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postmodernbeliever · 10 months ago

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little darling- fox mulder x female reader (SMUT OH MY GOD…)

fox mulder knows how badly you want to be touched, to be taken care of, and he is obsessed with being the first and only guy to do it.

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my ao3 | word count: 6,071

content tags: smut, smut so good in my brain it came out poetic?, loss of virginity, virginity kink, dom fox mulder, protective gentle extremely horny fox mulder, embarrassment, sexual fantasy, plus size reader gets sooooo much love, im blushing just posting this aaaaaaa, oh some religious bits bc catholic girls are freaky and also his sex is THAT good, cross-posted on ao3

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fox knew it was wrong, and he didn’t care. he knew how he thought about you, how he touched you in his mind, how he wanted to possess you was culpable- but then again, how shameful could it truly be? how bad was it to want to take care of you, to teach you the right way, to want to show you how good love is supposed to feel? well, maybe it wasn’t completely pure, because he nearly came untouched just thinking about you sometimes, but he just couldn’t help himself. he wanted to. he wanted to be the one you chose to give yourself to. the only one.

it was always in the most mundane moments, like this one, that he needed it most, which played into his guilt. soft moments where you were unaware of what you were saying or doing, clueless as to how you were making him feel. now, as you sat watching the sex scene from basic instinct while fox pretended to be filling out a case file at his desk, was one of those moments. you squirmed in your seat with a sweet blush on your cheeks, watching the slight caricature of sharon stone on top of michael douglas, pupils blown wide and trying to hide your interest. fox was doing his best not to move a muscle, but he felt like a vein would pop if he didn’t turn around to look at you. his stomach was twisting itself into hot, trembling knots just wondering what the scene was doing to you.

you’ve been dating him for a few months now, and upon meeting him, you fell in love in a way you still didn’t understand. he did, too. he idolizes you, he holds you up above everyone else to his detriment. after the first few dates, you told him that you wanted to take the physical aspects of the relationship slow because you had personal obstacles to overcome; he promised to do so, because when you look at him, his entire world glows, and he refused to jeopardize that heaven you unraveled. but he’s learned a lot about you since then simply through deduction. the few risqué movies you’ve watched with him proved through the surprise on your face that you hadn’t seen much video porn, let alone been touched; the books you tried to hide in your purse had absurd covers with the lustful silhouettes of cowboys and prairie girls, corporate bosses and assistants, big looming over small against some dark backdrop– all of it meaning that when you were alone, you fantasized. but the most telling was when fox himself touched you, albeit innocently. it was like you’d never been touched by anything before. when fox’s fingers ghosted over your knuckles as he held your hand, you’d giggle like a schoolgirl, hiding your face in your shoulder. even better, when he brought those same hands to the soft, warm apples of your cheeks, you’d shudder, melting into his touch like you’d lost your volition. it didn't matter how he did it- if his hands were on you in some capacity, your breath hitched in your throat like a fool.

you wanted to let him touch you. there wasn’t a thing in the world you wanted more than to let him give you all of the things you’d dreamed, all of the things he must be aching to, but it was difficult for you. it seemed no amount of love was enough to break down your walls– you’d never let anyone that close. you’d always struggled with your body and your worth, and the little dating experience you’d had wasn’t much to boast about. you weren’t what people wanted, even if you were deserving. you knew fox was different, and that to him you weren't too big or not pretty enough, but you had just about every anxiety about physical affection. he had no idea you were a virgin on top of it all, which only made the pressure greater. you just couldn’t get over the fear. but you yearned to have it, so much so that even the smallest instances set your body aflame. you had the most lewd things running through your head when fox did just about anything. once you watched the man reach for the cereal box on the top shelf in his kitchen, and his sleep shirt rode up to reveal the dark happy trail that disappeared down his pants, and you felt so dizzy you could’ve dropped dead. and whenever he was close, it was unbearable. you replayed the sensation of his strong, lean hands resting protectively over your hip at his friend’s house. you thought about the way his lips felt on your forehead so often you could’ve written a book based solely on the texture. it drove you insane, the way you wanted him, and you drove yourself insane every time you didn’t act on it. but what did you know of hands, of mouths, of letting someone see what you shroud in fabric every day? what did you know of making him feel good, too, of being worth the wait for him?

now, as you curled up on his couch, you watched michael douglas’ hand grip sharon stone’s leg. it was big, but not big like fox’s. you imagined it was your boyfriend on the television, dark and brooding, as you saw how the man dove between the blonde’s legs, starving; her back arched, propelling her hips forward into his face, and she let out a soft moan. in your head, you saw yourself on that bed, and fox as hungry. you squeezed your thighs together and gathered the blanket draped across your legs in your palms, trying not to look as overwhelmed as you felt. but the agent who listened to the heavy breathing on screen saw exactly what was happening to you. he saw the blood rushing to the tips of your ears, tinting them the color of your bitten lips; he saw the way you shifted rhythmically beneath the blanket, almost undetectable, but absolutely undeniable. fox looked up at the ceiling as if to thank the god he didn’t believe in for playing basic instinct on cable, and he stood up from the desk, stalking over to sit beside you on the couch. as his body made the cushions dip, you smiled nervously. through a cracking voice, you said, “i didn’t know this movie was all… y’know.”

‘oh, yeah, it’s pretty heavy,” fox nodded, attempting his best unassuming expression. “still good, though, huh?”

“i mean, sure,”

“yeah, i think so, too.”

fox sighed just a tad too loudly and let his hand fall on your thigh. nothing but the blanket was between his palm and your skin. you looked to him with a pleading pair of eyes, though you didn’t really know what you were pleading for. the moaning from the television got louder, and you felt so warm, and his hand wasn’t going anywhere. you had no idea what to do. fox grinned at you and let his head tilt back over the couch as he swallowed thickly. you stared at the curve of his stately neck, how his adam’s apple bobbed, and every inch of your body pined in his wake. fox gazed at you, lounged wide like a lion, and his hand slowly traveled up your thigh to the crease of your hip. he slid his fingers across the soft crevice, and you were still at a statue, stuck between craving the friction and terrified to feel it.

“can i ask you something personal?” fox’s voice was gentle. husky.

“...mhm.”

“has anyone ever, uh,” you followed his gaze to the tv, where michael douglas was doing things that made your hands sweat. “have you ever done it like that?”

you prayed that a black hole would open up in the floor and suck you in, so you never had to admit the truth. but his hand was still in that soft spot, and his minty eyes were made of looking glass, and the image of him that fucked your mind was so boggling you were on the edge of giving up.

“just out of curiosity,” he added, lips curling into a cheshire smile.

you ran a hand across your burning cheeks and murmured, “uh, no. no, i haven't.”

“it’s interesting, y’know, how they can make it look so real,” fox pursed his lips, pushing his hand back down your thigh to rest on your knee.

before you could bite your tongue, you confided, “i wouldn’t really know.”

fox’s hand paused at the crest of your kneecap, a chill running down his body. he thought of you, his pretty, quiet, gentle girl, and he never once stopped to think why you were so reserved. he always blamed the little silver cross that hung from your neck and some guy from your past, but he neglected other options. but now, his mouth watered.

“really?”

you tugged the blanket up to your face. “is that a bad thing?”

the man turned to face you, pulling your hands away to reveal the flushed face beneath. you were breathing so heavily. a need rattled his bones, one he wished he could stifle. pictures flashed in his brain- you, writhing beneath him, the feeling so new, making pretty faces as he did what the people in movies do. him, defiling you, ruining the girl you’ve been, clutching to your cross as your mouth bled with his name. maybe he was a monster, but his cock twitched in his dress pants at the humiliated expression you bore.

“no, baby, of course not!” he chuckled, “no, that’s– that’s a good thing.”

“but i-”

“everyone does things at their own pace,”

“but…”

“but what, sweetheart? i don’t expect anything from you.” fox sweetly lied. he wouldn’t force it, but he wanted it. badly.

“i just wish that, uh, that i had by now. sometimes. i guess.”

your eyes darted between the television screen and the way his nimble fingers encased both of your wrists. it only took one hand for him to hold you down… what a career he could make with his other hand free.

“have you ever tried?”

“...no.”

“do you want to?”

you let out a nervous hum. something came over you like it always does, and you leaned over to hide in his shoulder; in a way, that was better than letting him see your face. his hand rested at the nape of your neck as he cooed, “awh, baby, it’s okay.”

“it’s not really okay,” you mumbled into his shirt. “it’s embarrassing.”

“i don’t think it is. i think it’s cute.”

you felt his hand run down your back, and you pushed yourself a little closer, so you could rest against his neck. fox kept talking since you were at a loss.

“nothing embarrassing about that, i promise. truthfully, you’re better off. so many guys out there just wanna take advantage, y’know?” he reasoned, tracing little things at the small of your back, fingertips like pens. “probably would’ve wished you didn’t, because you’re so hard on yourself… i would hate to know you lost your virginity to some guy who didn’t care about you. not the way i do.”

the heat of your breath against his neck was maddening. everything about you was maddening. how you curled into him for protection, for reassurance, how your palms tugged at the wrinkled cotton of his work shirt because you didn’t know where to put them. the little nods of agreement you made with every opinion he voiced. he wanted to knock you on your back and fuck you right there, but he couldn’t. he couldn’t spring it on you. you had to want it, you had to let him. and he knew you wanted to let him because it was all over you.

he asked again, “baby, do you want to?”

he raised his wandering hand to tuck your hair behind your ear, and you felt this urge inside you, an indulgence just begging to be released. acting selfishly, you pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, and beneath your lips, you felt the vibration of a little growl. fox tangled his palm in your hair, and as gently as he could, he pulled your head back so you had no choice but to look at him.

“is that a yes?”

your stomach churned. “yes.”

“good. come on.”

fox rose from the couch and tugged you up with him. he watched the blanket fall from your legs to see that your sleep shorts had ridden up and tucked themselves in the chub of where your thighs and legs met, that sacred spot he’d touched before, and he rolled his eyes in ardor. with your shaky hand in his, the man led you into his bedroom, where he motioned for you to sit at the edge of the bed.

“fox, i…”

“what, love?”

“i… i don’t know.”

you watched him walk over to his closet and open the doors, revealing the shuffled-around mess inside. with his back turned to you, you saw his hands disappear to unbutton the dress shirt that crumpled on his shoulders from a day’s work. as he pulled it over his head, the spotless skin of his sculpted back smiled at you. your hips were warm.

“you’re nervous,” he said, still facing away as he threw the shirt into the basket. “i know you are. but it’s not so scary. plus, you’re with me. i’m nice, aren’t i?” “you’re very nice,” you smiled, “but you’ve done this before. you… you know so much more than i do.”

“are you sure?” fox’s laugh rumbled low in his throat, “because i’ve seen the books you read. bet you’ve got all kinds of ideas i’ve never even tried before.”

you shifted on the bed, tucking your legs into a crisscross. “w-well, that’s different!”

“no, it’s not!” the man teased, shaking his head like you were hopeless. he crossed the room, back to you, where he stood like a pillar before the bed. when you didn’t meet his gaze, he tucked his finger beneath your chin and made you. “you’ve been thinking about it for so long, haven’t you, sweetheart? about me? must be so lonely, just thinking, never doing.”

he passed his thumb over your trembling chin, admiring your starry eyes, how they reflected so much love. you were so pretty, a pretty he couldn’t have imagined if he’d seen all the most beautiful women in the world. none of them could hold a candle to his girl. “you’re so smart, so good at handling things when they’re hard. but you never let anyone handle you, do you? not even me, baby, and i could be so good at it.”

you couldn’t control how you let him sway you. you gave yourself over, basking in the rush. he settled on his knees, so you had to look down, and he pressed his hands to where your love handles dipped, passing the skin over in his hands.

“i’ve wanted to let you,” you sighed, “i’ve… thought about it.”

fox’s eyes, eager as a puppy’s, looked up at you as he asked, “well, when we’re in your head, where do i start?”

you shivered. “you kiss me first.”

the man decided that you deserved to have your fantasies fulfilled; if in your pretty mind you’d dreamed up a routine, then he’d follow it, and he’d prove to you that nothing was as good as the real deal. he pushed up on his knees and leaned in, thankful for his low-set bed, as he pressed his lips against yours. you disassembled against his touch; he moved with a cadence that had your head spinning, fingers behind your ears, tongue swiping against your bottom lip. you’d kissed him plenty, but never like this. never so messy, so desperate. he tasted warm, and kind, sunshine in a mouth. you let out a soft whimper as he caught your bottom lip between his teeth.

“i think you’re a bad girl in that head of yours, angel,” he mumbled into your mouth. “what do i do next up there?”

you were too afraid to say it, and you didn’t want to pull away from his lips, so instead you reached for the wrist that held his hand to your face. fox’s throat tightened as you guided his hand down to your stomach, a place you didn’t let him touch often.

“so pretty, baby,” he admired, knowing exactly what it is you needed from him. he paraded his kisses down to your neck, where he got so much sloppier. he licked a stripe over your throat, nipping at the soft skin of your jaw, and he passed the chub of you over in his devastating hands. you keeled forward, resting your forehead against his shoulder, and he littered your ear with little pecks. “so soft. i love your tummy, y’know. how it looks when you wear those pretty dresses, and how when you wear my shirts i can see the shape. fuckin’ adorable, you have no idea. prettiest girl i’ve ever seen.”

“fox,” you whined. he was barely even touching you, but the weight of his words anchored your lungs to the floor.

he took a little liberty and leaned down to tug your shirt up, and began brushing his lips over you, spit for paint. you let your hands wander to his hair, and your stomach flipped at the noises he made.

“now what, sweetheart?”

“y-you… agh,”

fox pulled away, and you swooned at the sight of his pretty lips already swollen. “forgettin’ already?”

“well…” you trailed off, feeling a mental fog roll in.

fox stood up and pushed at your shoulders, tilting you back onto his bed. laying down, he had more access to pushing your shirt up and seeing you for real. he sucked at his teeth, handsome face overtaken with want; you curved like a muse beneath him, and he wondered why you hid all this body beneath clothes. you felt his hands like a compass, mapping the cascading mountain ranges and slow, dipping valleys of your hips and thighs, as if his whole world was discovering you, as if his purpose existed within the endless confines of your flesh and bones. and his hands roamed freely, nomadically, through your land, committing every road that made you shiver to memory.

“where do you touch yourself, princess?” fox smiled. you whined, and he clicked his tongue. “come on, show me.”

your hand shook, but you rested it over your shorts, and you curled your fingers in to prove you knew how.

“good girl. bet you know just what to do, huh?”

“mhm,”

“but your fingers aren’t enough, are they?” fox pouted playfully as he hooked his thumbs beneath the elastic band squeezing your waist.

“no,” you wheezed, “never.”

“fuck. you sound so pretty when you need me. let me see you.”

trying to stop himself from rushing, the man clambered on top of you and grabbed you by the back of your knees, pushing you up the bed a bit. when your head hit pillows, he tucked them behind you, and he crawled back down to your legs with a mission. gently, he tugged your shorts down, and beneath were little black boyshorts that cut into the skin of your thighs. he looked about as starving as michael douglas as he flattened his palms against your hips, adoring the sight.

“y’know, most girls hide lacy things,” he teased, “i like this so much better.”

breathlessly, you said, “lace is itchy.”

“god, you’re just dying for it, aren’t you?”

you pushed up into his palms and whispered, “please.”

“please what?”

“do it,” you heaved, “i need it, fox.”

he didn’t need to be told again. he slid your panties down in one sweep and practically drooled over what you had kept from him all this time. he could’ve cried. this must be what people felt when they saw the mona lisa for the first time, or had a prayer answered. this was his very own da vinci original. this was god’s divinity trapped in your lower half. you were an irritated pink, your pussy plump as the rest of you; as he pushed your thighs wide, he found a sheen already coating your skin. “fuck, sweetheart, is this from the movie or me?”

“y-you.” you kicked yourself for all your stammering, but the glow of his cheeks soothed the embarrassment.

“oh, yeah?”

you didn’t know how easy it would be to let yourself be touched before you just tried it. here, with the one man who might be the direct work on god on earth, you wanted to spill every secret now that you knew something of hands. your heart beat against your ribcage relentlessly as you admitted, “was imagining it was you on tv, fox, you and me,”

“jesus christ,” fox grunted, eyes dirty and dark. “i can fuck you better than he ever could.”

fox pressed his thumb to the bundle of nerves that throbbed between your legs, and just the pressure alone drew a dangerous moan from the back of your throat. he relished in the sound as he began to circle his finger, leaning down to kiss the searing skin. you rolled your hips against his touch, begging for more friction, and he wordlessly rewarded you with a new motion, one that needed two fingers for rubbing. you grabbed at his forearm as it came into reach, and he felt like he could explode from how you tugged at him. you held onto his arm like it was a lifeline. any other girl would’ve grabbed the bedsheets or touched her body, but your inexperience meant you were acting on instinct, and that quite possibly was the best thing he’d ever seen. watching you feel so good for the first time in your life had him panting like a dog. you were all his now, his pretty girl under his spell. an angel who knew only one name.

“good, baby?”

“mm-nngh,” was all you had to say.

“what a pretty girl.”

“fox…”

“good girl. only i can make you feel like this, right? not those guys in your books, none of those movies. just me, my hands, baby, my mouth,”

you used your grip on his arm to try and get him to go faster, but he refused. he wriggled free from your grasp and left a ghostly kiss on your stomach, tutting, “oh, no, angel. i’m gonna make this last. want you out of your mind when i’m done.”

you’ve felt powerless all your life, and you do even now, but this is the first time you’ve ever needed more. you were engrossed in being taken. you’d been too afraid to pray for this because you weren’t sure how the man upstairs would feel about you breaking his technical rules, but you had to have yearned to let fox take your virginity every night since you met him. you knew he’s done this before, but you didn’t know he was so gifted; but even he could tell you that it wasn’t so much his experience as it was how he wanted to ruin every other guy for you. and how could you want another when his hand– that which wrapped around the neck of a pistol, that which choked the air of men’s throats– circled your clit so gently, working a new kind of love into you that you never thought imaginable?

“been dreaming about this, y’know,” fox drawled, leaving stinging kisses on your waist. “been thinking about how our first time would go. and you’re doing so good, you’re taking it so well right now.”

you couldn’t speak. every word got caught in your chest. so instead you tugged at his hair, trying to get him to kiss you. he giggled, hovering over you and slowing his fingers so he could give you what you wanted. you moaned into his mouth, lips gnashing against his teeth in your eagerness, and just when you felt like you were starting to have some control, you felt two of his fingers push between your folds. they went so much deeper than you’ve ever gotten your own, and as he curled them inside you, your entire body shook. gasping against his cheek, you exhaled, “oh my god,”

“be careful, baby, you don’t want him to hear you,” fox warned, voice thick with lust.

you grabbed at his chest, fingers running through the little curling hairs that grew in a thicket over his heart, and you felt it beating, keeping time with his hand. you wondered if sex felt like this for everyone the first time around, but then again, how could it? unless fox was there for them all, they could never have had it this good.

“you’re so pretty,” fox cooed, “so pretty on my fingers. d’you feel pretty, baby?”

“mmm,”

“tell me you feel pretty,”

“i- i feel pretty.”

“mhm. what about me, love, you think i’m pretty, too? my hands feel pretty?”

“fuck,” you squeaked, “fox!”

“i know you do. say it.”

“you’re so pretty,” you droned, trying to catch his lips in a kiss, but he rerouted to your neck.

you ground into his palm over and over again, and he felt you burning up on his fingertips, contracting, squeezing, shaking. he moaned into your shoulder, “do you wanna cum, baby?”

your hands scratched at his arms, and to his surprise, you shook your head violently. “not yet,”

“really?”

“mm-mm. not… not time yet.”

fox’s pupils swallowed the green of his eyes. the man licked his lips and slowed to a stop, letting his fingers rest inside of you, and he asked, “what comes next, then?”

even in a position so lewd as this one, you were too embarrassed to explain. so you reached up to his mouth, swiping your thumb across his slick bottom lip, and with pretty little doe eyes, you popped your finger into his mouth. you watched as he wrapped his lips around it, swirling his tongue over the salty taste of your skin, and you whispered, “i need you.”

fox pulled off your finger with a pop. “how?”

he followed your lidded gaze as it traveled down to the bulge in his pants, and he nearly passed out.

“you sure you’re ready for that?” his eyebrows knit together in true concern, but he knew he was the one who had to answer the question, too. he wanted to do right by you– you couldn’t regret this, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if you did. “i can wait, you know. this is about you.”

“no. i’m ready,”

“positive?”

“mhm,” you sighed, “just… don’t hurt me.”

the man above you melted like putty, and the hunger he’d touched you with went soft. you saw that toothy grin again, the one that gave you butterflies, and he promised, “i’d never hurt you, angel.”

the scruff of his jaw even tinted a lovesick pink as he kissed you. your fingers scratched at the back of his ears like you would a dog’s, and you confessed between breaths, “i love you, foxie.”

his hands flew to his waist and he rushed to undo his belt and shimmy the slacks down. he wanted to scream, he wanted to stand at the edge of the world and tell every soul about the way you coated his entire existence in sugar, but right now, it was just you. he was alone with his girl, and if he couldn’t tell the world, he could at least make you sick of hearing it.

“i’m so fuckin’ in love with you,” he swore, marking your face with invisible prints of his mouth. “i’m all yours, princess.”

“oh, god,” you groaned, watching how he spilled out of his boxers with glazed eyes. you had no idea where he was hiding all that. you felt a little dorky for the surprise, but who could blame you?

fox was too far to reign in. he grabbed your wrists and pulled you up, and he made you scoot up against his headboard; you pressed your back against the cold wood, and you yelped as he raised you in the air, pinning you to the wall.

“fox, i-”

“you’re not too heavy,” he stopped you, knowing what you were going to say. “you’re perfect.”

you couldn’t complain- truthfully, you didn’t even get the chance to think about it, because he was all over you. with one hand holding you up by the leg, and the other gripping the headboard with white knuckles, he pushed himself between your legs, and you knocked your head into the wall at the way he stuffed you.

“fuck, fox!”

it didn’t hurt, but god, was he big. pinned to the wall like this, you had no bearings. he had you suspended, stapled down by his sheer strength; you never thought you could be fucked like this, some little ragdoll he could throw around, but clearly you underestimated how much he could handle. you felt the wind leaving your lungs as he pulled out and snapped back in, pelvis rolling hard against your swollen clit. he moved like a wave crashing down, managing to soak every part of you with his skin.

“fuck, sweetheart, so much better than i imagined,” he croaked, “feels okay, right?”

“s-so… so big…”

“oh, baby, i know,” he babied, leaving pinprick kisses on your jaw. “you can take it, pretty girl.”

his big hand tangled itself in the hair at the base of your neck as he fucked you into the creaking headboard. you were an endless machine of moans and profanities, head lolling, trying to keep your eyes open to watch the way his lips parted at the feeling of you encircling him. he tugged at your hair, and a guttural groan escaped your lips.

“always wanted to get fucked like this, huh, baby? you’re such a good girl, you deserve it,”

“fox, please,”

“such a pretty girl,” he moaned, “jesus, you sure you’ve never done this before?”

as you bucked your hips against his swelling length, you offered a drunken grin. “only in my… dreams.”

“oh my god. you’ve got no idea how hot you are.”

he was everywhere, he was heaven, he was the pounding in your head as you collapsed against his body, letting him use you like a toy. you scratched at his shoulders, mouth all over his sizzling skin, and he flooded your ears with pretty praises. you hoped to god that by the time he was done you’d have the print of his hands tattooed on your hips, or that he’d never be done and you could float on by in this bliss forever. but his hips were thrusting hard, and falling out of time, and you felt your tummy squeezing like it was running out of air. he drowned in you, mouth full of dirty whines and strings of i love yous, and you knew you couldn’t hold back.

“f-fox… oh- oh god…”

“gonna cum for me, princess?”

“i… i’ve never…”

the feeling in your stomach was foreign and hot, and it was backing up all the functions of your brain. all you felt was fox between your legs, terrorizing this little spot that short-circuited all your nerves, and you wrapped your arms around his neck, trapping his mouth with yours– and when he hit it one last time, with eyes rolling back, and you let everything go. fox felt the warmth of you spilling over him, and the silent scream you let out had him unraveling in seconds. his hands were all over your face, fingers on your teeth as he came inside you, feeling himself mixing with you, and nearly bursting again just knowing he was.

“oh, baby,” he fussed, “good girl, atta girl!”

pulling out slowly, so you didn’t feel too shocked, he slid you down the headboard softly and helped prop you up against the pillows again. you couldn't see straight, and everything twinkled, but you did catch a glimpse of him sneaking back down the bed. the man admired the mess he left behind. the smallest dribble spilled out of you, and all of a sudden he was lapping it up with his tongue, thirsty as a castaway. your entire body buzzed with overstimulation, and in what felt like screams but only came out strangled, you exclaimed, “fuck, oh my god!”

his tongue split you open, collecting all the juices between your hips and smearing the inside of your thighs, the pretty little mound of your pussy, making you shimmer like an angel. he sucked, and he swirled, and he dug his tongue between your folds like a freak, and you grabbed at his sweaty hair, so full of him you wanted to thank your angels for sending you someone so perfect.

“come on, i know you’ve got more,” fox coaxed, “one more, baby, one more.”

black spots crossed your line of vision as you watched his face disappear in your legs, and the tidal wave rose again, drowning you in a feeling that had you bucking against his tongue like a rogue horse. you’d never been able to make yourself cum, but all it took was fox mulder to pull two loads right out of you. you felt disgusting, you felt drunk, you felt so good you could’ve died this way. you didn’t ever want to leave the bed. fox made his way back up, heaving, and he kissed you with milky lips. you tasted yourself on his tongue, and you needed his palms to pin your hips down as you trembled, stuck on your high.

“good girl, didn’t that feel good?” kiss. “you did so good, baby,” kiss, “so good for me,” kiss, “m’so proud of you, sweetheart.”

“mm… agh,”

“i know, love, take a deep breath.” you felt his hand press against your warm tummy, and he told you again, “take a deep breath for me.”

you smiled, trapped beneath him, and you breathed like he wanted you to. anything he wanted, for the rest of his life, he would get. through fuzzy vision, you saw his glittery eyes, the grecian curve of his face, the little white strip of teeth behind his handsome smile, and you felt so in love you didn’t know what to do with yourself. he started to blush under your gaze, so he laid down on top of you, resting his head on your chest to listen to your racing heartbeat.

“foxie,” you whispered.

“hm?”

“m’not a virgin anymore,” you giggled, the joy bubbling out of you.

his warm laugh echoed in your ribs. “not anymore.”

“all yours now,” you swooned, “are you happy?”

you felt his hand slither behind your back, and he scratched at your spine, making you squeal at the ticklish feeling. then he attacked your neck and shoulders, mercilessly going after all the spots he knows are most sensitive until you lost your breath again from his innocent touch. “stupid question!”

“ah!– fox– agh, stop!” you swatted at his hands, a blissful wreck.

“‘course i’m happy,” he chuckled as he relented. “are you?”

in a huff, you rested your spinning head on his pillows and blushed. “mhm. very.”

“worth the wait?”

“definitely. thank you.”

“my pleasure,” he teased, flopping down beside you and lacing his fingers with yours. and when a comfortable silence fell, he couldn’t help himself: “you know i’m never gonna stop thinking about this, right? i’m ruined for life.”

“shut up,” you laughed.

“no, seriously. get ready for a life of me drooling over you doing absolutely nothing.”

“i’d like that life, i think.”

you curled up in his side, and he drew you close, letting you hide in the crook of his neck the same way you did in what felt like a lifetime ago on his couch. there was still a little devil on his shoulder, applauding him for taking a piece of you that no one else could have now, but more than anything, his heart ebbed and flowed in his chest, blossoming each time he looked down at your pretty face. he meant it when he said he was ruined. you ruined everything by letting him fall in love with you, and he has never felt so lucky.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩ ✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°

inspired by this ask ;)

#Spotify #fox mulder #x files #spooky mulder #the x files #fox mulder x reader #fox mulder x you #domestic fox mulder #soft fox mulder #fox mulder x reader fluff #fox mulder fluff #fox mulder smut #catholiscism #loss of virginity #virginity kink #plus size reader #embarrasment #god bless the freaks

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randomfoggytiger · 2 months ago

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The Scully Family In-Depth (Part XXIII): Loss, Second Chances, and In Absentia

We begin the countdown to the end of the Scully Family series!

Today, we tackle a broad array of subjects: complicated familial dynamics, well-intentioned meddling, and conflicted yearnings.

A VERY MERRY MISCOMMUNICATION

The episode opens on Bill and Tara’s Christmas display-- specifically, Tara herself: great with child and jubilation. When her husband unlocks the front door, she rushes over to greet her guests, beaming under Maggie’s effusive, “Look at you!” and Dana’s “You’re huge.”

“Sorry about the digs, Mom, I know you hoped you’d never have to spend another night in base housing,” Bill pipes up, displaying a natural conscientiousness.

“Are you kidding? This is wonderful.”

It’s Scully who is taken aback by the obvious: “It’s the exact same layout as our old house.”

Her brother nods, half amused, “Well, that’s the Navy for you.”

“Bill tells me, Mom that you’re going to be staying in your old room; and the nursery’s going to be in--” Tara briefly pauses, looking back at her husband for confirmation, “--Dana and Melissa’s room.”

He and Tara quite obviously believe the house will delight their guests; and are just as obviously delighted with it themselves. It seems their move here is rather recent (or recent enough that Maggie hasn’t flown out to throw a housewarming party, yet) and kept as secretive as possible from their family.

This points to a few things:

Bill seems exultant to live once again on familiar turf-- a doppelganger childhood home-- and to grow his own child up in that replica.

Tara is overjoyed to take part in that dream with him, and build their life in a copy of the happy memories of his childhood. Meaning, the stories he must have told about his growing up years were tender and fun and nostalgic; and she wanted their child to have a similar happy experience.

Both Bill and Tara are proud of their cookie-cutter house; but are more proud that they not only kept it as a surprise but are able to shock Maggie and Scully with it. This points to a generosity of spirit: that, although celebrating their first Christmas together as parents, they still took the time to plan around their extended family.

Yet, amidst their happiness, Bill stops to recognize that his mom isn’t a fan of base housing; and Tara to assure her mother-in-law that she has the rights to her own room and familiar comforts.

As rampageously happy as the two are to share this experience with Maggie and Scully, they miss a few saddened moments: Dana uncomfortably smiling over sleeping in the room she used to share with her dead sister, and Maggie lagging behind to process her losses in this replica Christmas house.

Scully, however, notices that her mom is hanging back; and she stops her ascent upstairs to check in: “Mom? You okay?”

“Oh, yeah”, Maggie brushes aside, turning from the tree. “Just thinking about your Dad. And Melissa,” she adds as she sweeps by and up the stairs. It would seem both Scully women have the same determination as their hosts: contribute to an impeccable family holiday. While husband and wife think that’s fitting up rooms to reignite nostalgia, mother and daughter think that's setting aside their unease at these reminders-- i.e. getting over themselves-- so Christmas won't be spoiled.

Scully is stopped from following the family up the stairs by a phone call: an unmarked woman’s voice-- Melissa’s.

“Dana.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, who is this?”

“Dana. She needs your help.”

It’s not here (as I first assumed) that Scully panics, running up the stairs and insisting she heard her late sister’s voice and insisting Bill drive her to a random location. But panic is present as she dials up San Diego’s FBI extension and insists they trace the call; and bewildered panic is there as she arrives at the scene, Bill chauffeuring her in his car.

It’s a tiny but important detail about their relationship: Scully hasn’t shared with her brother why she needs to visit a stranger's address, doesn’t even tell him why when they arrive at a crime scene. But he supportively drives her over and patiently wait outside while she loiters in, begs for information, and sifts through the details the local force gives her.

After she retreats (after she sees Emily Sim-- which will be discussed in a future post), she rejoins him outside; and Bill quietly asks, “Dana, what’s going on? They’re joking that you got a call from a dead woman.”

This is interesting: either the police are loose-lipped chatters near unauthorized crime scene gawkers or Bill is rife with intelligent, circumspect behavior:

Bill Scully knew exactly what to say to pry details from the investigation team; or

Bill Scully quietly and nonchalantly listened in on the other cops’ conversations, enough to know that his sister was talking with the detective about a phone call from beyond the grave.

While not particularly earth-shattering, it’s a cool little insight into his character.

At his gentle prodding-- and Bill is gentle, bending down and speaking softly (so different from but not dissimilar to Mulder’s methods)-- Scully opens up: “I thought it was a dead woman-- just not the one in there. I know it’s not possible, Bill, but it sounded just like her. Our sister.”

Bill’s freezes, unable to process this information.

“Melissa,” Scully further clarifies.

We’re not shown Bill's reaction-- or Scully’s reaction to his reaction-- instead swinging immediately over to the dinner scene. But that in itself is incredibly telling: both siblings are forced to address Melissa’s absence… and both siblings put it behind them as quickly as possible. Even more telling is the fact that Bill treats his sister with nothing but compassion this episode and the next, despite the direct ties between her work and their sister's death. It speaks to a largeness of character: despite being a bully (he was as a child, he was to Mulder, he can be-- though he tries to temper it-- with his sister), he never held Melissa’s death against his youngest sister. He is just and he is fair... in this judgment, least.

Their father and Bill and Scully (and possibly Charlie) all served their country; and with that service came duty and responsibility and danger. Melissa was a casualty to that service, just as their father’s crew members and many other innocent civilians were (or might have been) casualties in war. Bill himself could become a casualty to a future conflict or could fail to prevent other innocent lives from becoming casualties themselves. The fact that Bill understands and does not hold Scully responsible for Melissa’s death-- despite what his little sister could believe herself-- is an incredibly mature, nuanced take that I’m glad replaced the horrendous, stilted, one-sided perspective Memento Mori almost made canon (post here.)

At dinner, Bill and Tara and Maggie are quietly conversing amongst themselves-- lightly catching up on neighbor or family gossip, I presume-- while Scully sits withdrawn and anxious. Before she gets up to leave, we get a glimpse of Bill and Tara’s comfortable interactions: he passes the food her way, without thought, and waits for her to grab her portion patiently. It takes no effort from him to be considerate to people he likes, which we can chalk up to his mother’s training growing up (e.g. post here.)

Scully, visibly uncomfortable, leaves the Hallmark moment to call up her wayward partner (who jumps into frame in a Scrooge sleeping cap); but, despite a desperate need for reassurance or help or comfort, she hangs up the phone without speaking and returns to the table. This, here, proves that-- while Scully has made progress-- opening up to others is still a challenge for her.

Which is desperately sad in hindsight: A Christmas Carol and Emily force Scully past her own barriers-- to admit her infertility to Maggie, to fight against her mother’s staunch insistence that Emily is not Melissa’s child, to attempt to defuse Bill’s suppositions, to beg for custody of her daughter, to accept her need for Mulder on this case. And to unfortunately feel that it was all for nothing: Emily dies; and Scully resurrects distance between herself, Mulder, and her family once again.

She returns to the table, still ill at ease; and another dynamic from the cancer arc resurfaces: Bill notices that something’s wrong-- “Everything okay?”-- first, which then draws Maggie’s attention to her daughter. Again, this points to a keen observational ability on Bill’s part (which I’ve discussed here, and in his Personality Typing post here): he is able, almost without effort, to see through his sister’s disguises; but is, unfortunately, not able to translate his observations fluidly-- unlike Mulder.

An interesting thought: if this be the case, it's easy to see why he hates Mulder so completely. He intuits that Mulder can see through Scully, as well (after observing him sitting by Scully’s bedside, kissing her hand, and advocating for his own form of treatment), but remains convinced that Mulder uses this to his advantage-- in effect, tricking her loyalty and pressing her pain points to keep her close to the work; and, selfishly, close to him. But, again, Bill can’t read people completely correctly: he senses the right emotion but miscalculates its underlying reasons. Because of this, he can sense his sister’s true feelings (“You think you can cure yourself”/”Is everything alright?”) and Mulder’s true feelings (“Was it worth it?”) and his mother’s true feelings (“You know what this is doing to Mom?”), but doesn’t temper those feelings with nuanced, mature perspective-- namely, he doesn’t try on other people’s shoes.This comes back to bite him: as much as he wants to help-- and he does-- Bill can only blunder around inelegantly while stepping-- ironically-- on pain point after pain point.

Tara accidentally interrupts her husband’s quiet prodding with a loud exclamation: the baby kicked. Scully, alert (and slightly panicked) realizes it’s a false alarm; and is then trapped in a situation where everyone but herself is embracing the moment. Maggie, Tara, and Bill are all smiles as one parent chatters about her excitement and the other reaches his hand over naturally to feel his child move.

“You had boys and girls-- so which one kicked more?” Tara asks; and Maggie responds fondly, “Oh, I had some pretty tough little girls”, while turning to catch Scully’s eye: an echo of her “You were always the strong one” in Memento Mori (post here.)

Scully doesn’t respond, looking quietly from her mother back to her sister-in-law, eyebrows scrunching in pain as Tara cheerily rambles on about motherhood: “You know what? I can’t believe I’m about to say this-- as big and fat as I am now, I can’t wait to have more. This is our baby, our son. It kinda gives everything new meaning.”

At this, Maggie looks over to share the moment with Scully… and notices her daughter’s fallen face. Her son was onto something, after all.

Speaking of Bill, at his wife’s closing statement-- “I can’t help but think life before now was… less. Just a prelude”-- he looks pleased as punch: a sentiment he obviously shares with her. Bill, the big, traditional family man; and Tara, the big, traditional family woman-- they’re suited to each other; and deliriously happy. However, he’s too shy or self-conscious to say it out loud, smiling at his wife before catching most of that smile back when Maggie happily locks eyes. It could be because he perceives an outward expression of tender emotion to be contrary to his masculinity-- an effect he and Scully took from their father-- or because he just feels giggly and googly-eyed and vulnerable over this new emotion. Either way, he clamps down on it as best he can… which isn’t a lot.

Afterwards, Maggie joins Scully in the kitchen, both of them pitching in to clean the dishes-- an exact mirror, three years later, of the last Christmas the two shared with Captain Scully. (As an aside: Scully washing dishes with her manicured, professional suit sleeves is so… Scully that it almost made me chuckle.)

“What’s the matter?” her mother prods, refusing to let the issue go despite her daughter’s “Nothing.” Hand on her hip, she stares Dana down while the other woman turns aside, purposefully avoiding eye contact and sighing.

Scully tries to shake the interrogation away with a half-truth, plopping a plate down roughly and turning defensively to get the matter over with: “Mom, I’m very happy for Bill and Tara.”

“You don’t seem to be.”

The truth of that statement cracks through her defenses; and, after a momentary pause (where she looks to the side, up, and down-- like all the Scullys do when facing intense emotion), she gives up, sighing, “Oh, Mom.” Pausing for another long spell to pull her feelings together, she confesses, “Several months ago, I learned as a result of my abduction-- of what they did to me-- that I cannot conceive a child.”

Maggie is shocked and grieved; and immediately scoops her daughter up in a hug, knowing she needs it. Scully, like in Memento Mori, stands still: trying to cast off her own emotions by becoming the bearer up of others’ pain.

“I’m so sorry,” her mother consoles.

“It’s okay,” she rejoins-- voice vulnerable, cracked, young: so like the voice of Season 1 Scully that we know she is cut to the quick over this news. Her eyes begin to water and her face begins to crumble: and this is interesting because it shows she has still clung to the emotional growth of Redux II, not (yet) sliding back into complete, stone-walled distance. “I just never realized,” she continues, a vulnerability from her deathbed woven through her words, “how much I wanted it until I couldn’t have it.”

This is the second time Scully's allowed herself to be completely open with her family (the first being Redux II.) And as hurtful and frightening as this vulnerability might be, Maggie is rewarding that openness with comfort and support; which, in turn, helps Scully open up that much more later on.

The scene transitions to the nursery where Scully is sleeping-- the famed replica of her and her sister’s childhood bedroom-- surrounded by infantile toys and furniture. It’s here that her dreams begin to be plagued with memories and premonitions, nightmares of her (as yet unknown) child.

In her first dream, little Scully bursts in through the door with Bill in hot pursuit. He is in full bullying mode, threatening to turn the wild rabbit she rescued into stew-- and while he is obviously over-exaggerating to get a rise out of his gullible baby sister, it sets her ablaze in righteous fury: “No, you’re not!” she yells, pushing him backwards. Still, when he retreats, Scully doubts her abilities, yelling, “You’re not going to find him. …Bill!” as if she can call her brother back and reason with him.

It’s not news that Bill was a bully and they had a sometimes turbulent relationship: in Gethsemane, she fondly recalled one of their arguments to a (presumable) family member before his arrival, regaling (with glee) how she either maneuvered or pushed him down the stairs. Still, these squabbles didn't break or deeply affect their relationship: she hung out with him and Charlie during her tomboy days, and the two brothers chipped in one year to surprise her with a bb gun (posts here and here.) What I find interesting is that Bill could see through her even then; and that, while Scully tried to put up a brave front, he never seemed to buy it.

But that brings up another valuable point: Scully believes she’s gotten away with a false front (post here); but in reality? No one-- not her mother, not her father, not her sister, not her brother, not her partner, not even her boss-- is fooled by her pretenses. Scully herself believes she’s being incognito when she’s painfully transparent; and that aspect-- her inability to lie believably-- is coded deeply into her character (and was one of the reasons Gillian Anderson was frustrated that Chris Carter hadn’t told her Scully was in on Mulder’s Redux I collusion.)

(Also, as another side note: I know they couldn’t direct the little girl to mimic Gillian’s faces, but the casting crew were incredible: they picked one who made an identical expression naturally. Look at that face! It’s Scully’s when faced with horror, anxiety, or fear.)

Little Scully sneaks down to the basement where she pulls out a large, tin storage container; and, unfortunately, finds a very dead rabbit inside. After staring silently in horror, she looks back at the stairs and sees Emily. The dream, then, does something interesting: the camera shoots back to young Scully to show her unnaturally blank face, leaving us to conclude this moment has bled in with current Scully’s processing unconscious:

Scully recalls the moment when she accidentally killed an animal; yet later, she also purposefully kills a snake (after disobeying her father’s orders.) After each incident, she is horrified, but it’s not until she makes an active decision to take a life that the weight of her guilt comes crashing down. While terrified after finding the dead rabbit-- and feeling the horror of it years later-- the cost of her actions hadn’t sunk in. This means she was too young, at the time, to fully understand or grapple with what she’d done; and it’s only now, in hindsight, that the weight of this moment is oozing inward.

Despite the dead rabbit and the dead snake, Scully joined medical school to study dead bodies. Knowing Scully’s mentality, how much of that was penance or morbid curiosity before it became her preferred calling? Death itself seems to spook, not intrigue her (post here); and finding answers to its causes soothes her worries and gives her peace. So, if that be the case, a fear of death-- or her actions contributing to a death-- would, perhaps, lead her to seek out a way to control it: interpreting, understanding, and translating Death in terms that are concrete and immutable. Hence, her career choice.

Emily appears on the stairs in her floral onesie, blankly looking down on young Dana while clutching the railing. Scully, then, is tying her neglect of this case-- of boxing away this little stranger as an unfixable tragedy-- in with the preventable death of her rabbit. Which is even sadder, in hindsight, because her own unconscious was whispering that this child was doomed to a terrible end; and her guilty, self-conscious reflex was stating that it would be her fault.

She wakes up at this moment to a second phone call: Melissa again; and this points to four other conclusions:

Emily Sim and Melissa are inextricably linked: either Melissa’s second phone call-- which Scully would have heard, though she hadn’t woken up yet-- was what triggered her dream appearance, or her appearance in Scully’s dreams triggered Melissa’s phone call.

It makes sense why Scully ties a connection between her late sister and this little girl, and ends up believing her to be Melissa’s daughter.

The truth, however, is a touch more complicated: Melissa Scully functions as the voice of Scully’s conscience-- more accurately, as its advocate, helping her sister to tune into and listen to it clearly. We see this exemplified by their dynamic in One Breath (post here) and The Blessing Way (posts here and here); and that hasn't stopped with her death.

Melissa is advocating for Emily because she is a byproduct of Scully, not because Emily is a byproduct of herself. She is protecting her niece because she has always protected her sister.

Scully wakes and answers her cell phone, overwhelmed when her sister's voice echoes over the line a second time.

“She needs your help,” Melissa repeats.

“Who is this? Why are you doing this?”

“Go to her.”

So Scully does, at nearly three in the morning; and is, again, turned away by Mr. Sim. She doesn’t let the matter drop this time, booking it to the local police station and stirring Det. Kresge up to reopen the autopsy investigation. There she finds a picture of Emily that is identical to one of young Melissa… which brings up another set of observations.

The child on the staircase in her memories was likely Melissa-- her shadow since childhood.

The dream, however, changed it to Emily, either creating connections supernaturally or strengthening the ones she’d made unconsciously after catching a glimpse of the little girl in the Sim house.

Bill has family photo albums in his house. The one Scully opens looks like an original, not a copy, with her mother's handwriting printed neatly inside. Perhaps these photos were mostly of his own childhood-- around the world, in Japan, and (presumably) before Scully was born-- and perhaps he was given this for safekeeping sometime after Paper Clip. With Melissa dead and Bill and Tara building a home of their own, Maggie probably thought they’d want this album for themselves. Scully, perhaps, probably even made copies for her mother and herself before it was shipped off, since she knew exactly where to look to find that particular picture of her late sister.

I also have a personal theory: Bill Scully later reveals he has a photograph of Melissa that was taken during the months his little sister was abducted. He never shared this with Scully-- perhaps because he assumed it would dredge up bad memories (another indication of his gentler personality: not wanting to hurt her with reminders. And, of course, another indication of his meddling protectiveness.) But the fact that Missy had given it to him, had possibly let him take it while she was off-the-grid traveling up and down the West Coast, speaks volumes to Bill’s motivations. He has deep wounds regarding Melissa, too; and guards her memory fiercely, albeit silently. Her loss is harder for him to talk about than his own father-- he was even originally written to resent his youngest sister for “causing” Melissa’s death (though that scene was rightfully deleted and his character reworked, thank goodness.)

After Scully finds out Emily Christine Sim was adopted, she calls up Mulder’s FBI contact (Danny, the basement gnome)-- not Mulder himself-- and asks him to send Melissa Scully's PCR results to San Diego, where she is: effectively keeping her partner out of the loop. Despite their history, Scully is alienating herself and her struggles again: perhaps because, deep down, she is afraid of what Mulder will puzzle together with her abduction, a dead sister, and this adopted girl.

Without intending to, she falls asleep once more and is caught up in another nightmare: herself as a child, holding her father’s hand, while walking down the aisle to pay their respects to an open casket. As she approaches, the casket leaks water and blood; and after peering over the side, the body of Mrs. Sim is revealed-- and opens its eyes. Stumbling back, she realizes the hand she is holding is not her father’s: it’s Mr. Sim’s. But as he opens his mouth, Bill’s voice speaks instead: “Dana?”

Scully is roused violently from sleep, and comes face-to-face with her brother’s worried, bemused expression.

Again, she dreams of death.

Again, she dreams of death connected to Emily.

Again, she dreams she must helplessly watch tragedy unfold.

Up to a point, these dreams can be dismissed as her reality bleeding (heh) into fantasy-- the second phone call reminding her unconscious of Emily, Bill speaking through Mr. Sim-- but Scully doesn't give this line of reasoning a first or second thought. Why?

And just as her unconscious starts to turn over these complicated emotions, reflection is snatched away by outside interference.

(As an aside, this episode proves that, if anything, Scully is a light sleeper; which also proves that Mulder is a quiet and sneaky dude, slipping in and out of her perimeters without setting off her sensory detectors.)

Bill watches her try to pull herself together, asking in feigned nonchalance, “This where you stayed the night?”

“Yeah,” she affirms, feigning nonchalance herself, “some of it.” Remembering her research, Scully quickly checks then closes her laptop, unwilling to share her suspicions with anyone just yet.

“It’s supposed to be a vacation.” Bill is annoyed but trying to hide it-- and, while it isn’t his place to dictate how Scully spends her time, he does have a point (or half of one.) He sees Scully’s dedication to her work as dedication to her partner; and probably suspects that Mulder is putting her up to this. Yet, despite his abhorrence for the man or his methods, Bill never outright scolds Scully for her inattentiveness, and does try to have patience with her odd behaviors. Still, his annoyance is hard to extinguish; and he asks, “Whatcha working on that's so important?” to better understand why she’s ducking and dodging.

Scully, once again, ducks his attempt. “Just, uh, unfinished business.”

Seeing that they’re at an impasse, he switches topics: “So, you up for joining us this morning?”

“Yeah, I’ve, I’ve,” she stumbles, working through a plan in her mind, “got a little work to do. Can I join you guys later?”

Bill scoffs, lightly, trying to maintain an upbeat rather than imposing attitude. “How are you gonna get around?”

“I’ll, I’ll rent a car.”

He watches her go, good naturedly exclaiming, “Alright-- lunch!” When she doesn’t respond (and continues stepping away), he adds, “I’ll hold you to that!” She, again, doesn’t comment; and he lets her go, trying to shrug off their interaction with a glance at his newspaper.

After a long day investigating shaky leads, she arrives back at Bill’s with the PCR results in hand. Right after discovering the similarities between her sister and Emily’s DNA-- reacting with shocked, bittersweet tenderness-- Maggie appears, catching her daughter in the thralls of discovery.

“Dana? Are you alright?”

Immediately, Scully looks down, masking her demonstrative expression; and her mother sighs, changing the topic to other pressing matters.

“It’s 2 o’clock in the morning-- where have you been all day?” Maggie scolds, shuffling forward in exasperation. “We were expecting you for lunch.”

Now it’s Scully’s turn to sigh: this can’t be put off. “Mom. Sit down.”

Maggie complies, head in her hands: another round of bad news from Dana.

“The woman who committed suicide--” she begins, letting us know that Scully and Bill had previously shared details of the case with Maggie and Tara, “has an adopted daughter. A three-year-old named Emily. I got a sample from Emily’s blood; and I had the lab run a test on her DNA. It’s called a PCR test. This,” she continues, handing the evidence over to her mother, “is Emily’s. And this… is Melissa’s, which we ran during her murder investigation.”

Scully’s face is tortured, her head bent-- an expression of utmost struggle and vulnerability (post here.) “They match.”

Shaking her head in disbelief, her mother asks, “What does it mean, ‘they match’?”

“It means… that this little girl Emily… is Melissa’s daughter.”

Maggie looks up in disbelief. “It’s not possible.”

“You can’t deny that there’s a remarkable resemblance.”

“Melissa was three-years-old when this picture was taken, she was practically a baby,” Maggie snaps, eyes flashing. “All kids can look the same at that age.”

“Mom, it’s uncanny. Emily looks exactly like Melissa. That’s why I order the PCR test-- because her face may change, but her DNA can’t!”

“And that test is accurate?” Mrs. Scully presses, even angrier.

“There is a 60% chance that Melissa is Emily’s mother. I’m gonna order a more comprehensive test-- an RFOP. It’ll take a couple of days, and then we’ll be sure.”

“Oh, I’m already sure--,” Maggie denies; and the root of her denial comes to the fore: “--your sister didn’t have a baby, she would have told me.”

“Mom. Remember about four years ago Melissa took off? She traveled up and down the West Coast-- we didn’t know where she was half the time.”

“You’re saying she was pregnant and she didn’t want us to know?”

“That was 1994. Emily was born that November. She could have given her up for adoption and none of us would have ever known.”

Suddenly, Maggie is struck with another idea, softening under Scully’s insistence. “Dana, listen to me. I know what you’re going through.”

“Mom--” snaps Scully, hurt that her motives are being called into question. “This has nothing to do with what I’m going through.” But still, she does not offer further clarification-- does not tell her mother that she, too, is having premonitory dreams (post here.) Because, really, this is about what Scully is going through-- not solely her infertility, of course, but also her memories, remission, second chance at life, and (misplaced) guilt-- and she can’t wholly refute or deny her mother's claims.

When Maggie explains, “It has happened to me-- when your father died”, she loses ground on her conviction, doubting her instincts. It’s what Melissa warned her against in The Blessing Way-- “You’ve lost touch with your own intuition!”-- and what she tried to help her see and understand when Scully was doubting her choice to join the FBI. It’s what she finally learns, four years after her sister’s death, in all things (post here.)

“It was a long time before he left me,” Maggie admits as her daughter struggles with confronted tears. This is a sore spot for both of them; but while Maggie has moved on-- “before he left me”-- Scully still struggles with echoes of the painful past. She cannot forget or let go as easily. “I saw him in my dreams. The phone would ring; and just for a moment, I was sure it was his voice. And, and you’re doing the same thing with Melissa-- you’re seeing her in this child. But that does not make this child my granddaughter.”

During this speech, Scully has been struggling with denial, doubt, tempted belief; and at her mother’s last words-- “We’re still connected to them, Dana, even after they’re gone”-- she tears up, conflicted.

There are many, many points to consider in this conversation:

Maggie’s nature is just as confrontational as Bill’s, but she’s raised her son to (mostly) butt out of business not belonging to him.

Despite Melissa’s black sheep ways and hard-to-swallow beliefs, Maggie remains convinced her daughter would have told her if she’d been pregnant. And she's correct.

Maggie would have (per her own expressions of hurt at this possible exclusion) embraced a granddaughter out of wedlock. This falls in line with her first two children being conceived before marriage (if the show's wonky timeline is to be believed), her undogmatic support of Bill and Tara’s IVF pregnancy, and her excitement over the birth of her second grandson, William.

Scully reveals how closely knit she and Maggie were (and are): “Remember about four years ago Melissa took off? She traveled up and down the West Coast-- we didn’t know where she was half the time” couples the anxiety, worry, and frustration of Melissa’s disappearance in with her mother and herself. We've seen this closeness demonstrated in The Blessing Way’s deleted scene (post here) when Melissa's arrival ended the personal conversation between Maggie and her youngest daughter.

Scully is still struggling with trusting her own instincts, and will continue to do so until all things. And, as befits her pre-established pattern, she leaps into decisive change then begins to doubt and second guess her intuition and choices (post here.)

Scully dreams, this time of a Christmas long past.

She and Melissa sneak down to the tree; and while she loudly exclaims, “Look at all the presents!”-- betraying her rapture over receiving gifts-- it’s her sister who shushes her (“Dana, be quiet; they’ll hear us.”) Grabbing a large box-- another peek at her gift goblin side-- she excitedly whispers, “This one’s for me!” Again, Melissa checks her: “You wish. That’s for Billy, you dope.” The girls continue rifling around-- Scully still amped over (supposedly) finding a Hotel California record, Missy still shushing her-- until they find their cross necklaces; and it’s then that Maggie appears from the shadows (“You don’t have to shake it, Dana. You can open those now”) and sits beside them.

While Scully is awed by her present, Melissa is ambivalent, politely thanking her mother but not really responding to Mrs. Scully’s speech: “Your grandmother gave me a cross just like that when I was about your age. It means God is with you, and will watch over you wherever you go.”

When she looks at her mother in thanks, younger Dana sees her current self in Maggie’s place.

A few takeaways:

Melissa is the ringleader, it appears, in this mischief making venture. While she is the older sister (and, therefore, has more bossing rights), she seems more aware of the danger of getting caught than Scully.

Scully, in each of her flashbacks, seems to be a second mate to mischief makers: breaking their father’s shooting rules with her brothers and sneaking down the stairs on Christmas morning with her sister. She is already drawn to rebellion, even at a young age; and will soon begin to flirt here and there with striking out on her own-- smoking her mother’s cigarettes on the porch or describing her parents’ opposition to the FBI as "they though it was an act of rebellion." That streak continues with “other fathers”, kicking back against her superiors in defiance or shoving off Mulder’s ‘restrictions’ whenever she feels unappreciated.

Melissa already seems detached from her mother’s beliefs, and is (most likely) only a year or two (or three or four) away from rescinding her faith.

Scully, however, hangs onto Maggie’s every word: a child wholeheartedly devoted to hero worship-- one who trusts so implicitly that she ends up doubting her own opinions and beliefs.

Scully’s necklace is markedly longer than the one she wears in canon. This presents us with one of two theories: that Maggie gifted her another one for her birthday, as she said in Ascension; or that Melissa gave her her hand-me-down when she left the faith.

Scully loves presents. Loves. (Which works out, because Mulder loves to give them.) And Hotel California, apparently.

The Revival was warned that Scully would not look good with this type of straight, flat bob. And yet, it persisted.

Scully, again again, ties another dream into Emily: this time her own motherhood, gifting her younger self-- or her dream self’s daughter-- a personal family tradition.

It’s Tara who wakes her up.

“Dana? I’m sorry,” she begins, her choice of words implying that she’s aware of Scully’s late night, “there’s a detective here to see you?”

When Scully descends, Tara is chopping food for breakfast, Maggie is serving Det. Kresge some coffee, and Bill is nowhere to be seen. He was awake early yesterday, so it’s natural to assume he’s already up and out-- maybe last minute preparations for their party later today?

As she and Kresge move aside to privately chat, Tara and Maggie send them concerned peeks every so often.

Of course, Scully ends up leaving.

I want to touch on Emily Sim very briefly in this post:

After Mr. Sim is arrested, Scully hurries through the house looking for (who she presumes is) her niece. She finds her on the stairs, and the two face off blankly while Emily's father's pleas of innocence escalate off-screen.

When Scully leads the girl to the social worker’s van, Emily clings to her hand-- revealing nothing, but not unwilling to be in her care, either. Both are grim and determined; and while Scully softens as she tucks the little girl into her car seat-- “Let’s just get you buckled in here nice and safe, okay” is important; and will be discussed below-- Emily doesn’t start to brighten until she catches sight of the other woman’s cross. Without thinking, she reaches for the necklace-- a shiny present she wants to claim; like her mother-- without thinking-- again, like her mother.

It’s searing in hindsight, knowing this tiny girl is doomed to die; but it’s also bittersweet in the moment as Emily exactly reenacts Scully's dreams and patterns of behavior.

And this leads me to a theory: with how each dream is structured, and with how Emily behaves in them, exactly as she does in real life-- always staring with large, knowing eyes and a somber, resigned expression as if she knows Scully-- I wonder if Emily is the one projecting these dreams. Whenever Scully remembers the past, Emily seems to burst through and center these memories on herself in the present. (And whether she means to or not, I wonder.) Her grandmother has prescient dreams, Melissa had sensing abilities, and Scully herself has had a fair share of psychic and supernatural experiences. I’ve theorized before that all humans have access to psychic ability because of their alien DNA (post here), but need to have a close connection to or brush with Death to unlock it (post here.)

And if that be the case, these dreams and premonitions centering Emily began to occur after Mrs. Sim’s death-- meaning, if that unlocked an ability in Emily (for whatever X-Files reason) then that could be working in tandem with Melissa’s phone calls. And if that be the case, Scully the Conduit (post here) was picking up both signals. Canon itself supports this supposition, though mildly: "You found her; and you saved her," says Mulder; "She found me," Scully corrects.

Scully reaches out to caress Emily’s hair (a mirror of Maggie Scully's maternal gestures) at the same time the girl reaches out to snag her necklace. Touched, and desperate to establish a connection, she asks, with wide eyes, “You like that, huh?”

Emily doesn’t respond, staring, transfixed, at the cross instead; but Scully takes initiative anyway, immediately removing her chain and clasping it behind her ‘niece's’ neck. This act is a combination of many significant details, which can be summed up in two sentiments: passing on the family legacy to this newly discovered Scully, and surrounding her with God’s protection-- as Maggie had done when she was a little girl; as she did herself, seconds ago, by securing Emily's seat belt. In short, her actions are a marriage of different forms of protection: familial, physical, and spiritual. Scully extends all three to this child before she knows Emily Sim is hers.

When it is time to go, Scully leans in with an assuring pout and promises, “I’ll see you soon, okay?” And Emily mirrors that pout, nodding up and down in earnestness.

They watch each other through the window, locking eyes as long as possible.

At Bill and Tara’s Christmas party that evening, Scully can’t focus on the present.

When Maggie tells her relaxing daughter-in-law, “Every year, my husband insisted on putting the angel on top of the tree by himself” and Bill, just returned from hobnobbing, teases his late dad’s masculinity-- “Man’s work”-- to her and Tara’s amusement, Scully remains distant and lost in thought. Bill looks down and notices her detachment; and, having reached his limit, asks, “Dana, can you give me a hand in the kitchen?”

Maggie immediately snaps her head over, knowing exactly what her son is doing; and Tara’s face drops, knowing exactly what her husband’s doing, too. Both women, it would appear, figure the siblings have grievances to air; but hope it won't get to insulting or catastrophic levels. They’re both adults after all, right?

And that’s another interesting point: as uncomfortable as this shift has made Maggie and Tara-- even more so because Scully hasn’t fully returned from the cloud of her thoughts, and isn't clued in to what’s about to happen-- they’re not trying to mitigate or stop Bill. It would seem they, too, have criticisms of Dana’s behavior lately, but haven't voiced them for her and Christmas’s sake. We know this to be the case because of Bill’s accusations in the kitchen: Mrs. Scully has been sharing her daughter’s information with her son and daughter-in-law, likely in an attempt to smooth ruffled feathers or get them to understand what she’s going through. However, this, in turn, makes Scully feel judged and vulnerable; and, despite Maggie and Bill’s best intentions, she begins to retreat even more.

“What’s up?” Scully asks as Bill begins pouring himself a drink.

“I need you to tell me what’s going on,” he says, voice light but concerned.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not here, Dana, you’re a million miles away. I thought you came to see the family.”

Scully, caught, sinks into annoyed despair. “I did.”

“Well, I thought that this other thing was resolved,” Bill huffs, becoming frustrated himself. “I thought you caught the guy that murdered that woman.”

“We did,” she affirms, trying to draw him away from shaky territory but unable to look up from the ground.

Bill, as always, sees right through her: “Then it’s about the girl, isn’t it?”

She doesn’t answer, determined not to-- but her eyes pop up after he passes by, realizing he must have gotten that information from someone.

Conciliatory-- trying to prove he’s on her side, that she doesn’t have to ice him out, that he understands-- Bill softly confesses, “Mom told me.” Maintaining eye contact, his voice rises higher, almost cracking at the end, “You really think Melissa had a baby?”

“Yes, I do,” Scully admits; and her admittance now-- an admittance born from, he thinks, a crazy partnership with a crazy partner who keeps invading their family time with selfish, questing demands-- irritates him completely.

“She call you from beyond the grave to tell you that,” he mocks, voice edged with bitterness.

At this sudden attack, his sister is instantly furious… and hurt, tightening her chin to prevent an influx of strong, complicated emotions.

“Sounds like something that partner of yours would say,” he concludes, somehow shifting the blame entirely off of Dana’s shoulders and onto Mulder's while simultaneously-- and accidentally-- insulting her intelligence and abilities.

Fed up with his misunderstanding, Scully insists, “It does not matter where that phone call came from. What matters is that there is a little girl who needs my help.”

“This isn’t about any little girl, Dana,” he snaps, done with the pretense on both sides-- a pretense she is unaware of and confused by, tilting her head in astonishment at his blunt, “It’s about you.”

Bill continues with his half-right, half-wrong blunders: “It’s about this emptiness, this void inside yourself you’re trying to fill.”

And that is when he takes it too far: it’s one thing to be chastised about her inconclusive connections by a mother who understands, and it’s another to be reprimanded by a brother who doesn’t; and who constantly misreads her intent.

But the truth is: they’re both in differing degrees of wrong here--

Scully has spent their joint Christmas vacation taking off at all hours of the day and night without a word. To the family, this is a slap in the face, especially considering she chose to fly out to bond with them during a new and intimate chapter of their lives. (Not to mention, one of them is close to her due date and up every morning making breakfast for her guests.)

Bill is not the only person who is frustrated: Maggie, too, keeps chastising her daughter’s flakiness. Maggie, too, outright fights Scully's theories and suppositions. While struggling with her own feelings, Mrs. Scully is also forced to mitigate between her daughter and her son's pent up emotions.

While it is certainly not his place to presuppose or judge, Bill is trying to understand his sister's perspective. If that isn't difficult enough, most of his assumptions are derived from is mother-- the exact same sticky situation as the cancer arc (posts here and here.)

Because Scully isn’t communicating with anyone unless she has to, the family is left to grapple with whatever information or interpretation they can gather or think up to explain her behavior. This leads to projections and assumptions: Maggie assumes Scully is seeing Melissa everywhere the way she saw her late husband; and Bill assumes Scully is struggling with an emptiness and void that he and Tara struggled with during their infertility journey.

And that’s where Scully’s fault lies: she assumes her brother wouldn’t understand, even if she told him. She is aware, to some extent, that Bill and Tara struggled with infertility; but she hasn’t stopped to learn the details. That’s understandable, too; but when Bill blunders in and gives her unsolicited advice, he is speaking from his own feelings and emotions-- not to chastise or finger wag at her.

And that’s where Bill’s fault lies, too: he is given no direct answer of his sister’s feelings, so he projects his own onto her to humanize her actions. This, in turn, makes him impose his own thoughts, beliefs, and wishes onto her, as well: she, too, must feel and emptiness and void at not being able to have children; and that void must be guiding her to these actions.

And that’s the really messed up part: they’re both half-right and half-wrong; but the miscommunication from all sides is exacerbating the issue. Maggie pries open Scully and shares what she finds with Bill and Tara to soothe their feelings; this gives them a faulty understanding, and clams Scully up tighter next time.

In short: the problem is, Scully isn’t communicating fully; and her half-responses leave blanks for Maggie or Bill or Tara to fill in. And when they do communicate, everyone’s opinions and thoughts-- while well-intentioned-- careen away from each other and crash in a ditch.

Without knowing where Bill is coming from-- and possibly not registering the vulnerability in his eyes-- Scully loses the last ounce of her patience; and, rightfully, sticks up for herself: “Bill, I don’t expect you to understand but I am not going to stand here and justify my mo--”

“Dana?” Maggie cuts in, looking between both of her children. Called back to herself, Scully grits her teeth and looks away from her brother. “There’s a telephone call for you.”

She leaves without another word; and Maggie studies Bill intently before following her out, reading from his face that the conversation ended in disaster.

After Mr. Sim’s staged suicide, Scully returns home to a warm, inviting fireplace, eyes misting at its likeness to her former childhood memories. She then notices the manger scene, a little child in the center of so much hope and intrigue. (There is a connection between Scully's journey and this manger scene-- no, not in the way you're thinking... at least, not exactly-- which I shall touch on in the next part.)

Bill pops into the room, voice tense as he asks, “When did you get back?”

Startled, she stares into his eyes a few seconds in silence; then, seeing he intends no harm, simply replies, “I just got back.”

“Well, you’re just in time,” he amends, diffusing his feelings for the moment. “I was on my way over to the neighbors. Mom and Tara are already there.”

Unable to keep up even a whisper of facade, Scully ducks her head, nodding with pinched eyebrows and a strained face.

“What?” he asks, softly. “What happened?”

Her head shoots back up, eyes wide and turbulent-- was she that obvious?-- as she questions whether to tell the truth. Her eyes tear up and her mouth slightly tightens before Scully admits to Marshall Sim’s death.

Bill is sympathetic-- empathetic, even, as he asks, “Do you think it has something to do with that little girl?”

His tenderness and openness to hearing her thoughts, and to intelligently connecting a few dots on his own, releases her strain. “I think it might,” she assents.

He pauses, turning inward, before pronouncing, “Dana, I have to show you something.”

Intrigued, Scully follows her brother up to the nursery-- her room-- where he digs out a photo of Melissa-- one she'd never shared with her sister.

After handing the picture over, Bill slumps his way to the window, head down, shoulders inward.

“Look at the date on the back,” he says heavily. Missy’s death still strongly affects him, so much so that touching this part of his past is draining to Bill. Which must be particularly affecting, considering his desire to replicate every detail of his childhood, down to the same rooms, for his own nuclear family.

The date is Oct. 7 - 94; and when Scully flips it over to check, Bill releases a weary sigh.

“Does Melissa look pregnant to you in that picture? It’s about four weeks before the girl was born.”

This is interesting: the Scully family, as a whole, has a problem with communication-- Scully with sharing her thoughts, her job, her conflicting beliefs; Bill with his struggles and weaknesses. To reveal that he knew Melissa wasn’t pregnant in 1994, Bill would've had to dredge up that photo as proof. Instead, he’d hoped to avoid that-- just as Scully had hoped to avoid sharing her own findings and suspicions about Emily.

After their argument, Bill, it seems, wanted to sweep the disagreement under the rug and enjoy Christmas. That resolution, however, fell through after seeing Scully's crestfallen face. And after hearing his sister mention murders disguised as suicides, Bill realized his reticence was no longer a priority if Dana was putting her life in danger because of a false dream.

“Bill, it doesn’t prove anything. Melissa didn’t have to get pregnant to have a baby, there’s--” Scully grasps for an idea, eyes wandering, “--there’s in vitro fertilization, there’s surrogate motherhood--”

“Dana,” Bill cuts in. “Listen to yourself. You’re creating this whole scenario to fulfill a dream.”

“What dream?” She knows, deep down, what he means; but hasn’t wanted to touch this thought directly.

“To have a child.”

Again, Scully struggles with self-doubt: his reasons sound valid, and logical. Are the dreams and the phone calls and the 60% chance just projections, as her mother said, as her brother is saying? (Which he got from their mother, no doubt.)

“Look, I…” Bill pauses, stopping and starting his own difficult admission, “I understand. I know the need--” he tears up and looks away as the words spill out, “--Tara and I tried for years. But making this girl,” he concludes, convinced in the righteousness of his pursuit, “into Melissa’s daughter is not the way. You’re only going to end up hurting yourself.” His face is iron, his warning absolute.

But though his words waiver, they cannot convince; and Scully won’t let the possibility go, not when she still has doubts. More honestly, not when Emily calls out to a part of herself.

The doorbell rings, and Bill sighs, walking away to answer it. The second he leaves, her face wilts, mouth and nose twitching against tears.

“Hi,” he greets; and “Hi,” he is answered.

“I’m here to see Dana Scully.”

“Oh, may I ask, um--”

“I’m Susan Chambliss from the County. It’s about the adoption.”

At that truth bomb, Bill looks up at his sister, shooting her a “Dana?” just as her face contorts in mild panic, caught.

Gliding past Bill’s question, she swiftly says, “Hi. Thank you for coming in on Christmas Eve,” and rushes past after one last glance at his discomfited expression.

Here is where we get an incredibly telling look into one Dana Scully’s psychology.

Her application for adoption is denied, and she nearly breaks down in tears as Susan kindly lays out the reasons why she shouldn’t consider adoption, stating, “You’re a single woman who’s never been married, or had a long-term relationship. You’re in a high-stress, time-intensive, and dangerous occupation-- one that I sense you’re deeply committed to. And one which would become overnight a secondary priority--”

Scully looks up, either to contradict or persuade, but bites back her reply until the other woman is finished.

“--to the care and well-being of this child. I’m not sure this is a sacrifice you’re prepared to make.”

And perhaps Scully isn’t, either: she’s rushing things (just as she later rushes the IVF, posts here and here), and is troubled that not only would she have to ease up on her dedication to her occupation-- to the X-Files, to Mulder, even-- but that she hadn’t considered she’d have to.

“Well, it’s one that I’ve given a great deal of thought to,” she explains, nearly losing the battle to her tears. “To be honest, I’ve started to question my priorities since I was first diagnosed with cancer.”

This revelation-- and the fact that she is struggling with her infertility and was loathe to share these struggles with Mulder this past week-- points to two possibilities:

Scully was, perhaps, looking for a way out, and Emily provided that. This isn't likely, considering the stunned reaction she has when internalizing the consequences for adopting her high-risk 'niece'.

Or Scully is misinterpreting the signs again: doubting herself, her choices, her commitments; doubting whether her sister should have died, whether she should have gotten cancer, whether she should have been stripped of her fertility. This is not only likely but also transparently the case: she's rushing into these decisions, despite the danger, despite the fulfillment her work provides, despite the loss of her close working relationship with Mulder. Scully's staring down an endless line, and thinks Emily is the new 'right path' she faces at every crux of her life.

Scully has been struggling with the fact of her infertility for months-- so much so that she only told her mother, and then only under added pressure. Again, she is trapped in a cycle of hyper-fixation-- that endless line, post here-- doubting herself and laying unnecessary blame at her feet. We know Scully commits to then wants to backtrack on her commitment-- in other words, she has attachment issues (post here)-- and looks to other signs or other voices or "other fathers" to tell her what to do, be it dating Daniel Waterston or breaking up with him or recruiting to the FBI or doubting her recruitment or partnering with Mulder or doubting her partnership with Mulder or getting cancer or losing her faith or gaining her faith or recovering from cancer or losing her fertility or finding her 'niece'. In short, she probably sees this miracle 'happenstance' as a second chance, or a sign from God or the paranormal or the supernatural that her sister sanctions; and thinks Melissa-- who she ‘failed’-- is relying on her to save her daughter. A new mission, a new appointed path. And though it doesn't feel right, she tells herself, "There's only one right thing to do."

And yet, the thought that she’d have to give up her work shakes Scully to the core: she is in tears at the thought, but she is also in tears at losing this last chance. (Mulder senses this, too, in Emily; but, as he tells the judge, doesn’t feel it’s his right to deny a mother her child.)

“And I feel like I’ve been given a second chance,” she admits, nailing my previous points home.

“Ever since I was a child, I’ve, I’ve never allowed myself to get too close to people. I’ve avoided emotional attachments. Perhaps I’ve been so afraid of death or dying that any connection just seemed like a bad thing. Something that wouldn’t last.” Her dreams make more and more sense: the rabbit and the snake and the coffin and her beloved vocation. “But I don’t feel that way anymore.”

This is the reason why she brought a cheese platter to Mulder’s room in Detour; and this is the reason she took family time off and has avoided reaching out: she is caught in another cycle of self-doubt-- questioning their partnership, questioning her abilities, questioning the X-Files's endless line. But what Scully is missing is that she hasn’t taken family time off, not really-- it’s not her nature to do so, for long. Even her own vacation later this season (Chinga) is interrupted by a case, which she solves without resentment. She needs the work just as much as Mulder does-- and she knows this. But that doesn't stop the toxic pattern of self-sabotage.

“You are aware of Emily’s medical condition. I want to stress to you, Dana,” the social worker continues, “Emily is a special needs child. According to her doctors, her condition is incurable. She requires constant care, both medical and emotional. The good news is, you have first hand experience of grave illness. The bad news is, you’d have to relive it through the eyes of a child.”

Again, Scully almost breaks-- tears nearly spilling over, mouth crumbling. That is hard: she still avoids mentioning her past illness whenever possible. But what else, she believes, can she do?

“I realize that,” she nods, wiping a tear away. “And I feel like I’m ready.”

Scully is being tossed about by remission expectations and fertility expectations and familial expectations and her own impossible expectations; and is grasping at motherhood as the fix-it solution she thinks she needs. The reality is… she’s not ready for parenthood. She would love Emily with all her heart; but she would have had to turn from the path she chose, the one that feels right, the one she still needs to learn and grow.

There is one last dream in store for Dana Scully: Melissa joins her for a late-night couch chat, wanting to know why her little sister is up.

“You worried about Quantico, or who gets the most presents this year?” she teases, a little joke over do-gooder Scully probably being the goodest girl all year for Santa; or a delicate poke at her insanely competitive, insanely jealous younger sister.

“I guess I’m afraid I’m making a big mistake. I could tell Dad sure thinks I am,” Scully confesses-- how easy it appears she was able to confess back then, before international conspiracies and scientific, rigorous adherence.

“Oh. Well, it’s not his life, Dana.”

“Yeah, I know that. But y’know, when I started med school, it felt so right. It just seemed like that was where I was supposed to be. Then… and then by the time I graduated, I just knew it was wrong. And now the FBI feels right. But what if that’s wrong, too?” The self-doubts and endless lines were there from the beginning.

“There is no right or wrong,” Melissa replies. “Life’s… just a path. You follow your heart, and it’ll take you where you’re supposed to go.” This motto defines Scully and her life choices.

“I don’t believe in fate. I think we have to choose our own path.”

And here is the voice of her conscience, her intuition, her guide: “Well, just don’t mistake the path with what’s really important in life.”

“Which is what?”

“The people you’re going to meet along the way. You don’t know who you’re going to meet when you join the FBI. You don’t know how much your life is gonna change. Or… how you’re gonna change the lives of others.”

Scully is being pointed once again back to her path-- the FBI-- and the people she changed there-- Mulder. As much as she craves a life with Emily, it isn't meant to be: something feels off, conflicting; but it also feels right. Because she is here to save another life-- Emily-- before going back to hers. She still has answers and truths to uncover for herself before she can leave this life, this path, with a good conscience.

Tara wakes her from this last dream; and Bill and Maggie swoop in behind her.

“Did Santa come?” he teases.

“Santa’s still here,” Tara returns, pointing at Scully.

“She always had to be the first one up on Christmas-- couldn’t wait to get into those presents,” Bill parries, cuddling up to his wife and making her and Maggie laugh.

Mrs. Scully swoops to the couch and snuggles up to her daughter; but before anymore distractions (ahem, Bill) can continue, Tara waves him off and exclaims, “Okay, enough pleasantries! I’m dying to know what’s in this box!”

Bill launches to the tree, excitedly passing presents to his wife, mother, and sister-- even the forgotten Scully sibling (Charlie) sent a present. For once, everything seems to be going smoothly.

A brief note on Charlie: as already mentioned here, his lore seems to be spotty at best. But there is one consistent theme: ever since they were boys, Charlie stuck around and played with Bill (per One Breath’s flashback); and that seems to have carried into adulthood. He sent a message through Bill in Memento Mori’s deleted scene, and he sent a present for the family this year through Bill again. Whatever the status of his relationship with the Scullys, he seems to always use with his elder brother as his mouthpiece-- like Melissa had been for Scully, before her death.

“Don’t open anything-- don’t open! I’ll be right back!” Bill chirps as he rushes out of the room to answer the doorbell.

Of course, it’s a man with a package for FBI Agent Dana Scully. Bill rushes back while she signs for then reads it; but at her prolonged silence, the room becomes still.

“What is it?” asks Maggie, worried.

“It’s a DNA test on Emily Sim’s blood.”

“What’s it say?” Bill asks, voice devoid of amusement as he rises to his full height. Maggie, too, is similarly unamused.

“It says definitively that Melissa is not Emily’s mother--” Mrs. Scully looks down, anticipating unpleasant emotions for her daughter, while Bill maintains eye contact, brows lowering in stressed pity, “--but that they found striking genetic similarities between Emily and Melissa. So many that they… ran a test against another sample that they already had.”

“What sample?” Maggie questions.

“Wh-what are you trying to say?” Bill prods-- he knows, or is afraid he knows.

“According to this… I am Emily’s mother.”

We’re not shown the Scully family’s reaction to this news; but the next time they appear is in court, slipping out of the judge’s chambers after giving testimony on Scully’s behalf.

Mulder is waiting outside on a chair when Tara leads the way, approaching him trepidatiously with Bill right behind her and Maggie lagging back. As Bill steps forward, visibly fuming over the other man’s presence, Tara flashes Mulder a tight smile-- taking neither side, but remaining polite. Her husband stands his ground, forcing Mulder to go around; and stares after his sister's partner with hatred and contempt.

The last time we see the Scully family is at Emily Sim's funeral.

Alone, Scully sits in the church, withdrawn as figure after figure passes by. Maggie's gentle hand on her shoulder rouses her-- another the one person who can understand the loss of a child.

Tears glistening in her eyes, Mrs. Scully asks, “Are you ready?”

“I think I’ll get a ride back with Mulder,” Scully replies: choosing her place not with her "normal" family but with her partner-- a woman in search of the truth, where she knows she belongs.

At least, as Melissa said, until the next thing feels right.

They embrace in understanding, then Scully pivots to give her brother an affectionate hug goodbye. He leans his face down into her shoulder, burying his nose there while she envelops him fully.

An important note: these are the first hugs Scully has initiated-- a gesture of comfort for her mother and brother-- and both are hugs goodbye (which will be discussed below.)

But Scully doesn’t linger long: she drifts over to Tara, who is standing behind her husband, ashamed of her own good luck and happiness. Scully beams at her sister-in-law and the baby-- she will not taint little Matthew’s arrival with sadness-- and is faintly aware that Bill is carefully watching her face, relaxing only when he sees her able to face her nephew.

Greeting the baby with a kiss, Scully whispers, “Bye bye Matthew” as Tara’s face nearly crumbles in tenderness, relief, and sorrow.

“We’ll see you in awhile, okay?” Tara says, and Scully assents, “Okay.”

This, then, means Scully is leaving from the church directly to the airport: ‘Bye, bye, Matthew’ and the long hugs and well-wishes only point to one conclusion. If they expected her back at the house, their goodbyes wouldn’t be so final. And that means the mystery of Emily’s coffin will never be revealed to the family-- another of Scully’s well-kept secrets.

Maggie stays behind to trade one last smile with her daughter before following the new parents out, and Scully gives one back: she will be all right.

So many meanings can be gleaned from Mrs. Scully's final glance back: she knows her daughter wants to heal alone, and respects her; she grieves for her daughter's loss, and she empathizes with that pain. But most importantly, I think, is that she is proud of Scully.

Scully will be all right... until her peace is spit upon posthumously: Emily's body has been spirited away. No proof of her only chance at motherhood (for now.)

MENTIONS, APPEARANCES, AND OTHER LOOSE ENDS

We hear about the Scully family twice in Season 6: You have a brother who hates me,” Mulder insists, trying to convince his partner he is who he says he is (Dreamland); "Mulder, call it whatever you like-- I've got holiday cheer to spread. I've got a family roll call under the tree at 6:00 a.m.," Scully insists when he lures her to a haunted mansion on Christmas Eve (How the Ghosts Stole Christmas.) It's obvious, then, that the events of Emily have not torn apart these relationships.

Season 7 features one mention-- in En Ami, Scully lies about going away for a family emergency; and Mulder is on familiar enough terms to call up Maggie and ask about the family emergency. It's obvious that Mulder's closeness with Scully's mother has changed between seasons; and, though he called her likely out of concern for his partner, he came away from that phone call with enough calm (it's implied) to not frighten Mrs. Scully out of her wits, unlike every other call before.

And lastly, for me, Season 8: Maggie appears at Mulder’s funeral (Deadalive)-- but doesn’t stay as long as Skinner (likely because she knows her daughter wants to be left alone)-- and her daughter's (begrudging) baby shower (Essence.)

"You know it would be a whole lot easier for everyone if you would just tell us the sex, Dana?" Maggie prods as she hurries about the party area, arranging and rearranging balloons. When Scully doesn't respond, she yells from the other room, "Did you hear me?"

"Yes I heard you, Mom, for about the thousandth time-- you can wait. Didn't you have to wait with us?"

"Well," her mother rambles on, "I just know it's a boy. I can just tell by the way you're carrying-- it's a boy."

"Well, see, you obviously don't need me to tell you because you obviously already know," Scully baits, letting her mother stand shocked and overjoyed for a few seconds without correcting her assumptions.

"Then it's a boy?"

Without replying, Scully stares her down while turning on the tap: purposefully withholding the information with a straight face and twinkle in her eye.

"Oh, it's the least you can tell your mother considering everything else you're keeping secret."

They're interrupted by a knock. The arrival of Lizzie Gill reveals another layer of Mrs. Scully's meddling: she's signed up a baby nurse to help her daughter, without her daughter's permission. Scully doesn't outright jump at the offer, but does get comfortable around Lizzie (while ignoring her mother's pointed "See?" glances) enough to later accept her assistance.

This moment-- and other similar moments like this-- paints a rather interesting picture of their dynamic:

Scully is sharing less with her mother than she used to-- or, perhaps, Maggie is realizing how much her daughter keeps secret.

Yet, it doesn't seem to disrupt their relationship: Maggie is glad to participate in any way she can, enthusiastically peppering the apartment with decorations and her daughter with questions.

Maggie hired a baby nurse for Scully: why? Apparently, she thinks Scully would be unwilling to have her mother stay over while settling into early parenthood, despite her own "retirement" and widowhood. The nurse, in question, would function as hired help for practical needs; meaning, she wouldn't be staying over, either. This establishes that Mrs. Scully is alerted to and fully supportive of her daughter's strictly enforced boundaries.

"Considering everything else you're keeping secret" means that Scully (and Mulder) have not discussed his role in her baby's life at all with other people. At. All. And that it was Scully who decided on this continued secrecy, refusing to answer any questions during her entire pregnancy. Mulder's followed in her footsteps-- and probably likes that others are hindered from asking him questions or handing out back slaps-- while everyone else has been left to make assumptions. Including Maggie Scully.

Unfortunately, Scully stumbles upon Lizzie swapping her baby vitamins; and, having eaten some already, rushes to the hospital to have a full examination. Maggie waits with Mulder in the hallway; and after the doctor gives her patient an all-clear, Mrs. Scully rushes in and asks for her daughter's forgiveness.

"I'm so sorry, Dana." Seeing that Scully is frozen in place, trying to master her emotions, her mother initiates the embrace-- as she always has-- and continues, "This is all my fault. I brought this into your home. You know I would never let anything happen to you," she adds, a repeat of her words in Wetwired, while looking down at her daughter's baby bump. "Would never knowingly let anybody hurt you."

Scully keeps her head down, but assures, "I know, Mom."

Studying her face, Maggie adds, "I'm so worried about you. You keep everything so bottled up." This, then, paints Maggie's overbearing meddling and thousand-and-one questions in another light: anticipation over her grandchild, yes; but also frenzied worry and concern for her daughter, as well.

Again, Scully doesn't answer, nodding along as if to soothe her mother rather than admit her reticence; then looks aside to Mulder before his attention is pulled away and consumed by Skinner. However, it is important to note Maggie was included in this hospital visit: we know she's no longer on Scully's paperwork (hasn't been since pre-One Breath, that we're aware of; and hasn't shown up for any of Scully's S8 medical emergencies, which proves she was completely in the dark.) And we know Scully would have called Mulder, regardless, to help apprehend Lizzie Gill once the other woman was caught. But Scully chose to call up her mother and ask her to the hospital: perhaps because she feared the worst, the premature death of her baby. It's one thing to fear miscarriage before you've told your mother about the pregnancy (Via Negativa), and it's another thing entirely to lose the baby after your mother is invested in its arrival.

And that's it for Maggie Scully, Bill Scully, Charlie Scully, Tara Scully, or Matthew Scully's appearances! Or so I decree, as someone whose stops canon at Season 8~.

I leave Season 9 and IWTB and the Revival for those who want to take up the mantle and explore the Scully family for me: it wouldn't be fair to this series to spend the last few parts picking apart my grievances.

CONCLUSION

That's it for the Scully family! Can you believe we've come this far?

Only two parts left: the tragedy of Emily Sim, and the failure and success of Scully's (and Mulder's) journey to parenthood.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

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