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randomfoggytiger · 2 days ago

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The Scully Family In-Depth (Part XXV): The Mulder-Scully Family, a Convergence of Fate and Freewill

Philes, we have arrived at the last part of the Scully Family series-- and what better way to end this than on a victorious high note?

A SYZYGY

Scully's journey to motherhood is complicated. In The Jersey Devil, she hasn't seriously considered children because she doesn't have a serious relationship. In Home, she draws pointed parallels between her mothering considerations and Mulder's genetic makeup (post here.) In Detour, she brings Mulder a celebratory cheese platter (assuming he'd taken the case to get out of the conference with her.) In Dreamland I, she longingly rambles about other people living normal lives with their houses and children and dogs. In Milagro, she uses Padgett as a means to grab Mulder's attention (posts here.) In The Unnatural, she brings tofutti rice dreamsicles, flirts about her partner's childhood, and happily joins him for a very early or very late birthday gift. (I posit that after The Unnatural, she runs to her doctor in hopes of discovering some slim chance to become pregnant; and this kicks off the IVF arc-- to be discussed below.) She and Mulder keep the family planning book in his office after their attempts fail (as glimpsed in Amor Fati and Brand X.) And she finds out she's pregnant right after her partner has been abducted by aliens.

That's not the full tangle of the IVF and William arc, though-- lest we forget who she was trying to have a baby with... and that Mulder has consistently refused to consider "a normal life" (and parenthood) each time the potential stared him in the face.

The Jersey Devil sets him up in direct opposition to "a normal life", Home shows him reinforcing that decision quite clearly (video here), and Detour and Emily double and triple down. Yet... he wants to be the father of Scully's baby during the IVF arc ("The-the answer is yes.") And he knows William is his-- "What we feared were the possibilities. The truth we both know"-- and is proud of that fact (in spite of the PTSD and drama at play, post here.) When, and why, did he change?

And because this is The X-Files, the tangle doesn't end there. In the previous part here I explored the failed convergence of fate and freewill in the birth, life, and death of one Emily Sim-- all in all, a failure to launch for Scully’s dreams of motherhood, normalcy, and partnership. In the wake of her daughter’s death and the loss of the X-Files, Mulder and Scully are forced to reassess the parameters of their relationship: Mulder has to confess (in his own way) to the nature of his reliance on and feelings for Scully, or lose her forever (Fight the Future); and Scully has to work through her self-doubts and trust to whatever lies between them (The End-Fight the Future.) Therefore, when Season 6 begins with a below-the-belt punch to both, they squabble and feel hurt (The Beginning) but ultimately magnetize back together (Drive.) Repeatedly (One Son-Agua Mala; Milagro-The Unnatural; Field Trip-Biogenesis.) It’s a push-and-pull, back-and-forth, give-a-little-get-a-little routine they settle into, allowing both the space to breathe, to test some boundaries, and to draw back and regroup whenever they so choose. This contributes to the buoyancy and low-stakes struggle of their personal relationship, especially compared to the world-ending tribulations (or professional bug bears) that dog them day in and day out. There are personal struggles of course-- massive ones-- but nothing that does not glue itself back together as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Still, there's one last key component in the Emily Sim, IVF, and William arc. Fate and freewill carry a huge, huge role in Mulder and Scully's work: particularly, the ways both view their work. @nachosncheezies put it quite succinctly: "That Mulder looooves free will, but especially when confronted with the big things he tends to falter - Samantha might have been taken by men based on his parents' choice; Scully's continued presence on the Files and beside him is a choice (and the horrors she suffers are not an inescapable Fate caused by her proximity to him, but something she chooses to endure and continue to risk, because she values the rewards). That Scully wants very much to believe that there's a greater power guiding things, but gets so shook when directly confronted with the notion that God might indeed have more control than she or the people around her." It's how Mulder chooses to view his work (telling Scully “I don’t think this is about justice, Scully. I think it's about fate" in Paper Clip); and how Scully chooses to view not just the work ("I need something to put my back up against"), but her choices and Mulder's choices and life's good and bad, gruesome and beautiful realities. Fate and freewill themselves are constantly locked in battle, weaving themselves into the narrative before getting snagged against each other and having to be unpicked. This is mainly due to the markedly inconsistent writing; but it's there, on purpose, to serve as the show's backdrop.

And under the fate vs. freewill heading, there is one last snarl we need to take into consideration: Melissa Scully and the impact of her legacy on Scully's personal journey. It's Melissa who encourages her sister to "follow your heart, and it'll take you where you're supposed to go" in A Christmas Carol; it's Melissa who speaks for her sister in One Breath, it's Melissa who tells her sister Mulder is still alive and warns her she's "shut off from her own intuition" in The Blessing Way, it's Melissa who died in her sister's stead, it's Melissa who leads her sister to her daughter from the afterlife, and it's Melissa's influence that leads her sister to her own voice and conscience in all things. Melissa acts as the bridge between Fate and Freewill: the heart is destined for something, someplace, somewhere; but you must choose to listen to and follow it to find where you're supposed to go. As @deathsbestgirl put it (post here), "but missy's presence is still felt, her influence on scully outlives her. scully is always trying to reach melissa, to feel her. melissa is always guiding her, and as scully moves further on her path (with mulder), allows herself to learn more about what happened during her abduction/because of her abduction (something melissa wanted her to do shortly before her death), like with emily and the red & the black...every step brings her close to melissa."

So: when do these ideas-- Scully's journey, Mulder's journey, the battle of Fate and freewill, and Melissa Scully's legacy-- culminate and begin to manifest in the Scully Family Series?

The answer: the IVF arc.

THE STARS ALIGN… AND FALTER

Where does the IVF arc fall? That can be debated until the end of time; but for me personally, the only math that maths adds up to a late Season 6 timeline (post here)-- right in the midst of rule breaking and negotiations; and right after Mulder’s perspective begins to shift, allowing him to see the possibility of “life on this planet.”

Scully’s second attempt at motherhood quickly devolves into the same pattern as the first.��Struck one day with the urge to retest her fertility (after a very early or very late birthday present, I suggest), she rushes off to a (seemingly last minute) medical checkup. Scully books an appointment without telling her partner (despite her hopes immediately revolving around him when she gets a positive second opinion-- which means, he was on her mind when she booked the first one, as well.) Further, when Scully returns to the FBI, dispirited, she attempts to deflect his inquiries after Mulder catches up with her in the elevator. But he won’t let this go; and she sighs, admits she’d been at the doctor’s office, then drops into silence.

“Don’t make me guess,” Mulder quips, afraid it’s cancer.

Skipping over Per Manum’s dialogue gaffe-- one which contradicts Emily’s timeline-- we arrive at the revelation: “I am not yet ready to accept I won’t have children,” she admits.

Mulder begins to walk away, but gives in to his conscience, turning back to explain, “Scully, there’s, um, there’s something I haven’t told you-- and I hope you would forgive me and understand why I kept it from you.”

Tense and confused, Scully asks, “What?”

“During my investigation into your illness, I found out why you were barren. Your ova were taken from you and stored in a government lab.”

And while this, too, could fall into showbible blunder, Scully’s next line salvages it: “What? You found them?” puts the stress on 'found', implying her shock comes from his discovery more so than the details he’s sharing.

“I-I took them directly to a specialist who would… tell me if they were okay,” he replies, softly, head down and unable to meet her eyes: because they weren’t okay. Scully is too distraught to make this connection, yet.

“I… I don’t believe this--”

“Scully, you were deathly ill and I… I couldn’t bear to give you another piece of bad news.” Mulder finally looks up, ashamed but sincere.

Devastated, she’s pulled up short. “Is that what it was, it was bad news?”

He nods, blinks, maintains eye contact as he slowly explains, “The doctor said that the ova weren’t viable.”

Immediately, Scully distances herself from this pain, punching the elevator button and insisting, “I want a second opinion.”

Mulder, knowing what his partner’s doing, tries to stop her-- physically reaching out to block the doors from closing-- but gives in when Scully flinches, then shoots him a pleading look: if she doesn’t collect herself alone, she will fall apart. Giving in (what else can he do? his actions have hurt her deeply), he lets her go.

Scully’s quest for family is once again stymied by the Consortium; and she is spared, once again, from the traumas of tampered motherhood.

After an undetermined time later, Dr. Parenti joins her in the waiting room with good-- for him-- news: “Ms. Scully, I’ve got a good report for you. I’ve looked at the ova you’ve given me and consulted with some of my colleagues; we all feel that, with the proper approach, it might be successful.”

And that’s the insidious, despicable underbelly to the IVF arc: Dr. Parenti spoke with his colleagues about one Dana Scully-- i.e. he, the Consortium plant, knew exactly who she was and exactly what this vial of ova meant.

And he, Dr. Parenti, was likely going to use her ova and her womb for his benefit; and if he and his colleagues felt generous, he'd grow her real, replacement child in a tube somewhere to swap with at birth (like he did with Kathy McCready.)

Now: could Scully have had a perfectly normal IVF pregnancy, a one-in-a-million shot that wasn’t tampered or interfered with?

Put bluntly, no:

Dr. Parenti’s clinic was an extension of the arm of the Syndicate, either carrying out his own experiments with their permission or carrying out a niche of their experiments for them.

The Consortium crumbled in One Son, but vestiges remained-- carrying out CSM’s directives in En Ami and Requiem, and leaving their research facilities scattered, here and there, undetected.

Parenti worked out of one of these research facilities; and, whatever his "research" had been before the Syndicate’s collapse, it couldn’t have been much different than it is when Scully and Doggett investigated him in S8.

Further, even if Scully came to his clinic sometime before or after One Son, his purposes were already set in place; and like Scanlon and Calderon, he could, in all probability, take the evidence and disappear into thin air if detected. Meaning, he is ruthless and one-track minded.

Meaning, Scully’s chances-- which were nil because of the ova’s unviability-- were most certainly tampered with: either to produce another half-formed alien child-- which he might swap with a test tube baby with varying degrees of health-- or to sabotage any chance of success. And, unfortunately, if he wanted to do the latter, he would simply have said there was no chance of success, at all.

As much as the IVF arc appeals to me, the fact that Parenti walked into the room with a malicious glint in his eye, declared there to be a chance after he consulted with his colleagues, and knew full well who those were and how Scully factored into their equation… there is no way, shape, or form that Scully’s pregnancy would have avoided trauma of some sort: miscarriage; induced labor, perhaps unconscious C-section, and a baby swap; or death.

Unaware of these odds, Scully collapses in a chair; and before she can process this news completely, Dr. Parenti begins to pressure her for a now, now, now timeline: the odds would be better the sooner they started. Another hint at his greedy machinations.

“We can start right away?” she asks, stunned-- and, again, her pattern kicks in: hurry, hurry, hurry; don’t think; this is the right thing to do; run; go, go, go.

“Well, you’d need a father,” the doctor advises; but Scully’s face falls at ‘anonymous donor’, her eyebrows pinching and her eyes dropping at the realization that she’s going to have to ask Mulder to be that donor. Of course she is; and that certainty makes her immediately uncertain of his reaction. “Unless you have someone in mind?”

“Yeah. I, uh….” The music drops, uneasy. “I just have to figure out how to ask him.”

Mulder’s acceptance, Scully’s reaction; and Mulder’s comfort, and Scully’s tears I’ve already been recorded here; but it bears repeating for this analysis, if in brief.

We aren’t shown the moment Scully asks for Mulder’s help; but we are shown his shiny eyes and shy eagerness, her anxious timidity and teary delight when he accepts. Mulder comes through that door ready to have a part of that “more” his partner is seeking-- in short, to be a father. Scully mistakes his breathless premise as rejection, and reveals (with her down-turned eyes and crestfallen, “I should have known” expression) that she doubted he’d ever accept this request; or, more accurately, doubted he’d want to change their partnership. It’s part and parcel-- she believes-- of the one step forward, two steps back jig they’ve been doing recently; but it also hits her in the pain point that his turn-aside in Emily (“Are you two the parents?”) created.

“Th-the answer is yes,” he assures, poking at her arm; and her face transforms into varying stages of overwhelmed delight, unable to believe he wants this, now, with her-- that he wants to share this with her-- quite literally wants to take part in this with her.

And, I believe, both know what this truly means: that Mulder is signing on to be an active father. Despite turning aside from Emily Sim, he did his utmost to protect and save her. That was a responsibility he was thrust into, and one he didn’t turn away from... but one he chose to keep distance from, as well. There is no distance here: “the answer is yes”, after all.

Again, I shall briefly touch on the moment they receive devastating news (and, again, the post is linked above.)

Mulder is napping on Scully’s couch, waiting for her return from her appointment. She isn’t surprised, necessarily, to see him there; and he makes no bones about the fact he “must have dozed off” as time crawled by. Seeing her sad face, hearing her defeated, “I guess it was too much to hope for”, he gathers her up in his arms, comforts his partner during her wailing, “This was my last chance!”, and promises her, “Never give up on a miracle.” Mulder has learned to believe in this possibility, and he doesn’t want to let that belief go.

Already, we see the blurred lines of their partnership:

After her request and his acceptance, Mulder greets Scully at her apartment-- a marked change in routine from their usual meeting spot (his apartment or the basement.)

Mulder is just as anxious and excited as she is at the possibility of success.

And though her “last chance” has failed, he refuses to let the idea of her having a child and achieving her dreams go-- they came this close, he assumes, on the rarest of chances. What’s to say they won’t again?

Scully, meanwhile, has her own tells:

She is not (too) surprised to find Mulder in her apartment, despite both of them meeting (more often than not) at his place.

She clings to him and cries on his shoulder-- the third time in their partnership (Irresistible, Fight the Future, Per Manum.)

Not only does she cling to him and cry openly, she does so in stark contrast to her previously closed-off emotions (in Emily, and in the beginning of Per Manum’s flashbacks.)

She almost kisses his forehead-- a callback to her authoritative claim in Fight the Future; and one she does not repeat until she reaffirms that claim in Amor Fati-- but ducks at the last second, and vaguely lands on his cheek.

She allows herself to be consumed by his soothing hug.

In conclusion: neither person was denying what this was to them-- a chance at their own form of a normal life, a bit of hers and a bit of his all blended together in one perfect, successful last chance. But, alas, that was not to be. (And, considering Dr. Parenti’s intentions, that was a good thing.)

A second attempt; but the first joint failure.

A “NORMAL LIFE” DEFEATS FATE

And here we reach the grand conclusion of the question of freewill versus fate.

As previously discussed, Mulder views his quest in righteous terms-- Fate-- to bear up under it; while Scully decisively argues her position in factual terms-- Freewill-- to make sense of it.

“This child was not meant to be,” he warns about Emily; and “Don’t give up on a miracle”, he encourages after the IVF: both statements are lacking perspective and personal agency.

“I don’t see what choice I have," she responds about the adoption; and “I guess it was too much to hope for," she mourns after the IVF: both statements are laced with insecurity and defeat.

The lingerings of these resolutions are resolved in Amor Fati and all things, respectively. Mulder solidifies his “life on this planet” after being dragged into the bowels of “another life, another world.” It is Conscience, personified by Scully, who confronts his weakness, calling him a coward and leaving him to make an active choice of his own freewill. Mulder chooses to leave behind bigger aspirations, higher callings, greater, inactive purpose to open his eyes to the true world-- the truth-- and cling to her: an integration of freewill. She is, he realizes, his touchstone. Scully solidifies her decision to stay with Mulder-- not the files, not the work, not their romantic relationship-- after being given a chance to take another path. And it is Conscience, personified by the running woman-- revealed to be Mulder-- who confronts Scully’s self doubt and directionless spiral, leading her one step at a time to her own resolution and peace. Scully chooses to let go of her doubt and indecision, trusting in her instincts to guide her: an integration of fate. He is, she realizes, where she belongs.

Both of these journeys finally sync up in all things: Scully tells Mulder about talking to God and falls asleep, Mulder rambles about paths not taken and tucks a blanket around her. And Scully of her own freewill joins Mulder in bed; and together they create their own miracle-- a sprinkle of fate and a boatload of personal choice.

William, then, is a perfect combination: not because he is an alien super soldier or a divine proof of God or a result of the corrupt, freewill actions of other forces or "the key to everything" fated into existence through White Buffalo prophecy to save the world (@deathsbestgirl thoughts and post here), but because he is human. Normal. A miracle because he is not at all what anyone except Scully and Mulder expected him to be.

“We feared the possibilities,” Mulder acknowledges while holding his days-old son. “The truth we both know.”

“Which is what?” Scully asks-- also one guided by definitives.

And he gives her one-- a kiss-- to mark this new chapter of their lives.

What is that new chapter, you wonder?

In Requiem, Mulder and Scully miss sign after sign of her pregnancy, fearing she is suffering from close proximity to an abductee ship. She shuffles to his hotel room, sick and weak; and he tucks her up and whispers, “There has to be an end, Scully.”

Mulder is a man of half-sentences and vague meanings: there has to be an end for Scully, for all she’s sacrificed.

“I want you to go home”, he admits.

“Oh, Mulder, I’m fine,” she whispers; but it’s not the full truth.

"No, no, I've been thinking about it: looking at you today holding that baby... knowing everything that's been taken away from you. The chance for motherhood--" Scully's face scrunches in pain: she can't pretend this wound has healed, "--and your health and that baby. I think that... y'know, maybe they're right." Mulder speaks gently, contemplatively: and though this moment is focusing on Scully's losses, there is more going on-- particularly in Mulder himself.

"Who's right?" Scully asks, waveringly.

"The FBI," he answers plainly, sorrow and realization blending together."

Scully doesn't respond, brows wrinkling in confusion.

"Maybe what they say is true-- but for all the wrong reasons. It's the personal costs that are too high."

Scully doesn't respond, again: more importantly, she doesn't deny. And although she doesn't agree-- although she's stuck in worried limbo, afraid for her health, stumbling over the fact of her infertility-- she seems to be considering his words, or the intent behind them. Even more importantly, Scully doesn't know what Mulder's point is: that she resign? That they resign together? Is he turning over a new leaf just when she's learned to accept her choices and his ways for what they are?

Like Elegy, both are “afraid of the same thing”: that the final toll of this quest will consume Scully. (Just as they "feared the possibilities" in Existence.) She tries to escape this sense of doom by working, by nearly fighting her partner to go back to Bellefleur when Krycek and Marita show up dangling special intelligence. Mulder, however, is tired of loss, tired of years and years without closure. He floats the idea of leaving, for her sake; and doesn’t push it farther. But it’s on his mind, her health and her happiness; and her health and her happiness, he ruminates with mature clarity, might not be sold in bulk at the FBI. On the flip side, Mulder doesn’t float the solid idea of him leaving, too: he hasn’t let go: he's yet to make a decisive choice to leave (ala Vienen.)

Mulder returns to Bellefleur; and Mulder is abducted right before Scully finds out she’s pregnant.

There’s a deeper dive to be had regarding Mulder’s rewritten demise in Requiem and second rewritten death in Three Words. Be that as it may, Mulder is forced onto the alien spaceship; Mulder is tortured for long months against his will; and Mulder is “killed” and buried before he can learn about the existence of his child. Here, again, is the Fate conundrum: Mulder's "fated" quest lays claim to him now that he begins to contemplate another path. As for Scully, she decides to fight-- and fight hard-- to get her partner back, railing against Kersh’s edicts, throwing water in Doggett’s face, asserting her authority over extraterrestrial life, and leading the charge in her own efforts to locate the spaceship.

She almost loses her baby, three times, due to the stress and drive of her choices; yet, Mulder still ��dies”-- Fate, it seems, has won. But Mulder is alive (through Skinner's choice); and her hard work pays off when he blinks awake.

In short: Mulder and Scully beat the machinations of Fate-- he outlasted the torture and death intended for him; and she fought back against others’ intent for her partner, the files, and their child.

A brief note on Scully’s Season 8 pregnancy: in A Christmas Carol, Emily, and Per Manum, we see her throwing caution to the wind to grasp after second chances, unwittingly falling into traps in a vain attempt to capture happiness. In Requiem, Within, Without, and Roadrunners, however, she's pivoted priorities, ruthlessly upping the ante to reclaim her partner, thrusting herself into dangerous situations without first taking the baby’s life into account. It's the same, though inverted, psychological underpinnings: desperation, motivation, and determination. She had to face motherhood alone with Emily Sim; and she was able to face the IVF failure with Mulder’s support. But carrying Mulder’s baby to term and raising it, alone, is another thing; and one she is aware comes with a predetermined end date on the files. Scully justifies the risks and peril-- at first-- in Mulder’s name. Scully bandies about the country trying to keep the files going in her partner's stead, for his return; but the truth is, she is using the files to escape from her reality. And as she finds out in Alone, Scully’s also unable to let the files go-- which surprises her (even though she'd previously refused to let them go during the three months her partner was buried. Perhaps Scully's self-awareness was out to pasture, as often happens when she's buried under stress and grief, e.g. Beyond the Sea, Irresistible, Memento Mori, Elegy, etc.)

This proves a few things:

As much as Scully proclaims she “wants to settle down, have something approaching a normal life”, and as much as Mulder insists she should go (Fight the Future, Requiem), Scully can’t or won’t leave until it feels right. “Follow your heart, and it’ll take you where you’re supposed to go,” Melissa told her, once (post here); and she was completely correct about her sister.

As much as Scully committed to leaving the FBI for Emily or the IVF’s sake, she wasn’t ready either time; and was pushing that thought away with countdown clocks and ticking time bombs.

Scully chose to stay on the files for the entirety (or most) of her pregnancy; and drifted back on maternity leave, conflicted. Saving Doggett’s life one last time and meeting Agent Leyla Harrison assured her that there will always be more believers to take up the cause. She is convinced her decision to leave was the right one, and lets that part of her life go in good conscience.

It's Three Words, and Mulder is alive! All, however, is not smooth sailing. He is alive but withdrawn, riddled with wounds and PTSD; and Scully is confused and hurt, riddled with guilt and expectations.

Three Words unfolds, and they get through it together; Empedocles unfolds, and Mulder begins to embrace his role as ‘the father’; Vienen unfolds, and Scully is vexed that her partner ran off to a potential death without remembering his child; Vienen resolves, and Mulder quits; Alone unfolds, and Scully is drawn back to her work while Mulder keeps drawing her away from it; Alone resolves, and both have relaxed into their role as X-Files retirees and impending parents. Mulder chooses to leave, and has taken steps to solidify that choice; Scully realizes she hadn't let go, and makes with her transition.

Yet, we have the madness of Essence and Existence.

The question-- for Mulder at least-- of Fate or Freewill hasn’t been sufficiently settled: in Essence’s opener, he ponders, "But has our ingenuity rendered the miracle into a simple trick? In the artifice of replicating life can we become the creator? Then what of the soul? Can it too be replicated? Does it live in this matter we call DNA? Or is its placement the opposite of artifice, capable only by God? How did this child come to be? What set its heart beating? Is it the product of a union? Or the work of a divine hand, an unanswered prayer, a true miracle? Or is it a wonder of technology, the intervention of other hands? What do I tell this child about to be born? What do I tell Scully? What do I tell myself?" Scully, predictably, doesn’t want to entertain more doubts or heartbreak after her previous scares; and has stuck her head decidedly in the sand (i.e. The Blessing Way, Memento Mori, etc.) That child is his, he knows (post here); but Fate, he feels, has played cruel tricks before. There are already two metaphorical graves for Scully’s children; and another one either grown from a tube or destroyed with Calderon’s abominable experiments.

The show boils the entirety of (then) canon down to its essential themes: the truth they both know, but the possibilities they fear; Mulder wants to believe, and Scully's afraid to believe.

As previously mentioned, Mulder is caught up in doubts, then conspiracies; and he flails around for answers. When he rushes to her apartment and tries to help her pack, Scully becomes more and more heated at his non-answers.

"No, just stop! Can you tell me what's wrong? Is it something to do with my baby?'

"No," he assures gently, "your, your baby is fine." Then his gravitas shifts, and he adds hurriedly, "It's you who's in danger now, Scully."

"From who? Mulder, from what?"

"I don't know--" that's not enough for Scully, nor her anxiety, "--I'm not sure. I'm not sure about anything. I just know I got to get you out of here."

Finally, she yells, “Look, Mulder, look, I can't take this! I can't live like this—as, as the object of some unending X-File.”

Mulder, pushed to his extremis, finally tells her what she needed to hear for most of their partnership and especially after her pregnancy, his death, and his resurrection: “This isn't about the X-Files, Scully. It is only about you. Now, you are going to have this baby and I'm going to do everything I can to protect it.”

These two statements speak volumes: Scully and Mulder have both chosen to put the files behind them.

Why is this so important? Because for the first time in each pit stop towards parenthood-- towards expanding the Scully family, if you will-- this baby and its safety is not an x-file for Mulder, is not another life that wasn’t meant to exist; and this baby is not an x-file for Scully, is not tied to a traumatic, stolen moment from her past. She wants one area of her life to be free from conspiracy and collusion; and he wants the baby (and Scully) to be safe, once and for all.

We’ll keep Existence brief because its nonsensical, illogical, and frankly stupid writing decisions could be studied as a “How Not To” guide. After sending Scully away due to his fears (and relapse into a Freeze response, post here), Mulder comes to his senses and flies out to Georgia, arriving too late to prevent any real danger and missing the birth of his child. Scully, meanwhile, gives up; and allows herself to be schlepped away to the middle of nowhere, giving birth before an audience of unfeeling monsters. Suffice to say, despite multiple factions breathing down their necks and insisting this child is a proof of God or a weapon for or against the planet, William’s birth confirms that he is, indeed, a normal child: a plot twist to Fate and the creatures who attempted to play god.

If we tune down the unnecessary noise, one key detail sticks out: Scully did not know the sex of her baby. When trying to barter for her baby's life, a mother will do anything to humanize her child to its threat. That action is one with the highest chance of success-- and a medical doctor trained in the FBI would know this. In fact, we've seen Scully use this technique before (ex. in Monday with Bernard.) Yet, she doesn't: she pleads for "my baby" and "please don't let them take it." 'It' is the clearest sign of her ignorance (and was purposefully written that way, I believe-- a two-fold "What is the sex?" and "Will the baby be taken before Scully herself knows?" dose of climax anxiety.)

But does this theory hold up under closer scrutiny?

We know Scully is shown the sex in Per Manum, but that is revealed to be a false result intended to deceive her. There was so much confusion afterward about real babies and alien babies that it was a mess to sort through; and Scully switched doctors, regardless, to ensure her safety.

She likely didn’t want to know anything more after this point, refusing to acknowledge that something might be wrong. This is in line with many, many other examples of her almost blind avoidance when confronted with a truth she doesn't want to face.

When Mulder mentions the connections to Parenti’s clinic in Essence, she tries to shut the conversation down; and when he replies, "That's-that's all I'm trying to do. Just make sure nothing happens to you; that this baby you're carrying is born without any surprises”, she stares him down angrily-- further proof Scully won't entertain these thoughts willingly.

“What we feared were the possibilities,” Mulder confirms in Existence: Scully had those fears, too. Avoiding the sex would be a way to put her fingers in her ears and experience a “normal”, profoundly uninteresting last two trimesters-- “Didn't you have to wait with us?” she tells Maggie.

An that brings me to another interesting note: her behavior is not dissimilar to Bill Scully setting up shop in an exact replica of his childhood home, trying to copy and paste those traditions for his own family-- which included decorating the nursery in his sisters’ “old” room. In other words: he was recreating Melissa’s past (their past) without referring to her death, just as Scully is escaping fearful possibilities by recreating a the ignorance of the nostalgic past. “You keep things so bottled up,” Maggie worries (post here); and she is deadly accurate.

Back at Scully’s apartment [x] days later, Mulder arrives; and, for the first time that we see in the series, opens her door with his own key (post here.)

This is incredibly significant. It cannot be overstated. Scully’s own mother hired a baby nurse to assist her daughter because Scully’s privacy is so finely tuned that Maggie knew she wouldn’t want guests over. Mulder himself only ever dropped in after a knock at the door, even after his resurrection. And, although he had things of his at her place (in all things, @unremarkablehouse and @touchstoneaf's post here) and she had things at his (in Orison, post here), the two hadn’t solidified their cohabitation. Until now, when he waltzes in, greets her guests comfortably, and strolls in to meet and hold his son. And Scully looks up, smiles blissfully, and hands their child over.

Mulder is enamored, is in awe of his baby; and that look of bliss and wonder is everything Scully could have hoped for.

“William,” she names, after Mulder's father-- a man who bucked the Consortium as much as he could (post here), who gave up and gave in (post here), and who decided, of his own freewill, to own up to his mistakes at the last (post here.)

In short: a shot at Fate.

After laughing at her partner's shot at Skinner, Scully questions, "I don't understand, Mulder-- they came to take him from us-- why they didn't."

“I don't quite understand that, either. Except that maybe he isn't what they thought he was.” Another shot at Fate. “That doesn't make him any less of a miracle, though, does it?” A third shot at Fate.

Encouraged, she smiles. It slips as she admits, "When I became pregnant, I feared the truth." More evidence of her head sticking firmly in the sand. "About how. And why. And I know that you feared it, too."

Mulder has an answer already-- he's given this thought since William's birth. "I think what we feared were the possibilities. The truth we both know."

“Which is what?” she asks; and he leans forward and shows her: the final blow.

Fate is soundly defeated: Mulder, the boy who lost his sister, who set aside a life to find the Truth, has found happiness away from it-- has chosen his own truth. Scully, the woman who chose then doubted her choices, has obtained peace-- has chosen to leave the files after finding her truths, too.

Not only is this ending the culmination of their journey to parenthood, but it also resolves their character arcs: life on this planet, something resembling a normal life, and a manifestation of a bond and willpower stronger than death.

Last but not least, it also encapsulates the journey’s of each of their family’s legacy-- and on a more personal level, the culmination of their sister’s legacies: Samantha Mulder’s gifted closure (post here) and Melissa Scully’s intuitive guidance (posts here, here, here, and here.)

(But what if William had been inexplicably magical? What if he had had alien powers; or was a creation for and fulfillment of higher purposes? What if he was, in short, the key to everything?

Then Fate would have won the debate: William was the key to everything; and would be hunted down or chased until evil is defeated, or he saves the world. As Mulder and Scully conclude in The Truth's ending speech:

“I want to believe… that if we listen to what’s speaking, they can give us the power to save ourselves.”

“Then we believe the same thing.”

In other words, Fate is predetermined; and humanity will be destroyed if they don't listen to and heed its warnings and thunderings. Which would effectively destroy eight years of build-up and resolution: Fate as a tempered option, Freewill as a vehicle for growth and change, Conscience as the deciding factor. It would destroy Mulder and Scully's individual and mutual arcs, their son's conception and birth, their sisters' losses and legacies, their families' virtues and faults, failures and victories. In short: it would be a complete mess.)

CONCLUSION

And that brings us to the conclusion of the Scully Family In-Depth series!

Thanks for reading!

Enjoy~

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