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laylainalaska · 4 years

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Torchwood 1x01-1x08

Since I’ve been posting Torchwood rewatch episode reactions over on DW, I may as well post them here too!

Cut with a readmore because long and also spoilery. No specific S2 spoilers except set off in its own section.

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1x01: Everything Changes, aka Torchwood is the worst-kept secret in the greater Cardiff metropolitan area. The episode with the infamous date rape via alien aphrodisiac. I have made the deliberate choice to compartmentalize this/pretend it never happened due to TV writers being notoriously terrible with recognizing the real-world implications of fantasy aphrodisiacs and sex magic (there was just a scene like this in The Witcher in 20-fucking-20), and treat it as what it is clearly supposed to be in context -- unethical but basically harmless misuse of an alien artifact -- instead of what it really is. But I recognize that this is a personal choice and I also hate this writing decision and wish they'd picked literally any other way of making this particular point, for the record. Anyway ... the rest of this episode other than the fucking date rape was a lot of fun, though. Torchwood is the worst secret quasi-governmental agency at being secret. THE ACTUAL WORST. I love the team trying to keep straight faces and then giggling when Gwen enters their secret base, and the entire base set is just so fantastically bonkers; I really really love it a lot. There's literally a fountain in the middle of it and, like, random water everywhere?! And a pterodactyl. And the invisible lift, with Gwen's wry comment about how there's nothing to stop random pedestrians from falling down it. It's possibly the most utterly bonkers secret spy base outside of kids' cartoons and I love it. 1x02: Day One, aka Murder By Orgasm. In which the show classes things up with an alien who kills people (men only!) via orgasm. Choices were definitely made in this episode. Many choices. For sure. Owen continues to be a total sleaze because the writers think it's funny. Also, his survival when the sex alien targets him makes absolutely no sense at all. He's literally the only person she left alive, and she's in the throes of sex-energy withdrawal at the time. In short, this was an episode that happened. There were a few cute team bits but really not enough to redeem it. 1x03: Ghost Machine, aka Burn Gorman Is Very Pretty. Not that I am biased. He is so pretty in this episode. SO PRETTY. Also, for a refreshing change, Owen manages not to be creepy and sexist at all in this episode. He's just prickly and kind of sweet. I like this Owen. I want to keep him. This episode overall was really a lot of fun, aside from (or perhaps also including) the most unintentionally hilarious death of a redshirt ever, in which he goes to hug Gwen and she accidentally stabs him with the knife she's holding. But overall it's so great! The Owen arc was my favorite - I love how affected he is by the memory device (the scene where he's clearly having a panic attack and trying to keep control!) and how determined he is to get justice for the murdered girl, only to be essentially brought down by his basic decent nature and inability to kill an old man in cold blood. Owen trying to save the guy's life when he was holding a knife on him thirty seconds earlier breaks me a little bit. Lots of fun team scenes in this one, too. The Splott conversation! ("Estate agents call it Sploe.") 1x04: Cyberwoman, aka CYBERBIKINI! Here again, Choices Were Made, most of them by the costuming department with a side of deeply uncomfortable racial implications on the part of whoever cast the episode. To be fair, maybe they just couldn't afford enough tinfoil to cover CyberLisa entirely, since the budget for this episode was clearly three shoestrings and a potato. I don't know if my favorite part of the low-budget f/x is the way they're clearly splicing in Doctor Who clips for the cyberization process, or the fall of Torchwood One, a giant battle involving hundreds of participants that is represented by Ianto screaming while surrounded by plastic sheeting. Honestly, I really love this episode. It is not good by any stretch of the imagination, but there is something incredibly charming about its sheer commitment to utter batshittery and OTT sobbing over emotional team betrayals, and parts of it were incredibly tense. It has the general feel of a horror film shot by college theater majors. Also someone getting doused in barbecue sauce and fed to a pterodactyl is literally a plot point, and the team basketball game at the beginning is one of my favorite little team moments; it's so cute. Cyberbikini aside and with expectations properly lowered, this was terrific fun. 1x05: Small Worlds, aka Death By Hanahaki Disease. On the whole this episode was not terrible nor was it memorably unpleasant; it was just kind of there. In going back to write about the episodes, I really had trouble remembering what even happened in this one. The concept is really interesting, but the fairies stopped being nearly so creepy once you actually see them in all their low-budget-CGI glory; I think the episode would actually have been better if they'd stayed invisible. The flower petal deaths were really gross. I hadn't realized that, while Gwen (unlike the rest of his team) knows that Jack can die and come back, she didn't actually know before this episode that he's much older than he looks. 1x06: Countrycide, aka Don't Split The Party. WELSH MURDER VILLAGE. I loved this episode. This is the ridonkulous teamy sci-fi horror shenanigans that I'm here for. I mean, I was there with bells on for TEAM CAMPING TRIP and then it just got better and better. Ianto gets to go out in the field for the first time and nearly gets eaten by cannibals! Poor Ianto. His life is the worst. I sort of vaguely knew because of season two that there was Owen/Gwen in the first season, but what really caught me off guard is how much I enjoyed it. I was expecting meaningless sex with a side of skeeve, and I do really hate that she's cheating on her boyfriend and how pushy about it Owen is at first, not to mention outing their kiss to the whole team. But the crazy thing about it is, by the midpoint of the episode they're actually, genuinely very sweet, and by the end of the episode you can see what they're both getting out of the relationship and get the feeling that it's a positive human connection for both of them. Also, the near-kiss and teamwork in the woods was incredibly hot. I really loved (and was also surprised by) how loyal and protective Owen is toward his teammates. We saw it a little bit in the previous episode with his "Don't you touch her!" re: Gwen, but it's abundantly on display here, from Owen repeatedly insisting that they need to go after Tosh and Ianto, to his fury at the guy threatening Tosh, to his captor having to restrain him when they pull the hood off Ianto's head near the end. Love Jack's big-damn-hero entrance to the Murder House, and everyone running around screaming and getting separated and hurt, which is always a good time. Basically I just loved this episode. It needed more hurt/comforty aftermath, though. I might have to write some. 1x07: Greeks Bearing Gifts, aka Tosh Has An Alien Girlfriend. I really loved this episode, on the whole, but it is Made Of Ouch. As well as Tosh's isolation and hurt, there's also that bit where she hears Ianto's thoughts and it's just endless painpainpainpain. I like to think that after this episode, she started getting together with him for drinks occasionally and talking about things. They both need friends so badly. (I do not love Jack's random transphobic comment near the end. From JACK of all people. WHY.) And seeing Tosh's delight and squee when she gets to just geek out about things is so lovely. Tosh is absolutely a person who leaves her teammates notes with little hearts on them. I love her. ♥ (Also, as much as I love Owen personally, I really wish that so much of Tosh's storyline didn't revolve around her hopeless crush on Owen. Toshiko deserved better, in all ways, than what this show gave her.) It's too bad that Gwen and Owen's affair is, on the whole, a rather destructive thing, because they're really happy! They're like the only happy people in Torchwood at this point. It's not a grand love story or anything, but I felt like the sheer joy of that initial rush of infatuation was well conveyed and sweet. Owen's relationship with Tosh in season one is completely baffling to me. He's not only staggeringly oblivious to Tosh being into him, but she's literally the only woman at Torchwood that he doesn't hit on. And yet, it's not that he doesn't like her! He clearly does like her in a friend kind of way and enjoys hanging out with her. The card that Mary was looking at in Tosh's apartment looked handmade to me, so he literally made her a handmade birthday card! And yet, he is blindingly oblivious to her interest and rejects her every time she makes overtures. ... I mean, the meta-reason is probably just that the writers thought it would be funny if the character who always sleeps around doesn't notice the one person who really wants him. But I can't help wondering if the basic issue is that Owen has somehow, without really intending to, classified his relationship with her as basically a sibling-type one. We know from the flashbacks in season two that they both joined Torchwood at about the same time and were both in a very emotionally fragile place when they did, and Jack also has a very quasi-parental sort of vibe with both of them. It makes me wonder if Owen either tried to initiate something early on and was rebuffed because Tosh wasn't really coping well either, or if he met her at a point in his life when he was really not interested in having relationships with anyone and simply classified her mentally in a sort of little-sister category. This actually does fit very well with the sometimes bullying, sometimes playful and sweet, generally sexless way that he relates to her this season, and the way that he clearly does care about her and in fact is very protective at times; he just doesn't view her as a target of romantic interest. Anyway, Tosh was very beautiful this episode, and her alien girlfriend was also quite hot, and I really enjoyed it. 1x08: They Keep Killing Suzie, aka I don't think anything I could come up with is better than the actual title. The scene in which they've accidentally locked themselves in their secret underground base and have to call the cops to let them out is possibly my favorite scene in this entire show. That was GOLD. I also wish the cop lady from this episode had come back. She was great, and her rapport with Jack was really neat. Part of what I want to say about this episode contains massive season two spoilers, so that's set off in a spoiler section at the end. This was a highly entertaining episode with a plot that was total nonsense that falls apart within 0.2 seconds of actually thinking about it. Good emotional stuff, yes! Plot? BONKERS. I mean, Suzie's plan was something like this: 1. Drive someone insane by feeding them Retcon for two years. 2. Kill yourself. 3. ???? 4. Profit! I am just going to headcanon that the team are actually wrong about Suzie planning all of this, and it's mostly an accidental set of circumstances that she took advantage of. I did love the twist of Suzie wanting a deathbed reunion with her dad not because of love, but because she wanted to watch him die because he's terrible. (However, this does completely undermine what was previously given as part of her motivation for getting addicted to the glove, which was trying to save her dad. See above re: plot nonsense.) But the team stuff was fun! Love everyone scrambling to save Gwen, and Owen holding her at the end -- I'm still seeing them through a lens of mostly-platonic more than romantic. The general vibe with the team pulling together vs. Suzie having basically no one in Torchwood to talk to is really interesting; it's hard to say how much of that is the team having gotten closer over the course of the season, and how much of it is just Suzie not really ever bonding with her co-workers the way they bonded with each other. I mean, I do get more of a co-workery vibe off them early on, as opposed to the chosen-family feeling later on, but the closeness is there under the surface; I'm just not really sure if they've realized it yet. But with Suzie, it's hard to say if the closeness ever really was there. They're all damaged in their various ways, but I feel like Suzie might be damaged in a way that simply precluded her ever really being able to let people in, as the others are learning to. Ianto's visible depression at this point in the show is mostly down to Gareth David-Lloyd's acting, but it's so well done -- his flat affect and thousand-yard stare, especially contrasted against his dry, sarcastic humor when he's not miserable (mostly in season two). The other Ianto-related thing I noticed is that the warmer, more bantery rapport between Ianto and Owen in season two is actually present in this episode to some extent, for perhaps the first time ever. In particular, Owen makes him smile at one point by teasing him (the only time Ianto smiles in the last few episodes, I think, up until he's with Jack at the very end), and offers him the first shot at naming the knife in spite of Ianto's artifact names being genuinely terrible - like, trying to include him a little bit, in a way I haven't seen Owen doing with him before. There's a general feeling throughout this episode that Owen has warmed up to him a bit and is actually reaching out a little. And Ianto and Jack are sleeping together now! I don't know when that happened and I wish we'd seen more of the beginnings of it. It's nice to see Ianto smile, though. Season two 1x08-related spoilers:

Watching this episode after having seen Owen's resurrection glove arc in season two was FASCINATING, especially for the compare/contrast of the way the team reacted to resurrected!Suzie vs. resurrected!Owen; I mean, the fact that she died in the process of betraying them after becoming a serial killer is obviously a large factor here, and they were somewhat wary of Owen too, but there's just so much more ambivalence in how they deal with Suzie, vs. the way that Owen's death and resurrection actually brought the team closer together, and brought Owen closer to all of them.

But the most interesting contrast to me is how Owen and Suzie, as characters, both reacted to the whole idea of having to survive by killing people, with Jack trying (unsuccessfully) to argue Suzie out of allowing Gwen to die, whereas Owen's immediate reaction to finding out that his survival might be killing people (just random people too, not teammates) was to try to sacrifice himself, not just once but multiple times, starting with a fundamentally horrible euthanasia-type death and continuing on to destroy the resurrection glove himself even though it was likely to re-kill him. Why yes, I can turn any episode discussion into an Owen discussion, even an episode he wasn't especially prominent in.

#torchwood #owen harper #ianto jones #toshiko sato #jack harkness #gwen cooper #torchwood episode reactions

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ghostbustermelanieking · 6 years

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going home

home again, beyond the sea, paper clip. scully family angst. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files.

Summary: The last things Maggie Scully said to her family.

note: this fic mainly revolves around home again, but contains references to the whole show and before the show, mainly beyond the sea and paper clip. i also included some of the backstory disclosed in nothing lasts forever. warning for depiction of bill, melissa, and maggie’s deaths.

this fic is mostly closely connected to fate, and references other tidbits from other fics, but as always, it’s not necessary to have read fate to read this one.

i’m not religious, but since the character of maggie scully is, i drew heavily on christian beliefs in some parts because i figured it’d be what the character was thinking about. so warning up front for that as well.

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Maggie can't remember the last thing she said to her mother and father when they passed, years ago. She can't remember the last thing she said to most of her aunts or uncles over the years. She's more ashamed of that than she'd ever admit, but the conversations have faded from her mind. They don't stand out as much as the other things. She remembers every single time that Dana disappeared, she remembers what she said to her daughter then. She remembers her children. And she remembers her last moments with her husband.

They are walking in the door after driving home from Dana's, Maggie shivering with the December cold. Bill is standing in the doorway as he peels off his coat; Maggie is crossing the room to turn up the heat, mentally counting down to the argument she knows is coming. So she doesn't turn around when she hears Bill say, “Mags,” a certain amount of urgency in his voice.

“Yes, I do know how you feel about the heat, Bill,” she says impatiently, her fingers on the knob. “But it is below freezing out there, and I am not going to…”

“Mags,” Bill says again, his voice soft and vulnerable in a way she hasn't heard in years. It's startling enough to make her freeze, and when she hears the thud, she turns around.

She's at his side in an instance, kneeling on the floor even though her knees probably can't take it. “Bill, honey,” she says, touching the side of his face. They've never been very affectionate, the two of them, and she finds herself fiercely regretting it in this moment. “What's wrong? Where does it hurt?”

Bill isn't moving, but he smiles at her, just a little. “Bill, talk to me,” she says in an almost angry voice, but he doesn't. He just smiles. She races for the phone and calls an ambulance, but by then it's too late. He's already gone.

The hours after pass in a blur of crying, calling her children to tell them what's happened. The years after are sharper, harsher to go through—she lives for twenty-two years after her husband dies, meets the grandchildren he’ll never get to meet, and it feels oddly familiar, considering that she largely raised their children by herself. But it is excruciating at the same time, knowing that she'll never see him again. He'd been around more since retirement, since the kids moved out, and it had been nice. She misses him so much sometimes.

But however she feels in the wake of Bill's death throughout the years, that moment will always stick out in her mind: the moment of Bill saying his nickname for her, the one he used so often before they were married and so little after all four children were born, as their marriage faded into routine and month after month after month of her doing everything herself. The years following his retirement had been the closest they'd gotten to those days before their marriage, still on the outs with both of their parents for the scandal of having a child and another on the way. It had all felt like a big adventure then. But they'd been young and silly and every moment had been precious, and Maggie remembers it the way she remembers her last conversation with her husband. The way he'd said her name then had reminded her of just how much he loved her. He died in their thirtieth year of marriage.

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Missy is harder to recall. Her little girl, who never lived to see thirty-five. The one she had thought was safe; she'd thought it was Dana in the hospital, and she's utterly grateful that she still has Dana, after everything she's been through, but she thought Melissa's safety was a given. She never knew she had to worry.

For a while, she thinks Missy might live—in those heart-pounding, tense moments spent by her hospital bed, she prays for hours and hours that Melissa will live. Prays harder than she's ever prayed before. She was torn apart when Bill died, she hates being alone in that huge old house, but at least he had lived his life. Done all the things he wanted to do. Missy is so young. And she wants so much more for her daughter than this. She prays and prays until her fingers are white from clutching the prayer beads too hard. Before they take Missy back to operate on her, Maggie strokes her hand, her hair, whispers, “I'm here, Missy. I'm right here. And when you get out of there, I'll be here still.” But Missy never comes back out.

Remembering her last moments with Melissa are harder, the memories filled with terror and grief and anger—anger at the men who would do this to an innocent woman and misplaced anger at Dana that she will regret for years and years. So she doesn't think of that. She thinks of when Melissa was a little girl, wild and free-spirited and loving, when she'd climb up in Maggie's lap at four or five and demand a story. A fairy tale that had a happy ending. Dana and Billy were always their father's children, but Maggie always thought of Melissa as hers, at least in the years before she grew rebellious and distanced herself. They fought for years and years, and in the space between Bill's death and Dana's abduction, Missy had disappeared in her own way, spent months on the West Coast living as freely as she always wanted as a teenager. Any updates Maggie received of her oldest daughter came from Billy. But they'd grown closer in the months between Dana's coma and Missy's death; Melissa had moved to Maryland to be closer to the both of them, and for a while, everything had been fine. They'd been close again.

She remembers a lunch they'd had a few days before Melissa was shot, a pleasant meal that ended in the two of them hugging and Maggie knowing, in her heart, that everything between them was all right. She remembers a time when Missy was three, when Dana wasn't sleeping through the night yet and Billy almost never had a good attitude; Maggie had spent half the night pacing between her bedroom and the nursery, exhausted, and had found Missy standing outside the door of her and Billy's room. Weary, she'd started to send her back to bed, but Missy had just wordlessly taken her hand and pulled her back towards her bedroom. She'd climbed up in the empty space Bill would usually occupy and fallen right back asleep, much calmer than Maggie would've expected. Maggie smoothed her wild red curls before lying down and falling asleep herself, more peaceful than she'd felt in months. It's one of the only times she can remember being alone with Missy when she was small like that, and she holds onto that memory with everything in her.

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Charlie has always been the most distant one, the one Maggie saw the least of all. He'd been the closest to Billy out of all his siblings (barring his bond with Dana based on age alone), but he'd remained quiet and distant throughout childhood, largely resentful of her in particular. Charlie had been sick with rheumatic fever when he was a baby, had nearly died, and as a result, Maggie had been largely protective of him for the remainder of his life. He'd been the baby of the family, and she had held onto him much tighter than she had her other children, having memorized the feeling of Charlie's hot little body and sensitive joints, her fear that he would die. She didn't want to risk that again. What kind of mother would she be if she ignored God’s gift of Charlie’s life by letting him run off and get hurt again?

Whenever he played too roughly with Bill or Dana, her instinct was to shelter him, pull him inside and scold him and send him to his room. He was always small and slight, the way her family had always been, and she always worried. She'd almost had a heart attack when he'd broken his leg at age nine, hadn't let him play outside with Billy and Dana for months even after he had fully healed. Charlie had always been furious at her and her protectiveness, had always complained to Bill whenever he'd come home, and Bill had always taken her side. That was one thing Maggie had always appreciated, the way that Bill had taken her side, especially with the Charlie issue. Until she hadn't, couldn't, anymore.

When Charlie was fourteen, he became the only child left in the house and Maggie had stopped stifling him so much. She hadn't seen the point; with all his siblings gone, Charlie only ever went out with friends on occasion, and besides that, he was almost a man. She remained stern, but it was a breath of fresh air he'd never experienced. She was sure he relished every moment that she said yes to things she might've said no to before. She taught him how to drive and didn't bat an eye, watching Charlie’s steady hands on the wheel. And he'd probably thought things would be okay, would be better, until he turned eighteen.

Bill was home from leave, and the three of them were eating dinner together. Bill commented on how strange it was to have the house so empty, with Billy and Missy and Dana all gone at college, and then he asked Charlie, “So what are your plans for the future, son?” Charlie had beamed proudly, telling his father that he wanted to go into the Navy, the way he and Billy had. But Bill's reaction hadn't been the happy, proud one that either Maggie or Charlie would've expected. He reacted angrily, telling Charlie he was much too sickly to enter the Navy, and that he need to consider his mother's feelings, the fear.of having two sons and a husband in the military, the possibility that something would happen to him. He called Charlie selfish, arrogant, a child.

The fight they'd had that night was worse than any fight they'd had before. Charlie was furious, protesting that they could control his entire life, protesting that he was just as strong as Billy, protesting that they were horrible and hypocritical and they were going to drive all their children away if they weren't careful, with their disapproval of Missy's life choices and Dana's decision to study forensics when she started medical school next year. Bill had roared at him, sent him to his room, and Charlie had been gone by morning. It turned out his job as a cashier at the grocery store had given him enough money to survive on his own for a few months. Maggie was horrified, frantic, but they could never find him, and by the time he'd sent a letter to confirm he was all right, he had already joined the Navy. Bill was furious, ready to disown Charlie and never talk to him again, but Maggie was just devastated. Eighteen years earlier, she'd almost lost her baby, and now she had, because she'd tried to hold on too tight.

Charlie didn't pull away completely, at least not immediately. He wrote or called Maggie every now and then. He invited the kids and Maggie to his wedding (although Bill was notably left off of the invitation and Maggie had stayed home out of loyalty), and he sent pictures when his first child was born. He occasionally came to family holidays, although he stayed distant and largely opted to talk to Melissa and Dana. But he kept on fighting with Bill, Billy as an added player (since he always took his father's side), and it kept on going disastrously. Charlie was bitter and Bill was angry and the whole thing just kept being a disaster. Charlie's marriage didn't help, either; Bill insisted that he'd gotten married too young, that he wasn't ready for the responsibility, but he'd softened a little when Charlie's son was born. They'd visited, and Bill made an effort to be kind to Charlie's wife, and although it'd been tense, Maggie had foolishly thought everything would be okay. She'd thought wrong.

The last time they'd all been together was at Bill's funeral. They'd all been grieving, eyes red from crying, and Charlie had been standing off to the side with a guilty look on his face, his wife off somewhere with the baby. Dana had run out early to go work on a case, and Billy had been angry at that, and grief-stricken, and the whole thing had culminated in Melissa storming out while Billy and Charlie fought in the corner, Billy accusing Charlie of putting too much strain on Bill (practically accusing Charlie of killing him) and Charlie losing it and punching Billy in the face. It hadn't gone well. And after that, Charlie is done. He'll send presents at holidays, sometimes, but that is the extent of it. He won't let Billy or Maggie see his son; Missy and Dana have seen him a few times, and Dana even has pictures that she awkwardly shows to Maggie, but Maggie herself never has a relationship with her oldest grandson. He skips Missy's funeral. He calls to offer stiff, tearful condolences, but he doesn't come. Within the space of a few years, Maggie has no contact with her youngest son, no idea where he is or what he's doing.

She calls him in the last week of her life. She doesn't know why, she has no idea about what's coming, but she does, finds his number using a favor from one of Bill's old military friends. One of the men who signed her advance directive a year ago. She calls and the phone rings and rings until it goes to voicemail. An electronic voice announces that she should leave a message at the tone, and then her grown-up son's voice comes through, says, “Charlie Scully,” in a rushed voice, and Maggie wants to cry. She didn't know what he sounded like anymore, before now.

“Hi, honey, it's Mom,” she says tremblingly into the phone, willing herself not to cry. “I… know we haven't been in touch for a long time… for a lot of reasons… but I wanted to call and talk to you. And know that you're okay.” She sniffles a little, wiping her eyes. “I hope you know that I truly regret all the time we've spent apart. I've missed you, sweetheart. And I know you must be angry at me, but I hope that you can put that anger aside and call and talk to me. We'd all love to see you.” She has this silly wish that she can get all of her remaining family together, Bill and Tara and Matthew when they return from Germany, and Dana, who thankfully lives nearby, and Charlie. But she doesn't say this to Charlie. She ends the call with, “You can reach me at this number if you like. I love you, Charlie.” She hangs up the phone with the hope that she'll hear from him soon. But she doesn't hear from him. Not until Dana holds up her phone in the last few minutes of her life, and she hears her son's voice, asking what she wants to know, what the mystery is. She assumes he's referring to the fact that he hasn't returned her call, so therefore there is no mystery—he doesn't want to talk to her. He's only doing this now because she's dying, or because Dana is asking him to. But she doesn't care. Just hearing his voice is enough.

---

She doesn't think much about William. Her grandson, that sweet little baby who is permanently frozen that way in her mind as if he had died, too. When she thinks of Matty, the only other grandson she's close to (she's still a little disappointed that she never had a granddaughter; unless Emily counts, the little girl who was a ghost of Melissa, whose grave she visits on occasion, but who she's always consistently confused about), she thinks of the gangly teenager who looks much more like Tara than Billy. But with William, who would be fourteen now, she can only picture that tiny baby.

She can remember the last day she spent with William, but she doesn't remember much because it'd become practically routine. She watches him a few days a week at her house (which Dana had thought would be safer after what had happened at her apartment with the man who wanted him dead—just saying the words horrified Maggie, who would want a baby dead?), and then drives him back to Dana's house at the end of the day. Everything is normal the last day, no implications of what is coming; she kisses William goodbye and promises to see him next week, she kisses Dana's cheek and promises to call her, suggests that they do lunch next week. She waves and says, ‘Bye-bye, William!” for what she doesn't realize is the last time. Dana takes the baby and hugs him and talks to him in the soft voice that Maggie still has trouble associating with her hardened daughter. She looks happy to be with her son, even if she looks a little tired.

She looks happy. That is what Maggie remembers, later.

Dana doesn't call her for nearly two weeks, except to tell her that she's taking some time off work and she doesn't need her to watch William. Maggie is a little suspicious, but she doesn't push, tells herself that Dana would surely tell her if William or Fox or herself wasn't all right. She should've pushed, she tells herself later, should've marched right down there and snatched William away until Dana came to her senses. But she doesn't, and then it's too late. And then William is gone, and Maggie doesn't speak to her only daughter for years.

She's forgiven Dana for most things—for keeping so many things from her, for disappearing with Fox, for the constant danger, even for Missy (though forgiving her for that was truly a burden)—but she can't exactly reconcile her feelings about William. Not when she thinks of the grandson she'll never get to know. He was named after Bill, Dana had told her, after her father and Fox’s father, who was also apparently named Bill, and after Fox himself. But when Maggie had looked at William, she'd thought of her Bill. She'd thought of Dana as a little girl. She'd thought of all her daughter's pain and hoped it'd be relieved in that little baby. She'd been so grateful to have a grandchild nearby, but now. Now, she can only think of the grandson she lost.

---

She calls Billy in Germany the day before it all comes to an end. She had been angry at Billy for moving to Germany, once, but Maggie Scully has had plenty of misplaced anger in her life, and she's ready to let that go now. Of all her children, she's probably stayed the closest with Billy. She calls and talks to him for the better part of an hour. Billy tells her about life on the base and the friends Tara has made and how Matty's German is gradually improving—”I should've had Dana tutor him before we left,” he says with a laugh—and asks her about Dana and about herself, what life is like there and how her heart is. “I really miss you, Mom,” he says finally. “We're excited to see you in a few weeks for Christmas.”

They're flying down, Matthew and Tara and Billy, and Dana's supposed to come over as well. It's the first time Billy has gotten leave for Christmas, and Maggie is overjoyed that she'll have the whole family together. “I'm so excited to see all of you,” she says in a choked voice.

Billy hesitates before asking, “Should I hang up now, Mom? This must be calling you a fortune.”

“Oh, that doesn't matter,” she says, because it doesn't. “Are Tara and Matty there?”

She talks to Tara for a while about books and knitting and new recipes she's been trying, and then Matthew comes on the phone. His voice is so deep, he's very nearly a man now, and he reminds her, maybe a little rudely, not to call him Matty. But other than that, he's perfectly sweet, talks to her for much longer than his mother did. He has stories about school and his friends on the base and things that his parents have done. When it's time for him to get off, he says, “Bye, Grandma, I love you,” in the trained way that children have. But there seems to be sincerity in it.

“Goodbye, Matty,” she says, genuinely unable to resist that one. (Although she can picture Matty's wince.) “Is your father there? Could you put him back on?”

There's a clatter of empty air as she hears Matthew bellow, “Ma!” away from the speaker. He comes back on and says, “Sorry, I think Dad left for work. I can have him call you.”

“Oh, no, that's okay,” Maggie says. There's a picture on a fridge of Billy as a child, red-headed and smiling into the camera. He looks so much like Bill. He was such a cute baby; it had been just the two of them so often when he was little, Bill off at sea, her an unmarried single mother. (She has more sympathy for Dana and her former situation with William than Dana will ever know; she had Billy and Missy both before she was married, she knows what it is like to wait for someone to come home to you and your baby.) She smiles a little, remembering Billy learning to walk as she held his hands, so young that she barely knew what to do with herself or with Billy; Billy's astonished baby face when he felt Missy kick for the first time and the way he yanked his hands away, the way he suggested they name the new baby “Mama” since he knew he was named after his daddy and thought the new baby should be named after her. “Just… do me a favor and tell him I love him, too, Matthew. I love all of you.”

Matty agrees and hangs up. Maggie listens to the dial tone for a long time.

---

She has as many regrets with Dana as she has with Charlie and Missy. Probably because Dana is the child she resents the most, and she can't stop feeling guilty for that. She's confessed it so many times, asked forgiveness, but it never feels like enough.

She never expected this. Dana was always the most well-behaved out of all her children growing up, the most obedient. They had never been especially close—Dana had always gotten left out a bit, in traditional middle child fashion, and was independent enough that it never seemed to matter, and she'd always been closer to Bill anyway. But she'd lived the closest as an adult, gone to college the closest, was always home. They'd been much closer before Dana's life was consumed by her career.

Maggie and Bill had both disapproved of the FBI for Dana, even though they'd both been proud of her at the same time. But Maggie had never expected it to go as far as it did. Constant abductions and hospital visits, a terminal illness with a mysterious cure, a little girl who looked too much like her daughters and a grandson she'd never see again, and years of no contact from Dana at all. The affair (for lack of a better term) with her partner. Maggie had always liked Fox Mulder, more or less, but never nearly as much as she could. She'd probably liked him best when he'd promised to bring Dana home, and he had. But there were times when she hated him in a way she could never hate her daughter. In the wake of Missy's death. In the period of time when she thought Dana would die, too, before he saved her life. Every minute he was away from Dana and William (because he didn't have to leave, not the way Bill had, no matter what Dana said about his life being in danger), and when he'd taken Dana away in those terrible few years of no contact.

She resented Dana and Fox, and then she couldn't resent them anymore. After a string of postcards from Dana, few and vague, she'd reappeared on Maggie's doorstep at the beginning of 2004, tearful and apologetic. And Maggie welcomed her back—welcomed them both back—because what else could she do? Dana was her daughter, her only daughter, and Maggie couldn't bear to lose another child. To lose Dana, again, after all the times of losing her before. She welcomed them in without judgement, and she began to understand them in a way she hadn't before. How much they loved and relied on each other. It'd gotten worse between Dana and Fox, years later, after they were married, but she could still always see it. They had what she and Bill had: a loving life together.

She can't say that the resentment isn't there still, sometimes, but it's easier to ignore. She has her daughter back now. Her sweet Dana.

Dana is the one who comes when Maggie is dying, when she's in a coma. She asks for Charlie, but Dana comes, and Maggie is grateful for that. She's glad to have her baby with her.

---

When Dana was a little girl, around six or seven, Maggie's grandmother died: Katherine, the woman she'd named Dana after. Dana had gone to the funeral, a look that was solemn yet fearful on her face the whole time, clutching to her father's hand. Missy had cried, but Dana was quiet. She sat in the backseat of the car with her hands knotted in her lap and stared out the window.

Later, Maggie found her sitting quietly in front of the TV, still in her funeral dress. She nudged her shoulder and said, “It's time to change out of this, Dana.”

And Dana had looked up at her with a look in her eyes that was much older than she was, and asked the question that all children ask at one point or another: “Mom, what happens to us after we die?”

Surprised, Maggie said what she'd been told all her life, where she believed her grandmother was. “Heaven, honey. You know that.”

“Yes, but…” Dana was pressing her fingers together in the anxious way that children have. “What's heaven like?”

“We don't know, Dana,” said Maggie, genuinely sad and tired (she'd always been close to her grandmother) and unwilling to linger over this. Not right now. Bill could handle this subject, and she was ready to tell Dana to go ask him. “All we know is what the Bible tells us. It's a happy place. It's our reward.”

Dana played with a strand of her straightened hair, which Maggie had spent forever fixing that morning. “Do you think Great-Grandmother is happy there?” she asked quietly.

And Maggie had said, “Yes, Dana. I do.”

Dana has experienced so much tragedy in her life, and Maggie has seen it all. Dana speaks to her now, calls back to her own experience in a coma, all those years ago. Maggie can hear every word. She says that she knows that Bill and Melissa are there where Maggie is, where she's going, but she reminds her that she is here, that the rest of Maggie's family is here. “Please, Mom,” she says, “don't go home yet. I need you.” And Maggie wants more than anything to be able to stay, to do this one thing for her daughter. But it's time. It's time to go home.

---

Fox comes, later, and he sits with them. Maggie can hear them talking, quietly, and then she hears something else. Dana speaking to someone familiar. The sound of her long-lost son.

She opens her eyes and sees Dana and Fox crowded around the bed. “Mom?” Dana says eagerly, emotionally. “She just opened her eyes,” she says into the phone, to Charlie.

Fox leans forward, asks her, “Do you know where you are? Do you know your name?”

Maggie smiles. For all her resentment and distance from Dana and Fox, she really does understand them both more than they'll ever know. And here they are. Her lost son's voice is echoing in her ears, and their son is lost, too. She takes Fox’s hand and tries to make them understand. The both of them. They aren't that different, and now it's their turn to make amends with their son. “My son,” she says, “is named William, too.”

Dana looks at Fox, the phone clutched in her hand, her eyes full of emotion. Maggie sighs softly, ready to leave, right here. Looking at her daughter, who'd once looked up at her with those bright blue eyes and asked what happens to us when we die. There are so many things she wants to say to Dana (to Billy, to Charlie), and she doesn't have time to say any of them. She lets herself slip away, and the last thing she hears is Dana saying, “Mom?”

---

Dana was right: Bill and Missy are there, both of them, and they're both so happy. Bill kisses her and calls her Mags. Missy hugs her and asks for a story. Maggie wishes that they could all be together again, the way they haven't been in years, but this is enough. She's content to wait.

Wherever she is, it's a beautiful place.

---

note: i wrote this fic in an attempt to further explore the scully family and their backstory. (and also because i’ve written way too much about the mulder family.) i wanted to explore things like charlie’s estrangement and maggie’s relationship with scully. some explanations:

- the plot point about maggie and bill having melissa and bill jr. before they were married is pretty common in fanon. i drew from the mention of the proposal in beyond the sea, which happened after the cuban blockade--aka the same year melissa was born. it could’ve just been another throwaway continuity error, but i liked the idea of it. especially with what occurred to me during this fic: if this is true, than maggie would’ve largely been a single mom raising her son william (bill jr.) when he was a baby, similar to how scully briefly raises william. i’d never thought of it that way before now, but i thought it was a cool tie-in to maggie’s last words in home again.

- there are a lot of fics explaining why charlie is estranged, and i didn’t want to copy any of them, so i drew from nothing lasts forever and its discussion of charlie having rheumatic fever. since i’d already portrayed him as distant and quiet and with a rocky relationship with bill sr. in fate, i figured this interpretation would be interesting. charlie’s son here is supposed to be the nephew scully mentions babysitting in home who watches babe 15 times a day.

- the funeral i mentioned in the last section is supposed to be the funeral scully dreams about in christmas carol. the detail of maggie’s grandmother katherine, who she named scully after, is one i made up in fate, but i liked the reference so i went with it.

#xf rewatch #i wrote this #xf fanfic

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donghun-s · 7 years

Text

the very large sp3arb tag

so @sp3arb has tagged me in a total four tags recently and i’m finally getting around to all of them!! tysm for all the tags, meri (btw i love your name?? i think its super cute!) and i hope you learn a bunch of unnecessary stuff abt me lmao (under the cut bc this is a long ass post)

i dont have a name for this tag

1ST RULE: Tag 9 people you want to get to know better

im not tagging anyone bc im bad at things and most ppl i wanna know about, meri has already tagged so

2ND RULE: BOLD the statements that are true.

APPEARANCE: - I am 5'7 or taller - I wear glasses - I have at least one tattoo - I have at least one piercing - I have blonde hair - I have brown eyes - I have short hair - My abs are at least somewhat defined - I have or had braces

PERSONALITY: - I love meeting new people - People tell me I am funny - Helping others with their problems is a big priority of mine - I enjoy physical challenges - I enjoy mental challenges - I am playfully rude to people I know- I started saying something ironically and now I can’t stop saying it - There is something I would change about my personality

ABILITY: - I can sing well - I can play an instrument - I can do over 30 pushups without stopping - I am a fast runner - I can draw well - I have a good memory - I am good at doing maths in my head - I can hold my breath underwater for over a minute - I have beaten at least 2 people arm wrestling - I can make at least 3 recipes from scratch - I know how to throw a proper punch

HOBBIES: - I enjoy sports - I’m on a sports team at my school or somewhere else - I’m in a orchestra or choir at my school or somewhere else - I have learned a new song in the past week - I exercise at least once a week - I have gone for runs at least once a week in warmer months - I have drawn something in the past month - I enjoy writing - Fandoms are my #1 priority - I do some form of Martial arts

EXPERIENCES: - I have had my first kiss - I have had alcohol - I have scored a winning point in a sport - I have watched an entire TV series in one sitting - I have been at an overnight event - I have been in a taxi - I have been in the hospital or ER in the past year - I have beaten a video game in one day - I have visited another country - I have been to one of my favorite band’s concerts

MY LIFE: - I have one person that I consider to be my Best Friend - I live close to my school/work - My parents are still together - I have at least one sibling - I live in the United States - There is snow where I live right now - I have hung out with a friend in the past month - I have a smart phone - I own at least 15 CDs - I share my room with someone

RELATIONSHIPS: - I am in a Relationship - I have a crush on a celebrity - I have a crush on someone I know - I’ve been in at least 3 relationships - I have never been in a Relationship - I have admitted my feelings to a crush - I get crushes easily - I have had a crush for over a year - I have been in a relationship for over a year - I have had feelings for a friend

RANDOM: - I have break-danced - I know a person named Jamie - I have had a teacher that has a name that is hard to pronounce - I have dyed my hair - I’m listening to a song on repeat right now - I have punched someone in the past week - I know someone who has gone to jail - I have broken a bone - I have eaten a waffle today - I know what I want to do in life - I speak at least two languages [i don’t speak two, i speak one and sign in another] - I have made a new friend in the past year

alphabet tag

Rules: answer the questions in a new post and tag 10 blogs you would like to get to know better

I was tagged by Roxanne ( is it ok if I call you Roxy? I like Roxy) Actually @lxx-fxlix And for some reason it did not give me the notification you did, I was casually stalking your blog when I saw:

A: age? 16 (01 liner)

B: birthplace? North Carolina

C: current time? 7:53 pm

D: drink you had last? Arnold Palmer (half sweet tea, half lemonade)

E: easiest person to talk to? for me, it’s my irl best friend gwen and my best friend on here, krys

F: favorite song? oof i’m super indecisive so i’m just gonna commit to mayday by got7 (it always changes but mayday has stayed on my constantly rotating playlist for nearly six months now; most are on for six weeks, max)

G: grossest memory? uh probably when one of my swim lesson kids tried to eat a bug (they were like four) and i had to make them spit it out into my hands

H: hogwarts house? proud slytherin!!

I: in love? i love a lot of people, but i’m not IN love

J: jealous of people? not anymore, my self-esteem has gotten so much better in past years

K: killed someone? uhm a couple of times in fics (*cough* jinjin in not like this *cough*)

L: love at first sight or should i walk by again? not love but pls walk by again bc i’m probably enjoying your aesthetics

M: middle name? christine

N: number of siblings? one, an older sister

O: one wish? to adopt a kid with no family or an unhealthy one (obvs when older and financially stable)

P: person you called last? my sister called me yesterday morning, and before that i had called my friend to tell him abt a near death experience when i was driving

R: reasons to smile? something good will happen to you, you’ll meet someone wonderful, and there’s always new experiences to happen

S: song you sang last? poet by bastille (an underrated fave)

T: time you woke up? about 8 am

U: underwear color? light heathered grey

V: vacation destination? i’d love to go to greece someday! santorini would be my first choice, and then my great-grandparents old village near thessaloniki

W: worst habit? probs my dermatillia (picking at acne on my face until it bleeds, then picking at the scabs, leaving a bunch of scars that will never go away)

X: x-rays? i got one on my tailbone one time, two years after i sprained it bc my mom didn’t believe me

Y: your favorite food? uhhh most anything tbh; i quite like the honey butter chicken sandwich from pdq

Z: zodiac sign? libra

✨ Fun Facts Tag ✨

Rules for this are:

Have fun with it!

Tag some of your mutuals

1) Favourite colours:

orange!! and after that, any kinds of pastel or muted darks

2) Favourite song at the moment:

lotto by exo has been on replay in my head, my car, and my earbuds

3) Last book you read:

the sun and her flowers by rupi kaur

4) Last TV show you watched:

i tried to watch part-time idol bc hyunbin from jbj was in it, but within the first 15 minutes they set up an unnecessary relationship so i had to nope out of there real hard; i then reverted back to rewatching white collar for the fifth time

5) Last movie you watched:

does john mulaney’s nerflix comedy special comeback kid count?? if not, probably nightmare before christmas way back around christmastime

6) If you have a pet whats their name?:

four dogs: pheonix, kino, midge, and bess; three horses: little man, gem, and andy (ironically i’m allergic to dogs and horses, and my dad keeps buying more)

7) If you have siblings how many?:

one, my older sister

8) Favourite thing to do on a weekend:

i love doing my swim lessons and seeing all my kids!! i haven’t been able to lately bc of the weather,

9) Best tumblr friends:

i only talk to @cheesyramynry on a daily basis, but i have a lot of blogs that i consider friendly acquaintances or casual friends as well!!

10) Favourite thing about yourself:

i value my compassion and empathy above all else; i am very much the mom friend and love to be it

11) Favourite memory:

ah i have so many; i think rn i’m gonna go with this past christmas, bc it was my last one with my grandfather

12) 3 weird habits:

swallowing gum, taking all my pills in descending size order, i tend to mimic how a singer sounds when i sing along to the song (ex: if they have a british accent, i’ll subconsciously sing in a british accent; if they stress certain syllables in certain ways, i’ll do it too)

13) What would you call your style?:

comfortable (stretchy jeans, t-shirts, hoodies) and with a few signature Gay Things (jean jacket, flannels, oversized mens’ button ups, a couple gay/bi pride shirts)

14) Odd talent:

if i have lyrics in front of me to a song i’ve never heard before, i can predict the pattern of the tunes and rhythm and sing along the first time

15) Do you have a tumblr crush?:

literally all of aroha and all of the sk fandom (y’all are the loveliest fandoms i’ve ever been a part of)

the stray kids tag

Rules: answer the questions in a new post, and tag 10 blogs you would like to get to know better.

I’ve decided that in celebration of Stray Kids pre-debut album I needed to create a tag. The ultimate goal for The Stray Kids Tag is to learn about your Tumblr mutuals, and have fun answering the Stray Kids related questions! Here we go:

1: When did you decide to join the Stray kids fandom?

i saw a thread of information abt the suspected nine members before they were officially announced and was like ‘yes i must stan them and love them with all of my heart.’ so uh,,,,, back in august or september??

2: What is your favorite episode of Stray Kids? uhm, i’m gonna expose myself rn and let y’all know that i’ve never actually seen a full episode of the show; as soon as i heard it was gonna be a survival show, i knew that i couldn’t watch it bc my heart was too weak and i was emotionally incapable of becoming too invested while watching it; but from clips, i quite like the episode with the 3:3:3 mission, and also the last episode when all nine were reunited and told they were going to debut together

3: Who would you say is your bias in Stray kids?

my initial one was chan, and they i got rlly confused, and then slowly came to realize that it was jeongin (anything else after that is a fucking mess)

4: Who would you say is your bias wrecker in Stray kids?

literally kill me all of them bias wreck me so hard bUT hyunjin, jisung, seungmin, and chan have been wrecking me so hard in particular lately

5: What line would you want to be apart of in Stray kids? uHHH not dance line bc swimmers have 0 coordination on land; i quite like singing even tho i’m not good at, so probably that, but i can also hit all of chan’s english rap parts in 3racha songs, and keep up with lafayette’s raps in hamilton, and a lot of the english rappers i like too so uh,,, sign me up for rap line too

6: What is the first song you heard of Stray kids? hellevator

7: What is the first song you heard of 3racha? i think it was either hoodie season or runner’s high

8: What is your favorite song on their pre-debut album?

young wings or school life or yayaya (or grr or 4419 or glow or hellevator)

9: What is a concept you’d like to see Stray Kids try in the future?

i love their current optimistic and slightly rebellious teenager concept rn bc its an Eternal Mood; but i always love myself a soft boyfriend concept

10: if you could meet with the members of Stray kids for one day what would you say to them?

how proud of them i am, and how proud of themselves they should be; i would tell them about how they’re saying things that resonate deeply for their fans and i love that they’re talking abt real world problems; i would also make sure to tell them (chan and 3racha especially) to make sure to rest more, and eat well, and take care of themselves emotionally as well as physically; and finally i’d like to tell jeongin how wonderful he is and that he’s doing so much at such a young age (lmao he’s actually eight months older than me but that’s no the point) and to never lose his cute little smile

finally done!! meri, if you actually read all of this, uh thank you????? i hope you now know everything you wanted to know abt me, and probably more than you wanted to know

i’m bad at tagging people, so if you also made it this far and haven’t done some of these tags, choose one, or a couple, or all of them and do them yourself!! just say that i tagged you!!

#mel talks #tags

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ghostbustermelanieking · 7 years

Text

fate

summary: Thirty-two years of sisterhood sounds like forever, she thinks, but is is not enough.

sort of post ep for paper clip. part of my series of fics i’m writing as i rewatch the x files.

“I think it's about something we have no personal choice in. I think it's about fate.” - Fox Mulder, 3x02 Paper Clip

1964

They've discussed names, a little unseriously. Bill had insisted that it would be another boy, so they had agreed unofficially on Charles. (He liked to name the children after family members; there was Billy, and then Melissa was after his mother and Charles after his father. But they hadn't discussed girl names.)

“I liked that one name you suggested,” Bill offers the next morning. They know the routines of early parenthood well, but he is no less fascinated by the baby, moving his fingers through the sunlight for her to track. “What was it… Dana.”

Maggie smiles; Dana was her favorite of the considered girl names, but she'd figured Bill would never go for it since it wasn't traditional. “Dana Katherine,” she offers, stroking her daughter's downy red hair. The baby snuffles, turning her face into Maggie’s shoulder. “For my grandmother.”

They take the baby home after a few days. Bill goes in first - wisely enough, Missy and Billy tend to be rambunctious, especially right after breakfast. Maggie’s mother has been staying with them, and she embraces Maggie at the door before leaning over the baby carrier. Missy and Billy leap at her before their father stops them. “Go and sit on the couch,” he says in that kind but stern way he has. Billy sticks out his lower lip and stomps over to the couch. Bill scoops up Missy and sets her next to her brother; she swings her legs in excitement.

The kids have been arguing for a few weeks now about whether or not the baby would be a brother or a sister (Billy in favor of the former and Missy of the latter). Maggie opts to sit between them with the baby in her arms so they won't come to blows over who was right. “Kids,” she says. “This is your new sister, Dana.”

Billy pouts, flopping back against the back of the couch, and Bill and her mother swoop in to scold him. But Missy is intrigued, crawling closer to get a look. Dana half-dozes, tiny hands waving in the air. Missy pokes her foot. “Day?”

“Dana,” Maggie corrects, amused. “Don't poke her, sweetie, you have to be gentle.”

Melissa reaches for the baby again, and Dana catches her sister's finger in her little hand. “Day,” she says, satisfied.

1969

The baby is too little to play with Billy yet, so Dana shifts back and forth between her siblings, an ambassador of some sort. She's big enough to be some fun, so Billy takes her on some of his self-professed adventures and brings her back with scraped knees that her dresses don't hide. Others, he insists on going on by himself so Dana ends up back in their room, begging Missy to come play. Most of the time she will.

They have “sides” in their bedroom, made clear by the stark difference between them. Dana listens to their parents when she's told to keep her room straight and Melissa doesn't, so her side of the floor has permanent piles of dolls and stuffed animals. Her bed is always a rumpled tangle of quilts and sheets; when they make a fort out of blankets and kitchen chairs, Dana always gets the blankets from Missy’s bed.

Missy is less wild than their brother; she likes to play make-believe. She helps Dana learn to spell big second grade words. Maggie keeps Dana’s hair cut short (and always neat, except for the times she goes to play outside with Billy), but Missy grows hers long so she can feel it blow out behind her in the wind. (She insists, whines at the sight of scissors.) It is always knotted and a pain to brush; their mother encourages her to cut it, and she always refuses.

Dana gets into a fight with Billy and Missy helps her hide the rabbit Bill is threatening in a lunch box. When she finds it dead two days later, Missy helps her throw a funeral. They bury it under their mother's rose bushes, and Missy scatters a handful of petals over the dirt.

One Saturday, Maggie finds them in her bathroom playing with her makeup. Dana is sitting on the closed toilet, shorts and a Band-Aid on her knee, whining as Missy pokes at her face with a mascara brush. Missy has already transformed her own face, as well as gotten into her closet and stolen several scarves that she’s woven around her dress. Maggie laughs until she cries before washing their faces and sending them to their room for a time-out.

1972

The day Dana turns eight is cloudless and sunny, stunningly cold for California, even in February.

After school, Missy dares her to race home. “We have something to show you,” she whispers seriously. “Billy said you were old enough.” Dana runs fast enough to beat her home, shoes scuffing the new pavement and lunch box banging off of her leg.

Missy and Billy lead her up into the woods behind their house, so far that Dana’s fingers grow numb from the cold, but she doesn't say anything from the fear that Billy will proclaim her too little and make Melissa take her back. Finally, they reach a little stick structure with what looks like a handmade sign stuck between the sticks. “Billy carved it himself,” Missy tells her.

Billy stands beside the fort with his arms crossed in front of his chest, spine straight like their father and the naval men he brings home for dinner sometimes, a proud twelve. “I made the fort, too,” he says. “Missy didn't help, she just found me out here and I made her swear not to tell.”

Missy scowls at him, sticking her tongue out. “But I come out here now, too, and now that you're eight, you're old enough.”

Awed, Dana steps closer to the little fort, reaching out to touch the floral sheet as a makeshift door. “Does Mom know you stole a sheet?” she asks slyly.

“No, and you better not tell her,” Billy says sternly, in his best imitation of their dad. Except their dad would never steal one of their mother’s sheets to use as a door for a fort.

“Shut up, I won't!” She glares fiercely up at him, feeling smaller than usual.

“You can't tell Charlie, either, he's too little, he won't keep it a secret,” Melissa says seriously. “Go check it out, Day, it's really neat.”

Dana grins, drops to the ground (even though she knows her mother will kill her for getting her dress dirty) and crawls inside. It is cool and dark in the fort, shadows on the wall that look almost scary, and a pile of pilfered stuffed animals and toy soldiers and Billy's B-B gun. Dana smiles. Billy grabs the gun and stalks away from the fort, but Melissa crawls in beside her, smiling back as she sits across from Dana and shows her the games they've stuck up here; being in the fort together is companionable, a secret.

1978

The most rebellion on Dana’s part comes from taking the long way home from school and taking a few hours longer than necessary, or sneaking out to smoke pilfered cigarettes on the back porch. (Missy can see the brief flicker of light, the red glow, outside her window.) She is testing her boundaries, but when it comes down to it she's still a baby. She still reads under the covers with a flashlight, for God's sake. Melissa waits an hour after bedtime, looking for a muted flashlight beam or for her footsteps across the rug. Silence. She slips out of bed, still fully clothed, and rummages for her shoes on the dark floor. She ties her hair back before tiptoeing across the room and opening the window.

A light shines in her eyes. “That's really dumb, you know,” Dana says with a sense of self-satisfaction in her tone.

Melissa makes a face at her, shielding her eyes with her hands. “You should be a cop, Dana, you're very good at pretending you're in charge.”

“I'm just saying it's dumb,” she says, very matter-of-fact. Dana is a very self-righteous fourteen, and it is annoying as hell. The light bounces off her braces as she sets it in her lap. “Billy never sneaks out.”

“Billy's a kiss-up, and it's not as if I'm not careful. I never sneak out when Dad's home.” Melissa keeps her voice to a whisper, even though their mother can sleep through anything. “Besides that, your little cigarette habit hardly makes you Little Miss Responsibility.”

Dana blushes bright red. “That's… different.”

“Suuuuure,” Missy says at length, grinning at her little sister. Dana doesn't smile back, flipping the flashlight on and off. “It's just a party,” she adds. “I'm meeting Lucy around the corner and she's driving, she doesn't drink or anything. I'll be back by one. You should come, you might have fun for once.”

“I'll pass,” she mumbles, tossing the flashlight down beside her on the bed.

Missy heaves a dramatic sigh, opening the window a little. “Whatever you say,” she groans, hooking her foot in the crook of two tree branches. She looks back to Dana on her bed, bright hair swishing around her face. “You're not gonna mention this to Mom, are you?” she asks cautiously.

“Not if you don't mention the cigarette thing,” says Dana. Missy snickers, and she lobs a pillow at her head. “Shut up, I didn't know you knew.”

“Consider yourself before you lecture others, little sister,” Melissa says, placing her other foot on the branch and poising herself to swing out.

“I just worry about you.” Missy positions herself in the tree before looking back at her sister. Dana is resting her chin in her hands. “Haven't you heard about some of those kids? Bad things could happen.”

“Bad things can happen everywhere, Day,” she says. “Quit worrying so much.”

1980

Their father buys Melissa a car before she leaves for college - a rusty old Volkswagen that seems to fit her. She's delighted with the car, driving Dana and Charlie down to the coast two days before she leaves. Charlie throws rocks into the ocean in the quiet way he has about him. Dana gathers shells as she trudges behind her sister up and down the sand. “You should take some with you,” she offers sheepishly, writing the beginnings of her name in the sand with her big toe (D-A…).

Missy laughs and tousles her hair. Dana glares at her from under a loose strand hanging over her eyes. “You're such a sap, Dana,” says Missy. “Here, give me one.”

The three of them trail barefoot up the beach, scattering tiny particles of sand along the upholstery, and blast the radio on the way home.

Dana helps her pack that night, folding clothes methodically and putting them into suitcases. She's inherited their mother's neat packing skills. “You can't keep all that, you know,” she tells Melissa, who is digging through flowery-handwritten school notebooks and notes her friends passed.

“Watch me,” Missy taunts and Dana rolls her eyes. She grins; she's going to miss her sister trying to boss her around. More importantly, she's going to miss actually bossing her around. “Are you going to miss me when I'm gone?”

“Of course not,” Dana says slyly. “I'll get the room to myself.” She bursts into giggles when Missy lobs an English notebook at her head.

1986

Dana vanishes to the roof sometime after dessert. Melissa goes upstairs to find her. “It's too cold to sit out on the roof like we used to as kids,” she says, sticking her head out into the November-in-Maryland cold.

Dana looks grumpy, holding a cigarette in one hand. “Thanksgiving is overrated.”

“Believe me, I know, but something tells me you're not in the mood for a rant.” She crawls out onto the roof. “What's up?”

“Stress.” Dana takes a drag on her cigarette. “Med school, and whatever the hell is going on between Dad and Charlie…”

“He just skipped Thanksgiving, it's not the end of the world,” Melissa says.

“Mom says tension was building before he even left for college.” Dana exhales, smoke leaving her mouth in a thin rope.

“You're in med school, Day, you should know better.” Missy waves a hand at the cigarette.

Dana makes a face. “There's a lot of potential retorts to that, but I won't bother.”

“Good. You know I can beat you in an argument.” Melissa smirks. Dana sticks out her tongue like they're children again, stubs her cigarette out on a roof tile. “C’mon inside, little sister,” Melissa adds, crawling across the roof. “We're too old for this, and I doubt you want Mom to catch you smoking.”

Dana follows her across the sloped surface. She spent the last half of her teen years on the roof, is an expert at navigating them. “Oh, I don't think we could ever be too old for this.”

1993

“You're telling me a parasite almost ate your brain while you were trapped in the fucking Arctic?”

“First of all, it was Alaska,” Dana says matter-of-factly. “And second of all, it wouldn't have eaten my brain if I'd been infected. It would've made my actions more erratic, making me a danger to myself and others.”

Melissa shudders. “Sounds horrific.”

“I've stopped expecting anything else from this job.”

She smirks at her sister across the table. “Sooo… any steamy moments with that partner of yours?”

“For the last time, Missy, it's not like that,” Dana says, frustrated.

“No cuddling for warmth?” she asks innocently. “No lingering touches?”

Dana’s cheeks pink in a way that shows her bluff. “Don't be ridiculous. We were on the brink of death and didn't know who to trust in freezing weather. That's about the furthest thing from romance.”

“Ahh, near death experiences,” Melissa says dramatically. “They ruin everything.” Dana rolls her eyes, punching holes around the rim of her coffee cup with her thumbnail. “Seriously, Dana, you have to stop almost dying on us. What would I do without our cigarette-on-the-roof tradition every holiday?”

“Our more festive of traditions,” Dana deadpans.

Missy laughs. “Maybe I should cast some sort of protective charm on you,” she says, half-joking - she knows exactly what her sister thinks of stuff like that.

“Maybe you should. Mulder would love that.” Dana smirks. “Near slips like this are part of the job, but sometimes I envy your nice and easy, non-life threatening job.”

“I have a feeling we're both exactly where we need to be in the world,” Melissa tells her seriously.

“Fate? Destiny? If that's telling me I'm going to go to a liver-eating monster, then I'll pass.”

“I thought you caught that guy.”

“We did. It hasn't gone to trial yet, and Mulder says our case is weak.”

“Oh, great.”

Dana rests her hand on her cheek, looking like she's lost in thought. “At least Mom and Dad will have you,” she says. “If something were to happen to me.”

Melissa believes in fate, but she also believes in her sister. “Don't be ridiculous, Day. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

1996

Her nightmares are haunted by bloodstains on the floorboards and an empty hospital bed. Scully wishes she believed in ghosts, because if she did she'd ask for Mulder to come summon up Melissa. She needs to see her one more time, to apologize.

She drifts to her sister's funeral, holding onto her flowers as some kind of an anchor. Some cousins drift around, offering condolences to her; they probably don't know she's the reason Melissa’s dead. Charlie doesn't show. Traitor, she thinks, furiously. Mulder lingers awkwardly on the edge. She doesn't know why he's here, he only met Melissa a few times. Maybe it's a thank you for going to his father's funeral. He approaches her once and gives her a hug but doesn't hover, leaves after the service. Scully sits alone and stares at her knees. Tear droplets fade into her dress, unseen.

When they were kids, Melissa helped her bury her pet rabbit in the backyard. She'd scattered rose petals over the grave. Scully pulls a handful of petals from her bouquet and scatters it over the coffin. She trails back into the funeral home silently. She has no idea what to say. The wake is at her mother's house. She sneaks up to the roof but doesn't light a cigarette. She sits alone until she gets too cold. Her dress rips when she climbs back inside.

Scully goes back home and climbs onto the couch without changing. She twists her cross between her fingers. Its twin is six feet under right now. She watches the spot where Melissa fell and waits for her ghost. Thirty-two years of sisterhood sounds like forever, she thinks, but is is not enough.

#xf rewatch #xf fanfic #i wrote this

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