#i know this is my third story with mrs. scully

[baronessblixen]

Prompt: 9. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas post-ep, hurt/comfort, angst, fluff - all the fixings: Bill Jr. runs into Mulder in the middle of the night and it goes as well as you might expect. (wc: 1,286)

Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober2023

Fictober Day 22: Cookie Theft and Other Crimes

He hasn't been sleeping, but he thinks that if he had, he would be wide awake now. Whoever is coming down the stairs isn’t quiet. Mulder watches and waits. It’s not Scully, he knows that much. She’d never make so much noise this late at night. It doesn’t take long until he sees the culprit. Of course, it’s Bill Jr.

Mulder gets up – quietly – and follows the other man into the kitchen, watching in amusement. This man, who hates his guts, and has threatened to take him down more than once, has snuck down in the middle of the night, to steal one of Mrs. Scully’s Christmas cookies.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” It’s dark, but Mulder sees Bill Jr. jerk, his hand still in the air.

“What in- what the fuck are you doing here?” Forgotten are the cookies. Bill Jr. stands up tall and approaches him. “Did you break into my mother’s house? I’m going to call the police.”

“Your mother knows I’m here,” Mulder says calmly. At least he thinks she does. He knows that Scully knows he’s here. Right now, she’s the only one who matters to him.

“Right. Why don’t I believe you? You weren’t here earlier. I would have remembered seeing you. Are you still not done harassing my family?”

“What is going on down here?” The lights come on and both Mulder and Bill Jr. blink in surprise. Mrs. Scully stands before them with tired, but furious eyes, wearing a big, fluffy robe. She looks from one man to the other, not caring who gives her an answer.

“This punk here-”

“Your sister’s partner,” Mrs. Scully corrects him and Mulder bites back a smile. Bill, however, snorts.

“Did you know he was here? He is sneaking around down here in the dark.”

“Would you rather I be in your sister’s bedroom?” Mulder realizes his mistake as soon as the words have left his mouth. Mrs. Scully isn’t quick enough and Mulder doesn’t even try to move away when Bill Jr. swings his fist at him. There’s a sound that reminds him of stepping on a branch, and the thought distracts him so much, that for a moment, he doesn’t feel any pain.

“William Scully Jr.! Have you lost your mind?” It’s only when Mrs. Scully touches his jaw that he notices the metallic taste of blood in his mouth and the throbbing pain that comes with it.

“He deserved it.” Mulder doesn’t argue.

“Go wake your sister, Bill,” Mrs. Scully says while she gets an ice pack for Mulder. “Sit down, Fox.” Her voice goes from livid to gentle.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Scully,” he says.

“It’s not your fault,” she says. “My son overreacted.”

“Did you know I was here?” She nods, holding the ice pack to his jaw.

“Not that Dana told me. I heard you two earlier.” Mulder blushes. There’s no reason to. They didn’t do anything scandalous. “She should have invited you all along.”

“She did. I didn’t want to get in the way of her family time.”

“Fox,” she says, giving him a stern look. “You are family. She missed you. I could see it in her eyes, you know? Not just you. Christmas is hard for all of us. It’s when her father… anyway. With what happened last year, in San Diego, I knew the day would be difficult for her. But she kept saying she was fine.”

“She always says that to me, too,” Mulder mumbles.

“That’s Dana for you. But you’re here anyway. I’m glad, Fox. I’m so glad she has you.” He nods, a lump in his throat. He’s not going to betray a confidence. This is not his story to disclose. He won’t reveal that Scully called him a few hours ago, her voice weak and trembling. She never asks for help. Never. Unless she absolutely has to. All he said to her on the phone was that he'd be there soon.

She opened the door to him and he took her into his arms. No words necessary. He held her as long as she needed it. They talked about Emily, and how she might have grown. How their lives would be if she were with them. Then, she finally fell asleep and he carried her upstairs. He could have left and maybe he should have. But he stayed on the couch, just in case. He’d planned to leave early in the morning before anyone else was awake.

“I’m the lucky one,” he says. “Because she’s in my life.”

Mrs. Scully is about to answer when two quarreling Scully siblings come down the stairs. He wonders how Bill’s wife and his son are sleeping through this.

“This is none of your business,” Scully says, pushing her brother away to get to Mulder. She immediately checks on him, her eyes full of worry. With her face so close, he can still see the redness from when she cried earlier. She’s touching his jaw gently, moving it this way and that.

"He started it," Bill says, but no one is paying attention to him.

“I don’t think anything is broken,” she says, her words brushing his skin. He smiles at her, hoping it’s enough of an apology.

“Well, then he can just leave.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Scully says.

“So?”

“Fox isn’t going anywhere, Bill. He’s our guest.”

“I didn’t invite him.”

“I did.” When Bill wants to say more, his mother stops him. “He will stay here and have breakfast with us tomorrow.” She’s looking at Mulder now and it sounds like a threat. He nods quickly. “Now,” she says with a sigh. “It’s late and some of us are tired. Bill, go back to bed.”

“What about Dana?” he complains.

“She needs to tend to Fox, thanks to you. What were you even doing down here?”

“Oh, you know,” Bill suddenly changes his tune, walking toward the stairs, “I just wanted a glass of water.”

“There’s water upstairs,” Scully mumbles but either her brother and mother haven’t heard her, or they’re ignoring her.

“Hey,” Mulder says once they’re alone. “How are you feeling?”

“I should ask you that.”

“It’s not often that I almost get shot and beaten up in one night. Merry Christmas, huh? But I’m fine.”

“Why did he hit you?”

“Said something stupid,” Mulder says with a shrug. “I caught him trying to steal your mother’s cookies.”

“Well, thank you for guarding them.”

“You said your mother baked them for her church.”

“She did.”

“She would have noticed one missing.” There’s a gleam in Scully’s eyes all of a sudden and she turns to look at the cookies on the table. “Scully, no.”

“We can blame it on Bill,” she suggests.

“He hates me enough as it is.”

“I’ll let my mother know that you made sure neither of her children stole a single cookie,” Scully says with a low chuckle. “You’re gonna be her hero.” Her voice is soft and sweeter than sugar.

“Do you think you can fall back asleep?” he asks, turning serious again. “I am willing to share the couch.”

“I’d love that,” she admits after a pause. “Thank you for tonight, Mulder. I didn’t get to say it earlier. I appreciate it.”

“Even the haunted house?”

“Even that. I know why you did it.” She kisses his cheek and then takes his hand. She snuggles into him on the couch and is fast asleep in no time at all. Mulder closes his eyes and revels in holding her. He drifts off to sleep with the thought that Bill Jr. is going to flip out tomorrow when he finds them entwined like this. He can't help but smile.

[carefulfears]

knowing you, you have probably talked about it before but i’d really love to know what you think about mulder’s savior/sacrificial lamb complex. i think it was csm that mentioned in amor fati that mulder’s hero complex would be the end of him one way or the other and it always reminds me of this essay “the gods show up” where the “tragic hero” is described as a human who’s by fate already dead, but keeps talking and trying for the sake of something bigger anyway (aka that post where you said mulder belongs to scully but that just ends up being the reason for her hurt because he also belongs to something bigger that doesn’t care for his well being). strangely it also reminds me of that interview where dd said “mulder is a guy who has been given the problems as jesus” lol.

this is such a beautiful question...the first thing that you have to understand is that i genuinely view fox mulder as a benevolent second coming of christ and every written word stems from the point of view of its author, so. the second is that i think duchovny had an understanding of the character that made that story/franchise what it was and his description of a "profoundly human model of christ" in writing the base-work of amor fati (a conflict between larger purpose and desire for normal life) is as unironically insightful as it is extremely funny. the third is that when mr. x shoves mulder against the wall of the hospital garage in one breath and tells him "i used to be you. but you're not me, mulder, i don't think you have the heart" - it's as much endorsement as it is damnation.

if you look at these two quotes from the amor fati dream

CSM to mulder: "You've suffered enough - for the X-Files, for your partner, for the world. You're not Christ. You're not Prince Hamlet. You're not even Ralph Nader. You can walk out of this hospital and the world will forget you."

and later, mulder to diana: "I have commitments-- to the X-Files, to Scully, to my sister."

CSM is meant to be playing the role of the literal last temptation, the snake-like figure that has to lead his prey astray. but those three things that mulder still has his sights on (the x-files, scully, samantha) are three things that nobody else is dedicated to. nobody else is going to keep those cases open and search for answers and care about those victims. nobody else is scully's partner: working with her, looking after her, fighting with and for her. nobody else is inspiring her. nobody else is remembering his sister, missing her, looking for her. the mother that leaves him in a hospital room in this episode, is burning last signs of life a few chapters later.

i've seen people argue that the problem with this episode and its larger arc is that "CSM is right and the episode thinks he's wrong" but i don't think he is right. i don't think he thinks he's right. i think he's doing a job and mulder is doing a job, both playing their roles, and his thesis is that mulder has done "enough" and suffered "enough" for his list of commitments- but what's enough when no one is gonna tag you out? when the speaker is waiting for a clear shot? (i'm reminded here of one of my favorite audries fic lines: "he sits on the bed, the line of his shoulders going curved and uneven. even hercules would have dropped the weight of this world.")

which is all to say (and remember my point#1 at the top), that i wouldn't describe mulder's "savior complex" as even really being a complex, i think it's just the world. i used to talk about sometimes how moving it is to me that mulder was born into this world and was always going to die for this cause and the story is about people who choose to follow. who have every opportunity available to them and want to do this work at any cost. who won't leave him in it alone, at any cost.

it's scully at the end of the road saying that she would do it "all over again."

it's skinner's "if given the choice between advancing my career by being blindly loyal to some faceless puppeteers pulling strings from the shadows, or to throw in with you two, make no mistake about it. i'd make the same decision every single damn time."

and anon i really love that quote you shared, which is from the gods show up by michael kinnucan: "The center of every tragedy is the image of a human being who has already died but keeps talking, someone whose face is a mask."

which, as you alluded, is what i define as the tragedy of mulder's character. that he was always going to die for the cause he was born into ("there is no other version of this story") and perhaps more tragic: that people depend on him, at any cost. that scully dedicates her life to someone who will list her as his tethering responsibility, but who doesn't belong to her. cannot be predominantly responsible to her, of her. harsh punishment for fruitful crimes.

[coffee-obsessed-writer]

From Monsters Under the Rug to Aliens in the Sky: This Is How I Found Myself Through Science Fiction

The town where I grew up was stereotypical small town U.S.A. No more than 3 square miles encompassed the entire town. We didn't even have our own high school or busses; you either walked to school, rode your bike or got a ride from mom. When someone had a baby or got married, you could be fairly certain that everyone would know about it within an hour or two, or be part of the celebration. It meant block parties, town-wide celebrations on Main Street, riding bikes to the lake to swim in the summer or ice skate in the winter. It was some real Mayberry kind of livin'.

To me, small-town life meant intense scrutiny, invasion of privacy, and ridicule, but that was because I was the "weird" kid. I tried to participate in sports and even tried out for cheerleading because I thought it might make me more like all the other kids. But, I was wrong. It just made me feel more out of place. I would have rather found a quiet place under a big shady tree to sit and read or write and talk to my imaginary friends. Real friends were scarce, and those that did hang around me did so more to see what the weird kid did for fun, not because they enjoyed my company.

One of the most vivid memories of those years happened in third grade. My teacher, Mrs. Thompson, had presented us with a contest hosted by the local bookstore that was open to the whole school, grades Kindergarten through eighth grade. We were tasked with writing a short story, any kind of story we could create, and the winner was given a $10 gift card to the store (in 1987, that was like having a fortune to spend), as well as having our story on display in the store.

My story entitled, "The Thing Under the Rug" won the prize, as well as looks from the other kids and townspeople that read it. I was a ten-year-old writing horror, and that didn't go over well in Mayberry.

Fast forward several years, to when my family moved out of that town and to a larger one that not only had its own high school but had TWO high schools! I thought myself and my weirdness would be more accepted since the population of the school there was more than four times that of my elementary school. Nope, wrong again. I was just as ridiculed and singled out there for my unusual style, drawings, and stories, as I was back in third grade, writing my award-winning tale of terror involving a thing under a rug.

There was a lot of isolation, tears, and feelings that there was something wrong with me because I didn't want to talk about what my peers did or do the thing they wanted to do. What I didn't realize, was that I was about to meet the friend I had been waiting for my entire life. His name was Fox Mulder.

No, unfortunately, Fox wasn't a real person, but the main character on a new show called, 'The X-Files'. He was a young, determined F.B.I. agent in pursuit of the truth about the disappearance of his sister, aliens and government conspiracies. His partner, the stubborn, level-headed Dana Scully eventually became a friend too, because she showed me that you can disagree with what someone believes, but still respect them enough to hear them out, and at least hold palaver about it.

Mulder and Scully, as well as the show itself, became a big part of my life right from the pilot. Mulder's peers called him "Spooky Mulder" and cast him down to the basement with a file cabinet of cases that were filled with crackpot accounts and alien abduction stories. I could relate to that in my own way. They would disparage him and laugh at him at every turn. I could relate to that too. But Scully, she was there for him even when they didn't agree. That was something I wanted to be able to relate to.

As the first couple seasons aired, a funny thing started to happen. I learned a lot about myself, the most important of which, was that I didn't care what my peers thought about me anymore. I was done feeling bad about myself because I didn't like shopping and makeup. I enjoyed oddities. I read Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King. My favorite movie was 'The Exorcist'. I liked reading about ghosts. I believed in monsters under the bed and in the existence of aliens.

On a much deeper level, I had already begun to question the religion I was raised in; never having felt like it fit for me. Dana Scully also struggled with her faith throughout the series, and even though the circumstances were obviously much different, I took solace in knowing that it's not a bad thing to ask questions. Regardless, if it is about lights in the sky or the cross you wear around your neck.

It prompted me to start writing more and writing material that I truly loved and believed in. I dove deeper into finding myself as an artist, as I watched these two characters also dive deeper into uncovering truths about themselves. 'The X-Files' opened a door that I didn't know existed, and when I walked through it, I discovered a community of people, albeit very small, that was like me. They were the misfits, the cast-offs, the ones who questioned everything.

Having this show in my life, and by extension, this group of people, allowed me to slowly crawl out of my shell and be more social. We held weekly dinner nights to get together to watch the show, all the way up to the series finale. When the revival aired last January, you better believe we got together online, since we are now scattered throughout the country, to talk about it and watch together.

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I love who I am now. I am a mom, a writer, a ghost hunter, T.V. binge watcher, alien truther and an X-Phile for life. I can only hope that as my kids grow up, they never fear to ask questions, and always stay true to themselves. Should they ever veer away from that, I guess I will have to introduce them to my good friends, Fox and Dana. After all, they are now only a DVD away.

[mchalowitz]

the woman is the king, part two

summary: a throughline of the matriarchal scullys; be they ethereal, sharp-witted, and ill-omened.

thank you to everyone who enjoyed the first part of this story! writing again has been so great and i’m excited for everyone to read where it goes from here! 

part 1: melissa

part 2: dana

———

The exam room is harshly lit, brutally overclean. When the doctor gives the diagnosis, it knocks the breath out of her, and she has the audacity to declare her gratitude. How could she.

The fragility of her age comes to mind on the drive home; her eyes prickle watching her copy of her oncology referral slide across the dashboard.

Dana is only thirty-three. Melissa was only thirty-three. She ponders her mother, Maggie, at thirty-three. Her destiny already decided; along for the military ride. She was carrying the fifth Scully child that year. Their matrarical line is cursed by the thirty-third year.

She simmers with the news for a few days; plotting methods of delivering impending doom. Mulder, the usual harbinger of bad news, is the one she tells first, and she believes using a clinician’s touch might soothe her.

The pronoun that binds them, the “we” travels from his vocal cords to their air between them. When he pauses, she can fill in the blanks of how he wants the sentence to end. We can do something about this or we can fix this. The problem is, there isn’t anything to be done.

Inside her head is a glass and cancer is the water from a faucet turned all the way on. They are merely waiting for the overflow.

--

Tara is pregnant; she is having a boy. Her brother’s wife is thirty-three. It must be so nice, to be dubbed a Scully, and yet remain so blessed at this foredoomed age. 

An appointment to be pumped with poison and Tara’s baby shower fall in the same week. What a scheduling nightmare, she jokes, when she declines the invitation with warm regards. Bill does not laugh and he buys their mother a plane ticket. 

The total lack of skeletal structure takes her over, has her melted into the couch. Scully finds the initial nausea passes quickly this time. It is the wave of self-consciousness from Mulder bearing witness to this betrayal of her body that lingers. 

“It must be kind of exciting,” Mulder comments. She is watching him wipe down the counter and she doesn’t remember a single time she has seen him willingly clean anything. He is not half-assing any of the responsibilities bestowed upon him by the Mrs. Scully. 

“It might be more exciting if it were someone else,” Scully responds, forgoing her usual diplomatic response on the subject. 

Mulder pauses, focuses in on her eyes, and in unsaid words, he nods in agreement. He throws the wet rag into the sink with a stomach-churning squelch and falls beside her on the couch. 

“You know,” she adds, “Melissa always said she wasn’t going to have kids until she was forty.”

Melissa would goad her into increasingly ridiculous futures; nothing is more ridiculous than futures that will never exist. Neither of them could have predicted such an outcome. 

When they were young, one Scully sister was rarely found without the other. It was only the intricacies of adult life that would split them apart. Melissa yearned for adventure; to shed ideals and expectations from their youth in far off places. Their parents envisioned a certain fate for their children, and Dana followed it, until she didn’t. 

As she conjures up those conversations about where their lives would go, she realizes she cannot even remember her voice. It rolls over her like a wave, the awareness of fading memories, and it cracks her guise held barely together. 

Her glassy eyes brim and she finally crumbles, feeling wholly pathetic. She lacks her usual resiliency that he is accustomed to seeing from her as she weeps, “My sister is gone and I have cancer, Mulder.”

“I know,” he says.

“I’ll miss everything,” she whimpers. The weight of mortality hits her; the decades worth of wasted holidays and the lost memory of her nephew’s birth. Scully will never stand in resolution with her partner after their tireless work for the truth. The loss of an uncomplicated life feels enormous. 

She laments what she was never sure of even desiring; the two-story in the suburbs, the babies of her own, the one true love...

“Let’s get married.”

--

His offer hangs in the air. Scully cries a bout of nausea and bolts for the bathroom. When she emerges, Mulder is there to tuck her into bed.

The sun sets and it rises again on a new day. She comes out of the bedroom apprehensively. Finding Mulder on one knee in her hallway isn’t an idea she can rule out completely. It wouldn’t even come close to the craziest thing she has seen him do.

Sitting at the kitchen table, Mulder rubs circles into his forehead with his cell phone pressed to his ear. She gets close enough to vaguely hear the caller on the other end, listen to the outrage behind, “I couldn’t even put the kettle on without her standing right behind me. In my own home, Fox,” and making it seem as though this is the only issue in the world that matters. And Scully kind of wishes that was true.

“That’s her job, Mom,” he replies. The tone of his voice almost makes her laugh. A polite but clear get me out of here she knows well that comes out during conversations with authority figures, midwestern cops, and not unsurprisingly, mothers.  

Their eyes meet, he looks at her as though she is his unsurpassable savior. He begs off the phone, making the usual adult child promises, and sets his cell phone down on the table. 

Scully commends Mulder for trying to be more involved with his family since his mother’s stroke. But what a fate he has, caring for the medically and emotionally broken women in his life. He gives her a tight lipped smile and she asks, “Is everything alright?”  

“Jury’s still out,” he declares with a shrug. He stands and starts walking toward the kitchen. “Can I get you anything? Water, toast, a ring?” 

A certainly interesting turn of events for them, a question that could develop into an actual conversation about the night before. 

“Mulder.”

“We could get married, Scully.” 

“This is so like you, Mulder. This is your stream of consciousness decision making,” she counters. Scully flattens her hands on the table, takes a breath, and attempts to change her tone to sound a little more kind. “I know the idea that I’m dying is bleak. But there are implications to getting married. I couldn’t do that to you.” 

Scanning Mulder’s eyes, Scully can see he understands what she means by implications. “Don’t think about that,” he tells her finally, “If you really believe this is the end, what do you still want to experience?” 

Scully’s eyes flash away, toward the door. Four years ago, she stood in that spot, and assured her sister unequivocally of her absolute disinterest in dating her new partner. Even if he were just a guy. 

Selfishness has often forced a wedge between them; a precursor to many experiences they would have as partners. His brilliance and humanity drew her in then, not unlike the way it does now. When the question was posed--just any guy--their debates were thrilling, a little flirtatious even, and now they can absolutely infuriate her, but she respects his ideals, and she knows that sentiment is reciprocated. 

On occasion, Scully is even a little selfish, and allows herself to appreciate just a guy with a little flop of hair that falls onto his forehead, and with the most charming smile. 

Whether it be guilt or admiration, Mulder wants her to experience everything before it gets taken away. She can admire the altruism. 

Mulder doesn’t ask again, he only suggests. And she accepts. 

--

The commencement of their marriage is without fanfare in a government building on a Friday afternoon with grocery store flowers and a safe kiss on the cheek to clinch the deal. There are no rings but he holds her left hand as they bound down the courthouse steps. During their late lunch at a local diner, the waitress notices their attire, and offers them a free slice of pie, any flavor they want, because it is a special occasion. 

A few paces ahead of her on the way to the car, Mulder opens her door. “Your getaway car, my bride,” he teases. The smile on her lips quickly fades. His jovial face morphs to confusion. 

But it’s the drip. Blood splatters on the clean, clear plastic protecting their chocolate cream. She tries to maneuver for her purse but he quickly procures tissues from the inside pocket of his jacket. 

He squats next to the passenger side of the car and holds tissues to the nose of his bride. 

--

Something is weirdly, intangibly incorrect. 

It starts with weekend plans. Mulder is already well aware of her singular escape, her monograph for the Penology Review, with its looming deadline coming up. 

He normally makes comments about her unwavering professionalism. It is a mutual agreement to keep their marriage to themselves. The federal government has no investment in the inner workings of their lives; they are legally married and they both know that could easily mean reassignment for both of them. It doesn’t stop him from sneaking in a few witticisms for his own amusement. 

Mulder knocks. That’s weird.

The wine is truly suspicious. Except for the occasional beer, Mulder was never much for alcohol to begin with, but what is especially bizarre is the sudden lack of concern over her doctor’s recommended meal plan. He had been following it down to the last letter, and while a glass of wine is not exactly forbidden, it is not the first item on their shopping list. 

“We never really talk much, do we?” 

Admittedly, the shared looks and delicate touches of silent communication is where they excel, but the question is still somewhat puzzling. Since beginning a routine of casual marital cohabitation, she believes they talk quite a bit. The minutiae of everyday life is often a topic of conversation in ways it never has been. 

Scully still plays along by agreeing that, no, they don’t talk. She sips wine and tells him true-ish stories of Marcus, the prom date of a Scully, but not herself, and the infamous pumper truck scandal involving her brother Charlie. 

Romantic intimacy has not exactly been a component of their marriage and she has found that cancer does not make one feel like the most desirable of specimens. He has never expressed anything to make her believe he feels anything for her beyond friendship, despite the deep affection they share. 

He leans in now; his eyes closed and head cocked. Kissing him isn’t a repulsive idea, but it just seems off, because Mulder is acting so strangely out of character. 

Scully scrambles off the couch to get away from the man that is so clearly not her partner. Absolutely horrified, she stares at Mulder, and has no reservations when he steps forward to cuff the pathetic and vile man that invades her living room.  

--

Many lines have still not been crossed and she doesn’t think they ever will be. The cancer is still aggressively present with the treatments doing very little. 

Scully prepares herself for the eventuality of hospitalization, potentially for good, and it is very tempting to keep that from Mulder, to allow them to remain in their bubble, but she knows that isn’t fair.

Her car idles on the street outside Harold Spuller’s care home and three soft raps sound on her driver’s side window. She sucks in air deeply and wipes the tears from her cheeks before rolling down the window.

“I didn’t mean for things to get so heated back there.”

“Me neither,” she agrees. When her eyes flash up to his, so guilty and fond, her words fall out in a tumble, unable to prolong this evasion of the truth any longer. “I don’t know why I lied to you. I’m not fine. My treatments aren’t working and my doctors don’t think another round will change that.”

“I’m in this with you, Scully.”

“I know you are,” she affirms. She ducks her head down toward the steering wheel, like a little girl caught eating dessert before dinner. “I’m tired, Mulder.” 

“I’ll follow you.”

His headlights shine in her rearview mirror, trailing behind all the way back to where they began this night in Georgetown. Arriving in the apartment, she shuts the door behind them, and informs him, “I’m going to take a shower,” and he nods, reaching forward to squeeze her shoulder. He loosens his tie and starts meandering toward the bedroom. 

The phantom ghost of his touch remains on her shoulder and it reminds her of his romantic soul that she is only now been introduced to. Mulder is more emotionally open and affection than she is. He treats her like a wife. They are married, after all. 

Their marital bliss is of their own design; enjoyably innocent with its lack of certain intimate elements left largely undiscussed. However, there is delight to be found in mere shared company. With a no-work policy now enacted in her home, the opportunity to see funnier, more relaxed, and domestic sides of each other often makes it feel as though their marriage could be real. 

An unspoken agreement to live this arrangement without rules creates something representative of authentic matrimony. Ignoring the initial awkwardness when sharing a bed leads to the normalization of pressing into his warm side each night; falling asleep faster and deeper. Leisurely playing with his hair while reading on the couch one evening introduced a few form of relaxation they both enjoy. He even calls her “honey” occasionally, and she must admit, it makes her feel pleasantly warm to hear it. 

It wasn’t right to keep him out of the loop.

Sitting on the tile shower floor, Scully washes the last six hours from her skin. In an attempt to prove to herself, to everyone, that she can still do this, she pushes herself too far. The best decision for the case was to take down the nurse. For her fragile body, not as much.

A small box sits on top of her towel. She picks it up, weighing it gently in her palm.

Mulder already lies innocently under the covers and appears deeply enthralled in his nighttime reading. He looks very youthful and sweet in his wire-framed glasses and his large feet poking out at the end of the bed. She presents the box in question and inquires, “Mulder, what’s this?”

“Hmm?” he murmurs. He glances up briefly, taking off his glasses. “Oh. Wedding present.”

Eyebrows drawn together in confusion, she sits down on top of the comforter, and cautiously opens the box. Her eyes fall on a gorgeously dainty bracelet with a small diamond affixed to a silver chain. 

“I don’t know what to say,” Scully finally admits. Mulder smiles, wordlessly leaning forward to close the distance between them. His kiss finally comes with soft lips and firm resolve.  

--

A keen ear kept on the exchange occurring in the hallway, Scully hears the malice in “let her die with dignity,” the intense intent to guilt. Since childhood, Bill has been masterful at identifying a scapegoat. 

Appearing at her bedside, Scully takes her brother’s hand. It has been quite some time since they were together in person and she is aware she should focus on the grand gesture of his presence. But they have always sparred on injustice and she just witnessed him as the purveyor. 

“I don’t want you to talk to him like that,” she tells him. 

It takes almost nothing to generate a quarrel between the two of them. “You keep defending him, Dana, and I don’t see what there is about him to protect,” Bill argues. “You wouldn’t even be in this situation if...”

“Fox has been very helpful,” Maggie interrupts. Their mother is well versed in deescalating the disputes of Dana and Bill; the oil and water of the Scully children. “Bill, sit down and be civil.”

Where Mulder pushes, Bill pulls, and Dana is left somewhere in the middle. Something akin to a jealous feud brews between the two men in her life; each vying for the role of ultimate fixer. It is only when Mulder orchestrates the impossible that her brother cannot deny the miracle. 

Most conversations were plans for a comfortable end or perhaps a prolonged, managed experience. The concept of remission, a life without the dark cloud of cancer, was a possibility never even considered. 

The day of her discharge finally arrives after a final weeklong observation of her progress, and Mulder, as a now regular fixture of the post-critical care ward, shows up to her room early as usual. He drops a bag on her empty hospital bed. “I brought you some clothes from your apartment,” Mulder informs her. “Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything as uniquely versatile as the hospital gown.” 

“I appreciate the effort,” she smiles, ripping open the plastic bag.

Scully can feel an awkwardness emanating from him with three feet between them. She is taking stock of the items he provided when he finally speaks, “Listen, I can be out--” 

With a week to discuss the topic, neither of them were brave enough to allow it. The last thing Scully wants Mulder to believe is she married him to take advantage of a kindness he extended to her. It was done with such a different outcome in mind; a selfless act with an outcome to be bathed in heartache. 

Now, there is no plan on how to approach where things will go from here. Scully didn’t ever think she would be in a position to have to consider it. 

At the very least, they deserve time to enjoy a lack of this particular impending doom. 

“Should we get dinner tonight?”

If there is anything they deserve more of, it is time.

It is health.

It is stability.

[gaycrouton]

I love your writing! Any chance will do more of Mulder sex therapist?

HELL YEAH MY DUDE!! I’ve been saving this ask for so long, but here we go!! I will update this story every time there is a new season of Sex Education. So lets all hope I have a chance to write more! As always, thank you to @admiralty-xfd for the beta!

Here’s the link to chapter one

For the first time in seven years, Dana Scully had no idea where her vibrator was. The pink, compact friend that had been tucked in an easy-to-reach location at all times, all over the U.S, was missing. 

And she didn’t care.

She was certain her little buddy had gotten lost sometime during her initial ‘therapy session’ with Mulder two weeks ago, but she didn’t have the slightest urge to find it. Mulder offered to look for it, but she told him it didn’t matter anymore.

“I hope you don’t think you need to stop masturbating on my account,” he’d reassured. “In fact I encourage it.”

But it wasn’t that. She’d spent years coming with that toy. Scully remembered vividly all the fantasies she’d enacted using it, pretending it was Mulder’s hand touching her, nuzzling into the pillows around her as if the firmness against her back or underneath her pelvis was actually Mulder’s body, desperate to push into her own. She still loved her vibrator, but she had years of human-induced orgasms to catch up on.

She had an inkling Mulder felt the same because she’d never come so much in her entire life as she did with him. His fingers, his palms, his mouth, his cock, even that one time with his knee. She was surprised she could even walk right anymore. She’d never had a lover so in-tune with her body, so responsive to her needs; you’d think they were his own. 

Scully just wished he’d let her reciprocate in kind.

Mulder was satisfied, of that she had no doubt. She’d never seen him as happy or carefree as he was nowadays. But for every instance of him going above and beyond to pleasure her, she was met with a ‘that’s okay’ or ‘wait, I want to try something with you’. Sometimes he’d relent if she told him how much she wanted to focus on him for a moment, but she could see behind his haze of pleasure that he was focusing on whether or not she was comfortable and when he’d be able to return to lavishing her. Her body appreciated it, but there was so much she wanted to do to him. So much he deserved to have done to him.

She didn’t understand why he was so reluctant to just enjoy himself without worrying about her. Well, it was kind of in character for Mulder. Maybe she was reading it wrong, but that’s how it felt. Did he think she was going to leave him? Or that this was conditional based on their first time having revolved around her issues? It made her uncomfortable to think that he was worried she’d up and leave if he wasn’t doing enough.

Maybe it was his hyperfixation. She’d seen it in play many times, and it usually held this much intensity. Was her pleasure his newest fascination? Probably. Maybe he was just always like this with other lovers. But why?

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked from the opposite side of the couch, pulling her out of her mental contemplations.

Lately they were usually at one of their apartments or the other. They were a bit like teenagers when it came to their excitement at their newfound intimacy. Sneaking around, stealing kisses, part of her wanted to roll her eyes at the juvenility of it all, but she was enjoying it far too much. 

One of her favorite recent developments was the game they’d play. Pretending all day like they weren’t going to go home together until one of them caved and asked. Asking was a role usually taken on by Mulder, as he found a lot of enjoyment in finding new ways to ask her. Asking her to come over through a crossword puzzle he’d made was a little silly, but it was cute nonetheless.

Tonight they were at his place, and she’d spent the whole time mentally formulating a way to bring up the question of ‘why won’t you accept my love as easily as you give me yours?’ She didn’t want to scare him; Mulder had the tendency to be as unnecessarily self-deprecating as possible and she didn’t want to give him any reason to go down that rabbit hole.

She turned to him, the Shiner bottle in her hands clammy with neglect. “I was just thinking of our first time,” she replied.

A familiar thousand-watt smile beamed at her as he waggled his eyebrows. “Oh?” he prompted.

“Mhm,” she nodded, slipping a leg underneath herself as she turned to face him on the couch. “I still can’t believe I didn’t know you were an underground sex therapist for so many years,” she mused.

“I’m a man of many secrets,” he joked.

“You tell me everything,” she retorted.

He nodded in agreement. “That’s true. In my defense, you accidentally found one of Frohike’s porn tapes in the office in your third month of working with me. I didn’t want you to think I was a total pervert.”

She rolled her eyes goodnaturedly and teased, “Does Frohike know he has a stash of sex tapes and nudie mags in your office and your home?”

He gasped lightly in mock-offense and replied, “Scully, you snooped?”

“Looking for towels in your hallway closet was not snooping. It was an awful hiding place, Mulder.”

“That’s fair,” he conceded with a smile. “Does it bother you?”

“No, me being mad at your tapes would be-” she started.

“No. I mean, that I didn’t tell you,” he interrupted.

She shook her head immediately. “Not at all. I just think it’s interesting. I’d never talked that candidly about my sexual history as I had then,” she answered.

He smiled, inevitably remembering all of the embarrassing things she’d confessed. “Did you find it helpful at all?” he asked, grabbing the remote and turning the TV down a bit so there could be more focus on the conversation.

“What do you think?” she laughed, looking at him playfully. He smiled back at her bashfully, and she made her move. “Have you ever done it?”

“Done what?” he asked, unsure of her meaning.

“You were the sex therapist, but have you ever talked as openly about yourself as your ‘patients’ have?” she clarified.

He looked down at his pants shyly and she knew her answer before he even spoke. “Uh, not really. I never really had anything substantial to say,” he shrugged.

“I doubt that, Mulder,” she chastised. He shrugged again as if to dismiss the topic, but she wasn’t done. “I want to hear your answers.”

“To what questions?” he prompted.

“Well, like the ones you asked me,” she answered.

“But, Scully,” he started lowly, leaning into her as if confessing something. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m very sexually happy as of late. I don’t need therapy.”

She grinned at his words, but pressed again. “But I want to know more about that aspect of yourself, Mulder. You got to hear about me defiling my childhood teddy bear for the sake of getting off. It’s only fair,” she replied.

He nodded thoughtfully at that and leaned back comfortably against the couch cushion. “So you want to be the doctor today, Dr. Scully?” he asked with a playfully sensual emphasis on her title.

“I do,” she nodded, excited he was taking her up on this.

“So, what would you like to know?” he prompted, turning to face her.

She thought for a moment, trying to think of the phrasing of the first question he’d asked her when the situation was reversed. “Describe your first orgasm, in as much detail as you can.” 

“It was similar to yours, actually,” he began. “A sensation I didn’t understand, but was curious about. As I’m sure you know, Doctor Scully, when I was really young I had some dry orgasms because my body wasn’t mature enough. It was never really ‘masturbation’ though. It was just me rubbing myself all around my bed until I shivered.”

“Shivered?” she chuckled.

He laughed with her and nodded his head. “Yeah, I had no idea. Then a few years later I decided to try and jack off. I knew the basic concept, but I’d never executed it myself.”

“What did you masturbate to?” she asked. “I’m presuming you didn’t have your tapes back then?”

“Don’t laugh,” he warned.

“No promises.”

“Mrs. Brady,” he admitted sheepishly.

Her mouth dropped open in amused shock, bust she kept in the laugh that threatened to escape. “Really? I took you as more of a Farrah Fawcett red swimsuit poster type of guy.”

“Well, that was definitely a heavy feature of my masturbation sessions in my later years, but my first love was Mrs. Brady,” he laughed.

“Was it the Hawaii episode?” she asked.

“It was that episode where the kids tried to scare Alice after having a battle between themselves, but the subplot was Mrs. Brady making a bust of Mr. Brady’s head out of clay to submit for an art competition,” he explained.

“I didn’t know you were such a fan of the arts,” she deadpanned.

“Ha. Ha. I don’t know what it was. Hell, she was in a green smock for most of the episode, but there was something so loving about her. One minute I was watching it, the next my extremely attractive 70s neon short-shorts were tented up to my belly button,” he shrugged.

She made a mental note to ask him for embarrassing photos of those shorts, but in the meantime, “Then what?”

He shifted in his seat and looked chagrined at the idea of finishing the story. “I went to my room and did the deed.”

“No, no. Mulder. Details. What aren’t you telling me?” she asked with a smile.

“It’s so embarrassing,” he laughed. She took pity on him, remembering a similar situation where he’d extended her that kindness. “It’s okay if you don’t want to answer. I don’t want to make you feel bad if it’s-”

But much to the relief of her curiosity, he shook his head with a meek smile. “No, it’s okay. Just bear in mind that I was young with no brothers or friends to give me advice. I was clueless.” 

“No judgement here,” she stated honestly.

“So I went into my room, locked the doors, laid in my bed, and took it out,” he stated, almost becoming entranced by the scene he was setting up. “I just played with it with my fingers and my palm, moving the skin up and down. I could tell something was different because it was wetter than usual.”

“Precum?” she asked.

“Precum,” he confirmed. “It also felt like it had a heartbeat, which was really freaky to me.” He licked his lips and took in a deep breath and she had a feeling the embarrassing part was coming up. Then, from out of the blue, he asked, “Do you know what edging is?”

“Almost bringing yourself to orgasm but stopping right before so you can cool down and build yourself back up. Some say it creates a more intense orgasm while prolonging foreplay,” she answered.

“Exactly,” he nodded. “I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, and I didn’t really even mean to be doing it. I just didn’t understand what was coming with the orgasm. No pun intended.”

“What do you mean?” 

“It was my first real time. The only thing I could compare the sensation to was having to pee. Every time I was about to come, I thought I was going to piss myself. So for a good hour I was just edging,” he laughed awkwardly.

“Holy shit,” she balked. “As a kid?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn. Why didn’t you go to the bathroom?”

He pursed his lips a little bit before nodding slowly. “Well… I did. But the reason I didn’t was because the only bathroom was connected to my parents’ room.”

“Oh no…” she cringed.

“So I all but ran in, locked both bathroom doors, and went to the toilet, where luckily a Diner’s Club Magazine was there with a nice looking woman on the cover,” he laughed. “So I ran the water and resumed touching myself and within a few pumps of allowing myself to release, I came.”

“That wasn’t embarrassing, Mulder. We’ve all masturbated to things we’re not proud of,” she reassured, squeezing his hand. She saw his face cringe and she knew there was more. “What?”

“I didn’t know about the ejaculation portion of an orgasm since all of mine had been dry. It was a lot, and I was so scared by the come and the power of my orgasm that I thought I was dying and I just screamed. Not words like you, just an ugly, guttural scream,” he admitted. “My dad burst down the door before I had a chance to even realize I was still on this mortal coil.”

Scully’s face turned into a mask of sympathetic horror. “I’m so sorry.”

“What made it worse was that the page of the magazine had turned so I came all over a McDonald’s ad,” he admitted honestly, but not able to hold in his laughter at the ridiculousness of the situation.

“Not Ronald!” she gasped in mock offense.

“Ronald, The Hamburglar, Grimace, all of them,” he laughed. “My mom never let us eat there again.”

“Is that why you always take us to Wendy’s?” she asked.

He nodded in embarrassment. “I still have shame everytime I see those golden arches.”

This was absolutely not the avenue she thought they’d be exploring when she started this, and while this was a new realization that did inform her on her partner’s eccentricities, she still wanted to get back to her main goal. But she wasn’t really sure how to bounce back from such a story. “Did you masturbate after that? You know, after you realized the Diner’s Club hadn’t killed you?”

“No, Scully. I abstained. I have never touched my penis in two decades. The porn tapes and nudie mags are for decoration,” he deadpanned.

She threw back her head and started laughing and by the time she regrouped she saw him staring at her with mirth in his eyes and a wide smile tugging his lips upwards. “I’m sorry, dumb question. So your shame didn’t keep you from it?”

“No,” he shook his head, still smiling. “I just made sure it was when they weren’t home and learned to suppress my sounds when they were.”

“When did you achieve orgasm by someone else?” she asked before seeing his smirk and adding, “What?”

“Are you copying all of the questions I asked you?” 

“I am,” she nodded playfully, bringing her other leg up onto the couch so she was sitting cross-legged across him. 

“Um…” he contemplated, thinking back. “A school dance when I was fifteen,” he nodded.  “A ball would probably be the more accurate word.”

“You came at a ball?” she asked in shock.

He laughed and waved his hand to dismiss her. “No, the night of the ball. It was a county wide thing. One of those pretentious things to make sure our parent’s children had manners and what not. I went alone, but a girl from a Catholic high school started making moves on me.”

Scully always forgot that Mulder came from money. He never acted like it. His upbringing only ever came out through the polite, chivalrous gestures he’d direct her way. “She kept dancing too close to me. I guess she hadn’t heard to save room for Jesus,” he joked. “I ended up getting a boner and she told me she could help. She took me to some abandoned room and gave me a handjob.”

“The snake handler,” she teased, remembering an offhand joke he’d made a few cases ago.

He nodded his head in affirmation. “Yep. I’d kissed a few girls before that, but my reputation of being the weird kid with the missing sister usually got the better of me and they’d leave before anything happened. That was my first time having a girl touch me like that and I came really fast.”

She frowned at the reminder that his ‘Spooky’ status had been a constant in his life. She couldn’t imagine how hard that type of ridicule would be for a boy who was recently traumatized during one of the most sensitive stages of life. “Did you see her after that?” she asked.

“Uh, no. I didn’t really know how to please a woman, so reciprocity didn’t even dawn on me. I just… I told her thank you and gave her a hug,” he admitted with chagrin.

“Awwh,” Scully beamed. It was embarrassing, but equally endearing.

“Well, she wasn’t thrilled I didn’t return the favor, but she was even more mad that I accidentally came on her dress. She punched me in the face,” he chuckled lightly.

“Oh,” Scully chirped.

“Yeah.”

There was a lull in the conversation before she thought of something to move on with. “Did anything else happen before you became a sex expert at Oxford? Or was that where you flourished?” 

“Well, I wouldn’t call myself a sex expert or say that I flourished per-se, but thank you. But in high school, I only had two other noteworthy experiences. One was another girl from the Catholic school who gave me my first blow job. I accidentally thrust my hips weird and she almost threw up. I felt really bad and she was really mad,” he explained.

Scully had no actual therapist experience, but it was obvious to her that his experiences with girls and getting pleasure in his formative years were marred with shame and guilt. Was that why he wasn’t concerned with handjobs, blowjobs, or any real attention to his body? It evoked the same reaction as whenever he apparently drove past a McDonalds? “What was the other noteworthy one?”

“A girl who lived down the street from me, Millie. Our families were friends and she knew me before Samantha was taken. She was a few years older than me, but one summer day when I was seventeen and she was twenty, she invited me to come to her place for a drink. Her parents were out of town and one thing led to another, but we had sex,” he told her, for the first time this evening he seemed to recall this encounter with a small smile on his face. 

“Was it good?” she asked, eager for him to share a happy memory.

“Well, the very first time wasn’t. Millie had far more experience than I did, and I naturally didn’t last very long. She just… she said I had a lot of potential. She was honest and said I was average, but it was out of ignorance not out of lack of trying,” he stated, leaning forward to grab another beer out of their six pack. 

“Not out of lack of trying?” she repeated.

“I was so scared from the other times that I wanted to to be good for her. But I was just honestly grabbing her chest blindly with no regard to anything, and I just-” he broke off to laugh for a moment before adding, “I wasn’t focusing on the right places at all. I was just kind of groping around and hoping for the best,” he admitted. 

She was about to ask him another question before he continued, “Millie told me to meet her at her place at the same time every week. So of course I did, and each week she’d teach me another thing to do. How to eat a woman out, how to find the g-spot, how to fondle breasts, all of it. I learned so much that summer, and it was her lessons I took with me to Oxford. The few girls I was with afterward seemed to reap the benefits of her guidance.”

“Still are,” she joked in earnest. 

He smiled at her and took a swig of his beer. Mulder really was the best lover she’d ever had. He made her feel things she’d never even felt before. Thanks, Millie. “Do you miss her?” she asked.

“No, I sometimes run into her when I go back home, but we were polar opposites. She’s married to a woman now and I think they intend to move,” he replied.

“Hmm,” she nodded peacefully.

“So,” he prompted, sitting up with a teasing smile. “What’s my prognosis, Doc?” 

“My slightly biased, unbiased opinion?” she asked, waiting for him to agree. “I think your primary focus in sex is always your partner. Which from first hand experience is phenomenal, but I think it comes at the sake of your own enjoyment,” she answered.

“You think I don’t enjoy myself?” he asked, the prior trace of humor in his voice being replaced by concern as his brow furrowed.

She rolled her eyes and rubbed her foot against his leg in a gesture of reassurance. “I know you enjoy yourself, but I don’t think you ever let your own pleasure take centerfield.”

“Keep spouting baseball references and you can see my pleasure in play in no time,” he joked.

“Deflect with jokes all you want, but you know I’m right,” she replied, leaning forward and taking the beer from his hands and taking a swig.

“I’m not sure I understand your point?” he admitted.

Deciding to forego all pretenses of tact, she blurted, “You never let me reciprocate.”

“Wh-yes I do,” he stammered, surprised.

“No, you are always so focused on me that you put yourself second,” she stated firmly.

“But I’m happy, I don’t need anything else but to know you’re enjoying yourself,” he murmured, placing his hand on her calf and rubbing it smoothly.

“Every man enjoys attention, Mulder. I want to make you feel the way you make me feel,” she revealed, her tone coming out a bit more seriously than she’d meant.

He leaned over as best as he could so he could place a loving kiss to her lips. She closed her eyes and kissed him back, enjoying the newness of their open intimacy. After a beat, he pulled back and whispered, “Scully, I don’t even have words to describe the way you make me feel.”

She smiled and felt her face flush under his direct attention. She had no doubt he meant every word he said, but she still felt like nothing was changing. “What if pleasing you is something that turns me on?” she posed.

“Then I suspect that you must be in a constant state of arousal,” he replied. 

She let a little huff of laughter exhale through her nose before leaning forward and pressing another kiss to his lips. He was about to reach his hand around her head before she leaned back, staying close enough that she could feel his breath on her lips. “I want to make love to you,” she whispered.

“I’m all yours,” he replied, leaning in again only to be stopped by her hand on his chest.

“I want you to let me have all the control. Let me be in charge,” she requested.

He stood up slowly, taking caution to avoid knocking her off the couch. He offered her his hand and pulled her to her feet. “I suppose the laws of physics won’t let you carry me to the bedroom?” he joked with feigned disappointment. 

She walked past him, making her way down his hallway to his room. “I have other ways of getting you there,” she teased, whipping her sweater off over her head and tossing it to the ground to reveal her completely bare back to him.

She stepped out of her pants and over the threshold of his room simultaneously, and was pleased when she heard him walk up behind her. Though, as soon as she heard the now-familiar sound of his belt being undone, she spun around and grabbed his hands. 

Mulder paused his motions and looked down at her with a cocked eyebrow. She leaned up on her toes to press an open-mouthed kiss to his lips, throwing her arms around his neck so that her underwear clad body was pressed completely flush to his bare chest. She felt her nipples strain against his coarse chest hair. He extracted his hands from in between them and placed his palms on her bare back, pressing her to him while his hands roamed her skin. 

She smiled into the kiss when she felt his erection twitch against her belly. Leaning back, she watched as his eyes fluttered open slowly, heavy from lust and anticipation. Easing herself back onto her heels, she grabbed his belt and started unbucking it. “I want to do this,” she whispered.

He kept his hands on her while she worked, moving them to her shoulders, then down her biceps. She struggled a bit getting the belt out of the loops, partially glad Mulder’s hands kept her from stumbling back, but he let her do it all by herself. She tossed the belt to the ground carelessly and returned her attention to his fly. She unbuttoned him and pulled down the zipper, feeling a surge of arousal in her core as she felt the heat of him radiating through the fabric of his boxers. 

She hooked her fingers under both waistbands and dragged them down swifty, staying at his feet for an extra moment to help him step out of his socks. When she stood back up, she was met with a smile and Mulder’s hands going straight for the elastic of her underwear. “Wait,” she demanded, grabbing his hands.

Scully felt his hands start to pull away instinctively at the word, a look of worry passing his face as she held his fingers. She looked up at him with a confident smile and stated, “It’s my turn. I want you to just lay back and let me do everything.” She gestured to the bed as she said this, and was glad when he finally took the direction. With a few brief strides, he threw himself on the bed and laid in the middle on his back. 

“This is how I like my Mulder,” she mused with a pleased grin, taking in the sight of him under the dull yellow glow of his lamp. 

He smiled at her praise and squirmed restlessly on the bed. She walked over to the end of the bed, so that she was standing in between his legs and patted the edge. “Come sit here,” she demanded. 

Mulder followed her instructions, scooting himself so his legs were hanging over the edge with her in between them. He absentmindedly raised a hand to her hip and ran his thumb over the skin. She knew she wasn’t being firm in the rules of her own game, but she let him touch her a bit more like that before easing herself to her knees. The hardwood underneath the carpet creaked under her weight as she adjusted herself so that her elbows were on either leg and her breasts were on display. 

She grabbed his swollen erection in her hands and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath from Mulder. This was one of the first times she’d been able to examine his cock so closely, and while the word struck her as odd for the situation, she couldn’t help but think it was beautiful. He was big, above average by a couple inches, and he had the slightest curve that always felt amazing inside of her. 

She pumped her hand up and down slowly, watching his skin stretch slightly as she did it. He thrust into her hand lightly in reflex and quickly muttered a soft, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You’re so sexy, Mulder,” she replied, looking up at him only to see he was staring down at her with full rapture.

Scully smiled at him sweetly before turning her attention back to the matter at hand. She licked her lips and slowly moved her mouth towards the bottom of his shaft, sticking out her tongue and placing it at his base and dragging it up slowly to his tip. “Fuck,” he murmured reverently as her tongue swirled around his tip.

She was just about to take him in her mouth when she felt his hand on her shoulder. “Scully, you don’t have to-”

The fact that other women had treated this as an obligation was evident in his voice. He didn’t want to sit here and have her do this under the presumption she got nothing out of it. Mulder clearly didn’t understand the power of having a man reduced to nothing but gasps and prayers just by a few well placed licks and a bit of suction. The thought of what she could do to him brought on another wave of arousal. She could feel her own wetness starting to seep through her lips and onto the cotton of her underwear.

She stopped him with a firm look and purred, “But I want to.” To punctuate her sentence, she licked him tip to base and watched as goosebumps erupted on his arms. 

He nodded and placed his hand back onto the bed. Taking the go ahead, she leaned forward, blowing on the wet trail she’d created lightly before plunging her mouth down on him. “Oh my god,” he rasped, tensing beneath her as she bobbed her head up and down. 

Mulder was bigger than any of her prior partners and she could feel him hitting the back of her throat while she still had a few inches left to go. Easing herself higher on her knees, she took a deep breath through her nose and relaxed the back of her throat, resulting in her lips hitting his pubic mound as he went all the way in. “Holy shit,” he moaned, clutching onto the bedspread. 

She could feel tears start to gather on her lashline in reaction to the unnatural sensation, but she ignored it and continued her actions, letting her tongue squirm against him as she deep-throated him. Scully could feel him trying his hardest to keep his hips firmly on the bed to avoid causing her any discomfort and she was grateful.

When she needed to take a breath, she eased up and gasped in a quick lung-full air, her subsequent breaths coming out as shuddered pants. She felt Mulder’s hand come up and brush her hair back behind her ear as he stroked her cheek. While he did this, she continued to play with his tip, running her tongue playfully under his head, causing him to gasp. “Scully,” he whispered, a drop of precum leaking out as he spoke. 

She leaned back up and resumed her prior movements, letting him slide all the way down her throat as she rotated her head, letting his cock brush against every surface. His breathing was shallow and she could hear him moaning with every new movement. 

After a few minutes of alternating between different techniques while Mulder demonstrated his surprisingly enduring stamina, he put his hand on her shoulder again. “Scully,” he said in a shaky breath.

She let him bob out of her mouth, a thick mixture of precum and saliva trailing from him to her mouth in a lewd string before snapping onto her chin. Her face was flushed and she knew her makeup was smudged. “Hmm?” she rasped, catching her breath.

“I won’t be able to hold on for much longer if you keep doing that,” he admitted. She laughed and stood up on shaky legs, using his legs for support. When she was on her feet she heard him whisper “Holy shit,” and she looked at him and saw he was staring at her crotch.

“What?” she panted, leaning over to see before being stopped by a hand on her hip. Mulder brought his other hand up and rubbed the cotton front of her panties, making a shiver run up her spine.

“You’re soaking wet,” he murmured, amazed. “I can see it through your underwear and on your thighs, and I haven’t even touched you.”

She grabbed his face with both of her hands and drew his attention to her face, his hand still idly rubbing her through the dampened fabric. “It turns me on to do this, Mulder. Attention directed towards you doesn’t mean it does nothing for me,” she explained, leaning down to kiss him when she was done. 

She broke apart after a moment and beamed down at him with a predatory gleam in her eye. “Now sit against the headboard.”

Mulder did as he was told and she quickly discarded her underwear down her legs, shivering at the trail of slick wetness she felt rub against her inner thigh. She got on the bed, making eye contact with Mulder as she crawled on all fours to him. The usual self-consciousness she’d felt with other partners when she was this bold and wanton was gone with Mulder. He looked at her like she was giving him the best present he’d ever received by simply loving him. In her heart she knew it was probably true.

Scully didn’t sit in his lap immediately. Instead, she kept her head at chest level and leaned forward to playfully lick one of his nipples before bringing it into her mouth and rolling it between her teeth. She felt the rumblings of laughter in his chest begin before it turned into a moan of pleasure. She attended to the other one while reaching in between her legs and gathering some of her own arousal on her hand, bringing it in between them and coating Mulder’s erection with it. 

“Oh my god, Scully,” he groaned, his hips undulating in their spot while she pumped him a few times. 

She suckled on his neck, enjoying the feeling of his erratic pulse beating under her tongue. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured as she hoisted her legs on either side of his hips, aligning them for the moment they’d both been waiting for.

She could tell he was about to say something sweet back to her, but the words were stolen from his lungs as she sank down on him, sheathing him inside her. She settled until her ass was firmly on his lap and they were panting a few inches apart from the other, sharing a connection with their gaze as well as their bodies. 

Slowly, she eased herself back up on her knees before sinking back down, creating a steady rhythm while the headboard hit the wall and the bed creaked beneath them. None of that mattered to her, all that mattered was the pleasure smattered across Mulder’s face, the way he was coaxing her with his sensual baritone, and the vice grip he had on her hips. 

Suddenly a thought came to her. It wasn’t something she’d really ever done, but with how many tapes and subscriptions he had, it may be something he liked. Leaning towards his ear, she rasped, “You feel so good inside me, Mulder.”

He responded by closing the gap between them and placing kisses all over the hollow of her throat and the crook of her neck. She wasn’t trying to emulate a porn star. No. She just wanted to tell him what he deserved to hear. What she suspected he liked hearing in those tapes. Validation. 

“You have no idea how much you turn me on,” she murmured on a downward stroke. She kept herself on his lap for a moment and rocked her hips forward, grinding their pubic bones together.

“Fuck, Scully. You feel amazing,” he gasped back, drawing his arms around her and pulling her flush to him so her breasts were against his chest.

She continued riding him the best she could in this position, raising one hand to wipe the sweaty hair back and litter kisses across his face. “I love you,” she gasped, her orgasm hitting her suddenly from the angle of his cock and the friction against her clit.

Scully felt his hips thrust upwards frantically as he came inside her, his hot seed spilling out a little bit from each thrust and adding to the mutual wetness between them. 

When their orgasms had both subsided, she collapsed and fell onto him, resting her head against his neck. He nuzzled his face into her hair, pressing kisses against her scalp as he deftly reached and grabbed a blanket, pulling it up to cover them and tuck her even more into him. She felt his eyes grow heavy as she was comforted by the post-coital smell of him and the feeling of being wrapped in each other’s arms.

“I love you too, Scully,” he murmured, rocking her softly in his arms.

She found the strength to raise her head and kiss his chin. “So? How did you like your therapy session?” she teased.

Her whole body moved with his laughter. “I think you have another career path for you if this doesn’t work,” he teased.

She laughed with him and laid back on his neck. “Thank you,” she beamed.

There was a moment of silence as he continued rubbing circles in her back. Then, in a more serious tone he explained, “I’m sorry I’d been reluctant before. I had just never had someone treat me like I wasn’t an obligation before. I never knew how good it could be when both parties care so much about the other.”

“Well, with me you’ll never forget.”

WATCH SEX EDUCATION ON NETFLIX. STREAMING JANUARY 17TH 2020

[aion-rsa]

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 9 Review – Chapter 85: Destroyer

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The mundane mingles with the supernatural in a enjoyably goofy episode.

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 8

“It is better to know the truth and make peace with it.”

In a bit of selfless wisdom, Cheryl states the above words to Betty in tonight’s bonkers installment. The context being that Betty doesn’t want to tell her mother that it looks like Polly is a goner. So she goes to Cheryl basically to inquire whether she feels that her cousin’s life would have been better had she not known Jason’s true fate.

The from-the-heart response that Cheryl gives her is quickly ignored, and Betty hides the truth from Alice. Since this is an episode of Riverdale, Betty’s deception immediately backfires on her when her FBI superior Glen arrives at the Cooper household to reveal Polly’s probable fate and kick Betty off the case. (Somewhere in the night, Veronica does a breathy cover of The Thompson Twins’ “Lies”).

Anyway, let’s get back to that quote for a second: It is better to know the truth and be at peace with it. That’s going to be the mantra for this entire review, as there are fundamental truths I’ve touched upon in the past that demand to be recognized before the healing can be reached. They are:

1- Archie’s football storyline is a total snooze.

Riverdale may have leaped seven years into the future, but Archie remains as doltish as ever. Granted, K.J. Apa is killing it this season as a grizzled version of the character, but the problem of Archie’s messiah complex still drags on. There are a lot of fascinating things happening on this series right now, and all the Bulldogs stuff does is slow down the breakneck pace that those interesting storylines are moving in. Aliens are in Riverdale, nobody cares about high school football right now. C’mon.

All that said, Britta rules.

2 – Any time that this series isn’t focusing on Mothmen Aliens is wasted time.

The show is taking serious liberties by mashing up Mothman and alien abduction mythologies, which really upends my In Search Of-influenced ideology about how the world works. I’ll forgive this because putting “aliens” on Riverdale is a work of stupid genius but also because I love watching Cole Sprouse and his starter goatee running around looking totally frantic.

3 – Hiram Lodge should be eaten by Mothmen Aliens.

Am I alone in thinking this could actually happen? What a coup for the series that would be! We know that Hiram is involved in some shady business, and all his SoDale shenanigans are a cover for some big secret. Therefore the mystery of the Lonely Highway is directly traced back to Hiram. Is he working for the government? Did aliens cure his mystery illness of last year and in turn is he feeding them Riverdale’s castoffs? Nothing is off the table here. Hiram’s machinations have been the same since he first appeared, but what if he really was working for aliens THE WHOLE TIME? Wouldn’t that be insane/amazing? No other show could pull that kind of shit off.

What I’m saying here is that Riverdale has been dancing with insanity since day one and it’s time to consummate the relationship.

4 – Betty Cooper, Alien Hunter needs to happen.

She fights werewolves in the comics, so is this really that crazy?

The ultimate mystery of whatever is happening this season will likely have a logic-based answer. That’s disappointing, as the Archieverse can be shown to handle witches, so are extraterrestrials that far off? (I’m still burned by the conclusion of the Gargoyle King saga, so I’m not expecting much here). Imagine though, the writing staff wants you to think that everything will wrap up with a plausible explanation and then, boom, it gives you bona fide aliens! A dream is a wish the heart makes…

This episode did give us clarity on a few things. We learned that both Jughead’s and Betty’s investigations lead back to the Lonely Highway and the mysteries — either terrestrial or otherworldly — unfolding there. Additionally, we were reminded that even though he’s ostensibly the lead character of this series, Archie is straight-up boring when he isn’t being attacked by bears or escaping from prison. With only one more episode before an extended hiatus, I hope next week brings us some resolution even though deep down I know that it won’t.

Riverdale Rundown

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• Jughead’s student who writes the troubling story about Mothman abduction is Lerman Logan, a reference to The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Percy Jackson franchise star.

• Old Man Dreyfus’ name is clearly inspired by Close Encounters of the Third Kind star Richard Dreyfuss, which is fitting as the supernatural elements of this season are riffing on the sci-fi blockbusters of the 1970s and ’80s. Further proof of this can be seen by Drefyus telling Betty and Jughead about how Riverdale was a hotbed of Mothmen activity in the summers of 1977 and 1982, ones in which Star Wars and E.T. respectively ruled at the box office.

• Mr. Weatherbee threatens to fire Jughead if he doesn’t stay out of Lerman’s problems, apparently forgetting that Jughead isn’t really even a teacher and is only volunteering.

• Even objectively, Archie is a terrible coach. Can we please fold him into the Jughead/Betty storyline somehow? It’s great to see him and Veronica back together but damn do they need better plots to work with.

• One of the teams that defeats the Bulldogs is the Baxter High Ravens. In case you forgot already, Baxter High was one of the schools that Sabrina attended in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

• One has to wonder how the Vixens must feel about Cheryl, a woman in her twenties who graduated seven years ago, returning to her alma mater to steal the thunder of teenagers who live in Murdersville, U.S.A. and have no other outlet besides cheerleading by performing a self-aggrandizing Lady Gaga cover. Cheryl does a lot of messed up stuff on this show, but this act struck me as especially cruel.

• There’s no Toni and very little Tabitha Tate tonight. Boo.

• I still think they should sell the Pop Tate bobbleheads they keep showing.

• Kevin gets put through the emotional and physical ringer this episode. We learn that disparaging remarks from his mother impacted his self-image so much that he turned to cruising in Fox Forest. (The fate of Mrs. Keller is unknown, so it is possible that she will make an appearance in an upcoming episode). The assault that Kevin endured was brutal to watch, but the scene between Kevin and his father was powerful and cathartic. It will be interesting to see where the character of Kevin goes from here, because it is absurdly beyond time the writers give him a personality trait other than chronic thirst.

• Someone on the Riverdale production staff must really love Friday Night Lights.

• I don’t believe for a second that Polly is actually dead. There’s more of a chance of Hiram being eaten by Mothmen Aliens or Archie getting a compelling A-plot.

• I hate on the football storyline a lot in this review, but I do find all the talk about tainting the podunk town’s football league’s prestige to be weirdly funny.

• Pop’s sells take out cold cuts too? Helluva business, that Chok’lit Shoppe.

• “I’m saying that things happen, especially in Riverdale,” declares Jughead, in the most obvious statement in the episode.

• Please let them do a Mulder and Scully thing with Jughead and Betty.

• I think there’s more Mr. Weatherbee in tonight’s episode than there has been in the entire series to date. That’s a fantastic thing.

• So is Reggie done with Hiram for good now? He is such a key figure in the comics that it would be fantastic if the series figured out what the hell to do with him.

• Having reviewed this show from the first episode, I’ve learned a thing or two about how Riverdale storylines work. Therefore I’m calling it now: Glen is the Trash Bag Killer. You think so too, I know it.

• So far this season has drawn influence from everything from cryptozoological monsters to the real-life crimes of Patrick Kearney. Next week marks the mid-season finale, and the promise of everything from aliens to Pop’s possibly being blown up by Hiram? Whatever happens, cherish it, as the show then won’t return until July.

The post Riverdale Season 5 Episode 9 Review – Chapter 85: Destroyer appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[atths--twice]

Okay, here we go... Mulder is taking Mrs. Scully’s advice and trying to find a therapist. He has seen a couple and today... it will be the third one he is meeting. Will this be the one who will be able to help him get back on track? 

I’ve said this before, but ugh,,, certain chapters of this story just own a piece of my heart forever. I mean, to be honest, the whole thing does as I AM the one who wrote it, but certain ones just hold my heart and always will. 

I hope you all are enjoying this tale I have created. I LOVE this story so much. I love these characters even more. 

Chapter Twelve

Third Times the Charm

March 2015

Mulder sat on the couch in the waiting room of the therapist's office, his leg bouncing. This was actually the third therapist he was meeting with, the other two had not been a good fit for him.

After Mrs. Scully left him the list of possible therapists, he stared at it for a while. He knew she was right, he did need to speak to someone, he just hated the actual doing part of it. He hated sitting in a room and answering questions like “how does that make you feel?” Well, the woman he loved more than anything had left him and it was going on six months, how was he supposed to fucking feel?

He looked up, seeing the door was still shut, and let out a breath. His leg, which had paused, begin to bounce once again. There was music playing softly in the room and it was beginning to put him on edge. It had no vocals, but the melody was familiar and something he had heard with Scully. He did not know the song exactly, but he knew it was something familiar.

“Fox Mulder?” said a voice, causing him to look up and then frown.

A woman was standing in the doorway of the office, a rather young woman. She was tall, curvy, almost plump, and had long dark brown hair with blue streaks throughout. Aqua, he thought, no actually more of a teal.

She had on dark jeans, a long sleeved black shirt with a band name or something he could not quite read, and a plum colored button down short sleeve shirt worn open. She wore only socks, black socks adorned with four leaf clovers, and no shoes.

He looked at her, completely flustered by her appearance. She looked no more than twenty five, like she should be in a dorm, telling kids to turn down their music and that alcohol was not allowed on the premises. No way this was the therapist he was going to be meeting.

“You’re Fox Mulder, yes?” she asked, stepping closer to him. He stood up and found that she was only a couple inches shorter than him. He was definitely not used to that happening.

“I’m Fox Mulder,” he said, reaching out his hand. She smiled and he noticed how perfect her teeth were and then the blue of her eyes. Jesus, they were almost as blue as Scully’s.

She grasped his hand in a firm handshake. “It’s wonderful to meet you. I’m Doctor Clarke, but you can call me Rachel. Please come in,” she said gesturing toward her office.

She dropped his hand and waited for him to walk into the office, following behind and shutting the door. He looked around the room and was again shocked by the difference between her office and the last two he had been in.

Here the walls were a light cream color and the floors were a dark hardwood with a large sage green rug set upon it. There was a charcoal gray couch and a matching chair with an ottoman that looked exceedingly comfortable and a dark wood colored coffee table and desk of the same color. Her laptop sat closed, papers and notebooks stacked neatly beside it. A small table with one of the new coffee makers, coffee mugs, stir straws, and cream and sugar sat next to the desk.

He took note of her degrees on the wall and doing some quick math, he was surprised to find she had to be at least thirty five. He looked at her and was struck again by the youthfulness of her face.

“Please, have a seat,” she said, gesturing toward the couch. He turned and walked over and sat down. There were colorful throw pillows, in different hues of blue, like the sea. He smiled at the sight of them, again thinking of Scully and her love of the ocean.

He sat down on the couch, moving a couple of the pillows around. She sat in the chair, grabbing a pad of paper and a pen off the coffee table as she did. She clicked her pen and wrote a few things on her paper before she looked up at him with a smile.

“So, as I’ve said, my name is Doctor Clarke, but please call me Rachel,” she said, sitting back in her chair and putting her stocking feet on the ottoman. “I am a therapist with a bachelor's degree in psychology and a masters degree in psychotherapy. I have been a licensed therapist for six years and if I do say so myself, I’m pretty great.”

He looked at her, stunned she would say something like that to a client, especially one she had just met. Her mouth was curling up, trying to hide a smile. Oh, he thought, she was very different than the last two stuffy people he had met.

“Anyway,” she said when he made no comment. “I was going over your information and I saw that the online questionnaire I require my patients to fill out had not been done.”

She stared at him and clasped her hands in her lap. She raised her eyebrows and it was so reminiscent of Scully’s look, his breath caught in his chest. He had still not uttered a word, trying to get a good read on this non shoe wearing, streaks of blue hair woman. She gave not an inch and he knew one of them had to speak eventually. His leg began to bounce when he realized it needed to be him.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “I didn’t have access to a computer, so I couldn’t fill it out.”

“Truth or bullshit?” she asked, holding his gaze. He blinked, stunned again at her language as well as directness, and she did not back down.

He thought of his computer at home, still cracked and a new one not yet purchased. He had done so purposely, having no desire to have access to the Internet or email. Logically, he knew the computer and the technology it brought were not to blame for the situation he was in now. Emotionally though, it was a link to Scully, and he had wanted to sever that when he had felt angry.

Along with no computer, he had also kept his phone turned off, leaving Scully absolutely no way of reaching him, unless she drove her ass over to the house to see him. As he sat there now, he realized how selfish and asshole-like that would sound if he said it all out loud.

“Truth,” he said quietly.

“Good. Well, then since you were unable to answer the questions and this is our first meeting, I’m going to ask these of you, in more of a ... free form. You cool with that?” she said, picking up her pen, ready to write down his answers.

He nodded and then shook his head before leaning it back. He began to clench and unclench his fists, nervous beyond anything, at the prospects of talking about what brought him to see her today.

She was not saying anything and it was making him uncomfortable. He lifted his head and looked at her. She was watching him, her expression again unreadable. They must teach you that at therapist training, he thought, the right way to stare at a person while revealing nothing of yourself.

He knew how to do that too, years of working for the bureau and questioning suspects, had given him that ability. If she wanted to play a weird chicken game of stare down, he was more than ready. He would give it this one hour, then tell Mrs. Scully this therapist had not worked out either. Yeah ... he could tough out an hour.

“Do you like sports?” came her unexpected question, her eyes watching him. He blinked at her again, unable to form an answer, and she smiled slightly. “Me, I love sports, but I’ve never really been good at all of them. We had to do most of them in elementary school and then again in high school. I was not a fast runner, or good with the fancy footwork that goes with most sports. But oh ... I loved playing baseball.”

She paused for a moment, her hands once again clasped in her lap, her thoughts no doubt on a ball field somewhere.

“I wasn’t a fast runner, like I said, but the feel of the bat in my hands, the power I held to either bunt or whack the shit out of the ball, I loved it,” she said wistfully. “I loved the audible groan I would hear from the team when I stepped up to bat, knowing I was most likely going to hit the ball far. I loved the tight grip I would get on the bat, the feel and sound as I tapped the bat to home plate, the smell of the dirt, and then the sound of the ball hitting the bat and knowing it was going way outfield. I loved it all.” She stopped and smiled, no doubt seeing the ball flying over the outfield, the opposing team trying and failing to get to it in time.

He watched her and thought of his own love of baseball, watching games with his dad and listening to them on the radio. He thought of the scent of a musty old book as he read box scores, the taste of a nonfat tofutti rice dreamsicle in his mouth, and the sound of Scully’s slight gasp when he held her and demonstrated hips before hands before they “slapped a piece of horse hide with a stick.”

Yeah, he loved baseball too.

He looked at Rachel and they smiled at one another. She waited and he knew he was going to have to speak up. He took a deep breath and nodded.

“I didn’t answer your questionnaire, but,” he paused, looking at her and she nodded. He sighed and swallowed. “My ... well she’s not exactly my mother in law, but she kindly requested I speak to someone. She asked some friends and found some people they suggested.”

He stopped and thought of the look on Mrs. Scully’s face as he told her he would see about talking to a therapist. Her face was so hopeful, and he knew he could not take seeing her face heartbroken if it did not work out.

“I uh, my … partner, God ... she and I are not together right now. We’ve, well there’s been some, uh, I only have an hour, right?” he laughed nervously, all of a sudden close to tears. Fuck.

She smiled at him, writing something on her paper. “Yes, an hour, but we can make another appointment. We can talk about anything you want right now,” she said kindly. “The questionnaire is helpful to both of us because it helps me see what you want out of this and it gets you thinking about what you personally want out of it. I can read it and know how I want to proceed, but it’s all dependent on you.”

He sighed and nodded. He looked at the pictures she had on the wall. A drawing of a ballerina in pose, a photo of her at a football game with her head on an older man’s shoulder, both of them bundled in their teams gear, and a mesmerizing drawing of the sea with nearly the same blues as the throw pillows.

“You like the Seahawks?” he asked, looking back at her. She smiled at him and nodded, looking over at the photo.

“I used to live in Washington state. My dad and I went to many games and then we moved here when I was ten,” she said. “We always caught them when they played somewhere close. That picture is me and my uncle at the Super Bowl last year.”

“Your dad couldn’t make it?” Mulder asked, looking at the photo.

“No,” she said quietly. “He passed away when I was seventeen.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ...” he said, feeling terrible and intrusive.

“No apologies necessary,” she said with a smile. “Are you a football fan? Do you have a favorite team?”

“Uh ... yeah I like it, but I prefer basketball and baseball, too. Basketball is the sport I enjoy most and the Knicks are my team,” he looked at her and she nodded. “No matter how their season went, they’re the team I’ve loved since I was a boy. My dad used to watch them and he took me to a few games when I was younger. It was fun and exciting. The crowd cheering, the sound of the buzzer, the squeaking of the shoes on the court, I remember loving that almost as much as the game itself.”

“The sounds and feels of things can stay with us more than remembering the scores or the players. Our minds don’t always work in numbers and stats, but when we go back and read them, we remember the warmth of the day and feel of a parent’s hand instead,” she said softly, smiling at him again.

He nodded, remembering days with his dad before his family life went to shit. Sometimes those days were hard to call upon when so many bad memories pushed their way to the top. He looked around the room and then back at her with a sigh.

“I feel like you’re waiting for me to break down or start pouring my heart out,” he said, pulling a pillow on his lap and picking at it.

She smiled and then lightly chuckled. She moved her feet from the ottoman and stood up. She walked to the coffee pot and picked up a mug, opened the coffee holder, and put something inside. She closed it down and pushed a button before turning to him.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked, tilting her head.

“Uhh ... sure,” he said and she nodded. “Just black.”

The coffee stopped dripping and she brought the cup over to him. He murmured his thanks as she walked back to make one for herself. She added some sugar and cream and then sat back down. A few minutes went by as they both drank some coffee.

“Mr. Mulder,” she began and he choked on his coffee, shaking his head.

“I ... no,” he cleared his throat and tried again. “Mr. Mulder ... sounds like my father.” He coughed and she nodded.

“Fox,” she began again and he heard Scully’s voice coming from the passenger seat of a car from what seemed like forever ago. That same hesitation and uncertainty in Rachel’s voice was present, and he felt tears once again at the back of his throat.

“Fox? Would that be okay? To call you Fox?” she asked him, no doubt sensing his unease. He looked in her eyes, so close to the shade of Scully’s, and he knew he would never be able to hear her call him Mulder. He was Mulder only to Scully.

“Yes, Fox is fine,” he said quietly, looking down into his coffee cup.

“Fox, the endgame of therapy is not to force you to break down and cry. I’m not here to make you do anything you don’t want to do,” she said, setting her mug on the small table next to her chair. “I’m not here because I asked to be, you came to me because you must know you have things you need to discuss. I am a non biased party who will hear you out and help you to reach conclusions, that’s my role. If you choose to continue our discussions, I will create a scheduled time for you weekly or biweekly if you want it. These sessions are for you. You get out of therapy what you put into it, Fox.”

She held his gaze and he knew in that moment, she was the therapist he would be seeing. It was not just the more laid back atmosphere and attitude she had, it was the feeling he got being in this room. He felt calm with her and that he could open up without feeling judged or scolded as he had felt at the last two therapists offices.

A buzzing sound interrupted his thoughts and she glanced at her table. She picked up her phone and silenced it, placing it back on the table. She locked her hands in her lap and looked at him.

“Our time for today is up,” she said. He smiled at her and she smiled back. The past hour had flown by surprisingly fast considering he had been dreading it and ready to say it was a bust.

She stood up and he followed suit, setting his mug on the coffee table, and walking with her to the waiting area. She turned to him and reached out her hand once again. He looked down and shook it, her handshake as firm as he remembered.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Fox. I wish you well on your journey to find the therapist who is the right fit for you,” she said with a smile.

He dropped her hand and laughed quietly. “Would this time next week work for you? Or should we do biweekly at first? I could be here next Tuesday and then Friday,” he said, smiling as he watched her smile grow.

“I can do Tuesday, or would Wednesday be okay?”

“No, Wednesdays are ... I have standing plans every Wednesday,” he said, not offering any other explanation that it was the day Mrs. Scully came over to visit. He would not change that day, he looked forward to her coming out to his house every week.

“Next Tuesday it is then,” she agreed, picking up a reminder card and writing the date and time down for him. She handed it to him and he slipped it in his pocket.

“Well, I no longer wish you well on your journey, I now thank you for your decision,” she said, placing her hands on her heart and bowing her head. He laughed and went to grab his coat from the coat rack.

“What made you decide on me, if you don’t mind me asking?” she asked, rubbing her hands together and then interlocking her fingers.

He smiled as he put his jacket on and buttoned it up. “Your story about baseball made me think back to a moment that was pretty special to me. It made me think of the scent of the evening and the sound of baseballs being hit, and how in that moment, every other problem and worry seemed so insignificant,” he said, once again hearing Scully’s laughter and remembering how it felt to hold her, even if for a brief time.

“Huh ...” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “I just thought it was a cool story.” She smiled at him and once again he felt his breath catch.

“I just thought it was a pretty cool key chain.”

If he was on the fence about her being the right fit for him, he just fell off and landed in her yard. He could almost see it happening, landing on his ass while she sighed and stood waiting for him to join her in the office, the colorful throw pillows calling to him to sit down and get comfortable. He grinned at her and nodded, walking toward the door, when her voice she stopped him.

“Fox, do us a favor and get access to a computer. I’d like to have that questionnaire to study over the weekend before our next meeting,” she said kindly. He nodded at her once again and walked out the door.

The drive home felt lighter than the drive over to her office. His worry seemed to have not disappeared, but decreased a little, and he felt he could breathe easier. He knew this was going to be rough and he would have to get out of his comfort zone, but he was willing to do it. He hated every second he was away from Scully. If this was how he got her back, he would go every day.

Well, every day but Wednesday.

He pulled into a local strip mall and went into a computer store, picking out a laptop that would work for him. He put the box in the backseat, got in, and started the car. Realizing he had no food at home, he swung through a fast food place for a burger and fries.

Arriving at home, he brought in his food and computer. While he ate, he plugged in and begin to prepare his laptop. He waited as it booted up, doing its updates, whatever else it needed to do. Tossing out his trash, he sat back down and connected to the WiFi. He took the appointment reminder from his jacket pocket, found the website address, and then the questionnaire Rachel asked him to fill out.

Ten questions. Who knew ten questions would break his heart and leave him sobbing into his hands. He held nothing back when he answered the questions, at least as it pertained to what he wanted to gain from getting him and Scully back to where they needed to be. He knew writing in answers and then speaking with Rachel would be two different things, but the recent silence that had fallen on the house, and especially as he sat answering those questions, was enough to settle any fears he had.

He sent his answers off before he could change any of them, and closed the laptop down. He wiped his eyes and stood up, stretching his body. It was not late, but he felt exhausted. Turning off the lights, making sure the doors were locked, he headed upstairs. He used the bathroom, brushed his teeth, undressed to his boxers, turned out the lights, and got in bed.

He thought of the day and the questions he had just answered, his mind buzzing too much to even remember each one individually, and he took a deep breath. He reached out and touched the empty side of the bed, closing his eyes as he did.

His eyes flew open as he thought of something. He pushed the covers back and ran down the stairs. Searching from room to room, he finally found his phone and tried unsuccessfully to turn it on.

“Fuck,” he mumbled, now on the hunt for his charger, finally finding it in a desk drawer, under a stack of papers. He brought both upstairs and plugged it in by the nightstand.

Waiting for it to turn on was excruciating. He sat on the side of the bed, running his hands down his face, and then across his mouth. The sound of the phone starting up, made his heart drop. He looked down and saw missed calls and voicemails from Scully. Text messages piled up and he had a hard time seeing them through his tears.

There were weeks worth of “good mornings” and “good nights,” but mostly “I love you’s.” Simple one lined texts that cut him to the core. What a fucking asshole he had been to cut himself off from her. Why had he done that? To punish her? He had only punished himself by not seeing her messages to him.

He listened to her voicemails and like the text messages, they were short- hoping he was okay, work was going all right, and always ended with her telling him she loved him. He listened again and saved them when he was done.

He looked at the date of her last text, a week ago. As he scrolled up through her texts, he saw they were all about a week apart. If he was right, she should be texting him tomorrow. Well, he was not going to wait until then before he reached out to her.

He thought of explaining to her why he had not responded to any of her messages, but he did not want to lay all his shit at her feet. Not again. He stared at the phone, deciding what to write. Keep it simple, he thought.

Good night. I love you, Scully.

He hit send and exhaled, not expecting an answer, not right away. He set the phone down and laid back down in bed. He hoped she read the message and the simple words he sent would make her feel as good as hers did for him.

He closed his eyes and sighed. Then, he heard a beep. He reached for his phone and unlocked it. One new message and his heart felt as though it were smiling.

Good night, Mulder. I love you too.

[ronavorona]

The Unexpected Guest, 1/3

So, if you want fic, sit and write it. Just a little story. Some humor, some drama.

An Unexpected guest, 1/3

Fandom: Masters of sex

Characters: William Masters /Virginia Johnson, Burton Scully

Rating: T (because of a specific theme)

Summary: One evening, the unexpected guest invades the research laboratory.

The events take place after episode 1.08 "Love and Marriage", where Scully asks Bill to suggest a cure for his “illness”.

English is not my native language, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes. I need beta, of course.

"The male subject’s refractory period is resolving," Dr. Masters announced, pressing the stopwatch button. “The time between resolution and a secondary arousal is twenty minutes and three seconds. We can continue our work, I believe."

Looking up from the rough drafts of a future article, Ginny yawned widely and slid the tablet toward her.

“Compared to the last time, four minutes and one second longer,” she noted and wrote the numbers in the corresponding column.

“Um. Didn’t you feel it became noticeably colder after the repair? ” Bill muttered, wrapping himself in a robe ostentatiously.

Perhaps the only one who could ignore the grave cold reigning in the best reproductive clinic in the Midwest after replacing old cast-iron batteries was a polar bear (hypothetically). The weather outside was also suitable: knee-deep snowdrifts and an abnormal frost. Only workaholic maniacs like Masters were able to go to work calmly. Other doctors, patients, teachers, students, and concerned individuals all murmured that it was impossible to exist in such conditions. The Board of Trustees had promised to deal with the unpleasant situation and punish those responsible, but until then... well, Virginia Johnson also sincerely considered herself a workaholic.

"And that linoleum," the doctor went on, looking gloomily at the floor.

"What's wrong with the cucumbers? I think it’s a funny pattern."

"That's the point! We have a serious scientific experiment here, and these garish spots are distracting us. I will strongly insist on replacing the coating material. "

Dr. Masters was not going to admit to Mrs. Johnson that the Oriental motifs had appeared in the laboratory at the suggestion of a nice married couple of Kama Sutra worshippers.

Ginny bit her lip.

"Look, Bill, if you're worried about a few extra minutes… It's just statistics! "

"Statistics that need to be analyzed," he said gravely. "In our work, as thoughtful researchers, we should try to take into account as many factors as possible that can affect the stages of arousal. "

"Well, it was already clear that the cold affects negatively."

"Yes, but only at first. Comparing today's chart and, for example, the month before last, you can see a significant ..."

"... a significant increase in the amplitude of the third phase. Yes, I noticed that, too. Maybe we just got used to each other like every couple?" Virginia suggested, turning over the papers thoughtfully. "Let's see how many sessions we had…"

"Twenty-eight, counting today," Bill said in a confident tone. "But we can't underestimate coupling or friction, either, I agree."

Mrs. Johnson stared at him under her brows, but Masters' face was extremely serious.  Suddenly Giny felt terribly tired.

"You know, it's getting late," she murmured. "We're both cold and hungry, and... Libby's waiting for you there with some firewood and pancakes. She also seemed to mention that a gutter cleaner had taught her how to dance the tango."

"My God, what am I saying?!" belatedly flashed through the tired mind.

The doctor opened his mouth to yawn or protest, but he no longer had time for this. There was an ominous rustle in the corridor, then something like a strangled growl, and then a hail of blows rained down on the door. Judging by the rumble, it was being kicked by heavy boots.

Thoughtful researchers glanced at each other in panic. The situation was delicate, needless to say. They, of course, did nothing reprehensible, quite the contrary. But try to explain this to an ordinary cleaner or head of the Board… Who the hell was here at such a late hour? If it was Libby, she obviously managed to learn not only dances, but also martial arts.

"Bill!" shouted a trumpet voice outside the door. "Biiiiiill! I know you're there! Open up, oh, Bill!"

"Provost Scully?" Masters was stunned. "Burton? What the devil?"

"Don't let him in!" Mrs. Johnson protested in a deafening whisper from behind the screen. "We are closed!"

"Help me, Bill," the Provost moaned plaintively. "I... I think I'm dying..."

As if in support of these mournful words, something in the corridor collapsed, and at once everything was silent.

Cursing and fumbling with his trousers, Masters somehow stumbled to the door, unlocked and opened it. Burton Scully's heavy, lifeless body slumped in the doorway.

"Giny, get some water!" Bill yelled, grabbing his medical bag.

To be continued.

[baronessblixen]

Fictober Day 13: Birthday Surprises

Prompt: "That's not the point"

A surprise birthday party for Mulder - thrown by someone you might not expect. Rating: T, wc: 1,512

This is a birthday story for @randomfoggytiger! It's got fluff, baby William, and Bill Jr.

Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober24

“We need to talk.” It’s good that he’s just put William to bed because her words make him drop the dirty diaper.

“What happened?” he asks, searching her face. His first thought is the big, fat D’s. Death. Divorce. Disease. He rakes his brain; she’s been fine yesterday, and every day before that. And they’re fairly happy, too. He’s sure of that.

“I got a call from my mom,” Scully says, taking his hand and leading him away from the nursery, toward the living room and the couch. So it’s ‘let’s sit down’ news. His hand feels ice-cold but if it is, Scully doesn’t mention it. A call from her mother could mean anything. The two big contenders are now death and disease.

“Is she- is she sick?” Mulder stammers.

“Hm? No. Mulder, you’re shaking.” She holds both his hands in hers even though his are so much bigger.

“You said we need to talk. I’m not expecting good news,” he admits.

“Oh, Mulder,” Scully says with a soft laugh. “I shouldn’t have just dropped this on you.” Like he dropped William’s used diaper. It’s still just sitting there, waiting. Much like Mulder here on this couch. “Relax, please. It’s nothing like what you’re imagining. Mom called to inform me that they’ve planned a surprise party for you.”

“A what?”

“A surprise birthday party.” Scully sighs, leaning her head against Mulder’s shoulder. “For you,” she adds, unnecessarily. After all, his birthday is in three days. For the first time in a while, he’s anticipating it. He could do without growing older, but this is his first birthday as a dad. It’s the first time they’re celebrating something together with William, apart from his birth.

“Why?” Scully sighs again and he’s learned that’s not a good sign.

“It’s Bill.”

“Bill? As in Bill Jr.? Your big brother who hates me?”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Scully says, playing with his fingers. He’s no longer shaking and the blood has returned to his extremities. “I think this is his way of apologizing.”

“A surprise birthday party?” He shouldn’t have feared the big D’s. Now it’s big, old brother Bill Jr. he needs to worry about.

“Mom wasn’t supposed to say anything, but she wanted to make sure we didn’t have any other plans.”

“Let’s make plans,” Mulder says. “It’s not too late.”

“It is now. I said we’re home. They all want to meet Will.”

“Who is ‘they’, Scully? How many people are we talking? Will anyone I know and like be at my birthday party?”

“Will and I will be there.” He loves it when she makes a joke, but right now he can’t appreciate it. “My mom, Bill, and his family. A few others.”

“A few others,” Mulder parrots and Scully nods slowly.

“She said she’s not sure how many people will show up.” She bites her lip, glancing up at him. It’s true that they haven’t made any plans, but he’d secretly hoped that they could sleep in. Or as long as William would let them. Have breakfast together as their small family. As though reading his mind, Scully leans up and kisses his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “But here’s something you’ll love. My mom is making you pumpkin pie.” He smiles down at her. He does love Mrs. Scully’s pies.

“Hm.”

“You love pie.”

“That’s not the point.” He leans over, kissing her lips. “But we’ll make it work.”

What choice do they have?

*

This isn’t the first he dreads a birthday; he’s merely thought this year would be different. Two decades ago, for three years in a row, all he wanted for his birthday was to open the door and for his baby sister to be there, grinning at him and yelling surprise.

After that third year – the year his father forgot the day altogether – Mulder gave up. The day became a day like any other. It didn’t matter. Not until Scully. Every year, she brought him a little gift. Even that first year when they barely knew each other. No matter where they were, no matter what else was going on, she always remembered.

A surprise birthday party isn’t the end of the world. Not even one thrown by Bill Scully Jr. It’s been a while since he’s last seen the man. Being dead does have its advantages, too. Scully sent him out an hour ago, not pretending it was for any reason except that the guests could slip in and surprise him upon his return. Scully had kissed him for so long that William had grown impatient in his arms.

That hour has passed in record time and now it’s time to go home. William – strapped to his chest – is half asleep after having seen squirrels and a duck at the park. At least his son is happy, no matter what else will happen today.

“Will,” Mulder says quietly as he reaches for the key in his pocket. “I hope you’re ready. I know I’m not.” He unlocks the door, taking a deep breath.

“Surprise!” A choir of voices greets him and Mulder puts on his best and biggest grin, acting surprised. However, they forgot to let William in on the secret. He hiccups and stuffs his hand in his mouth, drawing several awws from the guests. Then, without any warning whatsoever, he starts wailing.

“Hey, hey,” Mulder says, trying to soothe him.

“Poor baby,” someone says and Mulder nods, for the split of a second believing they mean him. Scully takes the baby from him, who calms down when he sees his mother wearing a colorful, silly party hat. Without his son in his arms, he’s free to be attacked – and people do. Maggie Scully is the first to hug him and press a kiss on his cheek. Then a bunch of women Mulder has never seen in his life proceed to do the same. A few men shake his hand and Mulder just nods and plays along.

“Finally someone I know,” he says when he sees Skinner.

“Mrs. Scully invited me.” And he seems positively tickled by it. “Happy birthday, Mulder,” he says, patting him on the back. That leaves Bill Scully Jr. The other man is wearing a party hat, too. It’s crooked on his head, making him look ridiculous – and like someone who won’t kill him after all.

“Happy birthday, Fox,” he says. Scully’s brother is uncertain whether to hug him or shake his hand and so they perform an awkward dance that ends with their shoulders bumping. “Can I call you Fox? Mom does it.”

“It’s fine,” he says.

“I, um, realize this is not- I figured you’re part of the family now, and well, birthday parties are what we do. Surprised Dana once in college and that was not- not the best idea.” When Bill smiles at him, Mulder warms up the man. His smile reminds him not only of his favorite Scully but also of Melissa. He knows Scully has been missing her sister even more after having William. And Bill is making an effort. He’s trying, so Mulder will be too.

“Thank you, Bill,” he says. “Birthdays haven’t always been easy for me, but I’ve heard a rumor that your mother made pumpkin pie.” The other man’s eyes light up.

“You’re a pie fan, too, huh? Maybe we should talk.”

And that’s what they do. As it turns out, Bill Jr. isn’t an asshole – or not as big an asshole as Mulder might have thought. He meets baby Matthew who – as the boy himself declares – is no longer a baby. He talks to various Scully family members who all knew about him and whose names he’s never even heard. At one point, Scully joins him, standing close to him and stroking his back.

Later, after everyone’s left and most of the chaos is taken care of, Mulder joins Scully in bed where she’s nursing William.

“He slept through most of the party,” Mulder says, sounding envious.

“Are you tired?” Scully asks him quietly, a hand on his arm, and he just nods. “Did you have any fun at all today?”

“I did,” he replies honestly. “Your brother can be fun, Scully.”

“He has his moments.” She’s smiling.

“We’re gonna play basketball on Christmas,” Mulder muses. “Weather permitting. And well, if I’m invited.”

“Why wouldn’t you be invited?”

“I’m not an official member of the Scully family, am I?” He’s asked her. Several times. As much as Bill Jr. may like him now, Mulder is sure that he’d prefer if he made an honest woman of his sister. So does Mulder. He wants to show the world that it’s them. Mulder and Scully, partners in everything.

“You’ll always be a member of my family,” Scully says. “Whether we ever make it official or not.”

“Did I hear a maybe to my marriage proposal?”

“It’s more than a maybe,” she whispers, leaning over to gently kiss him.

“This has been one of my favorite birthdays,” he admits quietly, gazing up at her.

“Let’s make it even better,” she says, kissing him.

[serahsanguine]

School, Sex and Subterfuge NC-17

ao3

This story is based in 2018/2019.

Mulder is a teacher, Scully is a student. This story is an NC-17 rating. There is no underage sex in my story I researched this before even writing it.

Mulder is known to give extra credit of a sexual kind to Someone special in his class does this person turn out to be Scully? I will let you read and find out.

*******************************************

Notes:

The first Chapter is kind of Scully Pov but most of the chapters thereafter will be both pov and or third person. Also, the characters I am portraying may seem out of charter well one of them at least but as the story goes on this will sort itself out it had to be done this way for the story to work.

*************************************************

First Day, First Meeting

Scully was now in her second year at Stanford University getting her bachelor's degree in Medicine.

She was a sophomore, thank God, because she had hated being a freshman. At least now she was kind of settled. She knew where she had to be on campus and knew the best places to get away from everyone, when she needed time alone. She has mostly the same classes that she had last year, just more advanced versions of those classes. She wasn't much for parties or social gatherings, as she preferred to study and get straight A’s instead of headaches and awkward conversation with strangers. Anything less would not please Ahab, especially with Missy roaming the world. She knew her roommate Serah and a couple of her close friends well and even knew most of the people in her classes. Serah was in most of the same subjects she was, bar a few, like art and music for example.

Scully woke up in her room, the sun was just starting to peek through the musty brown curtains. She groaned to herself and forced herself to roll over, looking over at her clock which sat on her bedside table, moaning again when she read the time - 5 am.

She hated when her body did this to her when it didn't want to sleep or she couldn't get to sleep. She swung her legs off the bed, it wasn't like she was going to go back to sleep anyway and put on some comfortable yoga pants, with a tank top and some bright red Nike Air running trainers. She could probably fit in an hour or two at the gym before the rest of the campus even wakes up. Plus the benefits of being at the gym this early is that no one would be there; meaning no guys wolf whistling or giving her dirty remarks under their breath while exercising.

She exited her room quietly shutting and locking the door behind her trying not to wake Serah, as she definitely was not a morning person. Scully made quick work of getting to the main entrance and across the quad to the west wing of the campus which held the gym and entered the building saying a quick "Hello" to Jim the security guard, before heading straight for the treadmill machine area. She placed her eco-friendly water bottle in the holder, and then put her wireless headphones on before scanning her iPhone and hitting play on Fleetwood Mac and stepped onto the treadmill starting at a light jog then a full sprint. She was so focused on running and what she was listening to that she didn't notice a man enter the room and start running, three treadmills down from her, himself.

An hour passed and Scully had run the sleep deprivation out of her system, and her legs were starting to burn so she slowed her pace and started her cool down. That's when she looked over to see a man in his late 20’s, maybe early 30’s, running hard with sweat dripping off of his face. Scully covertly checked him out - he was about 6ft 1 with chestnut brown hair and tanned skin.

She had never seen this man before but as she studied his physique, she could tell he was athletic, he had brilliant legs and calf muscles. She worked her way up staring at his butt which was nicely shaped and stood out in the very short black workout shorts that he was wearing, continuing up further to his arms she watched his toned biceps and triceps flex and tense as he was really giving this run his all.

The man suddenly turned towards her, looking directly at her and she realised she had clearly been caught checking him out. She started blushing and then he smiled at her and she wanted to look away but she couldn't help but stare back at the man looking appreciatively at her. His eyes are what drew her in, they weren't green but neither were they brown, in fact, they were a lovely shade of hazel; so bright and deep at the same time, they were mesmerizing. She watched sweat drip from his hairline and run down his cheekbones and nose which she did admit was too big for his face but it suited him all the same and didn't diminish how cute he was.

Scully worked her way down his face to look at his gorgeous pouty lips so pink and full - Wow! What she would give to have that bottom lip in-between her teeth sucking and nibbling it. Wow, where did that come from? She smiled back at him and he took off his drenched mesh and cotton tank top, her eyes drifted down of the own accord she could not help but notice the muscles of his chest and the very well defined six-pack on his stomach.

Looking at this beautiful man sent her into a full body flush - her heart racing, her breath was ragged and uneven, a pool of desire building in her stomach. Why was she thinking like this? She had to stop thinking like this immediately but damn she just wanted to shove him up against a wall and have him fuck her senseless!

She had to escape quickly, hopping off the treadmill she walked fast towards the ladies locker room but he was still staring at her as she opened the door and only then did he turn away. She could not help but glance at this man once more before heading for a very cold shower (which desperately needed now), trying not to think of the man she had just encountered and spent no actual time talking to.

After Scully had showered and changed into some light grey jeans and a flowy peach coloured tank top blouse with spaghetti straps, she grabbed herself a coffee and grabbed Serah one while she was at the on-campus coffee shop before walking back to her dorm room.

She arrived at her room and unlocked the door; Serah was already awake and dressed in black stretchy jeans, a black tank top and cropped burgundy hoodie, her long blonde hair was in a messy ponytail and away from her face, making her blue eyes stand out more than they already did.

"Hey Dana’ Serah said cheerfully.

"Wow, look who's up early!" Scully replied sarcastically, with a curiously raised eyebrow.

"Oh, shush you. Is that coffee for me?"

"Well, I don't see anyone else here to give it to, so you might as well have it," Scully said, handing Serah the coffee cup.

"Well, it looks like someone is in a sassy mood on the first day back. Anyone, I know?"

Scully was still surprised at how easily Serah could read her sometimes.

"No. Just some guy I saw at the gym this morning... I didn't even speak to him."

"You may not have spoken to him, Dana, but he has you all hot under the collar I can tell," Serah smirked, then took a sip of her coffee.

Scully could feel a slight redness in her cheeks and a small smile creep across her face.

"Maybe... but you know me and you know that I have no time for men."

"Well, my dear friend. All work and no play makes life very dull indeed. And sometimes you need to play hard and be free... and let go every now and then."

"Maybe I will, sometime"

"Yes but the sometime may never come, Dana"

"What classes do you have today anyway?"

"Mostly same as you Biology and Chemistry but when you have your free period I have Art class then lunch we can meet back up at say two for psychology?"

"Sure, that sounds about right."

"Oh, have you heard the rumours about our lecturer?"

"You know I don't listen to rumour and speculation."

"Well, I know THAT! But they are pretty good and sound rather juicy so do you want to know or not?" Scully nodded, and so without hesitation Serah carried on with her story "Well as I hear it our teacher Mr F. W. Mulder takes one girl under his wing a year and gives her ‘extra credit’" Serah raised her eyebrows as if willing Scully to get the hint but Scully just looked at her friend standing across from her and gave her a sceptical eyebrow. "Anyway, it so happens he purposely fails them so he can take them back to his office and have his way with them. And nobody minds because apparently from what I have heard from the older girls, he is very good looking and fantastic in bed"

"As I said I don't believe in rumour or speculation, and if what you say is true surely he would have been found out and got fired by now."

"You would think so, wouldn't you? But apparently he is from a wealthy family that donates a lot of money to the school... so they look the other way."

"Hmm… we really should get going or we’re going to miss out the first lecture."

"Changing the subject are we?"

"Why yes, I am." They both started laughing.

They casually wandered to their first class sipping their coffees on the way.

Several hours and a number of boring "Welcome back" lectures later. Scully was sitting in her favourite little, off-campus, cafe eating a small Caesar salad with a strawberry and banana smoothie just enjoying the scenery. The weather was warm for Autumn, a good 78 F but there was a light breeze flowing through the trees and flowers offsetting the unusual heat.

What Scully liked most about sitting here was being alone and the peace and serenity of it all - that was until the guy she saw earlier at the gym started walking in her direction. She watched him walk across the small cafe, his hair caught the sun coming through the large windows and his eyes glimmered in the sunlight, he was wearing dark blue jeans that rode low on his hips and a white shirt rolled up on his arms.

"Excuse me, is this seat taken?" He looked at her directly in the eyes now, and she could feel him burrowing his way into her soul, gesturing towards the empty seat next to her.

"No, it is not." Scully smiled sheepishly at him and watched him sit down across from her.

"It’s nice here. Very open... and yet rustic"

"Yes, it is" Scully felt herself going shy, and was unable to form long sentences.

"I'm sorry to be so forward. I'm not normally like this," he took a short pause before completing his train of thought "You just looked lonely. My name is William, by the way."

"Hello William, I'm Dana" she took his hand and shook it, she felt unable to breathe because of this man sitting in front of her.

"I was wondering if you attended the University?" Scully simply nodded, William took the chance to express what he really wanted to say "Look, I really came over to say that you are a very beautiful woman."

"Thank you," Scully was covered in crimson blush now and she didn't know what to say, she could feel her heart beating hard in her chest, could hear the blood pumping and thrumming in her ears.

"I really must be going, sorry to interrupt your day. It's been nice to meet you, Dana."

"It was nice meeting you, too," Scully answered managing to stumble out the words.

She watched him walk away (eyes distracted by his firm butt). No man had made her lost for words before, no man had really taken an interest in her or at least been so forward about it. She was shocked, to say the least, but very flattered by his attention.

She finished her salad (and smoothie) and made her way back to campus to meet Serah by the water fountain.

"Dana!"

"Hey Serah, are you ready to head to class?"

"Yeah"

Serah picked up her bag and bottled water, said bye to her group of friends and walked alongside Scully. It took about ten minutes to walk to the lecture hall, when they arrived it was already half full. Scully thought two things at that moment It is either a popular subject or he was a very popular man! Serah looked at her as if she knew what she was thinking and grinned.

"It could possibly be both, there a couple of seats over there"

They shuffled through the row of seats to find their spot.

"So, what did you get up to at lunch? You came back a bit flushed."

"I'm fine! Nothing happened." Scully stated, staring off into space and trying not to look at her friend.

"Yeah, right. I heard some more details that should interest you... details about what kind of women he picks for his little game"

"Is that so?"

"Apparently he goes for long haired brunettes and quite tall... or so I have heard."

"Oh, well thank you for the reassurance. Since I'm nothing like that he wouldn't even look at me twice." Scully mumbled while getting her notebook out of her bag.

"Anytime!"

Suddenly the whole lecture hall went quite as Professor F. W. Mulder himself stepped onto the stage at the front of the room. Scully looked up and recognized the man that was about to teach their class, it was William in his blue jeans and white shirt. Their eyes locked onto each other... Shit, she thought.

This was going to be one very long academic year.

[campaignofmisinformation]

Fic: The Evolution of Fox

Title: The Evolution of Fox Author: @campaignofmisinformation Rating: PG POV: Third Person: Mulder Timeline: Post Season 9 AU, Canon Divergent after Scary Monsters Summary: Four times William calls Mulder Fox and one time he doesn’t. Author’s Notes: @noamchimpsky‘s head canon about Maggie being the reason William calls Mulder Fox, along with Toddler actor William and Gillian’s Daddy/Fox exchange inspired whatever this is. And of course, @tofutti-rice-dreamsicle is bae as beta. Even though we completely devolved into horrifyingly terrible alternate endings there at the end.

i.

The thump of his tattered bag on the floor makes him wince. He feels like an invader in this place that used to feel more like home than his own. What was once an immaculate living room is now cluttered with colorful toys and toddler paraphernalia. So much has changed, more than he had imagined during long, lonely nights spent far away from here. From them.

“Mulder?”

He hears her calling from the guestroom, the one he’d slept in during late night cases and post parental deaths, and tries to find his voice.

“It’s me,” he whispers. But he isn’t sure who “me” is anymore. He’s lived 10,000 years in the last 367 days.

“William, wait!” Scully yells, two seconds before a toddler appears in the hallway. The boy halts as soon as his eyes catch the stranger in the living room. Mulder can’t breathe. William points at him.

“No! Mama!” the boy yells and Scully scoops him up from behind. He buries his face in her neck.

At the sight of her, Mulder’s lungs resume functioning and he gulps down air. He’s eternally thankful he’d spent the previous day reuniting with her, alone. It’s the only thing dulling the tightness in his chest. His son is afraid of him.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Scully soothes, kissing the boy’s head. “He’s not going to hurt you.” She throws Mulder an apologetic look and resumes stroking William’s hair. “Remember Grandma’s pictures?” William nods. “And the stories she tells you about Fox?” “Foss?” William asks and pats Scully’s face. Mulder’s eyes burn.

“Yes, baby. This is Fox. This is your daddy,” she says, voice breaking. William studies Mulder intently.

“No.”

ii.

Lying on the couch with one arm over his eyes, Mulder broods. He’d spent the last year dreaming about his son—holding him, kissing his hair, reading him stories, loving him—but the toddler with the blocks across the room won’t come within five feet of him. Earlier, he’d tried to sit on the floor and play but William had gathered all his toys and put as much space between them as possible.

So, he’d retreated to the couch, the only place in the apartment he feels at home.

There’s a knock at the door and William squeals.

“Gamma!”

Mulder lets his arm fall from his eyes. It stings that to his son he’s a stranger while Mrs. Scully is a treasure but he knows it’s his own doing. For the past year, she’d been filling the hole he left.

Sighing, he stands and stretches while Scully opens the door.

“Hi Mom,” she says and goes in for a hug but William throws himself between them.

“Gamma! Up!” he shouts, arms stretched over his head.

“Hi little one.” Mrs. Scully scoops up her grandson and receives a sloppy kiss as she turns to hug her daughter. “Hi honey.” With a hand on Scully’s shoulder, her eyes begin to scan the room. “Is he here?”

Mulder steps forward, eyes cast down, and clears his throat. “Hi Mrs. Scully.”

“Fox,” she whispers and rushes toward him, William still on her hip. “You’re okay. Dana and I were so worried.” Wrapping an arm around his waist, she pulls Mulder close and rests her cheek on his chest. William simply stares at him, his eyes large and wary, but curious.

“I’m sor-” Mulder starts to respond when she steps out of his embrace and cuts him off.

“None of that, Fox. That’s between you and Dana. I’m just happy you’ve returned to us. For both your-”

“Foss?” William interrupts, pointing at Mulder. “Foss?”

“Yes, honey. Fox. You know all about him, don’t you?” She turns to Mulder. “Dana wrote story after story about you for me to read to William. He loves them.”

Mulder looks to Scully and tears cloud his vision. When he blinks them away, she’s smiling at him. He loves her so much it hurts.

“Foss! Foss!” William squeals, bouncing and clapping his hands.

Mulder turns to his son and smiles. “Hi,” he says quietly.

“Hi,” William all but shouts and grabs at his nose.

iii.

“Scully, are you sure you want to do this?” Turning toward the mirror, he knots his tie. “We can wait for a night when your mom is available.”

The bathroom door opens and Scully sticks her head out.

“Mulder, for the last time. We. Are. Going. Out. You’ve been back for weeks and hardly left the apartment.” She opens the door, revealing an unzipped, low-cut blue dress and what he refers to as fuck me heels. “Not to mention, I would like a night with you all to myself. To do,” she steps toward him and pulls on his tie, “adult things.”

He swallows. “Believe me Scully, I would like nothing more. But overnight at the Gunmen’s? I cannot picture them changing a diaper.”

She turns her back to him and lifts her hair. “Zip me.” Slowly, he drags the zipper up. His knuckles graze the soft skin of her back, and she leans into him. “They’re very good with William, have watched him countless times with no trouble, and he adores them. Especially Frohike.” She drops her hair, turning to face him. “And Mulder, William is safer there than at my mother’s.” She tugs on his tie again, bringing him down for a kiss, and starts to retreat into the bathroom. “Go get his stuff ready while I finish up, okay?”

Mulder walks quietly down the hall, shoving down feelings of unease at the possibility of erasing the slow, yet steady inroads that have been building between him and his son. For the first time, William had requested that Mulder read his bedtime story. While Mulder sat stunned, his son had crawled into his lap and shoved The Very Hungry Caterpillar in his face.

It feels wrong to leave him tonight, but Mulder knows he’s being irrational. William would be asleep the whole time anyway, he tells himself, as he creaks open the bedroom door.

“Foss!” William is awake and standing in his crib. “Up!” Reaching toward Mulder with one hand, he balls the other and shoves it in his mouth.

“What’re you doing up, little man?” Mulder asks as he lifts his son from the crib. William burrows into his neck and he feels his heart inflate. Rubbing the boy’s back, Mulder sits in the rocker beside the crib. “Are you excited to see Frohike?”

“Hit-ee,” William whispers. Leaning back, he puts his hands on either side of Mulder’s face and smiles. “Hi.”

Mulder smiles back. “Hi buddy.”

iv.

“Fox. Socks. Box. Knox,” Scully reads with William on her lap. Mulder points to himself, the pair of socks on the floor, a box next to the socks and William’s stuffed hippo. “Mulder, you’ve been doing this routine every night for the last month. It’s okay if you want to change it up.” “Foss, Sauce, Boss, Noss!” William squeals and claps.

“No way! He loves it.”

Scully rolls her eyes and smiles. “Your Daddy’s silly, isn’t he?” she whispers in William’s ear, but he just points to the book. “Okay, okay. Knox in box.” Mulder puts the hippo into the box. “Fox in socks.” Sitting on the carpet, Mulder pulls on the socks.

“Foss Sauce!”

“Knox on Fox,” Scully reads, trying mightily to keep William from ripping pages as he flails his arms. The hippo takes his place on Mulder’s head. “In socks in box.” Attempting to step into the box while balancing the stuffed hippo, Mulder’s socks lose traction and he crashes to the floor.

Scully laughs, and William hurls himself out of her lap toward Mulder.

“Foss owie,” William says and places open mouth baby kisses on both Mulder’s knees and then his face. “Aw ettah.” Mulder feels no pain.

v.

William is finger painting in the kitchen when Mulder arrives home from his run. Scully always lets him paint on Saturdays which means the entire area is covered in plastic and William has used himself as a canvas. Mulder kisses his head as he passes on the way to the fridge. Grabbing a water, he pops the top and drains it in three gulps.

“How was your run?” Scully asks, pouring herself a coffee behind him.

“Good,” he replies, striding over to pin her against the counter. “Missed you.” Tucking a hair behind her ear, he kisses her and grabs a coffee mug. “How long has he been at it?”

“Awhile. I’m surprised he hasn’t tired of it yet.” She takes a sip of coffee while Mulder pours himself some and joins his son at the table.

“Whatcha painting bud?” He tries to make out something recognizable but it’s mostly a giant brown blob. “Foss.”

Mulder tries to see any likeness of himself, but it’s the art of a toddler so imagination is important.

“Ohhh, it’s beautiful. It looks just like me!”

William stops painting and stares at him. “No. Is Foss.” “Fox?” Mulder asks, pointing to himself.

“No!” William leaves the table and disappears into his room. Mulder glances at Scully, worried she’s going to freak about a paint covered toddler traipsing around the apartment. She isn’t. She looks wistful, a small smile gracing her lips. William returns with a book and hands it to Mulder.

“Foss sauce.”

Mulder’s confused, he thought he was Fox in socks. Sure, they hadn’t done the routine in a few weeks, but the kid is already replacing him? Sheesh.

He points to himself again.  “Not Fox in socks?”

“No,” William says and climbs in his lap. Brown paint covers his sweats as William points to his chest. “Dada.”

Scully lets out a little sob and Mulder stops breathing.

He points to himself once more. “Dada?”

William grabs his face, gurgles and erupts into a grin. “Dada,” he squeals and burrows into his father’s neck. Mulder smiles, misty eyed, and wraps his arms around his son.

Unnoticed by all, Fox in Socks slips to the floor.

[blackcoffeeandteardrops]

XF episode: Die Hand Die Verletzt?

I’m not sure if this is what you had in mind, but this was fun to write. Everything post abduction arc is colored by it a little bit. 

Scully adjusted her glasses, reaching back to work out a kink in her neck. After returning home, she’d left her suitcase right where she dropped it–in the middle of the living room–and poured herself a glass of wine while making a bag of popcorn her dinner. She’d pulled out some of the notes she’d taken during the case and had sat at her computer to work on her report. It had been dusk when Mulder dropped her off, light enough that she didn’t require any lights inside, other than the candle which was for comfort more than anything else.

Now however, as she stood up and stretched, debating another glass of wine, her apartment was cloaked in near darkness. There was a time when such things didn’t fill her with dread, but the past year or two since transitioning to the X-Files department had been far from uneventful.

Something about the case tugged at her brain, something she and Mulder had carefully avoided talking about on the way home, but now as she was typing up her report the thought wouldn’t escape her. It wasn’t the occult–not that she’d be calling it that in the report she turned in–but the woman who supposedly had been behind it all. The phone was ringing and Mulder was introducing himself before she even realized she’d dialed his number. “It’s me,” she said, by way of greeting. She realized then that she hadn’t known what she planned to say.

“Scully, is everything alright?” Mulder asked. In the background, she could hear a tv either being turned down or muted. When she confirmed everything was indeed fine, he seemed to relax a little. “Miss me already?”

“Well, you were supposed to call me and tell me you’d gotten home safely,” she replied, only half joking. Since her abduction–she was still grappling with the idea of classifying itself as such–they had been more protective than they’d ever been. She’d prickled at the idea at first, of letting him know where she was and when she’d gotten home after they’d finished a case. Still, there was a small comfort in knowing that he cared. “Actually, Mulder, I was thinking about the case. About Mrs. Paddock,” she said, eyeing the clock. As much as she enjoyed talking to him, and as much as she enjoyed the presence (albeit over the phone) of someone, she didn’t want to intrude on whatever plans he might have had. “But it can wait until Monday, Mulder. I’m sure you have plans.”

He bit back a retort that involved teasing her for working on a case straight away. “Those plans include cleaning out what little food is in my fridge. After I’d gotten home, I tried eating leftover takeout that I thought was still good. It was a bad decision, so I had to run out and grab some chinese. That’s why I didn’t call. I can assure you, Scully, you are not interrupting an exciting evening,” he said, unsure of why he felt the need to reassure her but wanting to do so all the same. “So, what about Mrs. Paddock?”

Scully ran a hand over her tired face. The shadows from around her apartment were somewhat imposing, so she reached over and turned on a lamp, feeling a little bit childish but enjoying the soft glow from the light.. “I was typing up my report, and I got to thinking about those poor kids. About what she and some of the others might have made them do. She may have convinced Shannon to kill herself, although I still can’t understand how that’s possible–”

“The human mind can be very persuasive, Scully. There are documented cases of people under hypnosis or otherwise suggestive activities doing things they report they normally wouldn’t do. Things like driving a car four hours away in the dead of night, buying an excessive amount of cheese, and in one case, even getting married,” he said, not missing the way she sighed. “What?”

“Where are you getting these stories from, Mulder?” she asked, raising an eyebrow though she knew he couldn’t see it. “Not that it has anything to do with this case. If Mrs. Paddock and the members of the PTO are satanists, even though some of them aren’t as invested as she apparently was, then what we saw was something far more ominous than hypnosis or some other mind trick.”

“Okay, that’s true,” Mulder replied. He poked his fork through the last of what remained of his dinner. “What is it about Mrs. Paddock that’s truly bothering you?” he asked, sensing he knew the answer, but wanting to ask anyway.

Scully took her glasses off, pinching the bridge of her nose. “She disappeared, Mulder. She took off before we had a chance to properly question her about potential motivations, let alone facing any sort of consequence for her actions. I don’t know how we could prove it was her, but–”

“But she’s still out there,” he said, completing her thought. He hadn’t known how to voice it until she did, but it was a thought that scared him, too. “Scully, I’d like to think that she’s gone underground. The efforts in New Hampshire were enough to spook her for a while, and she’ll need to restore her energy.”“That’s not exactly comforting, Mulder,” she cried, hating how insecure she sounded. “How long until she turns up in some other small town and wreaks havoc? Who will she manipulate then?”

On the other end of the line, Mulder went quiet. He knew now the case had shook her harder than he’d originally thought. Truthfully, he had feared what had become of the mysterious substitute who was apparently the culprit in the crimes up in New Hampshire, who had robbed two teenagers of their lives and was in all likelihood behind the killing of a third person, though he doubted Scully would believe him if he told her he thought Mrs. Paddock had charmed the snake into breaking free to devour Shannon’s stepfather. “She might, she might not. If she does, it may be under a new name or face. We’ll just have to be careful and hope we don’t cross her path again,” he replied, cursing himself when he did. He remembered the panic he’d felt upon getting the phone call from who he thought was Scully, and how he’d immediately rushed to the school only to find her safe. The relief he’d felt had been short lived, considering the way the faculty members attacked them not long after he’d arrived. A pang of guilt coursed through him at the memory. “I’m sorry I haven’t asked, Scully, but how are you feeling? You got hit pretty hard when they were pushing you around.”

Scully smiled softly, touched that he cared enough to ask. Still, she wrapped an arm around her middle, defiant in the face of the doubt regarding her well being. Since her abduction, he’d given it much more thought than he had before, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. “I’m fine, Mulder,” she replied, stifling a yawn. From her seat, she tilted her head from side to side and stretched her arms and legs, nearly dropping the phone in the process. “Listen, why don’t I let you go? I’m going to sleep, and can hopefully look at my report with fresh eyes in the morning.”

“Agent Scully, calling it a night before finishing your homework? You rebel,” Mulder replied conspiratorially.

Scully laughed softly. She opened her mouth again, ready to thank him, although she couldn’t say exactly what for. She cleared her throat instead, rising from the chair to prepare herself for bed. “Good night, Mulder.”

“Night, Scully.”

Scully disconnected the call and double checked the door, just to be certain it was locked. There were precautions she took now that seemed more serious than before. As she went to her room, she felt the shadows around the apartment were no longer as dark. It was impossible, but it was still true.

[leiascully]

Ficlet: Mrs. & Mr.  Spooky

Timeline: Season 10 (interlude in the All The Choices We’ve Made ‘verse - Visitor + Resident + etc.) Rating: PG Characters:  Mulder, Scully, Tom Colton Content warning: none A/N:  This combines and expands on the ficlets from the past few days.  I made a few edits here and there.

Scully’s reaching for the coffee pot when she realizes someone else is also reaching for it.  She draws back politely.  Bullpen coffee isn’t worth a fight.  She doesn’t really need to be more awake right now.  She just wanted something warm.  The heating in the basement is being repaired, and her sweater only does so much.  

“Oh,” she says when she actually looks at the face of the person who wants the coffee.  “Colton.”

He looks up.  “Dana?  I haven’t seen you in years.”

“Decades,” she says with a tight grin that shows her canines.  She hasn’t missed him.

“How’ve you been?” he asks.

She considers the range of her options.  Abduction.  Cancer.  Loss of a daughter she didn’t know she had.  Infertility.  Near loss of Mulder.  Loss of Mulder.  Death of Mulder.  Revival of Mulder.  Birth of a miraculous son.  Loss of a miraculous son.  Gain and loss of two new partners.  Years on the run.  Attempted redemption.  Breakup.  Therapy.  Renewal of relationship.  Second chance at redemption.  Mother’s death.  More therapy.

“Fine,” she says.  “You?”

“Oh, still busting my ass,” he says, sticking one hand in his pocket.  

“Still not assistant director,” she says, feigning politeness.

“Well, looks like you aren’t either,” he says.

“No,” she agrees.  “We took a leave of absence.”

“We?” he asks.

“Oh, yes,” she says, gesturing.  Mulder’s clearly been lurking; he saunters over and leans over her shoulder.  “We took a leave of absence for, oh, almost a decade, but we were asked to reconsider.  We’ve reopened the X-Files.  You remember my husband, Mulder.”

“Sure,” Colton says, holding out his hand to shake and grimacing as Mulder squeezes a little too tight.  Scully would roll her eyes, but that’s the only kind of conversation men like Colton seem to understand.  “Wow.  Congrats.  I guess you’re Mrs. Spooky for real.”

“We actually changed our legal names,” Mulder says blandly.

Colton narrows his eyes.  “Yeah, well, good luck, I guess.”

“You too,” Scully says.  “It must be frustrating to climb the ladder all these years and still be on the bottom rung.  Maybe you’ll get your big break soon.”

“I for one found our sabbatical really refreshing,” Mulder says.  “You might consider it.  Right, honey?”

“Definitely,” she says, leaning against him.  “It really put everything in perspective and gave us leverage to negotiate when they asked us back.”

“Wow,” Colton says through gritted teeth.  “Sounds great.”

“Should we step out for coffee, since there’s no more here?” Scully asks Mulder.  

“It’s a date,” Mulder says, smiling at her.  “Stretch our legs, knock out this case.  Third one this week - they just keep piling them on when you’ve got a solve rate like ours.”  He shakes his head regretfully.  “See you later, Colton.  Nice catching up with you.”

“Yeah, great to see you,” Colton says.  He takes a long sip of his coffee.  Scully’s fairly certain he burns his tongue.  She smiles.

“You didn’t have to completely annihilate him,” Mulder murmurs as they walk away.  

“He had it coming,” she tells him.

He whistles in quiet admiration.  “I like this killer instinct of yours.”  

“Thank you,” she says.

“I’d pay money to watch you tear down men brick by brick,” he muses.  “Just one thing, Mrs. Spooky.  We’re not married.”

“Maybe it’s time to change that,” she says.

“What inspired this?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

She sighs.  “Seeing my mother in the hospital again just reminded me that as it stands, we have no right to see each other.  I’m your doctor, but what if I get sick?  There are too many scenarios, too many factors.  It would make things so much easier if we had legal protections.”

“How romantic,” he murmurs as they walk out of the Hoover Building.

“How’s this for romantic?” she says, and takes his hands.  She uses her grip as leverage as she slowly kneels on the sidewalk, glad she stopped wearing hose sometime in the mid 90s.  “Fox Mulder.  You and I have been through hell and back.  You understand me like no one else has or ever will.  You’re my one in seven billion.  Will you marry me?”

“People are staring, Scully,” he says, amused.

“Let them,” she tells him, gazing into his eyes.  It’s an interesting perspective, one she’s rarely seen outside the bedroom.  

“Is this real?” he asks.

“Mulder, I’m kneeling on a sidewalk in Washington D.C. and it’s almost lunch time,” she tells him.  “There’s no way I would do that if it weren’t serious.”

“You might be a doppelganger,” he says, “but yes, Scully, obviously I’ll marry you.”  He pulls her up and into his arms for a lingering kiss.  She lets herself melt into him.  People around them are applauding.  

“You really gave the tourists a thrill,” he says against her lips.

“As long as I still thrill you,” she says breathlessly.

“You do,” he tells her, and kisses her again.

+ + + +

Scully gets on Etsy. It seems like there are a hundred thousand people offering hand-lettered signs, and she browses for more than an hour, looking for just the right style. She finally chooses someone who paints on reclaimed wood. It’s trendy, appropriately rustic. She feels reclaimed herself. She and Mulder are still buffing away each other’s rough spots, but raw edges are in vogue. She knows how to slide her hands over him without getting any splinters by now.

It’s reasonably priced, all things considered, and they can deliver it by Mulder’s birthday. Mrs. and Mr. Spooky, it says. She thinks he’ll like the less-than-traditional order of it, an omen that she’s adopted the identity fully. They aren’t hanging in the office, though. There has to be some modicum of professionalism..

+ + + + 

“Rounding the bases toward 60,” he says, after they’ve had cake and opened presents. “I wouldn’t be here without you, Scully.”

“Sure you would,” she says.

He leans back in his chair. “When I was young, I thought I was the light that shine too brightly. I just assumed I’d die young. My sister was gone. All I had was my passion. And then Diana left and some part of me looked for ways to martyr myself.”

“I remember,” she says. “We were always running pell-mell into dark rooms.”

“You showed me it didn’t have to be that way,” he says, taking her hand. “You showed me storms could be weathered. Lives could be rebuilt.”

“We rebuilt each other,” she says. “Up from the foundations.”

He turns her hand over in his and kisses her palm. “We’re stronger for it.”

“Happy birthday,” she tells him, smiling.

Outside rain patters down, chill and grey. They’re snug and warm under their own sturdy roof. Later they’ll slide together into bed, damp from the shower, and share a slow caress. It’s October and they’ve come around again: slung full circle around the sun, from the basement to the stars and back.

+ + + +

They hang the sign in the entryway, over the hall table with the mail basket and the bowls for their keys.  

“I like it,” Mulder says judiciously.  “It’s the first thing I see when I walk in.”  He flourishes his hand at it, palm open.  

“Of course you like it,” she says from the front steps.  “It’s very tasteful.  Can I come in?”

“I have to carry you over the threshold,” he tells her.  

“Mulder, you’re going to throw your back out,” she says, but she knows her eyes are soft.  “I don’t think you have to do that for a courthouse wedding anyway.”

“A courthouse wedding is still a wedding,” he chides.  

“In the eyes of the government, yes,” she allows.  “Nobody else cares.”  

“I care,” he says, coming out to the front stoop.  He leans down to nuzzle at her neck; her hair is pulled up and his nose and lips are warm against her skin.

“I know we should have waited until tomorrow,” he says.

“A  Halloween wedding would have been a little on the nose,” she tells him.  “This is perfect.”

“A nip in the air,” he says, nipping at her neck so that she shivers.  “Falling leaves.  Apple cider and ghost stories.”  

“Very atmospheric,” she says.  “Are you going to carry me inside or not?  It’s chilly out here and this dress isn’t very warm.”  It’s a cream-colored silk sheath with russet trim: something traditional but updated, a wedding dress for a bride who took the long road home.  She’s wearing her mother’s coin necklace around her neck and blue earrings.  The old rhyme feels like a prayer.  She knows it’s how her mother and Missy would have dressed her.  

“I thought that’s what the shrug was for,” he mumbles against her collarbone.  

“The shrug only does so much,” she says.  

"Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he murmurs.  “I’ll warm you up.”

“I know you will,” she says, twining her arms around his neck.  He bends his knees and slips his arms under her.  She feels so safe in his arms, as if the weight of the past has been, well, not lifted, but made light for the moment.  Their memories are draped over them the way her shrug is draped over her shoulders.  There’s a warmth in them, despite it all.  

“Happy wedding night, Mrs. Spooky,” he says, as he carries her into the house.

“Happy wedding night, Mr. Spooky,” she tells him, and he nudges the door shut with his foot while Kismet barks from the den.  

[myownsuperintendent]

Fic: “Renewal”

After Scully has a difficult birth with her third child, Jackson comes back to the Unremarkable House to help care for his sister.  Rated G.  This story involves childbirth complications.  Thanks to the lovely people at the X-Files chat who listened to me rant and helped me figure out childcare things (@softnow, @kyouryokusenshi, and @talitakuomi who tumblr won’t let me tag)!  Also here at Ao3. 

.....

They kicked him out of the room.  They kicked him out of the room, and under any other circumstances he would be protesting with all his strength, getting back in there come hell or high water.  But there’s Susanna.

So instead of fighting with the doctors he’s walking up and down in the hall, with Susanna pressed snugly against his shoulder.  He looks down at her face about once a second.  A tiny bit of brown hair.  Big blue eyes.  Everything about her impossibly tiny.  Their daughter.  His and Scully’s.  Perfectly healthy.

He’s talking to her too, in a sort of stream of consciousness.  “I’ve got you,” Mulder tells her.  “I’ve got you, okay, baby girl?  I already love you so much.”  It’s true, so true, and he holds her tighter, instinctively.  “And your mom will too, okay?  You should have seen how excited she’s been.  Getting you all these books and toys and little hats…She’s going to love you so, so much.”  It can’t not be true, if he tells it to Susanna.  He can’t be the kind of person who lies to his baby daughter.  “You’re going to see her really soon.  The doctors just had to do a few things.”  He’s not going to say any more than that.  It might scare her.  It might scare him.  “But she’ll be fine, Susanna.  She’ll be so happy to see you.  You’re going to love each other so much, the two of you.”

Mulder’s not really surprised, when he looks up and sees who’s coming down the hall towards him.  It’s that kind of day.  He can’t wave, because of Susanna, but he nods and tries to smile.  “Hi,” he says, when they’re close enough.  It’s wildly inadequate, but he’s also been here for close to twelve hours at this point.  And he’s not sure that, under any circumstances, he could give this moment what it deserves.

“Hi,” he says, the boy, the young man, William, Jackson—Mulder has no idea what to call him.  The last time they saw him was on a dingy dock, a night when they thought they would never see him again; now he’s here in this antiseptically clean corridor.  His voice is strained, hurried, when he says, “I thought I felt—whoa, is that the baby?”  He nods towards Susanna.

“Yes,” Mulder says, nodding too.  “This is Susanna.”  The strangest introduction he’s ever performed.

“She’s a girl, then?” he asks.  “I wasn’t sure.”  He seems to know all about it, even though he just got here.

“A girl,” Mulder confirms.  “Your sister.”  The words slip out of him, in this moment; he remembers holding his son like this.  Susanna makes a noise—he doesn’t know if she’s pleased or upset, if she’s curious about her brother or if she wants to see her mother as badly as he does—and he pats her back softly.

He’s still staring at Susanna when he says, “I thought I felt something.  Something with—with Dana.  I wanted to see…What happened?” he asks, finally looking up.

Mulder knows that at another time he might have felt profoundly glad about this.  He might have been fascinated, full of questions about this connection between mother and son.  Right now, he doesn’t feel like he can focus on any of it.  He glances at Susanna, who has just discovered that she can put her fingers in her mouth, and lowers his voice a little.  “She started bleeding,” he says.  “More than…more than she should have, I mean.  Right after Susanna was born.”  When he thinks about it, the scene seems surreal: happiness one minute, a new baby girl, and the next the doctors talking in hard loud voices and hustling him out quickly, Scully’s pale face and blood on the bedsheets.  “I don’t know exactly what happened.  They wouldn’t let me stay.”

“But she’s…”  He seems to have difficulty getting the words out.  “I mean, she’s still…”

“Oh, God, yes, she’s alive,” Mulder says, when he realizes what the question is.  Don’t even think that, he wants to say.  “They’re working on her now.  I don’t know when I’ll get to see her, though.  I don’t know anything more.”  The not knowing might be the worst part, if the other parts weren’t so horrible.

“Do you mind if I wait too?”  He’s standing there with his hands in his pockets.

“Please,” Mulder says.  They walk more, then, the three of them.  Susanna falls asleep.  Mulder wonders how she can.

He’s lost his sense of time when a nurse comes towards them.  “Are you Mr. Scully?” she asks.

“Yes,” he says; he’ll answer to anything if that means he can see her, if that means she’s all right.  “How is she?”

“She’s stable,” the nurse says.  “The surgery was successful.”  He doesn’t know if he wants to ask for the specifics.  “She lost a lot of blood, but we’ve got her on an IV now.”  He must look like he feels, because she pats his arm.  “Your wife is going to pull through.”

He can barely take it in.  “Can I see her?”  That’s the only question now.  Maybe then he’ll believe in this.

“She’s not awake yet,” the nurse says, “but she’s in a recovery room.  You can go in and sit, if you want.  I’ll show you the way.”

As she starts off down the hall, Mulder turns to William.  Jackson.  Their son.  “Do you want to come too?” he asks.  He tries to make it sound warm, like he’s not only thinking about getting to Scully as fast as possible.

He shakes his head.  “I…it’s not a good idea,” he says.  “Not now.  Maybe I’ll hang around, though.  Get something to eat.  Maybe see you later.”  He pauses.  “I’m glad she’s going to be okay.”

“So am I,” Mulder says.  “Well.  Goodbye, then.”  The nurse is waiting impatiently halfway down the hall.

“See you later,” he repeats, and as Mulder starts to walk away, he waves, suddenly.  “Bye, Susanna,” he says, and then he turns and goes.

.....

Scully’s head is light and dizzy; it’s never pleasant, waking up like this, no matter how many times you’ve been through it.  She blinks, a couple of times, and sees Mulder leaning over her.  He looks like shit, which gives her a pretty good idea of the kind of condition she must be in (if the buzzing in her head and the fact that moving feels impossible hadn’t already tipped her off), but she’s happy to see him.

Her happiness is nothing to his, though.  “Scully,” he says, “Scully,” and then he’s leaning closer still and kissing her, all over her face, and she thinks he’s laughing until she feels a teardrop on her chin.  “You’re all right, honey,” he keeps saying.  “You’re all right, thank God.”  She tries to shift in the bed, to touch him too, and he stops and pulls back.  “Don’t try to sit up,” he says.  “They made me promise I wouldn’t disturb you.”  He’s trying to smile at her through the tears in his eyes.  “You’re all right,” he repeats.  “Please don’t scare me like that again.  Not ever again.”

She reaches out her hand, and he clasps it, their thumbs brushing against each other.  “What happened?” she asks.  She feels silly, not being able to remember; she trawls through her memory, trying to figure out what brought her here.  The morning, she remembers suddenly.  The morning and her water broke and…She cuts him off as he’s starting to answer her.  “The baby,” she says.  “Mulder, is the baby okay?”  She feels cold, afraid.

But his smile reassures her, even before he speaks.  “She’s a lot more than okay,” he says.  “Scully, she’s perfect.”  He turns away from the bed for a moment—Scully tries to crane her neck to see what he’s doing, and even though it makes her dizzy she thinks she catches a glimpse of a bassinet—and then he’s back with a bundle in his arms.  “Here she is,” he says, and Scully stares.  She’s right there now, their daughter, and Mulder was right, she is perfect.  She’s more than Scully felt she could hope for, after everything.  She’s here with them.

“Hi,” Scully whispers.  “Hi, Susanna.”  They finally decided on the name last week, and she’s glad of it now; it makes her feel like their daughter is someone, right from the start.  “Hi, baby girl.”  She touches Susanna’s cheek.  It’s so soft.  The moment feels achingly familiar and wondrously new, all at once.

“See,” Mulder says, “see, Susanna, I told you she was going to love you so much.”

“I do,” Scully says.  “I really, really do.”  She knows she’s starting to cry now too.

Mulder holds Susanna out towards her.  “Do you want to hold her?”

She does, more than anything.  “My arms…everything feels like jelly,” she says.  “I’m afraid I’ll drop her.”  Mulder doesn’t say anything.  Then he moves, carefully, so he’s on the bed next to her, so he’s got his arms around her and Susanna at the same time.  She puts a hand against his, under Susanna’s head.  For the moment it feels like the three of them are one.

She looks up when she hears a tap at the door, and then she gasps.  It’s her son; he’s standing there in the door, staring at the three of them with an expression that she can’t read.  “Hi,” he says.  “I wanted to see if you were all right.”  She wonders if she’s still unconscious, after all.

“He was here earlier,” Mulder tells her.  “When we were waiting to see what was going on.”

That doesn’t explain anything.  “What is going on?” she asks.  “What happened to me?  How did you know to come?”

“You were hemorrhaging, honey,” Mulder says.  He’s still holding her, and the whole thing seems like it’s almost too intimate, with their son right there.  “Right after Susanna got here.  But you’re going to be all right.  They did a laparotomy.”  He says the words carefully, as if they’re memorized; he must have asked for the specifics for her, knowing she’d want to know.  “And a…um…something with your blood vessels.  Embolization?”

“Yeah,” she says, a little amazed that she can still put meaning to the words, with how tired she feels.  “Not a hysterectomy?”

“No,” he says, and she lets out a breath.  She knows there won’t be any more babies, but even so she hates the thought.  Something else gone.

Their son interjects then.  “I…well, I could feel you were in pain,” he says.  “That something was wrong, anyway.  And I wasn’t that far away, so…I just wanted to see if you were all right.”

“Thank you,” she says.  She can’t believe they’re having this conversation.  “Would you come over here?” she asks, and he approaches the bed, still staring at the three of them, who are still intertwined.  “Thank you so much for coming to see me,” she says.  “Have you been…are you all right?”

“Yeah,” he says.  “Yeah, I’ve been…yeah.  It’s fine.  You don’t have to worry about me.”

But what if she wants to?  “I still do, though,” she says.  “We’ve both been wondering about you.”

“Well, don’t,” he says, a little sharply, and it hurts, even if she doesn’t have the right to feel that way.  She sits up a little, so she can talk to him better, and it feels like someone has grabbed her head and started shaking it.  Right, she thinks, as she feels herself sliding back down, right, I wasn’t supposed to try to sit up, and Mulder grabs for her, saying her name in a slightly panicked voice, and Susanna starts wailing, and her son is leaning in there somewhere too but she can’t focus, she has to close her eyes and just concentrate on not passing out.

When she opens them again, Mulder is stroking her hair back from her face.  Their son is holding Susanna, patting her back sporadically.  He looks ill at ease, but somehow steady.  Susanna’s stopped crying.

“You don’t look so good,” Mulder tells her.

“I’m okay,” she says.  “Tired.”

“You should rest, then,” he says.  “The nurse said someone would be coming back to check on you soon.  Rest until then, okay?”

She gropes for his hand.  “Stay with me,” she says.  “Please.  All three of you.”  She can see their son standing there, holding Susanna.  She watches them until she falls asleep.

.....

Mulder stops the car outside the house, as close as he can get to the steps without making it blatantly obvious what he’s doing.  From the way Scully looks at him, he doesn’t think he’s succeeded too well.  “Here we are,” he says.  “Jackson, can you take Susanna?”

“Sure,” Jackson says.  Mulder can see him struggling with the car seat straps as he gets out of the car himself.  He doesn’t blame him.  Those things are a challenge.

He wants to stop and watch them for a minute—the whole thing seems so strange, so overwhelming.  They thought they would be bringing their daughter home from the hospital; now they’ve brought their son home too.  He’s coming home with them and they didn’t even have to ask: he was the one who offered.  He said he would come back with them for a little while, to help out with Susanna, just while Scully was still recovering.  They told him he didn’t have to, and he shrugged and said it was fine.  Whatever that might mean.

Jackson’s liberated Susanna from the car seat and is holding her; it sounds like he says something to her, but Mulder can’t make out the words.  He goes around and opens the car door for Scully, who shoots him a look when he tries to help her up.  So he lets her do this part under her own steam, anyway, lets her walk unsupported until they come to the stairs.  “Come here,” he says then.  “You know you’re not supposed to do stairs yet.”

She puts her arms around his neck and lets him lift her, up the few steps to the porch.  He really doesn’t mind doing it; she’s not that heavy, and anyway she’s his wife and just put herself through hell bringing their daughter into the world, so he figures he’d be an asshole if he did mind.  She minds, though.  That’s obvious, in every line of her face, in the way she holds every muscle of her body.  She doesn’t like having to come into her own house this way.  And there’s something else too, something he can’t quite pick out.  He sets her down on the porch, Jackson and Susanna coming up after them, and opens the door.

The house looks just like it did earlier in the week, before they left to go to the hospital.  Not that he should have expected it to look any different, he guesses.  “Do you want to rest down here for a while?” he asks Scully.  “Or go upstairs?”

She’s quiet for a minute.  He can tell she’s longing to be in their bed, much more comfortable than anywhere she slept at the hospital, and that something—whatever it was he couldn’t pick out before—is making her hesitate.  Her eyes look in Jackson’s direction, and Mulder thinks he knows what it is.

“Is she asleep?” he asks Jackson quietly, coming over to look at Susanna.  Her eyes are closed, her head against her brother’s shoulder.

“I think so,” Jackson says; his voice is quiet too.  “Pretty much, anyway.”

“Do you want to take her up to her room?” he asks.  “It’s the last one at the end of the hall upstairs.  The one with the crib,” he adds, smiling.  “You can let her sleep there.”

“Sure,” Jackson says, and he starts up the stairs with Susanna in his arms.

Once he’s at the top, out of sight, Mulder turns to Scully again.  “Take you up now?” he asks, and she nods this time, lets him carry her to their room.

He sets her down on the bed and starts arranging the pillows behind her.  “Why didn’t you want Jackson to see me carrying you?” he asks.

She doesn’t answer for a minute—he thinks she’s going to deflect, maybe, claim she was thinking no such thing, but then she sighs and says, “I’m his mom, Mulder.”  He waits a little longer, but she doesn’t elaborate.  He decides to let it go, at least for now.

“Well, we’re home now,” he says.  “You glad?”

“Very,” she says.  “I hated that room.  And the food.”

“This room is much more comfortable,” he agrees.  “And I will provide you with the best of food.”  He kisses her temple.  “And you can take it easy.”

“Take it easy?” Scully asks.  “Mulder, we have a newborn in the house.  The time for taking it easy is long gone.”

“Okay, fair,” he says.  “But you know what I mean.  You’re still healing, Scully.  Don’t push yourself.  Okay?”  She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t protest either.  “Do you want to rest for a while?” he asks.  “Sleep when the baby sleeps, like they say.”

“All right,” she says, curling up on the bed; he pulls the blanket up over her, gently, and she’s asleep in minutes.

Mulder knows he should probably sleep too, but he can’t settle to it.  Instead, he walks down the hall, into the smaller bedroom, the one that is now Susanna’s.  Jackson’s still there, standing at the window and looking out; he doesn’t turn around when Mulder comes in.  Mulder bends over the crib, where Susanna is lying asleep.  She looks peaceful: the only one of them, if Mulder had to guess, who isn’t at all weirded out by this whole thing.  He doesn’t want to disturb that, so he stands back a little, just watching her, not saying anything.

Jackson stirs and speaks.  “She’s so little.”

“Yeah,” Mulder says.  They stand there together. .....

During the days, Scully tries, making herself walk down the hall, even when her body protests the whole operation.  She holds and feeds Susanna, always sitting down first and letting Mulder or Jackson bring her over, in case her own legs decide to give out.  She takes naps that don’t feel long enough.  She marvels at everything Susanna does.  She watches Mulder carrying Susanna, cooing to her, marveling too, and she feels glad.  She snatches the occasional shower, when Jackson’s watching his sister.  She comes back into the room, watches him carrying Susanna too and talking away to her, hears him fall silent when he realizes she’s there, and doesn’t know what to feel.

During the nights, she wants to try, but she can’t.  It always hits her when the baby monitor wakes her up.  The tiredness down to her bones.  Aches in places she didn’t know could ache.

Mulder stirs next to her.  “You want me to get her?” he asks, words slurred with sleep.  “Bring her to you?”

“Yeah,” she says.

She drags herself to a sitting position while he goes, fumbles with her buttons.  They don’t seem to be working.  She pauses, makes herself breathe.  Tries again.  They still don’t work.  Takes another breath, a deep one, and forces those stupid little things through the buttonholes, one at a time.

Mulder comes back in, with Susanna held against him.  She’s crying pretty loudly now, and Scully tries to soothe her as she takes her, but she really has to concentrate on just holding her: she feels like her arms might collapse.  At least Susanna knows what to do by now.  She calms when she’s at the breast, and Scully takes a deep breath again.

Susanna’s drifting off now.  Scully tries to keep her awake long enough to burp her; she doesn’t want her waking up again in twenty minutes with air in her stomach.  She’s not sure if she does or not.  She’s not sure if she’s awake herself.

The next thing she knows, Mulder is sliding back in next to her.  “What?” she asks.

“I didn’t say anything,” he says.  “Go back to sleep.”

“What happened to Susanna?” she asks.  “Where’d she go?”  Susanna’s not supposed to be gone.  Mulder says something; she knows all the words and can’t make meaning out of them. “Where’d she go?” she asks him.  Should she get up and look?

He touches her cheek, turning her head towards him.  “She’s fine,” he says.  “She’s in her crib.  You fed her, and she’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“I’m sure,” he says.  “You fell asleep after you fed her, that’s all.  You’re tired, honey.”  The hand on her cheek smooths her hair back.  She tries to reach out to him too, wonders if her hand can make it that far.  “You should sleep,” he says, and he kisses her gently, and she starts to cry, her face against the pillow.

Mulder moves closer to her; she can see the concern on his face, even though the room is dim.  “What is it?” he asks her softly, stroking her hair again.  “I’ve got you.  I’m here.”

“I don’t know,” she wails.  She sounds like she’s a baby herself, bawling like Susanna does when she’s hungry or startled.

“Are you in pain?” he asks her.

“No,” she manages.

“Your stitches and everything, they’re all good?”

“I guess.”

He doesn’t interrogate her further about that, for which she’s grateful.  “You’re tired, though.”

“So tired,” she says.  “So tired.”  Her head is against his chest, now; he lets her sob there.

“You’ve been through a lot, Scully.  It would be nuts if you weren’t tired.  But you’re going to be okay.”  More stroking her hair; maybe she could go to sleep like this.  It would be all her body wants.  “You’re still healing.  But you’re going to get better.  Sleep now, okay?”  She doesn’t feel entirely soothed.  But she’s too tired to do anything but take his advice.

She’s alone the next time she wakes up, early in the morning.  She checks the nursery:

Jackson’s there, holding his sister.  Scully pauses in the doorway and watches them; he doesn’t see her yet.

“Are you getting hungry?” he asks Susanna, his voice sweet and loving and unfamiliar.  “Mulder said we should let Dana sleep if we could.  But we can go find her, if you need to eat.”  He turns, then, and sees Scully, freezing almost as if he’s been caught doing something wrong.

“Good morning, Jackson,” she says.  Susanna crows when she sees her, and she walks over to them, taking one of Susanna’s tiny hands in hers.  “Good morning, sweet girl.”  She feels the imbalance in the greetings, doesn’t know what to do about it.  “Time for your milk,” she tells Susanna, instead, and settles into the rocking chair with her daughter on her lap.

“Mulder went to the store,” Jackson says.  “He said to let you sleep.”

“Well, thank you,” Scully says.  “That was sweet of you both.”  She wants to say more, but he’s already turning towards the door.  “I hope she hasn’t been waking you up too,” she adds, feebly.

“Nah,” he says.  “Not really.  I mean, I’m not always asleep, anyway.”  He looks down at Susanna.  “We’re both night owls, aren’t we?” he asks her, and she blows a spit bubble.  “Nice,” he comments.

“Is everything…is there anything we can do?” Scully asks.  “I mean, if you’re not sleeping.”

“No,” he says quickly, “it’s fine.  Don’t worry about me.”

She almost laughs.  “That’s not so easy for me to do, Jackson.  I’m your…”  She’s not sure what she should say.  She’s not sure how he sees her.

“It’s fine,” he says again.  “She’s tired,” and then he’s gone before she can stop him.  Susanna whines and she shushes her, unbuttoning her top to feed her again.

.....

“She’s got a lot of hats,” Jackson says, looking in the drawer.

“Yeah,” Mulder acknowledges.  “We went a little crazy.”

“This one’s cool,” Jackson says.  He holds up a yellow thing, almost too small to be a hat, really; it’s made of wool, with a cloth flower on the top.  He puts it on Susanna, who’s in Mulder’s arms, and steps back a pace to study the effect.  “High fashion,” he says, grinning.  Mulder smiles back.  Susanna drools.

“Dana’s doing better,” Jackson says.  It’s half a statement, half a question.

“I think so,” Mulder says.  “It’s a little hard to tell when we’re all so tired anyway.  You must be exhausted too.”

Jackson shrugs.  “I don’t sleep a lot,” he says.  Then he frowns, as if he’s said too much, and shuts the dresser drawer with a jerk, and any invitation to talk has been withdrawn.

.....

Today Scully’s made her way to the nursery unassisted, unsupervised, which feels like the equivalent of a successful criminal chase in heels.  She’s sitting in the rocking chair, having a chat with Susanna.

“Look at you,” she says softly, as Susanna waves a tiny hand.  “You’re the sweetest baby girl in the world, you know that?”  She smooths the soft wisps of hair at the back of Susanna’s head.  “I love you so much,” she tells her, “and I always will, okay?  Forever and ever.  I’ll always be here to take care of you.”  The thought brings her both joy and guilt.  The combination is not unfamiliar, right now.

Susanna whimpers a little, the sound that she makes when she’s getting hungry, and Scully starts to unbutton her pajama top.  “Hey, baby girl,” she says.  “Hungry, huh?  We’ll take care of that.”  It’s peaceful and calm, feeding her daughter, and she feels like she’s doing something right, in this moment at least.  Her body isn’t fighting her.  No one’s worried about her.  She isn’t making anyone’s life more difficult.  She just holds Susanna close and makes soft, soothing sounds.  Maybe for Susanna.  Maybe for both of them.

.....

Scully’s made her way downstairs for the first time tonight; Mulder walked close behind her, just in case, but she didn’t need his help.  He claps when she reaches the last step, and she shoots him a look, then stands on her toes and kisses him.  “It’s good to see the living room again,” she says.  “I thought it might be gone.”  She’s smiling now, as she sits on the couch, and Mulder can’t help smiling too.

“It got lonely down here without you,” he tells her.

“How much have you been down here yourself?” she asks him.  “I feel like you’re right behind me, every second of the day.”  She shakes her head, amused.  “I hope you’re reassured that I’m not going to…shatter, now.”  He wonders what the pause meant, what she was thinking of saying.  Die, maybe, and if that was it he’s glad she didn’t say it.

“I’d never think you were going to shatter,” he tells her.  “I know you much too well for that.  I’d vote you Least Likely to Shatter.”

“Oh, come on,” she says, but she nestles into him, there on their couch, and he’s the happiest he’s been in the past two weeks.

“And for your information,” he adds, “I’ve come down here plenty of times.  Cooking and all that.”

“I know,” she says.

Jackson comes into the room then, carrying Susanna.  “Hey,” he greets them.  “You’re down here.”

“We’re down here,” Scully confirms.

“Should I put her in the…thing?” Jackson asks.  The thing is a baby seat, next to the couch; they’d bought it before Susanna was born, along with everything else, but so far it hasn’t seen much use.  “I don’t know what it’s called.”

“I’m not sure it has a name,” Scully says.  “You can just bring her over here, though.  Come sit with us.”  Mulder shifts on the couch, a little closer to her, making space.

Jackson hesitates a moment, and then he comes and sits, Susanna against his shoulder.  He doesn’t make a move to hand her to one of them, and Mulder watches the two of them together.  They seem natural: Jackson’s hands seem right to hold Susanna, still so tiny; her head seems right to rest against his shoulder.

“Hi,” Mulder says, taking one of Susanna’s hands.  She grips for his finger.  She’s staring up into his face.  She’s already older than William was, the last time Mulder saw him under that name.  “What are you watching?” he asks her softly.

“She looks very thoughtful,” Scully adds, leaning over to look back at Susanna.  “Don’t you, sweetie?”

“Yeah, she’s a deep thinker,” Jackson says.  Scully looks surprised for a moment, and then she laughs, quietly.

“You used to look at me like that,” she tells Jackson.

He’s looking at her now; his arms have gone stiff, and Susanna makes a noise of protest.  “Sorry, Suse,” he murmurs, bouncing her gently so that she calms down.  “I did?” he asks Scully.

“All the time,” she says.  “I’d carry you around and talk to you, and you’d watch me like that the whole time.  Or I’d come over to your crib and you’d be staring up at me.  I always thought…you must have had a lot going on in your head.”  She’s looking back at him, intently, and Mulder’s beginning to feel like he shouldn’t be sitting in between them.

“Was I always like that?” Jackson asks.  “When I was as young as her?”

“From the beginning,” Scully confirms, and Mulder tries to remember that look, from those few days they had.  “You always seemed thoughtful.  When I’d talk to you, I almost felt like you understood it all.  Not that you didn’t do regular baby things,” she adds.  “When you didn’t like something, you would make it known.  You hated me putting socks on you,” she says, almost as if she’s remembering that for the first time.  Mulder doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that, until this moment, he had no idea about the socks.  It was a secret, Scully’s alone.

“Socks?” Jackson asks.  “Why?”

“I have no idea,” Scully says.  “You just didn’t like them.  You’d always pull them off, unless I put shoes on you too.”

“What else?” Jackson asks.  He must hear the eagerness in his own voice; there’s a studied calm to him when he adds, “Were there other things I didn’t like, I mean?  Or things I did like?”

Mulder wants to hear and he wants to leave, all at once; he’s not sure he belongs in this moment, centered in a past he only wishes he were a part of.  He leans over and takes Susanna from Jackson’s arms.  “You want to come with me?” he asks her.  “Watch me make dinner?”

Susanna offers no protest—she’s usually happy so long as someone’s holding her—and he carries her into the kitchen.  He can’t really cook with her in his arms, of course, but he’s left a sling in the kitchen; once she’s in it, strapped to his chest, he sets about getting dinner ready.  There’s not much actual cooking to do.  They spent an afternoon cooking together, him and Scully, a couple of weeks before Susanna was due, preparing meals and putting them into the freezer in smaller portions.  They laughed and traded recipes—she’d brought out a book of family recipes that Maggie had left, something he didn’t even know she had, and sat looking into it with her glasses on her nose—and talked about what it was all going to be like.  He put his hands on her stomach and felt Susanna kick, while they waited for the oven timer to ring.  And when it rang for the last time, he was almost sorry, because that meant the afternoon was over.

They did their work well, though, and there’s still plenty of food left in the freezer.  He selects a portion of lasagna—enough for the three of them who eat solid food—and puts it into the oven to warm up, then sets about making a salad.  “What do you think?” he asks Susanna, holding up the different produce options.  “Spinach?  Arugula?”  She stares at them with drool dribbling down her chin, and he wipes her off with a cloth, leading to a wail of protest.  “Shh, it’s okay,” he tells her, rocking gently in place.  “Spinach, then?  You look like a spinach kind of girl.”  He chats to her more as he washes the vegetables, but he can’t help falling silent sometimes, straining to hear over the sound of the water running, over the whimpers Susanna lets out when she feels like she’s not entirely the center of his attention.  She’s not wrong about that, even if it makes him feel guilty.  He wants to know what they’re talking about, there in the living room.  He’s absented himself from the conversation and now he wants back in.  That seems like something he would do.

It’s not as if they’re being particularly quiet, deliberately trying to keep him from hearing.  But even when he catches things, he doesn’t always know what they mean.  Sometimes she mentions things she’s told him before, or things he’s seen in pictures— “That bunny hat,” he hears her say, “you used to wear that a lot”—but sometimes her words don’t call up anything.  He wasn’t there.  He wasn’t there.

Susanna starts wailing again, and he puts the vegetables down, takes her out of the sling and rocks her against his shoulder.  “Shh, shh,” he says.  “It’s all right, sweetheart.  Everything is all right.”  Another choky sob, enough to break his heart.  “I’m here,” he tells her, patting her back, nestling her against him.  “I’m right here and I’ve got you.  I’m here,” he repeats.  “I’m here.”

.....

It’s pretty early in the morning, but Jackson is awake.  He can tell Susanna’s waking up too, starting to fuss in her room.  He climbs out of bed and goes to check on her; Dana and Mulder aren’t awake yet, and so long as Susanna doesn’t need to eat, he figures he might as well let them get some more sleep.  That’s simple.  That’s the kind of thing he feels he can do for them.

“Hey, Suse,” he says to her.  “What’s up?  You need something?”  She quiets at the sound of his voice, looking up at him; she always looks very interested in what he has to say, which he appreciates.  She feels a little damp when he picks her up, so he changes her diaper and then carries her downstairs, into the living room, then out onto the porch.  The sun is coming up, over the yard.  “Look at that,” he tells her.  “Pretty, right?”  She gnaws on one of her fists.

They sit out on the porch as it gets light, him and his baby sister.  Mostly they’re quiet.  When she starts to get fussy, making her pay attention to me, not the sunrise sounds, he sings to her, the song that seems to fit best.  “Oh, Susanna, oh, don’t you cry for me…”  She’s too little to understand the words, he knows, but she does stop crying.  It’s peaceful here.

[alchemine]

more worst witch

somewhat related to my last post, as we're coming into the home stretch of this TWW series (four episodes to go) I was thinking about all the various plot threads and wondering what's going to be resolved and what isn't. 

The fate of the school/Ada as headmistress--the Big Conflict of this series, seems like it'll be wrapped up by the finale, and given that this is a children's show, it's almost got to be a happy ending. They could theoretically carry it over to the next series and have Ada living as an outcast in that same cottage where Agatha was banished (only not as a prisoner), with the girls creeping off to visit her and update her on what's happening at the school, but that's a bit dark. 

The Founding Stone--where has it gone? is it coming back before the end? it looked as if it was going to be a major plot point, but perhaps not.

Esme's loss of powers--this is connected to the Big Conflict of whether Ada is fit to be headmistress, so it must be part of that resolution as well. If Esme does get her powers back, where does she go? She's too old to be a pupil at the school, so does she get a job there after all? Is there a Weirdsister College in this version of the WW universe?

Mildred's family/the source of her magic--this is like this series' version of "what happened to Samantha" in the X-Files*. Now that we know there'll be a third series, I don't think it'll be answered in this one, and possibly not until the series as a whole ends, whenever that is.

What’s the deal with Miss Mould?--at first I thought she was connected to Agatha because in the books, Miss Mould is Agatha, but she might be a spy for Mrs Hallow instead. That said, she really hasn't behaved oddly since her first appearance when she was skulking around and eavesdropping, has she? (ETA: thx to @nekosabina for the reminder that in the books, Miss Granite is the bizarre new teacher who turns out to be Agatha, and Miss Mould is a separate character.) 

Agatha and Gullet in the photograph--the photo's been shown at various times throughout this series, just to remind everyone that they're still in there, and Agatha at least has to be let out if Esme’s to get her magic back. In addition to the possibility of Mildred being the one to release her, using the spell Hecate taught her last year, I can also see Miss Mould being the one to do it for less altruistic purposes, if she's evil and/or working for Mrs Hallow. Ethel's family/self-esteem issues--will likely be ongoing as the Hallows are generally a terrible lot, but if she can be the one to help restore Esme’s magic, she might improve a bit. 

Am I missing anything? What other unresolved questions are there? 

*unrelated, Mildred looks a bit like young Samantha with the long plaits. au/crossover where instead of the extremely unsatisfying way Samantha’s story was finally resolved, she was taken overseas to a witching school and Mulder turns up looking for her there. imagine him trying to talk his way past Hecate (or Constance) at the door as Scully rolls her eyes. 

[coffee-obsessed-writer]

From Monsters Under the Rug to Aliens in the Sky: This Is How I Found Myself Through Science Fiction

This was a blog post I wrote a while ago that I wanted to share with anyone who wants to get to know me better. This is me... in all my weird and awkwardness and how I stumbled into finding myself and falling in love with Science Fiction.

The town where I grew up was stereotypical small town U.S.A. No more than 3 square miles encompassed the entire town. We didn't even have our own high school or busses; you either walked to school, rode your bike or got a ride from mom. When someone had a baby or got married, you could be fairly certain that everyone would know about it within an hour or two, or be part of the celebration. It meant block parties, town-wide celebrations on Main Street, riding bikes to the lake to swim in the summer or ice skate in the winter. It was some real Mayberry kind of livin'.

To me, small-town life meant intense scrutiny, invasion of privacy, and ridicule, but that was because I was the "weird" kid. I tried to participate in sports and even tried out for cheerleading because I thought it might make me more like all the other kids. But, I was wrong. It just made me feel more out of place. I would have rather found a quiet place under a big shady tree to sit and read or write and talk to my imaginary friends. Real friends were scarce, and those that did hang around me did so more to see what the weird kid did for fun, not because they enjoyed my company.

One of the most vivid memories of those years happened in third grade. My teacher, Mrs. Thompson, had presented us with a contest hosted by the local bookstore that was open to the whole school, grades Kindergarten through eighth grade. We were tasked with writing a short story, any kind of story we could create, and the winner was given a $10 gift card to the store (in 1987, that was like having a fortune to spend), as well as having our story on display in the store.

My story entitled, "The Thing Under the Rug" won the prize, as well as looks from the other kids and townspeople that read it. I was a ten-year-old writing horror, and that didn't go over well in Mayberry.

Fast forward several years, to when my family moved out of that town and to a larger one that not only had its own high school but had TWO high schools! I thought myself and my weirdness would be more accepted since the population of the school there was more than four times that of my elementary school. Nope, wrong again. I was just as ridiculed and singled out there for my unusual style, drawings, and stories, as I was back in third grade, writing my award-winning tale of terror involving a thing under a rug.

There was a lot of isolation, tears, and feelings that there was something wrong with me because I didn't want to talk about what my peers did or do the thing they wanted to do. What I didn't realize, was that I was about to meet the friend I had been waiting for my entire life. His name was Fox Mulder.

No, unfortunately, Fox wasn't a real person, but the main character on a new show called, 'The X-Files'. He was a young, determined F.B.I. agent in pursuit of the truth about the disappearance of his sister, aliens and government conspiracies. His partner, the stubborn, level-headed Dana Scully eventually became a friend too, because she showed me that you can disagree with what someone believes, but still respect them enough to hear them out, and at least hold palaver about it.

Mulder and Scully, as well as the show itself, became a big part of my life right from the pilot. Mulder's peers called him "Spooky Mulder" and cast him down to the basement with a file cabinet of cases that were filled with crackpot accounts and alien abduction stories. I could relate to that in my own way. They would disparage him and laugh at him at every turn. I could relate to that too. But Scully, she was there for him even when they didn't agree. That was something I wanted to be able to relate to.

As the first couple seasons aired, a funny thing started to happen. I learned a lot about myself, the most important of which, was that I didn't care what my peers thought about me anymore. I was done feeling bad about myself because I didn't like shopping and makeup. I enjoyed oddities. I read Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King. My favorite movie was 'The Exorcist'. I liked reading about ghosts. I believed in monsters under the bed and in the existence of aliens.

On a much deeper level, I had already begun to question the religion I was raised in; never having felt like it fit for me. Dana Scully also struggled with her faith throughout the series, and even though the circumstances were obviously much different, I took solace in knowing that it's not a bad thing to ask questions. Regardless, if it is about lights in the sky or the cross you wear around your neck.

It prompted me to start writing more and writing material that I truly loved and believed in. I dove deeper into finding myself as an artist, as I watched these two characters also dive deeper into uncovering truths about themselves. 'The X-Files' opened a door that I didn't know existed, and when I walked through it, I discovered a community of people, albeit very small, that was like me. They were the misfits, the cast-offs, the ones who questioned everything.

Having this show in my life, and by extension, this group of people, allowed me to slowly crawl out of my shell and be more social. We held weekly dinner nights to get together to watch the show, all the way up to the series finale. When the revival aired last January, you better believe we got together online, since we are now scattered throughout the country, to talk about it and watch together.

I love who I am now. I am a mom, a wife, a writer, a ghost hunter, T.V. binge watcher, alien truther and an X-Phile for life. I can only hope that as my kids grow up, they never fear to ask questions, and always stay true to themselves. Should they ever veer away from that, I guess I will have to introduce them to my good friends, Fox and Dana. After all, they are now only a DVD away.

Tagging some of my favorite people: @srj1990 @soythedemonqueen @aquivercactus @kazosa @jodiereedus22 @redm81 @jss-devlin