#how do you spell kersh

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s6 episode 5 thoughts

we are BACK tonight to see how scully can save the day, as mulder is still stuck in another guy’s body!!! which is deeply stressful for everyone involved, myself included.

i hope that whatever it is you have to do to fix this problem, it isn’t too painful.

if anyone can figure out how to solve a time warp, it’s gonna be scully, so he should be in good hands. idgaf about morris though. after he gets back into his own body, perhaps we should consider tarring and feathering him.

post-episode thoughts: the ending of this episode raises a great question- if my forgiveness of mulder was based on him atoning for his crimes, where does that leave us now? much to ponder...

and will how will his apartment look the next time we see it?!

back to the recap of last episode. we begin with the scene of him yelling and screaming that morris isn’t him!!

ooo! we get to see mulder’s info in the x files!!!

he was born in chilmark, and his mother’s name is “teena kuipers”. huh; when his mother’s name was mentioned in kitsunegari, the subtitles had it spelled as “tina”. this is interesting, but probably means nothing. quick question: which way do the fans spell it? i need to not make a fool of myself

he lives in virginia!!! in alexandria!! i don’t know where that is, so that doesn’t really mean anything anyway. 

he was born on october 13th, which i find a very appropriately spooky day.

oh, we also see that kersh’s first name is alvin. that is interesting. and he’s on general assignment. 

morris is narrating: “once upon a time, there was a man with the improbable name of fox mulder” yeah <3

NOOO, you leave samantha out of this you morris son of a bitch!!

is this actually supposed to be canon home video footage of mulder playing with samantha, pretending to be spock as a kid??? oh. that’s… adorable. aww. oh. baby mulder... my heart.

morris is talking about mulder's hard work that doesn’t make up for his sister, and we see all these awards in his apartment!! an award for public service from the justice department, and another one for outstanding service with the FBI.

but morris plans to turn mulder’s life around…….

i need to spray this man with a water bottle AT BEST. pepper spray more realistically, though.

wait, it looked like morris was lurking about the basement office. but i thought the basement office was spender’s now!!! all of the papers and newspaper clippings had been taken down! we saw the office in episode 3, and it had spender’s stuff in there instead- definitely not any of mulder’s awards or his diploma or anything! unless he moved all the stuff into his apartment? but how could he have moved it into his apartment if all that stuff was in his office when it was set on fire and presumably went down with the x files?!

hmm. well. anyway.

intro time 

maybe they just permanently trimmed down the intro. still feels wrong.

mulder-as-morris is still screaming as he is being taken away. i’ve always loved how he screams “scully” with reckless abandon, like some sort of coyote. it’s good stuff.

scully is deeply suspicious. and morris-as-mulder calls her “dana” again, which remains diabolical. 

mulder-as-morris is being brought to a jail cell! who is in here with him?! ohhh, it’s captain mcdonough in the body of mrs. chee! mulder obviously doesn’t know what is going on, and pisses the captain off by calling him “ma’am”. poor guy. can’t catch a break. he just wanted to make sure his prison partner who outwardly LOOKS like an elderly woman was okay :(

morris-as-mulder is back to playing virtual golf on the clock. DISGUSTING! i actually support playing video games on the computer, just not on the taxpayer's dime when there are alien crimes that need to be solved.

kersh told scully that she was "willful" and "not a team player", and now she is being suspended for two weeks without pay!! nooo!! well, at least she can get away from this morris freak. she packs up all her stuff to get out of there.

NOOOO... morris-as-mulder calls her “dana” again, and asks if a home-cooked meal at his place would ease the pain of suspension… she smiles, and hopefully this is not an agreement. we all know mulder cannot cook! at least, i don’t THINK he can. maybe he learned some relevant life skills in between seasons or when the camera wasn't rolling.

back at the jail cell, captain mcdonough is trying to explain what happened to land him in this new body, which leads to this amazing mulder line: “hey, grandma top gun, will you shut the hell up?!”

mulder-as-morris is then summoned before general wegman. they want to know why he gave the FBI false info. ohhh, he is improv-ing!!! and doing quite a good job at it!!!! he convinces them he has the real flight data recorder and will bring it back, and he approached scully to try and figure out who the snitch from inside area 51 was. you can achieve so much by saying things confidently.

oooooo, the other guy got in biiiiig trouble!

morris-as-mulder is arriving at mulder’s apartment with groceries and “mood lighting for the bedroom” (GAG!) i hope scully has him at gunpoint in there…

LMAO, he is surprised to learn that there is, in fact, no bedroom. you know what? in this situation, that is probably a good thing.

he finds a closet with lots of magazines shoved in it, at least some of them pornographic, and a singular bowling pin?? wow. morris-as-mulder proclaims that mulder hasn’t been laid in 10 years. ace icon.

(the bowling pin is still sending me)

oh no, mulder-as-morris is returning to his “wife” with all of his stuff still tossed on the curb!! she still thinks he was cheating on her with scully!!!

outside, someone is sneaking up on him in some generic-looking car…

he tries to compliment his “daughter’s” nose ring, for SOME REASON thinking it is a good idea to poke her fresh new piercing, and she hits him with the “as if!” <- LMAOOO oh god. he is truly being tested.

and the son says mom is taking out a restraining order on him. well. i guess that solves the problem of dealing with his "children". 

NOOOO, HIS NOT-REALLY-WIFE CALLS HER “SPECIAL TRAMP DANA SCULLY” <- THAT IS EVIL!!!!! do not bully her 😟 but yes i did laugh <3

he’s trying to explain that he is actually a guy named mulder and he has no idea who she is, but she writes it off as a midlife crisis.

and when he points out that people outside the window are watching him, she says he needs to accept who he is, however repulsive that may be. well. this does not help.

oh no, scully is rolling up to mulder’s place!!! but of course, it is truly morris in there!! and she’s getting shown around the brand new space. oh, he is far too touchy with her. BUT he did get mulder a bed. which could be seen as an improvement. 

he leads her to the bed. and she’s laying on it…. and it’s vibrating?? or something??? hey guys. is this the magic fingers from bad blood all over again.

he comes back with champagne… oh god, he’s singing about getting it on…. we need to put this man DOWN.

“you know what would really be fun?” (she pulls out handcuffs) “oh yeah” <- oh lord. i know she’s cooking up a scheme. 

LMAOOO SHE GETS HIM TO HANDCUFF HIMSELF RIGHT TO THE BED AND PULLS OUT HER GUN I’M HOWLINGGGG

and he does it fully clothed, too. i wonder what his plan was...

“you’re not mulder” “what? baby-“ “baby me and you’ll be peeing from a catheter” <- LMAOOOOOOOOOO i’ve seen that line in screenshots before and now i know the context 

god, he really fell for that. terrible! no brains on this fellow!!

okay, but now i want to know what REAL mulder is going to do with this huge, fancy bed in his apartment. 

i love when scully pulls out her gun!! it makes me clap my hands with glee!

morris-as-mulder says that he considers this a gift from god. he doesn’t want to go back to his wife and kids and job. and scully says she’ll shoot him, “baby”. which is a level of pettiness i admire.

GOD, he changed the message on mulder's phone to say he’s entertaining a very special guess… we need to spray this man with pesticides. but the mysterious area 51 source called!!

mulder-as-morris is sitting by the window, watching the people outside watch him. LMAO, he convinces his "wife" to take him somewhere. oooo, where will they go....?

scully has driven morris-as-mulder down to nevada to meet with the source!! she threatens to shoot him again. and just know that her aim is GOOD, bitch.

mulder-as-morris is here, too!! but morris is meeting with the source (who happens to be general wegman, but i was mostly too distracted by his buffalo bills hat to realize it was a character we had seen before). obviously, due to being morris, he is being an idiot and loudly saying “you’re the guy that took down a UFO?” yeah. wow. how has he made it this far in life? good lord. stop acting so ridiculous with another guy's face on.

mulder-as-morris sneaks out to find scully!!! a reunion!!! i want tears.

but oh nooooo…. his "wife" finds him in the car with her!!!!

morris-as-mulder walks out with the thing he came for from the source, but not before seeing his crying wife. and he dips.

damn. i genuinely thought he was going to feel bad and comfort her there. i guess not.

and poor mulder gets a drink thrown on him by her. they are both suffering in unique ways.

oh shit!!! mulder-as-morris runs into morris-as-him in the bathroom. and they’re both hiding!!!

scully came inside looking for them…. oh shit, the source was general wegman?? OHHH, they did a bait and switch!!! scully took the flight data recorder from the big bag, and mulder is simply holding lots of beer!!!!

OH MY GOD, jump to the lone gunmen??? frohike is cooking for them!!! and he has an apron and a bandana, LMAOOOOO. but domestic bliss is over, because scully is here to interrupt!!! with morris-as-mulder. he’s wandering around their studio as scully asks them to figure out wtf the flight data recorder says.

scully tries and explains that this is not mulder in the room with them. 

MORRIS KNOWS WHO THE LONE GUNMEN ARE???? he says that they believe all the stuff his people make up!! “there is no saddam hussein” <- LMAO??? he’s just some random guy?? wow. wildest in-universe reveal yet.

(fascinating implications for the lone gunmen's journalistic abilities after morris claimed that the stories they pick up are the ones men like him spread. makes you wonder how much of what they are publishing is legit, how much is propaganda, and how much are weird tabloid and internet stories of bat boys and the like. or perhaps that was just a silly throwaway line from morris, and there is no real meaning behind it at all. hmm....)

frohike nearly throws hands, but scully pulls him back. i would have supported violence, but we must not injure mulder's body so that when his spirit is returned to it, it will be a smooth transition.

back in nevada, mulder-as-morris is here with general wegman. and he knows that he is really mulder!!! but sadly, real morris also knows that wegman is the snitch who reached out to him. he sabotaged the craft so that mulder could see it and so he could ask if aliens are real. ohhh…. this makes me sad. they could have queened out together in another lifetime. hopefully wegman can flee to somewhere safe.

the gunmen crack the code in the flight data recorder!! it’s regular flight data with some extra stuff. morris-as-mulder is once again picking a fight with frohike, but how do we get their bodies back?!

abrupt jump. why are these people kissing out in area 51? i don’t want to see all that. oh no. are they going to get body swapped, too???

NO!!! they got melted together!!!!!

well. um. okay.

mulder-as-morris is waiting somewhere. scully is here!!! and so is real morris!!!! 

oh no... another mulder and scully reunion, but this time it seems sad: “you don’t look too happy. don’t tell me i’m going to have to put two kids through school” “that is you in there mulder, isn’t it?” <- OHHH NOOO…. how are they going to fix this???? just stand out in the desert for a bit until the thing comes back!!!

she can barely look at him as she tells him she doesn’t know what to do, because the schedule of the time warp is so random. 

and back in DC, morris-as-mulder has become kersh’s new golden boy; “that son of a bitch confesses to kersh even more than i do to my priest” 

a little gallows humor. because scully is out of the bureau!!! she was relieved from her position!! WHAT!!!

“no. you can explain it to them like you explained it to me. you have the data. you can make them understand. you can get your job back” <- OHHH, he is so convinced that they’ll believe her….. even if it seems ludicrous…. he has that Hope to him. that kind with claws.

“i’d kiss you if you weren’t so damn ugly” OHHHH MY HEART……..

“if i shoot him, is that murder, or...?” “neither, if i do it first” <-AWWWW, this is so sad…. imagine losing your best friend to someone else forever and ever, and then knowing he would have to live a random guy's life... oh. it would make me cry!!!

she grabs his arm and walks away before they both cry, and then he presents her with sunflower seeds to remember him by.

(GOD. THIS KILLED ME)

he watches them drive away…..

but the guy whose friends who got melted together stops the guys from area 51 who work for morris!!!

the couple who were formerly melted into one are fine now, though?? somehow?? it seems they were just hooking up?? area 51 guy says he believes him. 

poor scully is driving home with morris. he calls her “DANES”??? EVIL!!!! 10,000 years in jail.

he offers to put a word in with kersh to get her job back… does he truly have this power?? i suppose it is a somewhat kind gesture, but it would mean working with morris for a living, and i think she would rather just go be a doctor somewhere.

WHAT THE HELL? the gas station that was burned down last episode is back??? and the attendant who was shot doesn’t remember anything??? 

back in area 51, they’re bringing captain mcdonough to mrs. chee… is there a solution to this whole situation???

morris' wife is screaming at scully as mulder-as-morris is being stopped by her!!! SCREAMING "HOMEWRECKER" AT SCULLY IS CRAAAAZY

morris approaches! is he going to be able to convince his wife that he is actually the one who is married to her???? even though he has some other dude's face??

he’s reciting facts about their wedding!!! and then their relationship!!! and he does convince her!!!!

she still deserves better than him, but i am glad she at least has accepted the truth and that mulder did not split their family apart forever

but- they have to get back to the highway where this went down right NOW!!!

the area 51 guys come to get mulder-as-morris because they think he is a traitor???? WE DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS!!!

the other guy stops them in the road, though!!! he figured out how to get captain mcdonough and mrs. chee in the right bodies!! he didn't want to get in trouble- LMAO, that is such a real motivation. i understand.

so time will snap back?? and no one will remember this??

DID MORRIS SLAP SCULLY'S ASS AGAIN???? AND HE SAID "IT'S BEEN REAL?" oh, if i were mulder, i would have MAULED the guy. but maybe there isn't time for violence as the time warp is imminent.

and they go back to where we started last episode!!!! going to drive off after being stopped by morris and told to leave!!!

AND WHEN THEY GET BACK, KERSH DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE THEY WERE GONE!!! HOORAY!!!! 

she tells him she's sad his source didn’t work out… oh :(

“hey, scully? i, uh, know it’s not your normal life, but… thanks for coming out there with me” <- OHHH STOP??? I’M GOING TO MELT

she says "you're welcome with a smile" and then hangs up. ohh... my heart <3

he’s entering his apartment… is there going to be a massive bed in there somehow that escaped the time loop…?

oh my gosh!!! she finds the weird coin from the gas station, and he finds his apartment totally redecorated!!!

AWW!!! we got the best ending: none of it happened!!!!!! oh, things brings me so much joy.

his apartment though, LMAOOO! i know he was losing his MIND!!!!! he checked outside to make sure it was the right room, and it was!!!

ah, so they have no memories from those horrible few days. this is for the best. because none of them were enjoyable!!! and morris can go back to his life with no interruptions!! 

you know, i’m usually not into a story ending with a variation of “and it was all a dream”, but in this case, it was the best thing that could have happened. 

oh, how lucky they are to be in the timeline that they are in… wow.

and this way, scully will never have to remember anything more than a roadtrip!!! no evil morris!!! thank god!!! i rejoice!!!

and mulder said thank you for coming with him :,) and she said you’re welcome. even though it’s not the normal life she wants. ohhh… i am having Feelings about this.

man. well. i am glad all things ended this way. although, i am sure mulder is not going to be pleased about all his stuff being gone!!!! 

ah. i can relax now. at least for a few minutes. it's more enjoyable in retrospect when you know everyone makes it out alright.

so, despite my uncomfortability with morris as a whole and being at the edge of my seat because i thought there might be no escaping this sticky situation, it was an enjoyable set of episodes! shoutout to frohike for being a chef also

i see the next one is a christmas episode!!! oh, i wish i could have timed this whole thing a little better; i’m a month off from christmas. but i shall have to put myself in a jolly mood somehow. i look forward to it!

[carefulfears]

Do you think mulder ever stops blaming himself for scully’s cancer?

no…i don’t think so. it’s really sad to think about, honestly.

but i think about nothing lasts forever:

if only you had fled earlier. do you know how many times i’ve envisioned that scenario? where you left that basement office before i even needed glasses? you’d have your health, your dog, your sister. you’d be kersh’s boss at the FBI. you’d be married to some brain surgeon…and have a bunch of kids you wouldn’t have to give up.

man blames himself for that alligator eating her DOG like TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ago!!

the first time they chased a monster together, he told her she'd be head of bureau by the next time tooms came out of his lair, and 25 years later he tells her it's his fantasy that she was.

and the first thing on the list of loss that he laments is her health.

it's similar to requiem, 18 years earlier:

knowing everything that's been taken away from you...a chance for motherhood and your health and that baby. i think that...i don't know, maybe they're right...it's the personal costs that are too high. there's so much more you need to do with your life. there's so much more than this.

lying on that motel bed, he tells her to go home. to leave him in bellefleur where they started, that the cost is too high. that time, her health was second on the list.

now, this is just my personal interpretation, but in both of these scenes, scully had been relatively healthy since her remission. any little spells she had (such as collapsing in requiem or the bridge in the red and the black) were attributed to her chip, which is a byproduct of her illness.

so, to me, he's referencing her cancer and resulting near-death.

i think in requiem he was the closest he's ever been to moving forward. it was post-closure and acceptance about samantha, and he doesn't directly blame himself in that scene when he tells her to leave. i think he would have gone with her.

but then that list just kept getting longer. he went back to bellefleur. he didn't come home. he had 48 hours with their son. that’s all. she was alone, in the end. she lost everything to live in that haunted house behind that gate. he couldn’t make it livable, couldn’t keep her from leaving, can’t blame her that she did.

i hate to say it guys but this is the ouroboros of his character! this is walking into the same room every day! there are a lot of things that could've made it different. i think getting to raise that baby and the natural conclusion of this never-ending sisyphean quest would've gone a long way to making things different.

but things weren't different, things stayed lost children and missing time and it all being his fault. so no, i don't think that cancer ever got taken off the list.

[ismelinor]

A Dustland Fairytale (9/12)

Read on AO3 | tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 9: The Light Behind Your Eyes

Scully found a certain enjoyment in the grand feasts at Camelot, even after four years of pouring wine at them. She got to spend most of her time leaning against the wall, observing Camelot’s finest as they got progressively drunker and stupider. Each time she leaned over Mulder’s shoulder to clear a plate, they’d exchange pleasantries under their breath: his personal favourite was ‘kill me now, Scully’, and then she would point out an indiscretion taking place in the shadows to entertain him, or he would do his impression of Skinner sighing and rubbing his eyes and they’d both look over at the court physician and giggle. Skinner loved that.

Even better, Scully had recently learnt a spell that allowed her to switch two objects in physical space, which Mulder found endlessly entertaining. The trick was to wait until Mulder’s hand was obscured under the table, and then she could switch out one of his rings with whatever she could find: a goblet, peas from the plate she was supposed to be clearing – last week, she’d managed a whole bowl of sweetmeats. Then she got to watch as Mulder smothered a laugh, trying to figure out what the object could be without raising it above the table, before she switched it back. Skinner, of course, disapproved of such frivolous use of her magic, but after six years of these feasts, they had to make their own entertainment.

It was fun – usually.

Tonight was not shaping up to be a fun one. The king had made it very clear that Mulder was on the thinnest of thin ice: he’d missed training with the knights that morning (because the two of them had been bargaining with a man who was trying to rob the vaults of Camelot and his wife, who insisted that they were living the same day over and over and it always ended in disaster – it was a long story). Samantha had tried to cover for them, telling the king that Mulder was unwell in the apothecary – only Skinner had told a different story, saying that he needed a herb from the perilous lands and the prince had escorted Scully there to ensure it was returned safely. The result was that Spender was furious with everyone, Mulder most of all, and the lords and ladies were too frightened even to get drunk.

It was the most tense Scully had felt at a banquet, and she’d drunk poison at one of them (another long story). Spender sat flanked by his advisors, Kersh and Strughold, and they reminded Scully of a snarling three-headed dog she’d once fought off with Mulder (wow, Scully didn’t realise how many long stories she had in her). Mulder, for once, seemed to be taking the danger seriously – perhaps because this time Spender had threatened Scully’s job – and was picking at his food in sullen silence, hands remaining steadfastly above the surface of the table.

When the doors flung open, lords, ladies and servants alike looked up eagerly, hoping for some alleviation of the funereal air hanging dank in the banquet hall. It was a pair of knights, dragging something small and limp behind them. Scully first thought it was a puppet, so pale and lifeless did it seem, but no – it was her little girl. It was Emily.

Mulder was the first on his feet, leaping clear over the banquet table to get to Emily. She was just starting to wake up and gave a little laugh when she saw Mulder’s panic face. Even in the midst of the wordless, paralysing terror gripping her, the sound warmed Scully’s heart.

The knights were addressing the king and she tried to pay attention, though she couldn’t take her eyes off Emily – still so small, and battered and bruised all over.

“-found her in the forest, conjuring berries out of thin air. She didn’t deny using magic, sire, so we thought we’d best bring her to you right away.”

The king didn’t hesitate. “She will be executed.”

It felt like the air had been sucked from the room. Scully gripped onto the wall to steady herself. There were men who Scully had seen cheering at executions with horrified expressions on their faces. No child had ever been executed for magic, as long as Scully had lived in Camelot; in Mulder’s father’s time, she knew, even teenagers were pardoned on charges of sorcery. In the ensuing silence, several pale-faced ladies filed out of the room.

“She’s just a child. An innocent,” Mulder cried. Spender turned his eyes on the prince and twisted his mouth into his usual half-smile.

“There is no innocence in magic, boy. You’re too soft. You will kill her.” He unsheathed his dagger and held it out to Mulder.

Mulder stared at him incredulously. “I would sooner kill myself,” he said steadily.

The king narrowed his eyes. “I had hoped I’d taught you better than this. You will kill the child, or you will be tried as a sympathiser to magic.”

The queen averted her eyes, but she said nothing. Scully stepped forward but Mulder caught her eye and shook his head. Before he could say anything, Emily spoke, with her chin pushed out proudly.

“I am a high priestess. No mortal blade will harm me.” If Scully hadn’t figured out that was a bad thing to reveal, the colour draining from Skinner’s face would have told her.

Strughold whispered something to the king, who nodded. The royal advisor left the room hastily.

The king looked around the room. “You are all dismissed for the evening. Rest assured that no threat to Camelot will go unvanquished under my reign. We will forge a kingdom that is safe, peaceful, and prosperous.”

Scully did not move. Nor did Melissa. Strughold pushed his way back into the room through the tide of silent nobles flooding out. He handed a vial of something dark and viscous to the king, who coated his dagger in the liquid.

He made his way over to Emily, who was clinging onto Mulder’s hand and half-hidden behind him.

“Do you know what this is?” Spender asked her, holding up the dagger.

Emily said nothing, but she looked over at Scully with eyes filled with terror. It was wrong, seeing this strange little girl, this oracular figure from her dreams, shaking with fear. It was easy to forget that, despite her gifts of prophesy and magic, Emily was, above all else, a child.

“This is a dagger coated in the venom of a serket. Serkets, like you, are abominations, but their venom is remarkably useful. It can be used to kill any creature: even a high priestess.”

Emily’s bottom lip wobbled.

“I won’t let you touch her,” growled Mulder, pulling the girl behind him.

Spender waved his hand and three of the knights leapt on Mulder. He was putting up a fight, kicking and punching with all his might, but he was no match for three well-armed and well-trained men, and they had him on the ground in no time.

Standing in the centre of the banquet hall, almost comically mismatched, Spender and Emily stared at one another. She did not try to run, even as the king raised the dagger.

“If you kill me, you damn Camelot to ruin. Your legacy will die with you, and the only time your name will be spoken is when your children are cursing your name.” Emily spoke matter-of-factly, in a tone that was entirely at odds with her position, shaking like a leaf at the point of a dagger.

And then Emily turned to smile at Scully.

~~~

As soon as she met Emily’s eye, Scully knew what was going to happen. It was inevitable, she could see. Yes, it was always going to end this way, wasn’t it? That was what all the tests were for, all this talk of destiny; four years leading to this moment. Her life, to change the future of Camelot.

She looked at Mulder pinned to the ground but still shouting at the king, at Skinner hastily clearing the last of the onlookers from the room (Strughold, bloodthirsty as ever, was the last to leave), at Samantha and Missy, both surreptitiously reaching for carving knives on the banquet table.

She made her way to Samantha’s side as quietly as possible and grabbed her wrist to get her attention. “Samantha,” she whispered urgently, “I’m sorry, but I need you to do something for me. When I give the signal, I need you to grab Emily, and I need you to run with her, as fast as you can. Get to the forest. Take her to the druids; she’ll know which way to go. They’ll protect you until Camelot is safe.”

Scully could see from the sadness in Samantha’s eyes that she understood. “What’s the signal?” she asked.

Scully smiled. “You won’t miss it. I love you both,” she said, reaching out to squeeze Missy’s arm. “Tell Mulder…tell him I’m sorry, alright?”

She took a deep breath, summoned her magic to the surface, and waited for her moment. Spender took hold of Emily by the neck, raised the knife, and started to swing: now! Scully squeezed her eyes shut and muttered the switching spell – just in time to feel the dagger piercing her chest, she’d done it. She stood where Emily had, Spender’s hand tightening around her neck – and, yes, she looked over: Samantha had Emily in her arms and was running from the room. And then there was nothing but a pain so blinding it eclipsed her every sense.

Mulder had her in his arms before she hit the floor – he really did have remarkable reaction times. That was Scully’s last coherent thought before she was subsumed by the chaos.

~~~

When she awoke, she was, to her surprise, in her own bed. It couldn’t have all been a dream – the excruciating pain in her side told her that. The question, then, was how she was still alive.

She tried to sit up and the resulting grunt of pain summoned Mulder to her side. He didn’t look too well himself.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Not as bad as I ought. What the hell happened?”

“You got stabbed, Scully. With a blade dipped in serket venom.”

“Yes, I remember that part, Mulder. What happened after that? How am I still alive?”

“How are you still-?” Mulder choke and turned his head. “How can you say that like it’s nothing? It’s-it’s everything. Don’t you understand?”

Scully was speechless. She took hold of Mulder’s hand and felt it trembling. He looked down at her, eyes shining with tears. “Skinner says that the serket venom works by draining a being of magic. You’re powerful, so it’s taking longer than it usually does. The king let him take you here instead of the cells because he said you’ll be dead within the week anyway.”

Scully tried to swallow that thought – the idea that she would cease to be in a few short days. When she had offered her life for Emily’s, she hadn’t done it blindly. She knew that she would take Emily’s place, quite literally, in one of the most painful deaths known to man. She took that from Emily gladly, not because Emily was important to the future of Albion (though Scully knew she was), and not because it was written in the stars (though perhaps it was), but because she was only a little girl and she had so much life left to live.

But in making that decision, Scully had assumed that her death would at least be quick – like pulling a dagger from a wound, which Scully, unfortunately, had experience with. This slow draining of her life force was not what she had expected.

“I’m sorry, Mulder.” It was all she could think of to say.

“You’re not going to die. We’ll find a solution – don’t we always find a solution, Scully? Melissa and Skinner are looking over the books right now. You won’t die, Scully.” He sounded like he was pleading with her.

Scully could only shake her head. “You can’t mess with this kind of magic, Mulder. Haven’t I always told you that magic requires balance? A life for a life – I gave mine willingly for Emily’s. No one should be sacrificed for me, alright? There’s been enough blood shed.”

Mulder was crying now. She pulled his face to her shoulder and ran her fingers through his hair soothingly. There were things she knew she ought to say if she only had a limited time left – and not just to Mulder – but if she was going to face her death head-on, she figured she was owed a moment of weakness, and she stayed quiet.

When Mulder sat up, she found that she still hadn’t found the right words to say.

“Come on, Mulder, you were just fine before I came along and you’ll be fine without me.” She tried for a light tone, but it sounded flat even to her ears.

His eyes bored into hers, like he thought he could save her if he just looked at her hard enough.

“I wasn’t,” he said, finally. “And I won’t.”

~~~

Scully had been strictly forbidden from leaving the apothecary. Skinner was worried that if Spender saw her walking around, he’d have her executed on the spot. What no one was saying was that, since she was going to die anyway, it didn’t really matter. It might have been kinder, in fact, than this painful, drawn-out death.

After a few days, it didn’t matter anyway – Scully couldn’t have left the apothecary if she’d wanted to. It was too painful to move more than a few paces, and then it was too painful to get out of bed, and then it was too painful to even sit up.

She had visitors: every time she woke, someone was there – Skinner, Melissa, even Pendrell, though he didn’t know exactly what had happened. They all put on straight faces and brought her the latest court gossip or fruit pilfered from the kitchens or books to read, but Scully could see the sadness in their eyes. She watched, day by day, as the hope drained from her friends, and it became more and more of an effort to pretend they didn’t know what was coming.

~~~

It had been about ten days since she’d been stabbed – longer than Scully had thought she’d get – when she woke up and knew with absolute certainty that this was the day she was going to die. She couldn’t even summon enough magic to light the candle by her bed, something she’d mastered at four years old.

Mulder leaned over and lit it for her. She hadn’t seen him in days, and she understood why. He, most of all of their friends, could not face this reality. Every time she saw his face, she was more sorry for what she’d done, and more scared for what it would do to him. She’d begged Missy to take care of him, and of course she would do her best, but Scully understood that their souls were tied in a way that could not be severed, even in death. If it were the other way around – if she were losing Mulder – she was sure she would be half anchored to the grave for the rest of her life. She only hoped that he would fare better.

“Come here, Mulder,” she whispered, because it hurt to speak.

He nodded and crawled onto the bed with her. There was something different in his eyes today – something more settled than the sad, searching way he’d been looking at her since she’d damned herself. She hoped that meant that he’d accepted her fate, but she knew him well enough to doubt it.

She couldn’t think of anything to say to him, knowing that they might be her last words. That seemed like a great deal of pressure. She didn’t remember the last thing her father had said to her before he died – goodbye, most likely, given that she was fleeing Ealdor. Mulder’s father’s last words, about dragons and betrayal, had haunted him for fifteen years. What if she said the wrong thing? What if Mulder forgot them – or worse, what if he could never forget them? It was too late, now, anyway. She gasped and pressed her face into his chest when the pain became overwhelming, resigned to a silent departure.

Scully fell asleep with Mulder’s lips pressed to her forehead – not even a kiss; his lips were open and he was mouthing something onto her skin through stifled sobs. She supposed she’d never know what he was trying to say, but she had a good idea, at least.

[melforbes]

cold, ocean, phonebook

post Drive

What she needed was a local dive, some seedy diner with busted red vinyl booths and laminated menus featuring blue plate specials and eggs any way you would like them. As dusk settled over the Californian sea beyond her, she flipped through a phonebook, thought of keywords for what she wanted: milkshakes, family-owned, titled as Chuck’s Place or Beverly’s Diner or even The Greasy Spoon. Biting her lip in concentration, she counted the waves beyond her little payphone, measured time with them as she looked over all of the listed restaurants from here to San Francisco. Loleta was an odd combination of seaside and rustic, rich and unpopulated; if she wanted a diner, she would have to drive, and after that day, she didn’t want to be stuck behind a wheel any longer than was absolutely necessary.

And Kersh had been called, and their asses were on the line, and their return flight to D.C. would be filled with her last moments of reprieve before an inevitable hailstorm of paperwork, liability, and unfortunately both metaphorical and literal manure rained down upon her desk, but somehow, she had the inkling that a good plate of corned beef hash at a checkered palace where neon lights claimed open twenty-four hours and where blonde waitresses scooted around on roller-skates would at least take Mulder’s mind off of exploding eardrums and the fragility of human life. Of course, the inkling was hardly backed up by solid scientific fact, and just last week, she’d told him that he needed to better his diet for the sake of his heart’s health, but nonetheless, she needed to find him respite, a place where he felt most in his element. First, a diner came to mind even though Loleta seemed void of any diners.

Back in her second year working with him, they’d been stranded in a snowstorm in Burlington, the roads closed and all of the native Vermonters snuggled beneath flannel sheets while she’d phoned her mother to say why she couldn’t make mass on Sunday. That night, they’d holed up in one of the few bed-and-breakfasts that had power, the lake effect wind rustling the shutters on her window, the television’s rabbit ears barely picking up a signal, and at two in the morning, when she’d somehow still been awake, he’d knocked heavily at her door, shouted to her, “I’m starving. Want to get dinner?”

And then, they were in a Ford Taurus - rented, of course - barreling over snowdrifts while plows on all kinds of cars - most commonly trucks but also Jeeps and Yukons and even the occasional S.U.V. - cleared what they could, silent and fat flakes of snow still falling well into the night. From the reckless turns Mulder made, and from the crunchy way the brake pedal on that car had felt even before the snowstorm, she clenched her fists on her lap for the whole ride, her mind repeating I cannot die in a snowstorm with this man, for that’ll be the most tragic way for me to go. While Mulder sought out a diner, they both realized that, apparently, there was a culture surrounding the idea of a diner and that so-called diner culture didn’t exist in Vermont, where shops closed at five in the afternoon and dared not reopen until morning. Stomachs empty, they made it back to the motel, where they managed two candy bars out of a vending machine and where they sat together on his bed, her boots left at the door while his were kicked off haphazardly in the middle of the room, and watched local programming on the fuzzy television. Unsurprisingly, Vermont news was tame to the point of hilarity; over processed chocolates, they laughed at how Mrs. Roberts’ grandson’s visit was the breaking story of the night, and when Scully fell asleep alongside Mulder, he was polite enough not to wake her until morning.

And now, she once again found that, when they needed a diner most, one would never appear.

Stepping over to where she stood at the little payphone off of the side of the road, he looked over her shoulder, asked, “Why don’t we just find a place to stay for the night?”

She took a deep, quiet breath, her eyes cast down at the Yellow Pages.

“We need dinner,” she said coolly.

“There’s a burger shack two miles up the road,” he commented; she wondered how he knew that while she’d been left oblivious. “Let’s just go there.”

She sucked her lips into a near-smile, went to nod when he quipped, “Unless that’s not up to your standards for my diet.”

But his little smile fell flat, held solemnness beneath it, and suddenly, her mind blanked, then centered on one thought: it was absolutely up to her to protect this man, to comfort him, for she was the only person in the world who could, yet she couldn’t even find him dinner when prompted to do so.

“It’s fine,” she managed, then set the phonebook back down, headed for the driver’s side of their rental car.

At the passenger’s side, he climbed in, and with the radio off, she pulled away from the ocean in silence.

They were lucky for the summer weather, for the lack of youngsters mulling about the shack’s picnic tables, for the fact that the place was still open even though the sun was beginning to set. Benji’s Burgers, a hand-painted sign on top of the place indicated, and the menu was simple, just five separate burger titles and their ingredients listed on a propped-up chalkboard. Two teenagers worked the place, and when Mulder asked if either of them was Benji, he received shrugs and the excuse that Benji was out of town on business.

“Burger business?” Mulder asked incredulously as they later sat alongside each other at a picnic table, plastic baskets of burgers and fries in front of them. “What kind of burger business do you have to go out of town for?”

In between bites, she commented, “Maybe this is just his side business.”

The sky formed a shade of bright orange, remarkable and vast above them; cars would occasionally buzz past the roadside shack, but mostly, the only sounds were the summer insects around them and the transistor radio that the two teens had set up in the shack. Currently, some staticky Spencer Davis song played, and she kicked off her heels beneath the table, let her feet rest bare against the earth beneath them.

“Benji’s Burgers,” Mulder enunciated, hovering his burger in front of his mouth, “a front for Benji’s Blow and Dope. This, of course, is just a side business. Doesn’t make nearly as much money.”

For his sake, she quirked a lip at that even though her face felt heavy with woe, her eyes tired, her uncertainty making her hands shaky as she went to take a bite of her own burger. Extra mustard, hold the pickles. He’d ordered for her.

“Do you think at all about dying nowadays?”

The question left her gagging on her bite, one of her hands coming to her mouth while she forced herself to chew, swallow, find words. Before she could speak, he smiled to himself at her response, admitted, “I didn’t mean to make you choke.”

Embarrassed, she defended, “It was an abrupt change of subject.”

“We can’t lie as though it wasn’t on our minds.”

She took a deep breath, said, “No, we can’t.”

“With the cancer and all, it must’ve been hard not to think about it,” he said, “but do you ever thinking about it now?”

“About dying?”

He nodded softly, honestly, so she shrugged, offered, “Sometimes, I guess. When we thought Crump-”

“Mister Crump,” Mulder corrected, then took another bite of his burger, Benji’s so-called special sauce leaving a red stain alongside his lips.

“Well, when we though that Mister Crump had been infected with something bacterial,” she repeated, “I thought about dying.”

“How did it feel?” he asked. “The concept, I mean. The thought of it all.”

She weighed her words, gave, “Horrifying. Uncomfortable. But in the end, your only option is acceptance.”

“It’s not your only option,” he said. “You could be kicking and screaming until the very end, right until that profound plug is pulled. You’d don’t need to accept a thing.”

“You need to accept it if you want peace of mind.”

“Who cares about peace of mind?” he asked. “If you’re going to be dead, then why does it matter?”

And to that, she had no response, so she stared down at her lap, the fries in her basket going cold, a sedan driving past at a speed that deserved a ticket. Uncomfortably, he shifted his weight, finished off his meal, kept his eyes down.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m being an ass.”

“You had a rough day.”

“He didn’t deserve to die, Scully.”

“Does anyone?”

Humorlessly, he laughed.

“You don’t want to know my answer to that,” he admitted, meeting her eyes.

She stuck a cold, unsatisfying fry into her mouth and wondered where they would stay tonight as she chewed.

“I just think that today’s injustices were avoidable,” he said, unbuttoning two buttons on his shirt and ruffling his - dirty, she might add - hands through his hair. “You said that everyone in that home area was dead. There’s no way a government can rationalize that.”

“A government can rationalize anything,” she mumbled as he chose not to listen.

“How many more people have to die, Scully?” he asked. “How many more innocent civilians have to get in the way before someone, anyone, realizes that this is unjust?”

“You’re assuming they don’t already realize that this is unjust.”

“I can’t keep doing this anymore, talking to rednecks about their beets and pretending I’m making a difference,” he said softly. “There’s so much more out there, so much more I could be doing.”

“We’ll find our way back to cases like this,” she assured, bringing her palm to rest on his leg. “We’ll solve x-files again. We’ll be able to help again.”

“But what have the x-files done for either of us?” he asked, his tone stark. “They caused your abduction, your cancer. They’ve attacked our families, and for what, Scully? For next to nothing. If we do something, people die. If we don’t do something, people die. There’s no way out of this.”

As Jim Croce crooned hazily through the teens’ radio, she folded her hands on her lap, swallowed hard. Though she wanted to offer something, to say that everything would be fine and that no one would ever die again and that the world, though he had never been able to see it in such a way, was, at its depths, a good place, she couldn’t offer any of that without knowing her statements would be lies. Breathing in, she closed her eyes, felt the soft touch of a breeze, could smell the sweat and grime heavy on his skin; when she thought of their flight home in the morning, of the inevitable meeting with Kersh, her heart began to race, so she pushed those thoughts away, forced herself to find something that would comfort him. Her search for a greasy spoon had failed; her consolation efforts were nonexistent; though she thought she knew him better than anyone else did, she still couldn’t find words to take his mind from the injustices of the universe. The injustices of men, she corrected herself. The injustices of the world were mauled animal corpses left to rot in the savannah; the injustices of men were a slew of deceased bodies as a product of government experiments.

Opening her eyes, she reached out, took his sticky hand in hers, entwined her little fingers between his thick, calloused ones. The sky was fading to darker tones, and by now, she knew he needed somewhere to rest and wash, but she still searched for something to say, some little compliment or inside joke or anything else that would bloom a smile of his, but her search continued to be fruitless.

“You’re pensive,” he said with a dry laugh, but she could hear a hint of nervousness in his voice.

Softly, he curled his fingers against hers, so she sucked her lips into a smile, spoke the first words that came to mind.

“Some of my best memories are with you,” she said, the compliment absent-minded and unrelated, but as she looked up, she saw the stunned look on his face, the deep blue-grey of his eyes, the way he looked at her as though everything else had momentarily faded away, leaving only her dry and freckled face in its wake. With sauce still on his cheek, he was messy and unshowered and himself, and she wanted to curl her arms around him and reassure herself that, even though death seemed to follow them wherever they went, it had yet to touch them and that that was a good thing.

Glancing down and breaking their eye contact, he smiled toward his shoes, said, “Let’s go find a hotel, Scully.”

Exhaling, she nodded, said, “Somewhere nice.”

“On the bureau card?

She gave him a look, said, “We’ll call it repayment for the talking-to Kersh’ll give us in Washington.”

Smiling, he stood, pulled her up as well. She picked up her heels and dangled them from her open hand while he led her back toward the car, but before he could go around to the passenger’s side, before he let go of her hand, he added, “Scully?”

She hummed a response, looked up at him with new perspective; she so rarely stood next to him flat-footed, so the positioning reminded her of the moment when he’d held her in the hospital after Penny Northern had died, of how warm and alive he’d felt alongside her dying body. Absently, she wondered how his arms would feel now, California nighttime surrounding them, unrighteous death behind them and personal anger ahead.

Looking down, he admitted, “Most of my best memories are with you too.”

Then, he ducked over to his side of the car, and as she opened her own car door, as she slid her shoes back on, she didn’t realize that she’d begun to smile.

[skullchicken]

Part 2 - The Hug of Death

(again, this is me recounting my shadowrun-character Alberich's adventures. it is very self-indulgent, though of course I hope I'm making it entertaining.)

Part 1

One thing you should know about Alberich is that he is a people person. And, having left the Allied German States, he in turn has become... a bit lonely on the new continent. There is one friend he has, however and that is another Troll mage called Lohan, who owns a magic shop. And it is said friend that nets the group their next mission:

There is a compound that Lohan would like to purchase - but said compound is only sold by a mage who dislikes him. It is up to the group to buy it for him. But of course it doesn't turn out that easy. It's never that easy.

Dr. Kersh and his trusty spirit (when we meet them, they are debating whether Friends or Frasier was the better sitcom) don't simply sell the compound - they exchange it against services. There was this other shaman who had been interested in the compound, but a) she turned out to be a toxic shaman - with a thing for taking over people's identities to boot and b) she was too chickenshit to do the service. What is the service? Oh, just mosey on over into the crater in Chicago where the hoop used to be, past 100.000 insect spirits and place a a device there for like half an hour. But it's all good - they're throwing in some hazmat suits and Dr. Kersh will heal your radioactive poisoning at a discount!

So we move our way down the crater and past a herd of insect sprits like we`re the needles in the board game "operation" until we finally, finally make it and place the device.

I had been informed by the Game Master, that the area has, like, reaaally bad mojo and that as a magic user, Alberich is being plagued by headaches. It's because of this that he doesn't notice at first when the radioactive spirit children turn up. Now, by this point, we'd gotten a new team mate, Shere Khan, a physical adept. The most important thing to know about him in this context is that he does not like kids. And that while he's a very intimidating person otherwise, him trying to intimidate them into staying away only makes the little girl cry - which in turn agitates her brother.

The GM later told us that he was pretty sure we wouldn't have been able to take them - so it was a good thing Alberich finally snapped out of it to hurry on over there and console the crying spirits.

They turned out to be... weirdly normal for what they were. Mostly they just seemed bored, so Alberich tried his best to befriend them and play games - without having to touch them. So, word games, I spy with my little eye (many insect spirits in that one) and stuff like that. It worked out. Mostly.

"When you leave, the spirit children can't help but sneak in a hug, even though you told me you'd rather not", the GM said.

"Awww :)"

"You now have 7 kinds of cancer."

"... awww :("

Back at the prof's place, we arrive just in time to witness an assault by the Swamp Thangs - a notorious street gang. While that sure threw a wrench into our mission, at least it resulted into a fucking cool scene, where Shere Khan jumped out of the moving van to drop-kick a ganger in the head.

A Thing of Beauty.

Oh yeah, here might be a good a place as any to mention that the other notable thing about Shere Khan is that while he's usually frowning, while fighting he adopts a manic grin.

This might also be a good point to mention that I did not build Alberich to be a fighter. As a troll shaman in 5e you have a really hard time building a decent character since shamans are charisma and smarts-based and Trolls are... not that. On the other hand you get those sweet, sweet 5 body (constitution) and 5 strenght. Which don't really help you if you don't go into close combat as a mage... but I'd digress. During this fight I mostly made sure that Elf_Queen doesn't slip out of the van while she was hacking...

... and buffing the fighters. You see, I made him into a support/utility mage, which is why when I picked my spells, I picked supportive and useful ones.

I swear, I looked at "Acid Stream" and thought "oh, I could dissolve metal with that, that might come in handy!". So in absence of any combat spells, I kinda... started using that as a go-to spell once everyone was properly buffed? And the group wouldn't stop giving me shit about it. But I mean, how is this any different than slicing people up with a Katana or kicking their chin in, really? And also, at least I'm not the one smiling happily at the bloodbath while fighting...

Personally I think they were just jelly because they couldn't melt people.

I any case: The Swamp Thangs stole the fucking compound.

Time to get it tf back.

[monikafilefan]

Accidental Admission

Since it’s Mulder’s birthday, and I literally cannot remember nor find if I ever posted this on here, I’m sharing a fic I wrote last year to celebrate 1013!

tagging @today-in-fic

——

FBI Bullpen

10-13-1999

3:06 PM

“Ready, Scully?” Mulder asks, already half out the door. He whirls his jacket around his shoulder, sliding his arms through in haste.

She’s running late for the meeting. They both are. Yet, for once it’s her fault since she’s purposely stalling.

“Yep,” she tosses out over her shoulder, pushing the chair out with the backs of her knees. Knowing she can’t leave just yet, her heels stay perfectly planted to the bullpens floor.

Mulder turns and eyes her from the entryway, just waiting to stake his usual claim on her lower back.

“Oh!” She looks away from his gaze and pretends to gather their paperwork. “Go ahead without me. I forgot to print out the final autopsy results,” she lies, and feels his pending debate burgeon. “I’ll be right behind you, Mulder,” assuring him softly, knowing that he will leave but will take his sweet time doing so.

“Uh, alright. I’ll wait for you there.” He sounds confused as one, two, three seconds pass while Scully pretends to click through her files on the computer.

Finally, she hears his shoes move through the hallway, so she quickly grabs the card and pen she’d hidden under the files and starts writing feverishly.

Scully has always hidden Mulder’s birthday card somewhere in the office for him to use his investigative skills to find. He’d returned the favor after her cancer remission and it’s been an annual game between them—a tradition of sorts ever since. However, that’s not possible this year, so she decided last night to make due with their current situation and surprise him at the end of the day today.

To anyone else a simple card with a few rushed out thoughts scrawled out may seem minuscule. But to them, it’s the little things that mean the most.

After glancing up at the bullpen clock and noticing that nearly five minutes have passed, she hears Mulder’s distinct footfalls heading her way, so she hastily finishes the fluid motion of her pen without much thought.

“Crap!” She moves over and props the card up on Mulder’s keyboard.

She snags the files and beats him to the doorway. “Sorry, Mulder, I’m ready,” she mumbles, breezing past him while avoiding his questioning stare.

—

Twenty-four grueling minutes of not so subtle ass chewing later, Mulder and Scully walk back to their desks and Mulder groans at the new pile of unfinished background checks waiting for him.

“This day just keeps getting better and better,” he grumbles while cracking his neck.

Scully can’t help but laugh as she says, “Don’t worry, Mulder, I won’t let you suffer alone today.”

Mulder looks over to see her gesturing to the card in front of him and he smiles.

Feigning shock that she yet again had remembered his birthday, he opens the generically labeled Hallmark birthday card and reads attentively.

Scully watches his smiling green eyes flick across her words while she leans against the side of his desk. Watching Mulder read is secretly one of her favorite things to do, so when she catches his eyes narrow abruptly and stop moving, she thinks she must have made a rare spelling error. It wouldn’t surprise her with how fast she had written out her thoughts to him. She hadn’t even attempted a re-read before she stuck the card next to his lime green alien cup and hurried out to the meeting.

But as she studies his expression, she can tell he’s scrutinizing something over and over. Something that isn’t just a misplaced letter. That impossibly cute smirk he’d worn since he picked up the card is now being replaced with an all out grin. Her brow arches as she searches her memory for what that something could be.

She remembers writing her usual birthday wishes to him, explaining her plans to bring him dinner, and adding in her special words of affection for her friend at the end like she always has.

The last comments, ‘You’re my best friend, and even though you call me at all hours of the night, I’m still happy to see you in the morning,’ flash in her mind. Then each time, without fail, she would sign his cards with a ‘Love, S.’

Just as she’s about to question whether he is profiling her by analyzing her sloppy penmanship, Mulder proudly lays the card open on his desktop for the world to see and steps into her, just a breath away. He leans his face into Scully’s, pressing a warm and gentle lingering kiss directly on her mouth, engulfing hers with his own. His soft, plump lips caress hers for the briefest of moments while “more” is the only thing that enters her mind.

She gasps as he slowly pulls away, grinning in glee. Her eyes widen at his blatant actions of affection at work and barely comprehends that he’s speaking.

“Oh, Scully, me too. Me too,” he murmurs just inches from her mouth with his face aglow. Ignoring her stunned expression, Mulder brushes around her hip and grabs their hotel receipt. “Gotta run this to Kersh’s secretary so we’re not chewed out again. Be right back.”

At that, he walks out and leaves a shocked, confused, and now aroused Scully in his wake.

She snaps to attention, wildly searching the room for witnesses, and reaches over to examine the card when she sees none. Her eyes move rapidly along each word and as she makes it to the very bottom, she now reads what he did. Her jaw drops and heart pounds even harder than when his lips covered hers.

“Oh, my God,” she whispers while re-reading the phrase again and again. Scully worries the card between her fingers, then folds it up, and lays it back on his desk.

She cannot believe she’d written down her actual hidden feelings rather than her thoughts. Instead of the familiar signature of ‘Love, S,’ she had written, ‘I love you. Love your S.’

She’s completely embarrassed as her stomach tumbles somewhere near her knees, and feels her cheeks flush with instant heat. She walks to her own desk and slowly sits while she nervously taps her manicured nail along her freshly kissed lip. She can still taste him and can’t help but crave more.

She quickly runs through the scenario of what will happen when she faces him again.

Mulder could think she just meant that she loves him like a best friend would love him. Yet she instantly rejects that notion, since she’s never written nor said those particular words to him in all the six years and seven months that they’ve been best friends.

So, she decides that the most appropriate response to her fast and furious writing will be a tight hug followed by a, “Happy Birthday, Mulder.”

But because he knows her so well, and because she doesn’t want to ignore it anymore, she’ll just smile his way, gaze into his knowing eyes, and lick her lips to savor the taste of her accidental admission.

——

[scullydubois]

thoughts on The Truth (9x19/20)

Written by Chris Carter     Directed by Kim Manners

WOOHOO LETS GO

Gasp...Mulder

Where they at

Up to his old clowny ways again

Do you think Scully emailed him and was like, yeah, so I put the baby up for adoption

Krycek? I thought you were dead boy

Nice one

Dun dun dun

“About my son...and his mother” looks like that email went to spam

He’s a guilty man….he failed in every respect

Ladies...ladies…

Who dafuq are Dana and Walter, who’s he talking to

This is some A+ brainwashing

Krycek wyd

Is Kersh actually being helpful

I’m having some thoughts…

UM

Is that allowed?

That went on for like...a long time

It IS a party, Mulder’s right

They got Knowle’s body? WTF

Alright so...I’m not actually mentally capable for handling this

Gillian is doing some A+ acting

This whole ‘our son’ thing...detrimental to my health

Let it be known that I’m having a straight up bad time

Her laugh after he said he was out looking for the truth...please kill me

“I can’t tell you” you’re really gonna do this...now..GTFO

“That doesn’t make sense” correct

They needed to give Skinner a reasonable part in the ep so he’s gonna be Mulder’s lawyer...I have to laugh

Mulder’s gonna lose…

They’re really throwing flashbacks in here...I don’t know if I like that or not

Hey Spender

Lol...so it’s not that Mulder isn’t guilty, it’s that a government conspiracy justifies his actions

The sheer amount of summarizing here makes me uncomfortable...I know it was probably good for those who watched the show over a span of 9 years, but I watched all of this in the past 6 months...I know

GIBSON COME THROUGH

Scully’s snapping on Mulder...thank you god

“I’d rather die, Scully” you’re literally dumb, Mulder

TBH it seems like Mulder as a character grew out of his whole “the truth before everything” mindset seasons ago, why are we reverting him back to it

This is actually infuriating

“It’s you and me, that’s what I’m fighting for, Mulder. You and me.” Deadass!

His face...he knows he done fucked up

Thanks, I hate it (it being that scene)

Mr. X???

How did this Native American kid get Doggett’s address

I mean...good but

Marita however you spell her last name?? Where the fuck did she go after season 7

I feel like she’s one of the most irrelevant recurring characters

Mulder! Stop being dumb!

This isn’t even clowny anymore...this is just straight up dumbass

Gibson is spilling the tea! He literally pointed to this guy and called him out for being a super soldier...zero fucks! He’s never let me down!

Mulder is fired up!

If a boy who could read minds couldn’t help, how are Doggett and Reyes?

Alright Reyes is going off...I love her

GOD...all of this would be solved if William hadn’t been put up for adoption...they literally COULD have a demonstration...he is their physical proof of the truth they’ve been searching for!! In more ways than one!!!!

So far in this episode...Reyes>>>Mulder

Lucky break that Doggett got the corpse sent to Quantico

Literally zero way of physically identifying that as Knowle!

Skinner’s like…’so this case is irrelevant because the victim isn’t dead, so jot that down’

Sorry but...I can’t take Scully seriously here...I wish I could...but he went “You’re in contempt” and she did that kid argument thing of going “No, YOU”RE in contempt!”

This is the saddest excuse of a trial I have ever seen

Verdict time!!

Guilty of first degree murder...imagine watching the pilot episode and finding out that Mulder gets convicted of murder in the final episode..WTF

This is such an L...for everyone involved (both fictionally and in reality)

Mulder’s really making a speech after being convicted for murder...PLEASE

His crime is in daring to believe!

Did y’all know that the truth is out there

This is so dramatic LMAO

Scully’s about to pick up the phone and they’re gonna be like ‘death penalty!’

OH MY FUCKING GOD THAT WAS A JOKE WHAT IN THE ACTUAL HELL

This is so fucking terrible but I’m actually laughing hysterically because I did not expect that, I was literally joking

They waited until there was a verdict to break him out, when they actually could have just done it the whole time

Like...if y’all were just gonna break him out the whole time, why did I have to watch the stupid summing up of the show via the trial

Alright...maybe Kersh has some rights

Canada sounds like a good idea

Or not, do whatever the fuck you want I guess, you’re already on the run for murder

BITCH why am I seeing an empty X-Files office...not allowed in any circumstances

Super soldier guy, fuck off

The Lone Gunmen deserved better

You already know I love a desert episode

Sometimes i wish Mulder would just chill

Doggett and Reyes are really out here in a helicopter

THIS IS LITERALLY THE FUNNIEST THING EVER I-

I’m sorry but I cannot take this seriously...I cannot cannot

Mulder just spill it

“You’re afraid to speak the truth.” You know what? CSM is right and he should say it

Always about magnetite

Welp, there’s Knowle 

She wants to hear it Mulder!!

THE TRUTH IS THAT ALIENS ARE GOING TO INVADE IN 2012????? LMAOOOOOOO

No wonder I actually didn’t have this part spoiled for me ahead of time

This did not age well, not one bit

We got multiple helicopters out here now

And magnetite takes care of another one

Run run run

How exactly did the helicopters lose them

BYE

What kind of dramatic ass shot...that’s the worse thing I’ve ever seen

Hold on...I’m shifting into tenderness mode

The parallel with the pilot...please excuse me while I shed some tears

I have zero fucking clue what they’re talking about though

“Chasing after monsters with a butterfly net”...I have to cry

Okay but what the hell was Mulder gonna do?? Not tell her that aliens are invading for the next decade??

This shit’s kinda breathtaking though

Truly unfortunate that she would do it all over again though...I wouldn't

“Then we believe the same thing” WE WON LADIES

You really had to just grab onto that fucking cross huh...okay

Oh yeah????

Alright I can die now

Jk there’s still another movie and 16 more episodes

Consensus: Kinda a hot mess. Definitely didn’t need to be as long as it was. Had some interesting parts and some extremely laughable parts. I’m glad there’s more now.

3.5 out of 5 stars

[gingerstorm101]

A Picture of You

The beeping the of the machine was enough to drive him insane. He only wishes he can turn it off, but his partner has slapped his hand far too many times over the years. So for the first since he joined the FBI, he keeps the tubs and wires in without a fuss. Cancer. He has cancer. He couldn’t believe it, he thought he was done with that mass in his brain. But this time, it wasn’t there. He is sick of cancer, it’s plagued him far too long.

Now at age 64, almost ready to retire from his job as an active agent, he’s pressured into leaving the FBI for good. His health was too risky for them, they won’t take him anymore. Kersh, who has started to warm up to him as he started to slow down, has already called home to explain what was going on, and he was thankful for that. It aches him to have to tell his family that he was dying.

“And how are you doing, Mr. Mulder?” A perky middle aged nurse asks him, coming to check his vitals.

He doesn’t give her a smile, maybe a lift of his lip, but not a smile. “Good, I guess. Just wish my wife was here to help me get through it.” He pauses, playing with his hands. “She was always the strong one between the two of us. Fought cancer herself, beat it right into remission too.” He smiles for real this time.

The nurse smiles fondly back at him. “She did? How long ago was that?” She asks, making sure to check the bag of fluids.

“27 years ago.” He looks up to her. “She was so brave back then, I wish I had her bravery now.” He pauses again, careful of the needles and wires as he shifts in his bed. “I’m scared shitless. I have a 7 year old waiting for me to come home, and a 24 year old who doesn’t know how to raise a little kid.” He lifts his hand to run his fingers through his hair, wincing as the needle in his hand pinches him.

The woman beside him stands there in shock. “And your wife?” She aks, almost scared to know the answer.

“Recurrence.” He says, his throat feeling like it’s closing as he speaks those words and he feels tears swelling up in his eyes. “Two years ago, right here in this hospital.”

The room goes quiet for a long time, he figures the nurse doesn’t know what to say to him. He can’t believe he’s even telling the nurse this, but someone has to listen to him. He can’t tell his kids that he’s had this on his mind, he doesn’t want to scare his little girl.

“Do yo-” He swallows hard. “Do you want to see her?” A tear rolling down his cheek.

The woman smiles kindly at him. “I’d love to.” He points to the bag he has sitting on the chair in the room a little ways off from his bed. She gets up and grabs the entire backpack, handing it to him. He takes a moment to dig through his bag before he pulls out his wallet, inside was his target.

A picture of her.

He runs a finger over the curve of her face before showing the middle aged woman his prize possession of his wife laughing along with him as he took a picture of her on the front porch of their house. “Time goes by so fast, it’s hard to believe that it’s been 19 years since I took that photo.”

“She’s beautiful.” The women comments, a smile in her gaze, looking down at the small picture. He digs into his bag again, quickly pulling out a large book; a photo album. “You’re not the first person I’ve met who brings albums with them.”

“The mem- the memories, of her, our family, are all in here. Anything we could get from working together in the 90s is in here, all the way up until the last time I got our photos printed a couple months ago. The moment I knew I had cancer, I had to go back to her, to Dana, and cherish the memories I had with her once again.” He is babbling, and he knows it, but he has to let it all out, or else he’ll be crying the moment he sees his kids, and he won’t do that to him. “It’s not fair, you know. That our little girl has to lose both her parents to the same thing in such little time.”

The nurse sits on the end of the bed, listening to him as he pours his heart out, watching as the tears pour down his face.

“I don’t want to do this to Sammie, but I can’t fight anymore.” His lip quivers. “I don’t want to leave my family, but I miss her everyday, I miss the times we had together.”

He feels the woman grab his hand, holding it in both of hers. “It’s ok dear, just let it all out. You’re okay here.” He holds the album to his chest, his tears soaking his neck. “You’re not alone.”

There is a knock on the door.

His head shoots up, eyes wide. “Just a minute!” The nurse calls to the people on the other side of the door. She hands him back the photo of his wife and he dries his eye quickly. She waits until he’s ready for company before she makes her way to the door and slowly opens it.

“Excuse me,” He hears a small familiar voice. “Is my Daddy here?” He wants to start crying again, ashamed at thinking of leaving the little girl behind.

“And who might your Daddy be, sweetheart? We have a lot of Daddy’s in the hospital today.”

“Mulder.” Says another familiar voice, deeper this time.

His kids.

“It’s alright, Danielle, you can let them in.” The woman steps to the side to let the two in, greeting him with the excited face of his baby girl, and the somber expression of his son. The nurse leaves the three of them alone. “Hey kiddo,” He smiles to his youngest, careful is helping her onto the bed. “How was school?”

The child goes into animated version of her day, he does his best to listen, but the pained look on his son’s face when he gives him a one-over in concerning.

“Daddy, are you dying?” He was quickly brought his attention back to his daughter at her choice of words.

Wha-what?”

“Daddy. Are. You. Dying?” She spells out for him.

He clears his throat. “What makes you say that, sweetheart?”

She gives him the look, the one his wife use to give him all the time when she had enough of his bullshit. “You have Mama’s photo album. She had it too right before she died.” Oh. He had nearly forgotten about that, the growing book that has years of photos in it was also her way of feeling connected to the children when his wife was dying too.

“Please don’t lie to us Mulder.” His son comments from the seat his bag was sitting earlier. “We can handle it.”

He looks between his two kids, still shocked at the age gap between the two. “Yes.” He whispers. “I am dying. I was diagnosed with cancer this morning.” He doesn’t meet the eyes of the two.

“Cancer?” The little girl whimpers. “Like Mama?” He nods weakly, wanting to forget the memories that came flooding back from that terrible day. “But who will take care of me?”

The younger man in the room switches his gaze from the oldest to the youngest. “I have it… that… Jackson will take care of you.” The little girl looks over to her brother, who nods. “I don’t know how long I’ll last, but I’ll try to be there the best I can.”

“Before you join Mama in heaven?”

His heart shatters. “Yeah, before I join her.” He feels his lip start to quiver and his throat tighten again.

“Hey Sammie, how about we go get you some dinner from the cafeteria before you wither away to nothing.” The young men says standing up from his seat.

The little girl frowns. “Okay.” She leans forward to pull her dad into hug. “I love you Daddy.”

“I love you too, Pumpkin.”

With the room now empty, he was free to look through the photo album. The few pictures they had of the just the two of them in the early days of the X-Files were few are far between, but even less of her smiling. Flipping through the book, he lands on a photo of the two of them together, dancing, her looking back at him from their days after she was in remission.

The time has gone by so fast, that when it’s gone it doesn’t come back. And he wishes he could bring back the early days, tell her that he loved her way back then. But if he could leave this world with just one memory, it’s be a picture of her looking back at him.

---

Did you cry? I cried while writing this. It was suppose to be a happy fluffy fic, but somehow turned into this. I didn’t mean it, it just happened! A big thanks to @dana-katherine-sculder for attempting to edit it, but backed out when character death came up... Sorry hun! I promise a fluffy fic will be coming your way soon!