the other end of the tabletop with the inventory list open. “But one of the latches is damaged,” he said, fingering the loose metal clasp.

“Is the other latch intact?” she asked, looking up from her computer.

“Seems to be,” he said.

Scully pursed her lips. “Let’s check for regolith particles on the interior. See if the seal was compromised.”

Mulder nodded and opened the other latch, swinging open the container, which was shaped like an oversized briefcase. Scully handed him a magnifying glass, which she seemed to have conjured out of thin air. From where he stood, there didn’t appear to be any Martian dust on or near the edge closest to the compromised latch, which he reported to Scully before taking a closer look with the magnifying glass.

“Seal does not appear to have been compromised,” he said, straightening back up and handing the tool back to Scully.

She nodded, made a note on her laptop and turned to him.

“Contents?” she said.

He picked up the small bottles one at a time and read off the contents. “Pills, looks like,” he said. “We’ve got uh… ibuprofen,” he set that bottle aside and picked up the next one. “And…” he squinted at the printing on the bottle. Though they’d gone over nearly all the medications in the clinic, this wasn’t one he was familiar with. “I don’t know this one. Dimeth…” he started.

Scully looked up from her computer with a grin, as though she was trying not to laugh. “Dimethandrolone undecanoate?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied, relieved not to have had to wrap his tongue around that particular mouthful. “What’s so funny?”

“Don’t you look at the bottles that you have to open every morning and take with breakfast?” she asked him.

“This is a vitamin?” he asked, squinting once again at the bottle. There were a whole host of supplements they needed to take because they weren’t ingesting or exposed to them on this alien planet, as well as other compounds that the doctors wanted them to take to fight the effects of low or no gravity – substances to help preserve bone strength, eye function, muscle repair and growth. Each morning as they sat down to eat, they ingested a veritable candy dish worth of pharmaceuticals. He glanced up to find her smiling at him.

“It’s your birth control, Mulder,” she said with a smirk.

He gave her a look and she leaned over and picked up another bottle. “And mine,” she went on. “I think this contains the whole reproductive health suite.”

“Well,” said Mulder, hoping to regain some of his dignity, and perhaps the conversational upper hand, “I hope to put it to good and frequent use.”

“Count on it, flyboy,” she said.

[spaced-out-muses]

"Mr. Doctor Kuroo I have a question! How much blood do you think I am missing out on producing due to my missing limbs? Like I know I need less blood to live on average now, but that also means I don't have as much as everyone else. I want my blood back, Doctor. I want my proper blood levels restored." @valiant-au-save-slot-a

There's a long, suffering sigh as the doctor steels himself for whatever is about to come.

"Given that blood flow and volume varies from person to person, and that I don't yet know what it was before your amputations, I can't give you an accurate figure." He states. "However, your body has already adjusted to the blood level it needs, even if that means you have less than the average person. Unless you were to somehow re-grow your limbs, I doubt that will change."

He falls silent for a moment, only to process what he said and immediately turn his chair around. He fixes Crowely with a firm stare. "That is not an invitation to attempt that, Mr. Donahue-Mulder."

[deathsbestgirl]

the host is SO special. i think this is the first time one of my favorite things happens: mulder thinking skinner is punishing him, when he's giving him a genuine x files. and this time, it's when the x files are closed. to me, like he's trying to justify reopening the x files and assigning mulder + scully back to the department.

in scully's first scene, she tries so hard. she cannot fathom mulder leaving the bureau. she calls him out gently, gives ideas, asks him questions.

like. were they supposed to meet? or did she know where to find him after she heard about what happened with skinner lol i LOVE them.

either way, it isn't the same as their secret meeting in little green men. mulder is still so focused on "they don't want us working together" but scully will always try. and to me, it's a huge green flag that she's allowed to do the autopsy on mulder's case. there may be a conspiracy against them, but someone with enough power within the fbi is on their side.

but also. just the way she stutters a little, his "i know what you're trying to do" — the beginning of season two is scully trying so hard to help him. she's seen him in his grief, when he's excited, when they're on the verge of something. and what's happening here is so different. and this episode is when he really starts to accept her help. they're best friends!!

AND "there's a dead body isn't there?" she does this a few times throughout the series, even in the revival. whenever mulder isn't grounded, she helps him remember why he does the work. yes, for samantha, but he also genuinely cares about people. it isn't just about the paranormal to him (that's where he lets his hope live but it isn't everything). the way she reminds him, the way she helps him, the way she's goes out a limb for him, takes chances, defends him & the work. she's already his touchstone.

coming back to this for a moment: "they don't want us working together, scully. and right now that's the only reason i can think of to stay." he is so focused on this!! i think mulder understands the role scully has had on the x files better than anyone. he knows the value she brought to the x files. her science is what validates his work. she was brought on to spy, but they sent in someone above reproach. she's incredibly honest, she cares about the truth. and in the pilot, she displayed her underlying tendency to believe and he reminded her of her assignment, but really, he reminded her of what the x files needed. before he understood how important she was. their spy wasn't working out as intended, and now they don't want them working together. mulder flourished with scully (and she with him). i just. don't even have the words for what this means.

this is SO SWEET. like they've been separated for a month or two, compared to working together for a full year. "it felt like old times there for a second" he isn't the only one missing the x files & their basement office. she misses him more than anything, and she's giving him something to hold on to. (i keep thinking she's his light switch)

scully loves her job on the x files!! she loves mulder's crazy theories. she loves what she gets to see & discover & prove. she has fun on their cases. and she adores mulder. he's so earnest & passionate. he cares about people.

she loves his crazy theories and debating with him. she's been able to hold it together better, but scully does well with routine. it stabilizes her. but she craves what they had on the x files. she loves the adrenaline, she loves the discovery, she loves their banter, she loves solving cases & doing something she thinks matters.

oh god. i love this part!! he thinks scully is the friend his anonymous caller was talking about, and the way he directly addresses it with her!! i love it.

i love this conversation. it feels like a progression of the motel room scene in the pilot. they're already friends, they trust each other. he knows if scully said something, she's trying to help. but she genuinely didn't. and they're processing this information together. there is someone on their side. and it is *their* side because scully is the one slipped information.

(i just have to mention, it's genderless! like m+s to me)

the way jokes are weaved in always gets me. "it looks like i'm going to have to tell skinner that his suspect is a giant, blood sucking worm after all" i just love it. absolutely crazy!!

an aside: it's just. so absurd to me that it's always mulder with friends & informants. like x (presumably) slipper the tabloid under scully's door. to me, that should mean she is part of it. they kind of just act like scully is part of mulder, instead of treating them like the unit they are. this is just something that bothers me about the show in general. she isn't treated like a real player in the narrative through most of the show. even though, she's the perspective we tend to view it from. anyway.

i have to at least mention the scene in skinner's office. "i know. this should have been x file." and mulder really doesn't let him off easy, but skinner, in no uncertain terms, tells him he gets orders too & mulder is right!! skinner is on their side even when it doesn't look like it, when his hands are tied. and that doesn't change. skinner believes in them.

i love that their last scene echoes the first. "i'll take my chances." they have some answers, but not all of them. *they* have a friend in the fbi. i love that mulder is the one to say "we" about this. and she asks if it's skinner, because well yeah!! but no. he doesn't really have enough power to pull the strings, but he is doing what he can. and they end contemplating the same thing.

I absolutely adore reading your thoughts on txf, would you mind talking a little bit about the early s2 MSR dynamic? Because, for me, along with the s6 ship teasing it’s easily the most romantic period in the whole show. The flirting, the ✨ yearning ✨, the teasing. You know when it’s so obvious that two people have fallen for each other, and it’s only a matter of time before they start acting on those feelings? That’s the vibe that early s2 gives me.

thank you so much, that's really kind!!

i love season 6 & season 2 so much. they both have their own brand of angst & longing and they're so special.

mulder and scully are really best friends by the end of season 1. it takes so long for them to describe each other as "friend" — they're partners, but they both know they are important to each other.

little green men is especially my favorite here, like. the way they kick off the season and reintroduce us to mulder & scully is kind of brilliant. because they're not partners right now, they're assigned separately and it's so hard for them. mulder is always kind of monotone, but dd somehow still injects so much into. (like his facial expressions.) and there's something about this opening voiceover that feels very different from his others, to me.

we see mulder bored out of his mind, despondent. the x files were his entire life. they're all he cares about (because of samantha), and now scully too.

the first scene with scully kind of crushes me. i think i've posted about it before but !!!

scully has always felt a connection to the dead. she tells their stories, seeks justice for them. she's so aware that they are people. they lived and loved and dreamed and cried and feared. it only became more acute as she worked with mulder.

she's returned to teaching and here, she's overcome with those thoughts. she feels she has to pass this on to her students. they need to understand that every case is about people. they need to hold on to the human aspect, rather than letting it harden & disconnect them.

and then one of her students uses the word "spooky" about her. the first time she heard "mrs. spooky" she was kind of shaken. she had seen other agents be rough with mulder, she knew it wasn't the most friendly moniker. (i like to think in the pilot, she thought "spooky" was kind of silly. like he was a brilliant profiler, it's a kind of science. he's a good agent. that isn't spooky. it's hard work.) but in squeeze, she saw up close the mockery of it. the assumptions people made, but she worked with him. he's on the victim's side and that's where she wants to be. i fully believe part of her is trying to impart this on her students.

then. when he doesn't see her in the hall at work, walks right past her with no recognition...she decides to do something. they're friends, he's still her partner.

she's relieved when he makes a joke. (i love them)

she told him he looked like deep throat when he was approaching her in the dark...like toe testing his state of mind.

scully has some understanding that they are being watched: she had to write reports specifically on the validity of the x files & mulder's investigations, she found the bug in the pen in e.b.e., they took precautions with false trails and they have a signal to meet covertly. she took the precautions, she's been extra cognizant of her surroundings. all this because she just wants to make sure her friend is okay, and he's busy worrying about putting her in danger.

she is so worried about him. she doesn't want mulder to give up and it seems like he has, but he ends up confiding in her that he's struggling to believe & hope, worrying that he's crazy.

i love the way she responds. she reminds him of what's kept him going, that he has seen so much. scully doesn't believe his memories, or in aliens, but she believes in mulder. in his compassion, in his determination, in his cause, in his ability to keep searching.

i think this is the first time we see him doubt his memories, his course. and scully, even with her skeptic role, has a role to fill. when he can't find hope, she tries to guide him to it. she knows how important it is.

"even if george hale only saw elves in his mind, the telescope still got built. don't give up." this line reminds me of the end of quagmire: "well there's still hope. that's why these stories have endured. people want to believe."

scully loves mulder's belief, or determination to believe, so much. it is a precious part of him she wants to protect. hope & belief are powerful things, and they're both so hard to hold onto. the way they help each other is beautiful. i've always found this aspect of their relationship incredibly romantic. not necessarily in a traditional sense but it's all so personal. the intimacy with which they share sacred parts of themselves, in a way they haven't shared it with others. i don't know if i've posted this, but i think there's an inherent romance when you're getting to know someone. in that phase, you don't really know where it's going, and wherever it does go (a friendship or romantic relationship) doesn't really matter. that's what was happening in season one, and their work made them forge a bond built on respect and fused them together. in season two, they now have so many shared experiences.

season one is all about scully following mulder. season two is more like mulder following scully. not as literally as scully follows him, but she tells him "next time we meet out in the open" and it's decided. he listens to her. (and later, he invites her on all of his cases. until he's abducted. and he almost follows her to the grave before she's truly gone. it becomes about protecting her, and trying to do that while respecting her, following her lead on coming back to work, what she can handle, what she needs to do like irresistible, and supporting her. it's different but also not so different to how she follows him, protects him, supports him.)

they're separated because of the fbi, not because she left him. she didn't abandon him. but mulder wasn't going to keep dragging her down. here, scully makes the choice and that's something he has never experienced before. mulder isn't used to this, and he doesn't understand, but it's something he craves his entire life without really knowing what he was craving. it's real love & respect & belief & care. he has to follow her too. he has to let her in. he can't lose her.

literally the way he was avoiding her, protecting scully from himself & the conspiracy. but that doesn't matter to her. mulder is what matters to her, their relationship. they need each other and they love each other and they are best friends, voiced or not.

immediately after this meeting, mulder disappears. skinner questions scully about his whereabouts, only tells skinner about seeing mulder in the hallway, nothing about the clandestine meeting.

i *love* this. skinner knows scully wouldn't be worried if she knew. she immediately offered to help in a professional capacity, but these two have never fooled anyone. no one knows the nature of their relationship, and they can't because mulder & scully refuse to give it any name for so long.

csm knows scully will find mulder, but he still doesn't understand what a force scully is. he claims to never underestimate mulder, but he definitely underestimated scully.

she starts looking into it herself, regardless of skinner asking her for help or not. she figures out his password, takes the evidence right out from under other agents.

meanwhile, their meeting reinvigorated mulder. he's searching for the truth of those transmissions. he is recording himself, talking to scully directly, down in puerto rico.

he's describing jorge's body to scully, giving observations he's heard her give a hundred times.

(something here about how he looks *frightened* to death and scully proliferating about the person's memories & life before they end up dead on their autopsy table)

and scully, she's working on getting to him. she knows she's being followed and leaves false trails for the agents trying to track him down. just like they did in e.b.e. and i just don't even have words for that. she's learned so much from him. before, scully was confident she wasn't being followed. but the second skinner came to her about him, she kept up with every precaution and more.

when she catches up to him. you know the scene.

mulder: they came, scully. the ones that took her. they were here

scully: here, or here?

they're PRECIOUS. scully was so worried about him, finds him unconscious on the floor, terrified he was dead. touching him to reassure herself, doctoring him for the feeling of safety it gives her. but her mulder is back and she's relieved — even as they have to flee.

the way he so slowly, carefully, intentionally says "i still have my work...and i've still got you...and i still have myself." mulder understands exactly what scully was telling him. partners or not, she is with him, always. it's hard for him to accept, but he needs her. she saved him in so many ways just in this episode alone.

there was so much yearning in this brief separation and scully bridged the gap. she didn't let it end just because the bureau split them up. and who is mulder to refuse her?

[freckleslikestars]

Five Times Mulder Asked Scully to Marry Him and One Time He Didn’t

does what it says on the tin :)

2016 words, read here on AO3

i.     She’s bleeding the first time he asks. Thorns of agony pierce his heart as burgundy red stains her snow-white skin. She bleeds elegantly, holds her composure even as the life drains from her, and he hates her a little bit for it because if she can daintily hold his handkerchief to her nose and murmur quiet placations as she dies in front of him, he has no right to go to pieces. He’d joked just last week about picking out china patterns, but when the words leap from his mouth it’s not that kind of wedding he’s asking for.

She startles, freezes under his gaze, and only the tang of iron on her tongue breaks her from her shock. He sits across from her, eyes pleading, unsure how to explain that he doesn’t want to be shut out of her hospital room when they say ‘family only’ again. It seems he doesn’t have to find the words; she can read him like a book.

‘You’re my emergency contact, Mulder. You’ll always be the first to know,’ she neglects to tell him that she changed her emergency contact and next of kin to him on her medical records two days after she woke from her coma.

He gives a tight smile and a stiff nod. Of course, a much more rational workaround. Much more sensible. They spend the rest of the day in silence, a metallic, bitter taste lingering in each of their mouths.

 ii.     She’s lost everything. Her health. Her daughter. Her bodily autonomy. She’s in remission, hasn’t had a nose bleed in nearly two months now, but she still feels wraith-like; her skin still a sickly hue under fluorescents, her ribs a protruding xylophone beneath her suits. She’s trying to put on weight but her appetite is still fighting its way back.

A weekend away. Sea air. Peace and quiet. Just what she needs, just what the doctor ordered. No family – no squalling babies to remind her what she can’t have – no Mulder and no aliens. Just the wide, empty ocean and the hole in her heart.

But trouble and the darkness find her like a magnet, and she’s secretly relieved at the sound of Mulder’s voice on the end of the phone, the faux-nonchalant quality of it that reveals just how much he’s missing her.

She doesn’t know who she’s showing off to when she recites all she knows: the friendly local police chief or him. She tells herself it’s the locals, that she doesn’t need his approval or his help, but she blooms when she hears his awestruck voice, can hear the smile in his whisper.

It takes all her restraint not to blush, not to give away just how much she wants him to mean it. But Jack Bonsaint is looking at her expectantly and so she rolls her eyes and wonders briefly if he can sense her disparaging look in the tone of her voice.

 iii.     They’re drenched in Egyptian cotton, limbs tangled and lethargic. Two bottles of overpriced champagne charged to a bureau card. There’s a silver plate of fresh strawberries on the side table that they’re occasionally reaching over to, sharing bites and licking up trails of sweet juice.

They’re giggly and past tipsy and can’t keep their hands from wandering, not that they need to. There’s no case pressing down on them, and for the rest of the weekend, they’re free of all responsibilities, with nowhere else they’re needed other than right there in bed, in the bath and in the luxuriously large shower. He’s mulling over the idea of taking her to the Griffith Observatory tomorrow evening, but he’s not sure he wants to leave the bliss of her embrace.

She’s soft and pliant in his arms and he cannot fathom ever letting her go, so he does the only thing he can think of doing with three-quarters of a bottle of champagne swimming through his system, ‘marry me, Scully,’ pressed into her collarbone as he licked his way down towards the valley between her breasts.

She hums contentedly and smiles wide, raking her fingers lazily through his messy hair. She tugs him back up to her mouth, chases his tongue and nips at his plush bottom lip. Her eyes are dark and deep, and he might just drown in them if she keeps looking at him like that. She rolls him over and settles atop him, glows as she makes love to him with a wide, dopey grin.

Neither will admit to remembering it in the morning, and the observatory will be toured silently, hand in hand, but his request and her soft moans of ‘yes,’ will echo throughout both their minds.

 iv.     Ten fingers. Ten toes. Big blue eyes and a button nose. He’s perfect; perfect little ears and the perfect Cupid’s bow. There’s a soft, awestruck quiet that has settled around her apartment, and as out of his depth as he feels holding his son – their son – nothing feels more right than the sturdy weight of him cradled in his arms.

She’s sleeping beside him, her body curved around the mass that’s no longer there, and he can’t help falling even more in love with her. She stirs as if she can sense his thoughts, and for once he doesn’t think about opening an X file on it. Her face crumples when she props herself up on her elbow, wincing slightly at the tenderness, and he gently presses his thumb against the crease in her forebrow until it soothes out. William coos and she peers into the bundles of blankets, capturing one of his little, flailing hands and pressing a kiss to it.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he murmurs quietly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, ‘I want to ask you something, and I don’t want you to feel pressured or anything.’

‘Okay..?’ her voice trembles with hesitancy.

‘I want to do this thing right. I want to be a good dad, and a good partner and...and I want to be a good husband. I want to be there for you and for William, and I understand if that’s not what you want, and I didn’t ever think it would be something I would want. I grew up with my parents in a loveless marriage that ended in a terrible, terrible divorce and I swore I wouldn’t do that, but then I met you and I cannot imagine spending my life with anyone but you. I don’t want you to feel pressured though. It’s up to you, it’s your decision and we can take it at whatever speed you want, I just wanted to get it out there as something to think about and-‘

‘Mulder?’

‘Yeah?’

‘My answer’s yes. I’d like that, very much.’

She reaches up as he bends down, meeting in the middle for a soft, sweet kiss. A knock on the door disrupts them, triggering a wail from William, and Mulder chuckles, pulling away, ‘you know, this is our life now, right?’

‘And I can’t imagine being happier,’ one more pecked kiss and they carefully transfer William into his mother’s arms and Mulder goes to answer the door, opening it to find a note left on the floor in the corridor.

He’s got just under two days to go into hiding. Their eyes are red and raw by the time he ducks out, the watery dawn grey barely filtering through the windows of her apartment, the warmth that usually fills it having cooled.

 v.     He has a scruffy beard, she has dyed hair, and they haven’t stayed in the same town for more than three weeks in over a year. Different identities cycled through just as frequently. There’s a stupor that’s hung over them, dark clouds concealing a sun that struggles to fill the sky.

They’re in a town somewhere on the border between Arizona and Nevada and she’s waitressing at a diner, picking up every shift she can. They have a duffle of money – Mulder had spent years squirrelling away caches of money across the country, just in case; five hundred dollars here, a thousand there - but it’s dwindling and, whilst Scully’s technically an accomplice, she’s less recognisable with her hair died, and so she’s the one picking up odd jobs when she can.

It’s all too much. They’ve spent nearly a decade with a very specific purpose together and now they’re freefalling, grappling with how to exist in a world without structure and, more importantly, without their son.

They have their moments, though, when the pressure increases to boiling point and they snap. The storm breaks and they explode, sometimes vicious words hurled with painful accuracy, sometimes an angry fuck against the door of their motel room. And in the aftermath, a peace reigns. It lasts maybe a week, maybe two, but there’s a clarity in that peace, a reminder that they’re still in love.

It’s one of these sweet times they find themselves in now, coiled atop scratchy motel sheets whilst the ancient air conditioner wheezes over them. She’s soft and supple, draped over him and running her fingers through the scraggly hair on his chest. ‘I need to get to work.’

His arms wrap tighter around her waist, ‘no. I want you to stay right here.’ She hums, content to stay a moment longer, content to exist in this moment of calm. He kisses the top of her head when she looks at her watch, pouts when she sighs and pushes herself up and off the bed. He watches as she dresses, fastidiously buttoning her blouse, pinning back each flyaway strand of dull, mousy brown hair. She takes her time covering her freckles and the little beauty mark above her lip, anything that could be used to identify her. ‘Scully?’

‘Hm?’ she locks eyes with him in the mirror.

‘Come ‘ere.’

She’s hesitant as she sits on the edge of the bed, careful not to wrinkle anything - some habits die hard, and she’s her father’s daughter: she may not be working in the office anymore, but wrinkles and tardiness are not something she would ever allow. His brow furrows and she runs her thumb over it, ‘what?’

He takes her hand, kisses her thumb and each finger, lingering on the fourth one a moment longer than the rest, ‘would you...’

‘Mulder?’

‘Marry me.’

‘What?’

‘Doesn’t have to be now, but...I don’t want to lose you.’

She shifts, looks away from him. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Mulder.’

‘Just...think about it.’

She’s at the door before he can blink, ‘I’m going to be late for work.’

 vi.     He’s a free man. Technically, they both are now, but she’s had a modicum of freedom for a while. It’s new to him. So, he meets her at the hospital, just to bring her lunch. He smiles at the stir they’re causing as Dr Scully walks through the halls on the arm of a man.

He takes her to the Bahamas and they spend their days on the beach and in the water, eating mangoes that spill juice down their chins and rowing out into the startlingly blue abyss of ocean. They hike across rocky shorelines and through dense forest. He applies sun cream across her back religiously, but she still burns, and her freckles darken.

It’s their last night on the island, walking barefoot on the sandy shore, the gentle lap of waves around their toes. The moon’s bright, the sky cloudless, and the night feels endless when she stops in her tracks, their linked hands tugging him to a halt too.

She smiles at him, a blinding smile, and pulls him in closer to her, the whisper of her lips across his quiet in the still night. ‘I want to ask you something.’

He’s bemused but nods with a hesitant smile, ‘anything.’

Her mind flashes back on all the times he’s asked, all the times she’s scoffed at him or turned her back on him, and has a sudden need to never let him feel the anxiety that’s bubbling within her ever again. ‘Marry me?’

Tagging @today-in-fic

[scully-xo]

Quantum Files - part 4 of 7

Fictober, part 4 / My version of fictober: No beta readers. Quick drafts. Incomplete, though outlined. Next chapter to follow in a few days. Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober2022

AO3 Link

X-Files/Quantum Leap crossover, rated T, words 1101/7005, Canon Divergence, Pining, Slow Burn (kind of)

Chapter: 1 . 2 . 3

***

Chapter 4

As the weeks passed, Mulder became more energized. He’d found a purpose. Fixing things for people, adapting to their worlds. Knowing that whatever he did, he left things better rather than worse. Though it wasn’t like he did anything special. If the same people he inhabited had a chance to fix things, wouldn’t they do the same?

Mulder relished each chance to discover how other people lived. It was one thing, as a psychologist, to try to understand where people were coming from. Leaping into people, inhabiting their lives for a day or two, was an entirely different scenario. He wouldn’t claim to know exactly what people’s lives were like, not having the years of history living in it, but it was better than any attempt at understanding from the outside. Seeing how people reacted. Feeling the exhaustion of chronic pain, the absence of missing limbs, the way the world was built for able white men like himself.

He wanted to know more. Excitement traveled up his spine when he knew he was about to leap. He found himself hoping that this adventure he found himself on wouldn’t end. Only one thing tied him to the world he was supposed to call home: Scully.

While he was invigorated as time went on, with each leap into a different life, he saw her struggle. The exhaustion in the way she held herself. Shoulders slumped instead of straight. Dark circles under her eyes. Her skin looked more sallow, like she never went outside. She probably didn’t. The weight of his situation landed square on her shoulders. With each leap that didn’t send him back, she took responsibility. Blamed herself. Even when he tried to convince her otherwise, the stubborn set of her mouth told him she wouldn’t rest, wouldn’t be comforted, until he was returned.

“Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?” he asked her one day. They were sitting outside, in the shade of a copse of trees. This body was a farmer named Gail. Lanky and sun-damaged leathery skin. He was beginning to forget what his own body looked like. Scully still saw him, though, and he could ask her if he really wanted to.

She was laying on the grass, watching as Mulder picked apart a pussy willow. The buds scattered in the light breeze, carried away over the wide fields that surrounded them. He thought, perhaps, their conversations were the only time she let herself relax. So he did the only thing he thought would help: he convinced her to stay longer each time.

“Logically, I would have to say no,” she responded.

He grinned, shaking his head. Of course, she wouldn’t believe. His pinnacle of skepticism.

“Given the distances needed to travel from the far reaches of space, the energy requirements would exceed a spacecraft’s capabilities–”

“Conventional wisdom, Scully.” He waved his hand around him. “A few weeks ago you wouldn’t have thought all of this possible.”

“It’s been six weeks, Mulder.” She frowned, her mind turning away from the field they laid upon, back to the lab where she worked to get him back.

He leaned forward. “This guy, Scully, he believes.”

“And you do, too?”

Nodding, Mulder grabbed another pussy willow and started dissecting it. “There’s so many stars up there. Isn’t it more plausible that an advanced civilization evolved millenia before us, that they discovered a way?”

“And, what, they’ve decided to just hang back and watch? If they’re so advanced why have they only shown themselves to a select few? If the government is hiding something, what’s to prevent these advanced beings from telling everyone the truth?”

“Maybe they operate on levels we cannot understand.”

She grinned, biting back a laugh. “Oh, okay.” Looking up at the sun, making its way across the sky, he saw her mood shift. “I should–”

“Stay.”

“Mulder…”

“Just a little while longer.”

She sighed, but once her gaze shifted to his and she saw the need in his eyes, she nodded. That was real, at least, the need for her to stay. Always, she would return, but for now he had her next to him. Not for the first time he wished she was more than a projection. That they could leap into bodies together, discover all the little parts of this world, all the stories that people had to tell that they would never have learned otherwise.

Mulder told her about Gail. How he had an office full of pictures on the walls. Things that he might have taken himself. Triangular-shaped crafts in the sky. Mulder leafed through the journals stacked on the desk - absorbed by accounts of abduction. Maybe he was a little… obsessed. But there might have been a good reason for it. His bed was a double, and when he awoke in this body, he laid on one side rather than the middle. A vanity with bottles of creams and cosmetics stood in a corner, dust coating the surfaces. A wispy robe laid across the chair. Perhaps Gail’s wife was simply gone, left. Went to the city and moved on, but Mulder didn’t think so.

Despite her skepticism, Scully listened. And she only rolled her eyes once in the extra hour that he got to keep her. When she left, Mulder headed back into the farmhouse, into Gail’s office, and read into the night.

When he lept into the next body, he didn’t stop thinking about Gail.

***

His dreams didn’t stop. He couldn’t call them nightmares anymore. They called to him, like they were sending him a message. One he couldn’t ignore anymore, especially after experiencing Gail’s life. He saw his sister, the night she’d been taken. He was supposed to be watching her, but he fell asleep. For months he imagined what happened - monsters under the bed, men at the window. In one version, she crawled out and got hit by a car on the road near their house. There was no one to comfort him when he woke screaming, his mother passed out or tranquilized in her grief. Now though, they were all the same. She floated out the window. And there was a light. Bright, shining. It hurt his eyes, but he couldn’t close them. He was paralyzed.

Was he remembering? Or were they just dreams, his imagination inserting new ideas into his subconscious?

He kept these thoughts close to his chest. Scully wouldn’t believe him. She would think he was crazy. That he’d taken a part of Gail within himself. Maybe she’d wonder if he kept pieces of everyone he lept into. And maybe that would be true.

[talentforlying]

' HA. gonna tell me what number i'm thinkin' of next? '

the bright, buzzing double-shot of alcohol and curiosity drains out of his eyes like the tide retreating from shore, taking all trace of emotion with it. shouldn't have asked. should've started chugging from the flask the second mulder showed up. better worse decisions to make while drunk than tangoing on the edge of the void that is newcastle, that is hearing about gemma going missing over the radio. fuck fucking fuck.

' starfleet's startin' their red shirts younger and younger these days, enney? ' mild and unfunny is easy to do in a pinch, and good for covering underlying brittleness. he's already pushing himself up from the grass, staggering as the comfortable buzz that had been floating securely behind his eyes sinks through his limbs like a stone and leaves a hazy static shivering into the corners of his vision. hot sun and a healthy dose of sipsmith vjop, hell of a way to punch your ticket.

thankfully, there's faithful old orcus to catch himself on. besides it's far from his first day-drinking rodeo; maybe his first day-drinking state fair, though. he flashes mulder an OK sign to instill a little confidence and clears his throat, trying not to look like he's itching on the inside. ' well then! you're the one holdin' all the official details, like, so where are we startin', hey? any personal items left behind, places they might've been together? g'wed, give us a peek at that big FBI brain'o yours. '

Was Constantine actually interested? Huh. That comes as a surprise to the agent, and it's evident in the way his brow lift.

"No guys playing flutes if that's your next question." Mulder clears his throat a little, the alcohol hitting his stomach a little more harshly than he had first anticipated. Must have been that corn dog he and Scully shared while putzing around, "The most we can gather is that it's been primarily children. Mostly girls from the ages of 11-13. We have our suspicions of foul play, but I'm holding out hope that these girls will be able to be found."

Mulder is hiding the fact that this case in particular hits pretty close to him. The two of them hadn't been exactly on trauma sharing terms as of yet, but who knows, maybe with a few more drinks there could be an opportunity to pour his heart out.

Jesus, this really is like how it was with Phoebe. He wondered just how far Mark Twain's grave was.

[baronessblixen]

A prompt if I may ask for one, how sick does Scully have to get before she will admit she is sick? Cancer arc hurt/comfort please

I hope this enough hurt/comfort! There's definitely cancer arc angst. Wc: 1340. Tagging @today-in-fic and @xffictober2021

Fictober Day 2: Whispered Words

She's been on her feet all day, slicing and dicing, trying to keep up with Mulder. Same old, same old. Except it's not. Her muscles protest as she changes out of her scrubs. Her legs barely lift, and she stumbles, catching herself just in time against the lockers. She looks around, her cheeks flaming red, but she's all alone. She sits down to tie her shoes and when she leans forward, the slight headache she's been ignoring all day, presses against her forehead, reminding her of the unspeakable.

Mulder is waiting for her, roaming the halls restlessly like a caged animal.

"There you are," he says when he sees her, and she forces a smile. "Any anomalies?" He asks, cracking a sunflower seed. The sound is loud in her ears, and she startles.

"No," she says, "nothing abnormal." Mulder makes a disappointed noise. She can't blame him; they're stuck in this case, every lead a dead end.

"Let's go back to the office. There must be something we're missing." She tries to keep up with Mulder's long, athletic strides and finds that she can't. She should have kept on her sneakers. The heels squish her toes, make her slow and sluggish. Mulder stops to open a door and Scully, breathless, averts her face so that he doesn't notice. When his fingers come into contact with her back, right where they always do, at the tip of her tattoo, tears shoot into her eyes. Her glazed skin cracks and she winces.

Mulder, oblivious to her internal turmoil, removes his hand but the pain remains. Ahead of her, his form turns blurry. Every step is agony, like she's walking on coals. The heat spreads thickly, gathers in her stomach.

"Scully? Are you okay?"

How many 'I'm fine's’ are too much, she wonders as she stares at him, leaning against the wall. She's breathless, can't take in enough air. Her stomach revolts against everything and she prays silently like she never has before to please, please not be sick right here, right now.

"Hey." Mulder is by her side, crouching down to be eye-level with her. She doesn't want to look at him. She wants to tell him that she's fine. She wants to be okay.

"I'm- I don't-," she breaks up, sobs; she doesn't want to cry but her tears fall anyway. If she doesn't say it, if she doesn't admit she's sick, then she won't be, right?

"It's okay," Mulder says and touches her arm. "Do you- can you walk on your own? Do you need an ambulance? I'm gonna call-"

"Mulder, no." She puts her hand on his where it lays on her arm. "I just want to go home. Just... home."

He helps her out of the building and into the car. They're taking baby steps. One foot in front of the other as if she's just learned how to do it. Mulder is quiet next to her but his thoughts are screaming, piercing through her mind.

"What about work?" She asks once they start driving. Her tongue feels three times its normal size and it's a struggle to get the words out.

"Work can wait. It's not that important."

Any other day she would protest. Any other day she'd tell him she was better already. Today, though, she stays silent, accepts the fate her body has inflicted on her.

She leans her head against the cold glass window, watches the scenery pass by. It makes her nauseous. They drive past roadkill; a small fox, its life over before it's really begun. Scully closes her eyes against the pain, against the unfairness of it all.

She doesn't remember falling asleep but when she opens her eyes again, they're at her apartment building and she's in Mulder's arms.

"What are you doing?" She asks, her voice thick with sleep.

"Didn't have the heart to wake you," he says, his words in her hair, like new fallen snow. "How are you feeling?"

"Sick," she says, too exhausted to lie.

"We're almost there. Can you stand? I need to unlock the door." As if she were his grandmother's porcelain, he puts her down and opens the door.

"I can walk," she says quickly before Mulder can pick her up again. He follows her like a guard dog, watching her every move. She walks straight to her bedroom and collapses on the bed.

"Do you want me to call your mother?"

"What for?" She mumbles, feeling Mulder remove her shoes.

He doesn't answer right away but he's still there because she feels his hand on her ankle.

"Mulder?" She asks.

"To help you... get changed, eat something. Do you want me to call her?"

"No. I'm fine." As long as she doesn't open her eyes again. She will manage. Her clothes are loose enough to sleep in; she's done so before.

"Tell me if anything is uncomfortable." She hears Mulder's voice, but it doesn't register. The sound of a zipper tears through the silence and as cold air hits her legs, she realizes it's her own. Mulder is removing her pants. She should say something, stop him. But she can't. The words won't come. She shivers and Mulder mumbles an apology, quickly finding her pajamas.

"I won't look," he swears with a gentle smile that distracts her for just a moment. He opens her blouse, one button at a time. "Bra on or off?" He asks, glancing at her face. Only someone who's never worn a bra would ask that question.

"Off," she manages to say. Mulder nods, keeps his eyes on her face and takes her bra off. How often has she dreamed about Mulder undressing her? How many fantasies has she had? None have ever been like this. Not a single one. She’d scream if she had the strength.

He helps her into an oversized t-shirt that she's certain used to be his. Neither comments on it.

"Lie down," he says. "I'll get you your meds." Scully listens to him moving around in her kitchen and swearing once or twice. She can't move. Her eyes keep falling shut, too heavy to stay open. She fights it, fights everything. Somewhere in her apartment, Mulder is talking. She hears snippets, deducts that he must be talking to her mother. 'Tired' is one word, 'worried' and 'stubborn' are uttered as well.

"I'll take care of, Mrs. Scully. I won’t leave her alone," Mulder says close to her bedroom. Fresh tears threaten to fall. This is everything she didn't want. Nothing was supposed to change. She's a medical doctor and she should know better. This is only the beginning.

"I'll call you if anything changes. Bye." Mulder walks back into the bedroom and sets a cup of tea and crackers on her nightstand. He leaves again, returns with a small bucket, a towel, and another blanket.

"I hope you're not crying cause the tea tastes bad." She touches her cheek, unaware that she's started crying. "Do you need anything else? Do we need to call your doctor?"

We. Not her, we. She merely shakes her head no, not trusting her voice.

"I won't leave. Anything you need, just tell me. Okay? Anything at all." He touches her forehead, his fingertips gentle against her skin.

"Try to get some rest, hm?"

"Where are you going?" She asks him.

"The living- I can stay here if you want." She's too tired to fight it. She knows in half an hour, an hour tops, her limbs will feel as if they're freezing. She will shiver and there will be nothing that can keep her warm. Except... tonight, she wants to take. This disease is taking from her every day, chipping away at her life every passing moment. Tonight she'll, too, be outlandishly demanding.

"Stay," she whispers. "Please stay."

In the next few hours, she falls in and out of sleep, eats, drinks and gets sick. Repeatedly. Mulder is right there with her, never once leaving her side. In the morning, when she feels better, they don’t mention it. They never do.

[the-spooky-alien]

Guess it's 'screaming about a song that fits MSR' time ! The song is 'Wish That You Were Here' by Florence + the Machine and this is the song of my life. Buckle up if you feel ready to bear my endless ramble !

There is a hundred way to interprete these lyrics, but I'm going on a limb here and say that, for me, it fits season 2 Mulder, when Scully is abducted. I do believe he realizes in that time what she means to him, and how empty and desperate he feels while she's gone. I won't go as far as to say he realizes he's in love with her (which, he is) but it's still a major realization for him. Whether or not he thinks of Scully in a romantic or platonic light, she is still the most important person for him right now. And she's gone. And he's left with realizing how he feels, dealing with all these emotions, until he can't breathe because it's juts too much. His feelings spring on him the moment he understands Scully is truly gone. It's not a soft, gentle transition from 'My partner is so nice and smart and badass:)' to 'this person is literally my whole world'. It's hard and brutal. It's a switch finally being flicked. It's messy and it hurts him, but there's nothing he can do about it.

From the moment she's gone, Scully is all he can think about. Even when he tries to act normal and solve a case, her absence is written in everything he does or says. He's wearing her cross, and the weight is heavy on his skin, and it's a reminder of what he's fighting for. She's all he can think about, but most importantly, she's all he allows himself to think about. I think his guilt drives him to think about her, like a sort of self-inflicted pain, to never forget how he failed her, and how he must find her again. And we know that Mulder did mind being alone, but he got used to it, to the point he stopped trying to reach out to other people. Until Scully barged into his life, until they became friend. Suddenly, he found himself liking her company, preferring it to the loneliness he was used to. And even when the X-Files were shut down, he finally realized he still had her, could still enjoy her company, and it was enough for him. He was content to be with Scully, even though it meant not working on the X-Files. But then she got abducted, just as they got closer together, and now, she just seems so far away from him. She disappeared when they just crossed the line of 'simply coworkers'. He's yearning for her, longing to see her again, to find her because she became his home. She's his best friend. He's lost without her.

I believe the lyrics here are pretty self-explanatory. But I can't stop imagining Mulder, sitting on his couch, desperately wishing that Scully knows he's doing everything he can to find her. Because she called for him, before being abducted. She yelled his name, she reached out for him, believing he would do anything to help her, and the truth is, he would. Her screams are etched on his mind, and he just can't let her down. And he wishes he could tell her everything will be okay, that he's coming for her, but he has no idea where to begin his search. She's gone and it's hard to keep hope. The longer it goes on, the more he thinks of the Samantha-hole in his chest. So he cries for Scully at night, and maybe he prays too, that she knows he will never be absolved, not until he finds her and saves her. And he just misses her so much, he keeps wearing her cross, both as a hope and a reminder : hope to find her again so he can gives it back to her, a reminder of who she was, is, and what he has to do. It's like he's keeping her essence bottled, safe against his skin, above his heart.

This is what gets me every single time when I think about this era of the series. We know how guilt-ridden Mulder can be, and here, he's definitely thinking it's his fault if Scully's gone because he should have been here in time. He let her down, he failed her. And I do believe his guilt plagued him, in the form of nightmares at night, but also in a more trivial way. Like forgetting for a second she's gone and grabbing the phone to call her, before remembering no one will pick up the damn phone. Or being in the office, deeply immersed in a file, and chuckling to himself, saying 'Hey, Scully, can you believe this ?', with only a heavy silence as his answer. It's crushing him, the memories of her added to his guilt, until sometimes nothing ever feels real. Seeing her at night, in a blur at the morgue, a flash of red hair in the corridor. He's being haunted by her, day and night. And he knows he can't keep bearing it, because the fall hurts too much. He can't keep living in memories, in the past. He has to move forward to find her.

And the song finishes here, on a sentence with no end. I can picture perfectly Mulder saying this, in the dark of his appartment, choking on his own words, unable to finish his sentence, because it means acknowledging verbally that she's gone and he has no idea what to do. He wishes she were here with him, and he would give anything for her to be back. Hell, he almost threw himself onto a path of revenge and violence when he thought she would be gone forever. The pain of losing her is too much, and suddenly, he is faced with the fact he might live on without her. And he can't do this, he can't keep going without her by his side, he would rather die than do this.

He just wishes she were here.

[randomfoggytiger]

X-Files Collector’s Edition:  Happy Halloween with the Mulder-Scully Family

Christmases in the X-Files universe (or the one we saw) were usually ~spooky~; so, while there are plenty of horror fics out there, I thought making a list with the reverse expectations somehow... fit. (Perhaps I’ll compile a scarier post later.)

(**Edited: Many, MANY errors. Oops.**) 

Loose timelines below~ 

Halloweens In a Better Lifetime 

@driftingthroughthesky/Arcticmist’s Halloween 

““A scientist alien?”      

“Yes, is there anything wrong with that?”      

“No, it’s just unusual.”      

Mulder smiled, “When have I ever been usual?””

Will is their perfect, miraculous mix; so (naturally) Mulder orders a mashup costume that represents them perfectly. 

Anon Entry-- Unnamed 

““Will is laying on the changing table happily waving his chubby limbs, all bundled up in the pumpkin costume his grandma got him for Halloween.””

This is shameless fluff from an anon; I loved it, so it’s here. 

@freckleslikestars/Living_Underground’s Halloween Costumes (Ao3) 

““Not long after that second Halloween, he was back in his father’s arms and they were on the run, hopping from motel to motel across backwater America. Whilst his mother collected and washed glasses in a dive down the street, his father draped him in the sheet from his travel cot and himself in a spare sheet from the closet in the motel room and they went from door to door, two ghosts laughing maniacally with every creepy voice and ruffled head the various guests gave out, Mulder thanking each and every one of them for humouring him and his son.”” 

William’s adorable baby Halloweens through the years: his first two blissfully sad ones are washed away by subsequent happier ones with a reunited family (on the run and at the Unremarkable House.) 

theficisoutthere/pen-paper-aliens‘s Boo! 

““He giggled and bumped right into his father’s legs. Mulder picked him up and swung him around. “Hey, what’s this, an alien!? What are you doing down here on Earth?!” William giggled again. “Daddy! We always come down for Halloween!”” 

Scully recalls Mulder’s words in Requiem after little Will the alien has passed out after trick-or-treating and too much candy. 

Christine Leigh’s (Ao3, LiveJournal) Little Boo

““So, tell me, Little Boo, is there a Big Boo, too?" He felt like Dr. Seuss.

Mulder couldn't see it, but through his mask Little Boo was giving him his 'Daddy, don't you know?' look.””

Little Boo and his father go trick-or-treating. Even sweeter than their candy stash is Will’s matter-of-fact and unthinking inclusion of his father in all aspects of his life, and how it touches the FBI’s Most Unwanted. 

@contrivedcoincidences6/Spooky66/geektime66‘s Growing Up (FFN) 

““On Halloween William was dressed in all black wearing an old FBI jacket and holding a matching hat. Mulder paced around him with a playfully serious look on his face, “Hummmm…. It’s missing something.” Scully watched from their couch, amused.””

Will’s first date is a school Halloween dance (perfect for this family); and his parents casually enjoy it from their lofty heights as mature adults. 

Headcanon from this fic: Mulder’s fashionable side only comes out when he pulls together costumes or perfectly recreated looks (eidetic memory, after all.) 

Girlie_girl7′s Arc about Mulder’s costume letdowns (out of timeline order)

Man to Man Talk 

““Mulder for the last time, you are not dressing our son up as the avenger of death. If he has to go, he can go as a kitty.”"

Mulder is dismayed that his son is not going to be spooky for Halloween. 

A Day In the Life, Trick or Treat 

““That's the one," Mulder says as he reaches down to grab the box that Will is offering him.  "These will look really scary above the door, don't cha think?" 

Will looks at the string of lights Mulder is untangling and frowns. "Day don't scawe me.”” 

Mulder continues to be disappointed because both his kids still won’t be spooky for Halloween. I’m sure he’s fine. 

Halloweens Post Revival 

Just a warning: all of these are mostly their second baby’s birth, which seems to a popular idea in this fandom (especially in the light of how the show ended without any resolution or happiness all around.) Might be cheesy, but I’m a big fan of quality dairy. 

Rose Thornhill‘s Spooky Mulder: The Revenge 

““These names all sounded very familiar to Scully. She rolled them around in her head until she realized where she had heard them. "Mulder, are you just naming off all the female characters in Halloween?"

"Um... no..." he said unconvincingly.

"Mulder!"

"She's going to be a Halloween baby!" he exclaimed defensively.””

When Scully tells Mulder about her scheduled c-section on Halloween, he is DETERMINED his spooky daughter will have spooky nursery and a spookier name-- from horror movies, no less (because this man loves his videos.) 

@atths--twice‘s (Ao3, Alt. Ao3, FFN) The Ninth Month 

““Mulder,” she began.

“Scully, I know what you’re going to say,” he said turning toward her. “You’re going to say that I’m going out of my way to decorate for a baby who will have no idea nor care that I did it. You will say that not until she is much older, will she have a memory of decorating for holidays.

“She raised her eyebrows and opened her mouth to answer him.

“To which, I will say that it’s the gesture that matters, Scully. As for memory, how do we know for absolute certainty what a person remembers and when?””

Scully is trying to hold out for a 31st due date, while Mulder stashes a porch witch and hay bales everywhere.... Basically, this is a “will they won’t they” but for married couples who have a deadline to keep. One thing is certain: the porch witch only ever scares Mulder. Every. Single. Time. And it’s glorious.

@leiascully’s (Ao3) Little Bigfoot (Ao3) 

““She slips her finger under the tape and unfolds the paper, retrieving a fuzzy brown bundle.  “It’s a…onesie?”

“It’s a Bigfoot costume,” Mulder says. “I thought we might be home for Halloween, but she took her own time, didn’t she?””  

Little squatches for Halloween and Armani white onions for Thanksgiving-- Mulder and Scully are soaking up their little holiday baby.  

@monikafilefan’s (Ao3) 

Just Breathe (Ao3) 

““Won’t be long now with this being your second baby. But it is 11:42 now, so it looks like you won’t be getting a special Halloween treat this year. Sorry, Dad.”

Nurse Valerie quickly entered Scully and the baby’s stats into the computer and offered up a genuinely sympathetic smile to a weary looking Mulder. 

“Be right back with the doctor’s orders for pain meds, Dana,” she promised with a wink and slipped out the door, not realizing how quickly things could drift into the unknown with Mr. and Mrs. Spooky involved.”” 

While the nurse is fetching an epidural, Halloween girl makes a break for it (with her parents already scrambling in her wake.) 

One Spooky All Hallow’s Eve (Ao3)

““In hindsight, Mulder, maybe having your pathologist wife, whom carves up things for a living, would’ve been a better option to do the pumpkins.” She stared up at him through her lashes with a tilt of her head, teasing him back.

“Oh no way, Scully,” he huffed and shook his head. “Halloween is Spooky Mulder’s holiday.”

She rolled her eyes. “Mrs. Spooky has been my nickname almost as long as Spooky Mulder has been yours.”

“And you love it,” he told her with a lopsided grin.””

Mulder slices his finger; and the ensuing horror, scolding, patching up, and joking is cut (eh? get it?) short when a flustered and disgusted Jackson gets decorated with vomit courtesy of his baby sister.

lsbnreinaa’s Squatching Goblins 

““She gushed, finally moving out of the way to reveal her creation, the image making Mulder nearly leap with excitement. She was adorned in a forest green onesie, covering her tiny toes for warmth, keeping in mind the time of year. Soft fabric leaves were hot glued to the surface of the onesie, along with the matching baby beanie atop her head.

To their surprise Evelyn remained composed and reached out eagerly for her costumed father, sitting proudly in his arms for Scully to take in.””

Mulder’s all-out plans are temporarily squashed because his daughter is frightened by Halloween masks. But Scully has a little surprise to make up for it. 

@baronessblixen ‘s (Ao3) Cookie Monster 

““Why can't she wear this to kindergarten? She looks adorable." Scully sighs. If it were up to Mulder - and Katie - she'd only wear her tiny Knicks jersey, her little Spiderman costume or now, she presumes, the Cookie Monster jumpsuit.””

Halloween-adjacent, at least-- Mulder and his daughter bought a Cookie Monster onesie instead of school clothes; but they bought Scully socks, too, so that makes it okay. 

WordsSpilledFromMyOpenVeins_89′s Squatchin’ In the Backyard 

‘“It had rained quite a bit... earlier that afternoon, so it wasn't too difficult for him to make convincing Bigfoot tracks on the ground. Instead of turning the back door light on (so he didn't wake up Scully and Hope), he used a flashlight to see what he was doing and make sure that everything looked.. just right, for tomorrows special event.””

Mulder sets up a Sasquatch hunt for his daughter’s Halloween, complete with a cookout and a Big Blue remembrance. Scully loves watching her investigators. 

Halloweens Assorted and AUs 

Jamie Lyn’s (other Gossamer) Full Moon, Near Death, and Other Things Unsaid

““Well… Yeah.  Typically, when spirits remain bound to old planes of existence or corporeal bodies, it indicates something left unfinished.  According to the literature, at least, and I’ve read it all, the soul harbors an insatiable desire to tie up loose ends.”   “What literature, Mulder?  Stephen King?” “Close.  Dean Koonz.” “Oh, brother – “  “Seriously, Scully.  Look at this rationally… Dead or not, we’re stuck on the side of this road until either we finish what we haven’t finished, or a toe-truck from the great beyond comes and finds us...””  

Post IVF Failure-- Mulder and Scully find themselves on a rainy highway, without working pulses, phones, or exit strategies. He concludes they died but can’t pass on without making peace with any unspoken regrets. The two exchange tidbits and banter; but it leads them to more meaningful admissions. 

@all-these-ghosts/all_these_ghosts‘s Poltergeist (Ao3) 

““Silence. Then giggling. A flashlight blinks on, then off, and a voice hisses “turn that off!” and another voice says “shut up!”

Scully sighs. “It’s just kids, Mulder. I’m going back to the house.” She turns and walks away. He considers following her, but instead he continues toward the woods.””

Pre-IWTB Mulder and Scully hear screaming in the woods; but upon further investigation, they conclude it’s just teens scaring themselves over their “haunted house.” He spooks off most of them, but strikes up a temporary friendship and interesting conversation with the last girl, a disbeliever.

campaignofmisinformation’s Unnamed 

““He knows that if he can present the evidence he’ll find in the house, it might help people make sense of the things he’s been saying for years. This thought drives him to keep walking despite the fear rising in his chest. If he can just make them understand, everything will get better. He won’t be so lonely anymore.””

Pre- or Post- IWTB Will arrives solo at the Unremarkable House, hungry for information about himself and why he doesn’t fit in. 

May you have a cheery, spooky holiday! 

Enjoy! 

[enigmaticxbee]

✖️✖️✖️✖️✖️ 2x06 Ascension

The one where... Scully’s is abducted by Duane Barry. Part 2 of 2.

Tag Line: Deny Everything

Best: Sad, scruffy Mulder trying frantically to find Scully is one of my favorite Mulders.

Worst: So Mulder just drops it at the end? I get that he hasn’t slept for days, and is devastated, and has no allies, but...

❌ Flashlights

❌ Woods

❌ Slideshow

❌ Autopsy

✔️ Evidence Disappears

❌ Scully Misses It

❌ Mulder Ditch

❌ Sunflower Seeds

❌ Voiceover

❌ Catch Phrase

❌ Scully is a Medical Doctor

❌ Mulder is Spooky

✔️ Scuuullllaaaaayy! Muullllderrrr!

❌ Fox/Dana

❌ Inappropriate Touching (that I am here for)

❌ Casual Scully

❌ Casual Mulder

✔️ Trench Coats

❌ Bad Tie Watch

❌ Glasses Watch

✔️ Taking! It! Personally!: Mulder

50 States: Virginia x2 & D.C. x7 (18/50)

Investigate: Apart

Solve Rate: 70%

❌ Bechdel Test: No conversation between two women

MSR: 🐝🐝🐝

Goriness: 👽👽

Creepiness: 👽👽

Humor: 👽

Rewatch Thoughts:

Why do I love sad scruffy Mulder so much? He climbs OUT of a cable car because he HAS to get to her in time! (Spoiler alert: he doesn’t get to her in time 😩)

So Mulder sums everything up at the end and it kinda makes sense (Duane Barry’s escape from the hospital with a gunshot wound and travel from Richmond to DC to abduct Scully quibbles aside) but its a little convoluted (I’ve seen this episode multiple times before, although it’s been a couple years - and yet see my mid-episode confusion). I guess CSM’s just taking advantage of the situation, but if all he wanted was Scully out of the way he could have abducted her at any time. Or taken Duane Barry too if that’s what he wanted people to think happened...

Mid-Episode Thoughts:

Ugh, watching Mulder listen to Scully’s voicemail. And then when he’s imagining what happened.

He’s surprisingly calm at Scully’s. And when he’s talking to Mrs Scully he just looks so sad. He thinks she’s dead. If he thought she was alive he would be frantic.

The Scullys are psychic (well not Bill... the Scully women are psychic).

Mulder looks rough at this meeting. How did Duane Barry find Scully? How did he get to DC from the hospital in a Richmond? Was it the implant? Was it CSM?

Interesting music choice when Duane Barry’s driving and gets pulled over. I think it works - not what I’d expect.

Ugh, Scully in the truck. But Mulder just sees that Scully’s alive.

Ok, so based on Krycek’s call I guess Duane Barry kidnapped Scully on his own. “They” are trying to locate her, so CSM’s just taking advantage of this situation to solve his Scully problem.

Why is Mulder driving? Save your energy Mulder! I hate to say this, but Krycek’s making some good points.

If “they” gave Duane Barry Scully’s address why wouldn’t they have just tracked him rather than relying on Krycek/Mulder?

Skyland Mountain. I lived in Virginia for a few years and always thought of this episode when the Blue Ridge Parkway was mentioned.

That poor tram operator. That smooth of his hair after he attacks him - there’s the real Krycek we’ll come to know and loathe. But he doesn’t know who he’s dealing with - Mulder’s on a mission!

He’s too late.

Who decided to leave Mulder alone with Duane Barry? He loses it at sight of her hair and blood.

Is this supposed to be what’s actually happening to Scully or just what Mulder’s imagining is happening to her? They use this imagery again throughout the series so I guess it’s real - or Mulder has a link to her, like Scully does to him during his abduction later in the series...

Kill Mulder and you risk turning one man’s religion into a crusade. CSM, that feels like an excuse.

It’s the cigarettes that tip him off!

Mulder’s figured it all out. Poor Skinner, caught in the middle. He goes out on a limb to reopen the X-Files, but Mulder’s too devastated to process.

Love that Mrs Scully gives the necklace to Mulder. (Continuity police: 15th birthday present or Christmas present?) He needs something to hold on to.

[leiascully]

OctoberFicFest Day 27: Mist

This year, I'm using the Spooktober prompts from ArtSeaMoni on Twitter.

Sometimes in her dreams, she's still running through that forest in Oregon. Mist twists around her feet, dizzyingly disconcerting. Her footing is uncertain, but she's still running, her boots thudding on the ash-strewn dirt. The ashes are everywhere. Everywhere. Whatever is happening has been happening a long time, so long it's become part of the forest. Once upon a time, ashes here would have meant a fire that charred away the scrub and coaxed the pinecones to burst open, revealing their pale seeds. Once upon a time, ashes would have meant renewal and fertility and new growth. But now, in this dim fog-choked forest, the ashes mean something else entirely. Something grim and cruel. Two round raised welts on the cold stiff skin of a young woman's back. Strange molecules drifting through her bloodstream like mist. Copies of smeared newsprint rattling in Scully's hands as she pages through report after report. Missing. Missing. Missing. And then: deceased.

Scully runs. She runs toward the bright lance of light that cuts a furrow through the mist, even though she knows better. A light in this forest does not mean she is saved. She should hide in the scrub that fire hasn't touched. She should go to ground, burrowing into the loose ashy soil. But she keeps running, in the dream, until her jaw rattles from the jolt of the uneven ground. She has to find Mulder. She has to tell him. They're in danger. The mist wraps itself in shreds around her limbs, tugs her back. It's seen the young people whisked away, carried up and up by the light beyond the tops of the trees. It doesn't want her to go. It isn't the mist that is sinister, or the forest: it's the people, sweeping their lights through the trees like a scythe to cut her down with.

She wakes up with her heart pounding and her teeth clenched. Mist muddles the view outside her window, coating the glass. She feels safer. She tidies the comforter around her chest and slips back into a dreamless sleep.