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babyjakes · 3 years ago

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forever and a day | 47. uncovered.

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summary | a story in which america’s favorite captain gives a new life and family to a five-year-old girl who has suffered well beyond her years at the hands of hydra.

characters | dad!steve rogers, girl/willa rogers (original character)

warnings | AU similar enough to OU to include spoilers to many Marvel movies (Age of Ultron and beyond). action and fight scenes with violence and killing. injuries/mild gore. mature themes related to and semi-graphic depictions of child abuse/neglect, past CSA and CSM, and their aftermath (emaciation, wounds, scarring, etc). medical abuse and experimentation. ptsd/trauma symptoms in a child (developmental discrepancies, de-humanized behavior, detachment, extreme fears). medical treatment of CSM and other aftermath of abuse.trauma-informed therapeutic treatment of ECT. minor mentions of disordered eating. themes relating to abuse of power/authority and immoral interrogation tactics including SA (with brief depictions.) evil!Tony Stark.

[Steve]

“Rainbow,” Willa cheers happily as she points to the mess of fingerprints I’ve made in front of me across the art pad. Glancing over at her work, my heart softens as I notice she’s been trying to recreate my pattern.

“Not quite, sweetheart,” I correct gently with a chuckle, picking up all the pots that we’ve scattered across the area and putting them together in a pile. “The rainbow has a specific order. Do you know what it is?” The little girl shakes her head, a little bit of paint smudged adorably across her nose. I made sure to have her change into an old tee shirt and pair of jammie shorts before we got started just in case things got extra messy, and now I’m definitely grateful that I did. Besides the yellow on her face, she’s got a decent amount of paint smudged up her arms, and even some on her legs from sitting on the paper. I don’t mind in the slightest, though. She’s having fun, and that’s all that matters to me.

“The first color is red. Can you find the red paint?” I prompt, hoping to make a learning experience out of creating the rainbow together.

Willa looks down at the several pots in front of her, picking up a few by their white caps and looking at them through the clear plastic before holding one out in front of her, stating, “Red.”

“Almost, bug,” I encourage. “That one’s actually purple. Red is close to purple, but it’s a little bit different.” Frowning, the little girl sets the purple back down, her eyes again scanning over her options. After a few more moments, she picks up another one, offering it to me. “That’s right, sweetie. Good job!” I praise, unscrewing the cap and offering it to her. She dips one of her tiny fingers into the paint, turning back to the paper and running her finger across it in a long arch.

“Red,” she confirms, seeming pleased with the start.

“Next is orange,” I tell her, recapping the red and placing it back down with the others.

“O-range,” she sounds out the word, struggling a little bit with the “r.”

“Yep. Do you know which one’s orange?”

The little girl repeats the same process she went through with red, picking up a few different options before finally holding her guess out to me. “O-range,” she says.

“That’s right; you got it,” I tell her with a smile. Uncapping the plastic pot, she holds it out for me. “Oh, you want me to make a line? Okay, we can take turns,” I pick up on her idea, wetting a finger with the orange before running it along the paper next to the red arch.

“Red, o-orange,” Willa recites, pointing to each color as she says it.

“Yep. Red, orange, and then yellow comes next,” I tell her.

“Yellow!” she cheers, smiling brilliantly up at me.

“Yeah, and you’ve even got some yellow on your nose, you silly goose,” I tease, poking her cheek with my orange finger. Willa squeals, wiping at her face with the back of her hand, causing the paint to smear. “This really is a big mess, huh?”

“Big mess,” Willa beams, her eyes sparkling with joy. As I gaze softly down at the child, my heart can’t help but swell with warmth and affection for the little one. She is the most precious thing in the whole entire world, I think to myself, and she doesn’t even know it.

“Yellow’s one of your favorites, so I bet you can find it,” I encourage. Glancing down at her options, she immediately grabs the yellow, holding it up proudly.

“Yellow,” she nods, not even needing my confirmation to begin unscrewing the cap. She dips her thumb into the thick paint, sliding it smoothly across the page in front of her next to the orange. “Red, orange, yellow,” she lists.

“Next is green,” I tell her. “Do you think we can find it?” I take the yellow from her, replacing the cap as she looks at the other paints. A puzzled look forms on her face as she picks up the red again, then the purple, shaking her head at both of them before sighing.

“Green?” she asks carefully. I smile kindly at her, reaching out and pushing the correct container towards her. “Green,” she says again, looking it over. “Your turn.”

“Okay, my turn,” I agree, opening up the green and making a line next to Willa’s yellow. “Blue comes after green. Do you know which one’s blue?” The child instantly grabs the correct pot, holding it out to me. “You’re right; nice job, sweetheart,” I tell her, opening the jar for her. She makes a blue line with her pointer finger, quite small compared to my green that was made with my own. “And the last one’s purple. That’s the first one you picked up, the one you thought was red.”

“Purple,” she repeats, quickly finding the right color and handing it to me. Willa smiles proudly down at our work as I make the final line of the rainbow. “Red, orange, yellow…” she begins to point, pausing after the yellow line and looking up at me.

“Green,” I remind her gently, earning a nod.

“Green, blue, purple,” she finishes. “Th-that’s the rainbow!”

“That’s right, doll. Way to go, such a pretty rainbow,” I coo. “If you want, we can cut it out and hang it up on the fridge.” Willa’s eyes grow wide at this suggestion as she nods eagerly. A smile finds its way onto my face as I reach out, brushing her cheek gently with my paint-covered thumb. It’s moments like these that make it all worth it, seeing her smile and laugh and enjoy herself. Having this first day together has really meant so much to both of us, I think, and I’m already convinced that bringing Willa to a new home was the best decision I could have possibly made.

“Well, how about we let the paint dry and we can cut out our picture after dinner,” I propose. The child nods happily at this, and I return the gesture, picking up the paints and packing them back into the box. “Alright, missy. Give me just a sec to get my hands clean,” I say, standing up from my seat on the kitchen floor. I make my way over to the sink, running the tap and scrubbing all the paint off with soap. Once my hands are clean, I dry them off before returning to the little girl who’s still seated on the floor. “Okay sweetie,” I hum, thankful that I only got paint on my hands instead of all over like Willa. “What d'you say we take a bath, and then we can start making some dinner?”

But to my surprise, as soon as my words leave my mouth, the child’s entire body cowers back instantly against the cabinets behind her. Big green eyes peer up at mine, quickly filling with tears. “Woah, hey-” I murmur, startled by her sudden change in demeanor. “What’s up, Willa-bug? I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to scare you,” I soothe, crouching down a few feet away from the little girl.

“N-no, please,” she begs quickly, only causing my concern to grow deeper. Furrowing my eyebrows in worry, I try to inch a bit closer to her, only earning a defensive flinch in response.

“‘Please’ what, sweetheart? What’s the matter?” I ask, disappointed to have scared off her carefree mood.

“No bath, n-no bath,” she whimpers, a tear trailing down her rosy cheek, causing some of the paint to run. No bath? What’s got her so scared about the bath, I think to myself. Baths are something we do all the time, and while I know they’re not the girl’s favorite activity as they still bring up some anxiety, she’s never really put up too much of a fight against them. At least, not until now.

“Why not, doll? You know baths aren’t scary; we take baths all the time,” I coo gently, trying to remind her of her safety. But my words do little to reassure her, and suddenly, it clicks in my brain. It must have to do with whatever she’s been trying to hide, whatever’s been hurting her all day.

“Please, n-no bath,” Willa tries again, trembling fearfully against the wooden doors behind her.

“Sweetheart, we have to get all the paint off of you,” I reason with her softly.

Shaking her head almost desperately, she tries to convince me, “A-all dry,” running her hands up and down her arms to prove her point. “W-won’t be messy. P'omise,” she pleads.

My heart breaks at her distress as I shake my head softly, causing another round of tears to spill over down the poor girl’s cheeks. “I know it’s dry, but it’s not meant to stay on your skin for too long,” I explain patiently. “It’s okay, Willa, we can just take a nice warm bath and get it all off, okay? I promise it won’t be scary; I’ll be with you the whole time,” I assure her.

“Me- I-I-… do it myse'f? Please?” the poor thing asks hopefully, only for me to shake my head again, a slight sense of guilt bubbling up in my stomach.

“No sweetie,” I disagree sadly, wishing there was something I could do to ease her fears. “I- Daddy has to help you with it; it’s not safe for you to do it yourself.” The little girl sniffles, and having run out of options, she simply looks up warily at me, her bottom lip trembling in fear.

“Here, com'ere sweetheart,” I hum, approaching the child while opening up my arms and wrapping her up in my embrace. Willa lets out a heartbreaking whimper into my shoulder as I rise up onto my feet, swaying her back and forth gently while holding her close. “Shh, shh-shh… it’s okay, doll,” I hush softly, bouncing her shaking body slightly in my arms in hopes of calming her down. “What’s so scary about the bath, hmm? Can you tell me what’s got you so upset about it?”

“Please,” Willa mumbles into the fabric of my shirt, giving me no better idea as to why exactly she’s gotten so worked up.

“I’ve got some new bath toys we can use,” I tell her, hoping to maybe spark her interest. “There’s a boat, and a duckie, oh- and an octopus, too.”

“O'topus,” she says weakly, resting the side of her head against my shoulder. Rubbing a soothing hand up and down her back, I nod, wondering if it would be safe to try to bring her into the bathroom yet.

“That’s right, lovebug. Octopus. You wanna go see?” I offer. Her tear-filled eyes raise up to meet mine and she’s silent for a moment, seeming to be searching my face for signs of danger.

“B-boat, too?”

“Mhmm. And a rubber duckie,” I promise her. Taking a deep breath, she nods slowly, and I smile back down at her warmly. “Okay, sweetheart. Let’s go find them.”

Walking carefully past the painting supplies on the floor, I carry Willa back through the archway and into the hallway, opening up the door to the bathroom and stepping in. I flick on the light switch and the soft ceiling bulb flutters on, illuminating the baby blue room. “Okay pumpkin,” I murmur, setting Willa down in front of the door and shutting it gently behind her. “I think I stashed them in here,” I recall aloud as I bend down onto my knees, venturing into one of the cabinets under the sink. As I thought, the rubber toys are sitting on the shelf, waiting for us. Pulling them out, I set them down on the floor in front of Willa. A red boat, yellow duck, and purple octopus.

“O'topus,” Willa repeats again as I turn my attention to the white porcelain tub, turning on the faucet and ensuring that it’s a comfortable temperature. Once it’s warm enough, I plug the stopper into the drain, watching to make sure that the water level begins to rise.

“Octopus,” I say back, turning my attention once more to the little child standing by the door. “Alright sweetie pie, what d'you say we get you out of those clothes and hop in the bath,” I suggest; to my dismay, a thin line of tears quickly rebuilds in the girl’s eyes. “Hey,” I murmur, softening my voice and reaching a hand out to cup Willa’s cheek. She flinches back instinctively from my nearing hand, causing my heart to shatter just as it does every time she fears I’m about to strike her. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” I soothe mildly, rubbing a thumb over her cheek as a tear falls and trails down onto my finger. “You’re safe, Willa-bug. It’s just Daddy and Willa here; no one’s gonna hurt you, sweetheart.”

“K-keep my… keep my c'othes on? Please, Daddy?” Willa whimpers nervously.

Her request confuses me slightly; tilting my head to the side, I try to clarify what she means. “You mean- while you’re in the bath?” I ask. Her gaze falls to the floor as she nods silently. “Oh honey… Willa, baby, we gotta take clothes off to get in the bath, remember? Otherwise, they’ll stick to your skin and feel yucky.” Willa simply remains silent and I sigh, wishing I knew of something, anything that might make the child feel safer.

“Here, Willa-bug. I’m gonna help you, okay?” I sigh slowly, wanting to give her a fair warning before making any further moves. Willa’s big green eyes stay glued to the ground as my hand moves down from her cheek to the sleeve of her shirt, my other hand reaching up and finding the other sleeve. Tears drip down onto the floor as I begin to pull the garment off, receiving no resistance (but also no help) from the little girl. “It’s okay, you’re safe,” I continue to soothe as I pull the white shirt up off over her head, letting it fall away to the floor. Her chest and tummy, along with her sides, wrapping all the way around to her back are completely covered in marks from Tony’s trials. Guilt and anger rage behind my eyes as I do my best to keep a warm, non-threatening expression.

“You’re okay; you’re doing such a good job, sweetheart. Bein’ so brave for me,” I praise softly as I take hold of the waistline of her shorts, gently pulling them down to her feet. Guessing Willa doesn’t feel comfortable moving at this point, I help ease her feet out of the leg holes, placing the shorts down on top of the shirt when they’re finally removed.

“Okay doll, almost there,” I coo, reaching out to remove her underwear. But before my hands reach the garment, the child’s own have shot down and grabbed onto the elastic band, gripping it so tightly that her knuckles are turning white. “Honey-” I begin, but to my surprise, the young girl’s shaking voice rises over my own.

“P-please, please no- don’t, w-wait, s-s-stop,” she sputters, squeezing her eyes shut in fear as tears pour down her reddened cheeks.

“Willa, Willa, hey-” I murmur, a whole new wave of worry washing over me. “It’s okay; you’re safe, remember? It’s just me, I’m not gonna hurt you, sweetheart,” I promise, “nothing bad’s gonna happen to you.” My large hands come down to rest over her tiny ones and as gently but firmly as I can, I push down on the elastic band, causing the underwear to collapse around her ankles. As soon as they’ve fallen, the child lets out a sob, and the sight I’m met with causes my heart to stop beating dead in my chest.

Centered between her hipbones, right where her lower belly meets the top of her pelvic bone, a long incision runs parallel to her waist, fresh sutures stained bright red with blood.

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#faad #faad: uncovered #eun's writing #steve rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers series #steve rogers au #steve rogers angst #steve rogers fluff #hurt/comfort #steve rogers x child!oc #dad!steve rogers #the avengers #avengers fanfiction #mcu #mcu fanfiction #captain america #captain america fanfiction

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retrocontinuity · 3 years ago

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Eat, for this is Her Body: Chainsaw Man and the Doxology of Cannibalism

"One day," Anthony Oliveira writes in "The Year in Apocalypses," [Jesus'] disciples approached their master while he was silent in prayer and made a request: 'Lord, teach us how to pray.'" From here, Jesus teaches them the Lord's Prayer, what the Catholic Church once called "the summary of the whole gospel":

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Denji is no one's disciple. When we first meet him, he is closer to how Oliveira describes Jesus himself, "homeless, gleaning for food in the field like a sparrow and relying on the kindness of strangers to put him up, . . . a man cheerfully resigned to powerlessness." And so, Denji doesn't need to be taught how to pray. He has always known. Every bone in his body at the opening of Chainsaw Man sings out the Lord's Prayer: "forgive me my debts", "deliver me from evil." And, of course, Denji is intimately familiar with the prayer's most pitiable, most powerful line. It's this line that he cries out to Makima when he rests, Pieta-like, in her arms at the end of the first chapter. It can only be this line, one that Denji might have written himself:

Give me, from this day forward, and for all the rest of my days, daily bread.

Bread runs throughout CSM like a mocking scent that you only fully identify in the last two chapters. It should have been a sign to all of us when the first meal Makima buys for Denji is not bread (but rather a hot dog and udon noodles). It isn't until Denji meets and enters Aki's home that he is seen making a hideously overladen slice of toast for himself, luxuriating in having all the toppings he was denied. The morning after she forces Denji to open the door to Power's death, Makima makes the very breakfast she once promised to serve Denji: eggs, coffee, salad, and sliced bread. But this is a meal that Denji never eats—maybe the only meal in the entire series that he, a survivor of the meanest starvation and poverty, ignores. There is only one other time we see this meal in CSM, and it is subtle, almost off camera, though no less meaningful: in Chapter 53, after Reze's death, as Denji sits down to breakfast once more with Power and Aki.

To revisit CSM's public safety arc is to see all the ways the plot connects itself to food and the act of eating, both appetizing and revolting, both profound and profane. Denji, eating gyoza at a bar for the first time. Denji being forced to swallow barf as he is kissed for the first time. The Fox Devil, who eats indiscriminately and on command, who refuses to return to Aki after being fed something disgusting. A fox that is hunted and transformed into stew. Denji eating sandwiches at Reze's cafe. Aki and Angel eating noodles. A woman sitting down to eat a hamburger for the first time, before she commits mass murder. She is worried she has lost her taste buds, yet she exclaims, "So delicious!" We know, later, that this woman is a liar, that no part of her is what she presents herself to be. Should we take this moment at its face value then? Was Santa Claus simply lucky enough to have preserved her sense of taste? Or was it her one last act of humanity, to recognize that it is not enough just to eat, that man does not live on bread alone, that there must be at least food that is also delicious, that inspires people to get up and dance—even if it means she has to lie about what she can experience?

Food is necessary for survival, and CSM is a story about survival. But CSM is also a story about glimpsing the after. After you know you can keep living, what next? After you are no longer starving, after you have been forced to kill a friend, after you have touched your first boob, after you have been betrayed, what next? After you are tired of eating toast with jam for breakfast, what do you eat next?

The version of the Lord's Prayer we tend to recite asks for "our daily bread." But this, most modern scholars believe, is a mistranslation. The Greek adjective as it appears in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke is "epiousios," which doesn't mean "daily" at all, but rather something too complicated etymologically for me to even begin to parse. The point is that what we ask for in the Lord's Prayer is not just bread for today, but bread for tomorrow. Both the physical bread and the spiritual bread. Bread on this kingdom of earth, and bread that is the kingdom of heaven. Bread to feed our bodies, and bread to feed our souls. The realm of the divine is full of these moments, isn't it? Of two things existing at once, in one.

Denji starts the series asking for daily bread, and ends the public safety arc with Nayuta, Makima's reincarnation, asking him for daily bread. Trash heap Denji, living with his not!dog Pochita, really was just asking for daily bread. A slice to eat for breakfast, maybe even with butter and jam. But he too learns that bread, physical bread, is not enough. Merely to subsist, to eat good food, is an empty life. And what he must give Nayuta is not just bread, as was given to him. Otherwise, he will be trapped in a cycle of creating more Makimas. Instead, he must give her a relationship, a family, a world that Makima was unable to create. He must give her, in Pochita's words, lots of hugs. He must give her, in the words of the Lord's Prayer, epiousios.

To be clear, I am not arguing that CSM is meant to be read through a Catholic lens, and I doubt Fujimoto had all of this in mind when he wrote it (though he must have thought something, given that he drew a very large print of Gustave Dore's "Satan descends upon Earth" in Makima's entranceway!). But there is something primal (primordial?) about the Lord's Prayer. If every reader can understand the horror that the Darkness Devil represents, so too we can understand the intimacy and comfort of the Lord's Prayer. It is, as Oliveira writes, "a simple peasant's mantra for detoxing anxiety." Jesus opens by addressing God as father—not king, not an all-mighty spiritual being, but rather "abba, which is rather closer to 'dad,' and not in the intercultural Greek of his adulthood, but the Aramaic of home and childhood." The Lord's Prayer asks for what we always want, the only thing any of us have ever wanted since leaving the womb as infants: for no bad things to happen, for there to be enough to eat.

Even if what we have to eat is another person.

At the center of the Christian liturgy is the Last Supper, and at the center of the Last Supper is a meal that functions as ritual, abomination, accusation, transubstantiation, paranoia, and an early example of cracking open a cold one with the bros. Here, Jesus shares bread and wine with his disciples and then, as if trying to invent r/creepypasta years before its time, informs them they are actually eating his flesh and blood. This image is so powerful and heretical that the Romans accused early Christians of being cannibals. And why shouldn't they? It's there in the text. "Take, eat. This is my body. This is my blood." Stripped of the grandeur of tradition and ritual, this is downright vampiric. And yet it goes on to become the cornerstone of the Christian faith.

Oliveira begs us to see the Last Supper as a family meal, one shared by Jesus and his found family. "All he is really saying is, 'I hope when you eat together, you remember me.'" It's a good reading, one that moves me to tears, and is the framework through which I see the events of chapter 80. Because Makima is not the first time that Denji "consumes" a friend, and I don't just mean him sucking Power's blood or taking Pochita into himself. When Aki died, he left half his fortune to Denji, who uses it to support himself and Power. They "pigged out on good food," he tells us. This is Aki's symbolic body, through which he provides Denji his daily bread. Eat ice cream and onigiri in remembrance of me.

But it is not how I see the events of chapter 96. Denji does not eat Makima in the context of a feast. He does not partake of her in a communal meal, as Jesus did, among his found family. He eats every bite of Makima alone. Jesus said before his death, "this is my blood, which is shed for many." Yet Denji says to Makima, I alone will absolve you alone of your sins. I alone will bear you alone.

Denji's Last Supper is a lonely remembrance. He is hoping that no one but him will remember her. He is hoping to wholly consume her, because he loves her. "We love as cannibals," French philosopher and activist Simone Weil wrote. "Beloved beings . . . provide us with comfort, energy, a simulant. They have the same effect on us as a good meal. . . . We love them, then, as food." In fact, Weil believed we cannot love any other way. As humans, we are forever doomed to want to eat the ones we love. In order to escape, we must both be devoured by God and then become food for our fellow human beings. As Alec Irwin writes of Weil's philosophy, "the devouring violence of God must be positively harnessed in order to dismantle the machinery of human cruelty."

If Weil is right and being devoured is transformation, a crucial part of salvation, then in eating Makima, Denji redeems her. He turns her into food to break the cycle of her cruelty. For Makima's power itself is consuming, cannibalistic. She "eats" humans in order to use her power, which remains mysterious like God moving across the face of the earth, leaving only broken corpses as a sign of its presence. So it must be Denji, not Chainsaw Man, who does the consuming. If Pochita had consumed her, as she had always prayed for, then it would simply be another act of violence being enacted. Instead, Denji gives her salvation by turning her into human food—his food.

To Denji, Aki was human, his family, his brother, his friend. It is Makima he loves as a God and a woman. To him, she is Satan and God, his betrayer and his creator, his salvation and his friends' damnation. So he must take her, consume her, digest her, excrete her, reduce her to nothing, as she once consumed and excreted and reduced him. "I ate her to become one with her." He ate her to become her. There is no truer form of his love than for Denji to take Makima into himself. I use those words purposefully, because this is the rejection of classic cishet PIV penetration, that old hoary chestnut of men inside women. As Don Delillo famously outlines in White Noise, we talk about sex as if women are containers, rooms, elevator lobbies: "He entered me," "I want him inside me," "I took him into myself." Denji and Makima never have physical sex, but this is a consummation, a reversal of roles. We are given the only sex that Shounen Jump will allow us, with Denji taking Makima into himself. She enters him. She is inside him. He is—physically, emotionally, willingly—penetrated by her flesh. She is released inside of him, becoming part of him.

Because the divine is full of moments like this, isn't it? Of two things existing at once, in one. That is the kingdom and the power and the glory. For Makima now lives in that country inhabited by God, where loving and eating are one and the same. For that country is none other than Denji's body.

In conclusion:

Substitute Makima for "God", and the preceding statements are still rigorously accurate.

Further Reading:

Anthony Oliveira's ongoing podcast reading the Gospel of Mark (Patreon exclusive, but I highly recommend, even/especially if you are a heathen like me)

Hannibal (NBC)

Daniel Birnbaum and Anders Olsson, An Interview with Jacques Derrida on the Limits of Digestion

David Farrell Krell, "All You Can't Eat: Derrida's Course, "Rhetorique du Cannibalisme (1990-1991)." Research in Phenomenology, vol. 36, 2006, pp. 130–180. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24660636.

Alec Irwin, “Devoured by God: Cannibalism, Mysticism, and Ethics in Simone Weil.” CrossCurrents, vol. 51, no. 2, 2001, pp. 257–272. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24460795.

#chainsaw man #cannibalism as love #love as cannibalism

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lexingtonparkleader · 7 years ago

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Jazz Quartet Kicks Off Recital Series

The Bruce Swaim Jazz Quartet will kick off the Benny C. Morgan Recital Series on Oct. 7 at the College of Southern Maryland. CSM is continuing the recital series this year at the Leonardtown Campus. The recital series, honoring the late music teacher, also will feature performances from Michael Langlois on the piano Nov. 18; Anthony Zwerdling, baritone, Feb. 17; and the Calvert Chamber Players on…

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#Anthony Zwerdling #Benny C. Morgan Recital Series #Bruce Swaim Jazz Quartet #Calvert Chamber Players #College of Southern Maryland #college-southern-maryland #CSM #csm recital series #Dominic Smith #Dr. Stephen Johnson #events #Jay Cooley #Michael Langlois #Paul Langosch

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kjaneway115 · 7 years ago

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The X-Files: Paper Clip

3X02 Paper Clip

Mulder bursts into the apartment, asks Scully if she’s okay. Scully tells Mulder about the warning from the Well Manicured Man. Skinner produces the digital tape. Mulder says that the CSM killed his father for that tape and then killed him, but now he’s back. Skinner insists on keeping the tape, and Mulder lets him. Then Mulder tells Scully they’re leaving, that there are truths out there that aren’t on the tape. They have a long moment, standing and looking at each other in front of the elevator. Scully tells Mulder that she went to his father’s funeral and told his mother he was going to be okay. “I just knew.”

Margaret Scully comes to the hospital, thinking Dana is the one who’s hurt, then realizes it was Melissa.

Mulder and Scully take the picture from his parents’ house to the Lone Gunmen. It was taken around 1973. He points out his father. Byers asks if they are familiar with Operation Paperclip, a post WWII deal in which the US provided safe haven for certain Nazi war criminals. Langly points out Victor Klemper in the photo, a Nazi who experimented on the Jews. Frohike shows up and tells Scully that her sister is in critical condition. Mulder stops her from going to the hospital. Scully knows the bullet was meant for her. Mulder tells her that if they’re trying to kill her, the hospital the first place they’ll go, and the only thing she can do is try to expose the men who killed her sister. Mulder says he’s going to call someone who can help.

The First Elder is upset that an innocent woman has been shot. The CSM says that it was a mistake. The Well Manicured Man doesn’t trust the CSM and asks him to produce the digital tape. He says he’ll have it the next day.

M&S go to visit Victor Klemper. Klemper says they would kill anyone to protect the work. Mulder asks for the truth, to know what kind of work they were doing. Klemper tells them where the photo was taken in West Virginia and asks Scully if she knows the formula for Napier’s Constant.

Klemper calls the Well Manicured Man and tells him that Mulder just visited. He tells the Syndicate Mulder is alive. The First Elder says it’s time to call someone who will handle the matter more satisfactorily.

Albert Hosteen goes to visit Melissa and Margaret Scully in the hospital.

M&S arrive at the warehouse in West Virginia. They find a series of locked doors. Napier’s Constant opens one of them. Scully is concerned about Mulder’s reaction to whatever they’re about to find.

Skinner tries to make a deal with the CSM for the digital tape. The CSM says he doesn’t deal but he is clearly frightened and angry. He tells Skinner he doesn’t understand, but Skinner says he’s quite aware of the CSM’s policies. The CSM tells Skinner to be more cautious.

M&S find “lots and lots of files” and they all contain standard medical information, including smallpox vaccination info and tissue samples. They find Scully’s file and Samantha’s file. Mulder realizes that Samantha’s file was originally his. They hear a noise and Mulder runs outside. He sees a UFO taking off. Scully is stuck in the files with a bunch of beings running around. The Syndicate’s men arrive and fire at Mulder, sending him running through the warehouse. M&S escape out the back way. They meet Skinner at a middle-of-nowhere diner in Maryland. Skinner offers to make a deal to save their lives in exchange for giving up the digital tape. Mulder says he wants to find out why they killed his father, what happened to his sister and what they did to Scully. Scully says she thinks that Skinner should make the deal, the answers mean nothing if they’re going to be hunted down like animals. She assures Mulder that she wants what he wants, but she needs to see her sister, almost cries. Mulder leaves it up to Scully. She tells Skinner to make the deal but not to hand over the tape until Mulder agrees. Mulder tells Scully he’s sorry about her sister. They both get back in the car with Skinner.

Albert Hosteen muses on the legend of the white buffalo, and says that for something to live, another thing may have to be sacrificed. Skinner shows up at the hospital. He assures Margaret Scully that Dana is okay. Skinner notices the man pacing back and forth outside Melissa’s room, and Albert tells Skinner the man has been very curious about Melissa’s room. Skinner follows the man, and he leads Skinner to Krycek and Luis Cardinal. They beat Skinner up and steal the digital tape.

Krycek, Luis and the third man stop at a gas station. Luis and the other two man get out of the car. Krycek just manages to get out of the car before it blows up. Krycek runs away.

M&S go back to see Victor Klemper. The Well Manicured Man meets them there and tells M&S that Klemper is dead. Mulder recognizes him as one of the men in the photo and asks why the medical data was collected. The Well Manicured Man tells them that in 1947 a spacecraft and an alien body were recovered in New Mexico. This coincided with Operation Paperclip. Nazis thought they could produce a superior race. He tells them that Klemper created hybrid orchids. Mulder realizes Klepmer was trying to create an alien-human hybrid using human test subjects. Scully says this is a lie, but the Well Manicured Man continues. He says Mulder’s father objected when he found out what the tests would be used for. Mulder realizes they took tissues from everyone who was vaccinated for smallpox. Scully says the WMM is lying to protect the Nazi agenda. Mulder counters, asking why her file was there. He insists that the records were of abductees. Scully gets angry and walks away. Mulder asks the Well Manicured Man why they took his sister. He says they took her as insurance because Bill Mulder threatened to expose the project. He tells Mulder that his life is now in danger, too. Mulder asks if there’s more, the Well Manicured Man replies, “More than you’ll ever know.”

The CSM receives a phone call at the Syndicate. It’s Krycek, telling him that he’s alive and that the CSM will never find him. He tells the CSM that if he ever comes after him again, he will make him very famous. The CSM tells the Syndicate that the digital tape was destroyed in a car bomb explosion which killed Scully’s would-be assassin (lies). The CSM tells the Syndicate that the FBI wants to make a deal, but that there’s no deal to make.

Mulder shows up at his mother’s. He asks if his father ever asked her to make a choice. She says she couldn’t choose. It was Bill’s choice, and she hated him for it and still does.

The CSM shows up in Skinner’s office. Skinner says he has the tape and he’ll exchange it for M&S’s safety and reinstatement. The CSM calls Skinner’s bluff. Skinner brings in Albert Hosteen and tells him that Albert can recite all the tapes and has told 20 other men the information on those files. Skinner says the information is available at a simple phone call unless M&S are safe and reinstated.

Mulder arrives at the hospital to find Scully sitting by an empty bed. Scully says there is no justice, Mulder says it’s not about justice, it’s about fate. Scully insists on coming back to work, she says she needs something to put her back up against. Mulder says he’s more certain than ever that the truth is in the X-Files. Scully says she’s heard the truth, she wants the answers. They embrace.

Original Airdate: September 29, 1995

Episode Tags: Mythology, MSR, Character Backstory

Notable Character Deaths: Melissa Scully

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