#scully deserves happiness

[nachosncheezies]

💋🎉🥰🤲

For this ask game.

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

A fact about me, which may seem counterintuitive given my posting, is that... I'm actually not that much into shipping. I appreciate it, when done well, but it's not really the romance per se that draws me to things or drives my interactions with a piece of media. I don't really love OR hate first kiss fics; I suppose I would put them in the same category I put whump: if it's well done, and has some kind of plot or deeper introspection or something around it, something that helps the characters develop in some way, that's great! But just for its own sake? Meh.

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

It's cliche, but feedback, especially comments. One of the best I ever got was on the first fic I posted, where I'd put a stereotypical "I'm not a writer, please be nice" sort of nonsense at the top. I got a comment from a complete stranger that started with, "okay, 'not a writer,'" and rode those four words straight into the next two stories I wrote. If I've made someone feel something enough that they've taken the time to say so, that's pure gold, and a definite win.

🥰 How do you feel about reader interaction? Are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

I LOVE questions about them!! I love chatting about my shows in general, but tbh writing meta sometimes hurts my brain. My fics are almost all canon-compliant and usually express a headcanon or an interpretation of canon events. Sometimes I'm demonstrating why some part of canon that folks seem to hate or think makes no sense actually makes perfect sense to me. It's always so fun to chat about blorbos, I guess I'm just better at showing my thoughts on some things through fic than I am at explaining. :D

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

Bless you 💕 every time you do this you force me to look at another bit I've not worked on for a while and it sets my brain on fire with ideas for how to improve or expand on them. :D How about one not from season 8? Set in the reduxes, a scene I drafted ages ago for Scully and Bill Junior. I was delighted to later discover it has a lot in common with the deleted scene from I think it was memento mori? (also delighted that the deleted scene can't be considered canon, because what did air has him not aware of her cancer until much later, so my version could still stand :D I'll post it someday, probably)

"You're being rude," she stated. "I'm just looking out for you." "I know that you believe that, but you're also being rude." "Dana, I know-" he started, but she cut him off with a look. "I asked to speak to you, I would like you to listen," she said, and tipped her head toward the chair beside her bed. "Sit." His jaw flexed, but he acquiesced. "Look, I'm not going to ask you to like him-" "Good, because I don't," he interrupted petulantly. She gave him a quelling look. "I am not going to ask you to like him," she repeated, pausing between each word for emphasis, "and I'm not going to ask that you understand him. But I need you to respect me. We aren't kids anymore Bill, I'm a grown woman; I can make my own decisions. Please don't belittle that by assuming that I'm somehow being..." she searched for the right word, "manipulated."

thank you thank you thank you, a million times thank you for asking 💕💕💕

[sagan-starstuff]

Bad Days

Scully has an unexpectedly early period. Mulder and Scully talk about their lost sisters. Set some time in late season three. TW: Non-graphic discussion of menstruation.

Disclaimer: Contains brief discussion of femininity and menstruation, but obviously not all women menstruate and not all people who menstruate are women. Scully's comments reflect how I feel she would perceive her own personal relationship with femininity and her body as of 1996.

Edit: Friends, I made a dumb continuity error when it came to the timing of this fic. I fixed it. If only CC and the bunch had been as mindful of continuity then maybe we'd all be a little less insane today.

Dana Scully took pride in her ability to navigate the patriarchal landscapes of both law enforcement and medicine and retain a degree of femininity. She’d been keeping up with her brothers since birth - tomboy Dana shooting and cursing with the best of them when she wasn’t wiping the floor with them academically - but she was grateful to her mother and to Melissa for teaching her that masculinity was not the same as strength, power, or intelligence. It allowed her to deal with the idle comments during rounds from older physicians about how the female medical students were only going to get pregnant a few years into practice and go part time anyway. She was able to turn her frustration at being called “sweetheart” and “short stack” by the tactical defense instructors at Quantico into enough force to land them flat on their back in the next breath. There’s not a leer or a comment from any backwoods deputy that would ever, ever, keep her from conducting her work to the best of her abilities, even in three inch heels. She was woman, hear her roar.

Some days, however, she still felt like tearing out her uterus and throwing it into a garbage disposal.  Today was one of those days.  

She and Mulder had been called out to Weatherford, Oklahoma to investigate the deaths of three young men on the same day. All found in the middle of different fields with full-thickness burns over more than 95% of their bodies, severe lung damage, and no evidence for how they got there. No tracks, no disturbed vegetation - it was as if they’d fallen from the sky. Obviously, Mulder suspected UFO activity, but she was more intrigued by the whitish residue found on the burned young men. Three days of autopsies, interviews, and tromping around more dusty wheat fields than she’d care to count, and she’d found the connection - mass spectrometry analysis of the residue showed that it was primarily made of ammonia-heavy compounds. It turned out that the men had all served prior sentences for methamphetamine production. By all outward appearances they were walking the straight and narrow, but the residue was enough to link them to a series of thefts of agricultural anhydrous ammonia tanks. Apparently, their last job went horribly wrong - a tank ruptured and sprayed them all with concentrated ammonia. All it took was asking around the local hospitals if they’d recently treated anyone else for chemical burns to find two other members of the theft ring who admitted to panicking and dumping the bodies off of tractors driven along previously existing tracks.

Today had been the last day of the investigation, and she’d woken up with a familiar ache in her lower back and blood on her underwear a full week earlier than expected. Ever since her abduction her periods had been occasionally irregular. It was getting better with time, but she still cursed the fact that she hadn’t prepared for this when packing. They still faced a day of finalizing reports and statements before their flight home tomorrow, and if something could have gone wrong, it did. The stash of tampons and ibuprofen that lived in her overnight bag was dangerously low, and she’d had no time to stop into the town’s only drug store on the way to the sheriff's office. The office clerk had mislaid the original mass spectrometry analysis from the third victim, requiring a lengthy game of phone tag with the county lab. One of the suspects started making noise about revoking his statement culminating in a very frustrating conversation with him and his lawyer. All the while her cramps worsened as the day wore on. She tried to massage her low back when she thought no one was looking and masked the twinges of pain from surprise cramps. Mulder cast her a questioning look once or twice but she waved him off as they both tried to tie up the loose ends of the case. By the end of the day she was on both her last tampon and her last nerve. 

Finally they were finished and back at the motel. Scully set her briefcase down, shrugged off her coat and blazer, and flopped down face-first onto the bed. She heard the door connecting her room to Mulder’s unlock and crack open, followed by the sound of him dropping his own belongings. She really should get up and get the car keys from him to run to the drug store before it closes, she remembered thinking, but the bed was surprisingly soft and the pressure on her abdomen from lying prone felt so good that the next thing she knew she felt a warm hand gently rubbing her shoulder. 

“Scully, hey…”

She abruptly rolled over to see Mulder looking down at her from the edge of the bed with a crooked smile. She sat up and pushed the hair out of her face, embarrassed that she’d passed out without even taking off her shoes.

 “God…I’m sorry, I must have fallen asleep.” She rubbed her face and checked her watch - eight-thirty PM, if she was lucky she could still get to a store before they closed for the night. 

She scooted to the foot of the bed and stood to grab her coat, “I needed to run an errand earlier - do you have the keys? I might have enough time before the stores close.” 

He rose and called after her, “Wait, before you go - when I saw you’d fallen asleep I went ahead and got dinner.” He gestured at the takeout boxes on the dinette set, which she could smell contained orange chicken and fried rice.

He paused and looked sheepish for a moment before holding out a white grocery bag to her. “I, uh…I picked up a couple other things, too. You might want to take a look before you bother going out.” 

She cocked an eyebrow at him, dropped her coat back on the chair and took it. Inside she found a box of tampons - not just any tampons, her preferred brand of tampons, as well as two Dove dark chocolate bars, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a travel-sized electric heating pad. Her first reaction was to raise her hackles, flashing back to the times Bill had teased her when he spied the wrappers from her pads sticking out of her backpack in middle school. But when she sharply met Mulder’s eyes she saw only innocent concern mixed with hesitation, like he was bracing for rebuke. 

Her face relaxed as she softened and she sat back down with his gifts. “Mulder…thank you.  But how did you know?”

His shoulders relaxed with a sigh and he sat down next to her, shoulder to shoulder. “You’ve looked uncomfortable all day, rubbing your back and stomach when you thought no one could see. You asked the precinct secretary if they had any Tylenol. You actually ate the chips that came with your sandwich for once.” He counted the tells off on his fingers as he spoke, and she couldn’t tell if she was more touched or annoyed by his perceptiveness. He continued on with a wry smile, “We’ve worked together for three years, and maybe you don’t remember but before I was a paranoid crackpot I was a pretty damned good profiler. I notice things, Scully.”

She chuckled, “Well then, I don’t know if I should be impressed or embarrassed. It’s not something a lot of women broadcast, especially in our line of work.” She thought back to boyfriends past who’d at best tried to ignore the fact that she menstruated or at worst treated it like an annoyance.  To the boys and men who joked about PMS and being ‘on the rag’ when women were rightfully angry about…well, about anything, at any time.

He shook his head gently, “No need to be embarrassed. I’m sorry you’re having a bad day.” His voice was gentle and earnest and pulled at her chest. Again and again, he humbled her with his capacity for kindness. 

She returned his smile and placed one petite hand over his large one on his knee. “Thank you. Really, this means a lot.”

“No problem. Do you still need to run out?”

She shook her head, “No, actually, you seem to have taken care of everything. Want to eat?”

“I’m starving. Why don’t you get comfortable and I’ll make up some plates.”

She squeezed his hand and excused herself to the bathroom to change into an old t-shirt and leggings. When she emerged with a fresh round of NSAIDs on board he’d piled two plates with chicken, rice, and egg rolls and had pulled two beers frosted with condensation from the mini-fridge. He was in his dress shirt and slacks but had loosened the cuffs and unbuttoned the collar, tie, belt and shoes long since tossed aside into his room. Scully stole glances at him and tried to ignore his effortlessly handsome, boyish demeanor. That had been getting harder to do of late, and she pushed the thoughts aside for another time. She stacked some pillows against the headboard and plugged in the heating pad before settling back against it to wait for it to work its magic.  He handed her a plate and a beer and sat next to her against the headboard, the both of them balancing their food on their laps. 

He turned on the TV, flipped around until he found the opening scene of Ghostbusters, and glanced over at her for approval, which she gave with a wave of her beer. He grinned and clinked his bottle against hers, “Cheers.” 

They settled back and dug in. The combination of the salty-sweet chicken, the heat radiating into her lower back, and the companionship of the man next to her suffused her with warmth. They didn’t speak for a bit while they ate and watched the movie, and before long she was full, content, and feeling more comfortable than she had for days. Mulder took the paper plates and utensils and disposed of them, then settled back next to her cross-legged against the headboard.

He gestured at the TV with a wry look. “Hey Scully, if we ever get shut down again we could always start up our own paranormal investigation business. What do you think, should we order some personalized jumpsuits?”

“Have you seen DC real estate prices lately? No way could we ever pull together enough capital to buy a decrepit firehouse. I’m not opposed to the jumpsuits, though, as much as I spend on dry cleaning.” she smirked back.

“Maybe Skinner would invest if it meant getting me out of his hair.”

She shot him a catty look, “Or lack thereof.”

He chuckled and tipped his head back to finish off his beer while she shifted the heating pad from her back to lie low across her hips. The warmth against her cramping muscles felt amazing, and she sighed and let herself sink further into the pillows behind her. 

“Feeling any better?”

“Much,” she nodded, “Thank you, again.” She dug a chocolate bar out of the bag and unwrapped it, snapping off a few squares and passing them over to Mulder, who took them and smiled to himself. He looked almost proud. Loathe as she usually was to admit it, it felt good to be cared for. They’d both been brittle since the deaths of his father and her sister, leaning more on each other than even before. She had some of his spare clothes in her hall closet, he kept her favorite wine in his pantry. Sometimes it felt like they were the only two people in the world who really mattered. She knew that was patently false, that she had her family, but as the years went by and her friends had children or moved for their careers, she craved his company most of all. She thought of Melissa suddenly. 

She chewed thoughtfully before starting, “Missy - Melissa - and I used to do this. Takeout, junk food, cheap wine, a cheesy movie when one of us was having a bad day.” She swallowed more than just the chocolate and met his eyes. “I miss her. She liked you, you know.”

He nodded sadly and took her hand in his, rubbing slow circles with his thumb in silence for a few moments. “When you were returned after your abduction and in the hospital, I was so angry that I couldn’t help you. She gave me a hell of a dressing down. A couple of times, actually. I thought she was even more disconnected from reality than I am.” He swallowed hard, remembering a time they both spoke of so rarely. “She was right, I deserved it. You two were lucky to have each other.”

She nodded and blinked rapidly. His eyes were cast down at his lap, lost in what she was sure were thoughts of guilt and blame for their losses. He was so quick to flagellate himself over things beyond his control. She squeezed his hand. “Mulder, you did help me. You always do. Melissa thought we were lucky to have each other to look out for each other.”

He still wore a hangdog expression but the corners of his mouth twitched up and his eyebrows unknit a bit. 

She continued on, delicately, “You know what I think? I think Samantha was…is…lucky to have you. I think you would have done this for her, too, if you’d been allowed to. And I think one day you’ll get to hear it, one way or another. You’re a good brother.”

His breath caught and for a moment she thought she’d crossed a line but instead she found herself being pulled into a tight hug. She leaned into his shoulder and breathed in, relaxing into his embrace. He rubbed her back and kneaded for a moment before letting go, his expression now placid. “Thank…thank you, Scully. I hope you’re right.”

They hung in each other’s gaze for a moment before the bubble burst and she released his hand. She leaned her head against his shoulder to keep the connection going and they watched the movie in comfortable silence for a while. She considered the man by her side, so unlike any other man she’d ever known. What she didn’t tell him was that Melissa had also been ruthless about prying and prodding into her feelings for Mulder, and his for her. Maybe she was right about that, too, she thought, before chiding herself for dwelling on things that couldn’t be. 

By the time Dana Barrett had transformed into the Gatekeeper her eyes were heavy and her limbs grew slack. She had slipped further and further down the headboard until her head rested on the pillows at Mulder’s side. The last thing she was aware of was the high whine of the TV being switched off and Mulder drawing a blanket over her. She stirred slightly in protest but as she drifted off she felt the brush of his lips on her forehead before hearing the click of the door to his room. She slept, warm, content, and loved.

[carefulfears]

hi!! i just wanted to say that the sensibility with which you approach mulder’s character warms my heart and every day i’m very very happy that i found your account. i just saw such a mean post about him that pissed me off so bad i had to come after you because you always know the right thing to say about him 😭 anyways i’m very sorry that despite always being so kind and sensible towards not only the characters of this show but also everyone who follows it some people are still ruining your experience with this fanbase by being so insensitive. you deserve only what we’ve seen you give others again again, which is the best!! hope this ask finds you well 🫶🏻

this is really really kind of you to say, thank you so much for taking the time to reach out ❤️ kisses.

[backtoscully]

How does one keep going on after 7x11 Closure ?

[twogravesinsomecemetery]

'mulder you are a father' >>>> 'maybe there's hope', 'let it try', every other conceivable ending txf could have had,

I am grinning like a damn FOOL rn

MY STRUGGLE IV MY BELOVED

[thisismeracing]

Unwritten | DR3

― Pairing: Daniel Ricciardo x fem!reader (she/her) ― Warnings: mentions of break up and food; typos. ― Summary: Yn and Daniel were together for 4 years, and now they have to learn to be alone after a complicated breakup. The thing is, how does one get over someone they still love? How to forget when your song keeps playing everywhere? Their future? Still unwritten. ― A/n: None of the pictures used are mine, they are all from Pinterest and other apps, but the work is, and I do not allow it to be published on a different platform. I would appreciate it if those things could be taken into consideration 💛

✷ my masterlist | my taglist | patreon guide ✷ you can support my writing by reblogging, leaving a comment(don’t forget to follow me if you like the piece), or buying me a coffee

f1gossip

liked by anon007, dannyricfan, and others

f1gossip Paddock's IT couple apparently broke up. Daniel and Yn deleted their respective pictures from each others profile. With Yn's disappearance from races, this was something that a few fans saw coming. According to sources, it was a mutual, but painful decision.

view all comments

anonfan I wonder how's Yn doing 😟

⤷ ynsunshine I'm manifesting so much love and happiness in her life, she deserves it

italianricciardo do we know what happened?

charlesleshow you expect me to still believe in love after this breakup? 🤣😭🤣😭🤣😭🤣

lewcedes bro, daniel must be crushed, he worshipped the ground Yn walked

ricciardoyln you mean to tell me that the couple that sang SOS from mamma mia in a karaoke during their friends wedding simply broke up? 👎👎👎

popyn HOW??? WHY???? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS ❓❓❓❓❓

────── ⋆🪩 VOICEMAIL: Hi! I hope you guys liked this piece, I've saved this idea on my drafts a while ago, and only now I had the energy to get it done (and the inspo bc I've been listening to Unwritten non stop - and its been playing everywhere too!).

If you liked this piece and want early access to new ones and exclusive access to others, subscribe to my patreon!💘

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©thisismeracing ― do not copy, steal, or translate my work; do not repost on a different media platform.

[madwomansapologist]

Hello! I noticed that you have Brooklyn nine nine in your masterlist

As a fan of B99, May I request a wholesome headcanon of Rosa Diaz, Amy Santiago, Jake Peralta, Charles Boyle and Terrence Jeffords' reaction of meeting the reader who is captain Raymond Holt and kevin cosner's adoptive child and is working in the 99th precinct

Sorry if this is long

99th precint meeting Kevin & Holt adoptive child would include

Masterlist | Rules | Taglist | Library | More B99 | AO3

synopsis: The squad already knew that Raymond Holt is a man of few words, but who would have thought that he had a child?

warnings: none. gender neutral. no race implied. no age implied. like jake and amy, everyone deserves to feel like Holt and Kevin's kid. all b99 detectives included. reader have Holt and Kevin's personality.

Dear 99th Precint, I proudly inform you that today will be my child's first day of work as a rookie cop in our precinct. Don't embarrass me. Sincerely, Raymond Holt.

• No one had ever heard Raymond talking about having a child. They never saw a photo of them on his house. Kevin never mentioned something. Or have them? No. No, they didn't.

• Even Gina was surprised. She was mean about it, of course, but she didn't knew anything.

• When Holt arrived, everyone was waiting for him on his office. Peralta tried to play cool before asking, but soon Terry was screaming about how could he have a child and didn't say anything to them.

Haymond answered without blinking an eye: "Peralta would make it weird." Everyone understood. "Hey!" Everyone except Peralta. "But why you don't have pictures with them on your house?" Amy asked. "Are you implying I would forget my child's face, Santiago?" Holt was clearly offended.

• You arrived apologizing for being three minutes and seven seconds late. Rosa widened her eyes, muttering about you being his copy. Holt smiled at that comment.

• Jake tried to act like a cool big brother but as soon as you opened your mouth he was fangirling over you. You made a mental note about calling him "bro" if you ever needed something from him or wanted to make him happy. Every single little thing you did was a reason for him to smile widely.

• Terry offered to show you the place, and told you everyone's name. He was all sweet and polite, acting like the dad of the squad. Well, he was. Terry made questions about your training and abillities. He was trying to show off, and it was working.

• Amy was affraid of saying something wrong. Amy danced when you said your father talked about her, and immediately regreted that. All her atempts of acting cool were imterrupted by Gina's jokes. She almost cried when you refered to her as your father's apprentice.

• Hitchcock and Scully thought you were already working with them. They didn't get what was happening. Holt was so glad when they went to took a nap.

• You and Rosa sat down and spent thirty minutes in absolute silence. It was the best experience of your entire life.

• Gina was waiting for you in the hallway of the bathroom. She asked if you wanna form a alliance with her. You obviously said yes, despite not knowing what she really meant by that.

• You were surprised for not meeting Boyle. On your lunch break, you realized why: he had rushed to prepare a meal for the two of you. He and Terry got into a fight about food while you were eating. It was exactly like your father told you. It was perfect.

• You have a nice feeling about working there.

GENERAL TAGLIST: @suakemi @notanalienindisguiseblink

if you enjoyed, please reblog! i promise it makes a difference ♡

@ madwomansapologist.tumblr.

[graciehart]

LISTEN THROUGH SILENCE: An MSR Playlist ⤷ Part Two: Scully

It feels close to you, somehow, to say your name out loud.

playlist / songs ↘

SIX by Sleeping at Last / Similar to with Mulder, I haven't really thought about what enneagram I think Scully might be, but the lyrics of this song are so her. Plus: "I want to believe—no, I choose to believe—that I was made to become a sanctuary." I constantly think about "I want to believe" in the context of Scully because that's very much Mulder's thing, but it takes on so much significance when you think about it relating to Scully (just like Mulder choosing not to believe things takes on special significance as well). Mulder wants to believe in so many things, but Scully wants to believe in Mulder—and she chooses to believe.

RENEGADE by Big Red Machine & Taylor Swift / Very very Scully to Mulder. I mean— "there was nowhere for me to stay, but I stayed anyway" and "you fire off missiles 'cause you hate yourself, but do you know you're demolishing me? And then you squeeze my hand as I'm about to leave" and "it's time, you've come a long way / open the blinds, let me see your face / you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody" and "is it insensitive for me to say / get your shit together / so I can love you." But "open the blinds, let me see your face" really gets me because Scully truly does see Mulder, she sees him better than anyone ever has.

BETWEEN THE LINES by Sara Bareilles / Oof, this one huuuurts. I chose the title of this playlist from this song ("listen through silence") because I feel like it goes pretty well with Mulder's playlist ("amidst the chaos," also from a Sara Bareilles song) and because it's so much of what Scully does while Mulder learns—she listens through silence and reads between the lines. ALSO: "I'm queen of attention to details, defending intentions if he fails." Scully is forever the first to defend Mulder no matter what he does, always from a place of love.

BREATHE by Lauv / There are so many songs that could be applied to both of them, but for some reason or another I choose it for one of their individual playlists (this being one of them). I think one of my favorite parts fits Mulder better—"I should leave 'cause you deserve better"—but overall this song made me think of Scully, especially during I Want to Believe. "You're my all and more, but I need room to breathe."

WATER WORSHIP PRAY by Grace Power / This song also makes me think of I Want to Believe, and I especially love this song for Scully because of all the religious imagery. "How can two people fall apart when they both want the same thing? How can my happiness be you, but I'm not happy at all?" OW. And also: "First peace I ever knew / Can't love you well enough to keep you or enough to let you go / I'd rather stay in purgatory with you than in heaven alone."

IF PATIENCE DOESN'T KILL ME by Alison Sudol / I'm very aware that this is a pretty specific sound that not everyone will love, but I love Alison Sudol and I feel like this song is perfect for Scully so I kept it anyway. I just feel like the lyrics fit her perfectly—"if patience is a virtue, I abound / ... / if patience doesn't kill me, I'm yours." And it's where the description comes from—"it feels close to you, somehow, to say your name out loud." It feels like they constantly are calling for each other both because they want them there and trust they will be there, but also because the simple act of calling for each other makes them feel less alone.

GIVE UP THE GHOST by Rosi Golan & Johnny McDaid / Another song I love (I would've titled this "Quiet the Noise" if I hadn't already used that as a playlist title) that takes on new meaning when you think about it in an MSR context. Ghosts take on a different significance when thinking about Mulder (also, @leiascully just KILLED me with her fic and "I don't love anything more than I love you, Scully. Not even ghosts." Literally what the fuck). Even the very beginning of this song—"come here, it's all worth the fight when it's you, dear." And "slow down, we're losing the meaning of words now / quiet the noise 'cause we made a mountain of minuscule things." And Scully really does quiet his noise.

THE BEACON by A Fine Frenzy / The lyrics in the gifset are from this song and if I could write out the entire song without it being ridiculous, I would. I swear this could truly be a song written by Scully about Mulder. I mean, just starting with the first verse: "You say your time has come / you're tired of waking up / don't be obscene, I can't conceive of living without you / You say you drag me down, no one should want you now / I start to cry, you kiss my eyes and say I'm not allowed to." And then, AND THEN the second verse: "you were a child forgot / lessons of love untaught / now no embrace can quite replace the one that never found you / I was raised tenderly / all that was taught to me / I will apply / Your parents tried, but they didn't know how to." Like. Okay. Sure. That's fine.

SATURN by Sleeping at Last / I know I'm not alone with this one because I've seen multiple videos of them set to this song, but I chose to put it on Scully's playlist because it really makes me think of Mulder's abduction arc/when he wakes up in "Deadalive." Just imagine her listening to this song sitting by his side, holding his hand, willing him to wake up. GAH.

YOU MATTER TO ME by Jessie Mueller & Drew Gehling / This is another song I was debating for both of them, but the first verse especially makes me think of Scully: "I could find the whole meaning of life in those sad eyes / they've seen things you never quite say, but I hear / come out of hiding, I'm right here beside you / and I'll stay there as long as you'll let me."

SOMEONE WHO LOVES ME by Sara Bareilles / This song wrecks me and has some of the most beautiful lyrics I've ever heard. One reason I love it for Scully is because of the hug at the end of "Irresistable." This is another song I would have considered for a playlist title ("my home, my heart") if I hadn't already used it before. But the way it's sung always gets to me—"my home, my heart, thank god you are someone who loves me," like she's exhaling into the safety of his arms.

I F*CKING LOVE YOU by Zolita / The song pretty much says it all: "what if I let it slip, tell you that oh my god, I fucking love you."

WHO WOULD'VE THOUGHT by Emily James / I absolutely love the first part of this song when she says "I just wanna say that I'm not going anywhere anytime soon unless it's with you." What really made me think of MSR was this, though: "'cause we've been busy lying to ourselves, swearing it would never work / promising that we were just friends / it's funny how it doesn't make sense / and then it does." And I love the idea of Scully thinking again about how different her life is, how this is so far from where she thought she'd be, but with a little bit of wonder: "who would've thought that it would've been you?"

[atths--twice]

Imagine The X-Files reboot happens. We’re introduced to new agents working in the basement. They find themselves stumped on a case and they look at one another and nod.

Cut to a coffee shop and we see Mulder and the agents. He’s smiling, looking at the file, and thinking of so many things as he listens to them.

“Wow. The case sounds incredibly interesting. I definitely would be all in a few years ago. But now…” He checks his watch and smiles again. “I gotta pick my daughter up soon. I’ll offer what advice I can, but I can’t be late for her.”

When he leaves, we see him watching them, somewhat wistfully, but then his watch beeps with a previously set alarm to pick up his daughter. At the same time, he gets a message from Scully about dinner, asking if he’s still cooking or if he wants her to pick something up on her way home. He grins and nods his head, knowing he’s made the right choice.

And then maybe a young female agent comes to the hospital seeking out Scully, needing some additional advice. She hints at what she knows of Mulder and Scully.

“Oh,” Scully laughs softly, shaking her head. “You have no idea.”

And she crosses her arms and we see that she’s wearing a wedding ring.

These two deserve happiness and family and love- everything they haven’t been able to have. I would love to watch a new group of people working cases so long as the story is good and the chemistry is there.

And if we got to have little chances to look in to Mulder and Scully��s life… yes please. ❤️

Let me make an addition especially for @baronessblixen because I completely agree with her. 💕💕

I want to see them with their kid. I want to see them enjoy their time with her. Maybe we see her schooling the agents somehow and Scully looks at Mulder and he looks at her and they both say “that’s all you” and then everyone laughs.

I want to see both of them interact with her together doing something as simple as just being at home. Like I NEED it so badly. If we got that, like the “what if” scenarios we saw in the revival, (minus the alien aspect of it) I would be so incredibly happy. ❤️❤️

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

my favorite scully moments from s1

when she gets SO mad at mulder's assumption that werewolves are real in episode 19 that she yells about how "no one can change into an animal! >:(" and gets out of the car

talking to her friend in episode 5 who says something like “isn’t that guy you work with cute?” to which she responds “he’s a jerk. no, he’s not a jerk…” lmao. crush behavior.

when she deserved the nobel peace prize in episode 10 for not slapping mulder upside the head after getting roped into treating horrific burn victims AND THEN coming back to his room where he immediately jumps into a new alien rant

(and, earlier in the same episode, when she showed up across the country to bail his ass out for breaking into another top secret facility… have we all thanked her for dealing with this nonsense?)

pretty much every scene in episode 13 broke my heart, but i was especially moved by her asking her mother if her father was at all proud of her (to which she receives the non-answer "he was your father")

when jack gets shot in episode 15 and the other doctors say it’s not worth trying to save him, she tells them to keep trying or she’ll do it herself (angry doctor mode <3)

when she learns about the guy who somehow managed to grow salamander hands in episode 16 and she is SO shocked and pleased by this fact. regardless of the implications (nerdy doctor mode <3)

despite her lack of belief in the existence of spirits, she tells the girl who is being protected by her deceased loved one in episode 6 to "tell him you love him" which had me crying

she’s always running around reading stuff from files and each time it makes me SO happy. like yes girl tell us why that guy’s autopsy was super suspicious!

that time in episode 17 when one of mulder’s weird alien buddies takes her $20 and rips it up she gets so mad (which is entirely understandable and I would be too!)

anytime she interacts with an animal (dog, horse, monkey... she assumes they are all friends)

taking the time to talk about losing her father with both of the victims in episode 19 who lost their family members as well

when phoebe decides to show up and kiss mulder right in front of scully in episode 12, she does her absolute best to look away because she's a very good friend

and after phoebe finally leaves, she decides to get revenge on mulder by knocking at his door and doing a phoebe impersonation: “aren’t you going to take me for lunch?” ohhh yes that was deserved! more scully being british please! it's good for the soul!

[baronessblixen]

Fictober Day 28: It's Like That

Prompt: "Just say what you want"

When Diana shows up at his door, Mulder has to choose: her or Scully? But in reality, it’s no choice at all. Rating: T, wc: 880.

Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober24

At the knock on the door, Mulder opens it and while he knows it can’t be Scully, some stubborn part of him hopes it’s her anyway. Instead, it’s Diana’s face greeting him, her expression unreadable, and all he feels is the weight of disillusionment on his shoulders.

“Diana, hi,” he says, trying to sound surprised rather than disappointed.

“Fox.” She smiles at him and he remembers a time when her happiness meant the world to him.

“Is there anything you need?” Urgency slips into his voice; he’s on his way out and he doesn’t want to be late.

“Are you in a hurry? Relax, Fox. No one is chasing you.” She chuckles, but Mulder doesn’t see the humor in it. “I brought gifts.” She motions to the folder and the bottle of wine in her hand. Mulder cringes.

“I don’t-”

“Won’t you invite me in?” She cuts into his hesitation, trying to squeeze past him. She’s never been good at reading his body language.

“I can’t, Diana. I have somewhere to be.” That stops her. She stares at him, trying to find clues as to what his plans are on his face. Her lips pull into a grimace.

“You’re seeing Agent Scully?” Their dislike for each other is mutual, at least.

“I am.” Why should he lie about that? Diana licks her lip, a clear sign that she’s trying to come up with a plan B. Watching her, reading her like an old book from childhood that once brought him comfort but that he’s grown out of, he sees what Scully must be seeing every time Diana interferes with them.

He doesn’t doubt that Diana’s feelings for him are genuine; they’re old friends. But now he sees that there’s more. That she wants more. From him, and from this situation. He doesn’t want to question the why. He’s not going to risk losing her as a friend.

“A shame what happened.”

“Agent Ritter almost got her killed.” And in turn, Mulder almost lost his mind. He was that close to beating up the younger agent. A voice inside his mind that sounded suspiciously like Scully stopped him. He let the guy walk out of the hospital and went to see Scully.

He stayed as long as they would allow. Despite his begging, the nurses wouldn’t let him stay in Scully’s hospital room overnight.

Today, they’re letting her go home – under the condition that someone picks her up and stays with her for at least one night. Mulder had jumped at the chance.

“He’s young,” Diana says, glancing at her fingernails – neatly trimmed, with French tips. Some things simply never change. “He reminds me of you, you know. You were like that once.”

“I wasn’t. I never would have-” But he has endangered other people. Hell, he’s put Scully in danger time and again. “I just hope he stays away from Scully in the future,” he finishes.

“Be careful, Agent Mulder, or people will draw the wrong conclusions about your relationship to Agent Scully.”

“I don’t care what anyone else thinks, Diana.” She nods; she of all people should know that.

“Agent Scully might.”

“Diana,” he says, exasperated. “Just say what you want. I have plans.”

“When will you be back? I can wait here for you. You probably haven’t changed much in the apartment, have you?”

“I won’t be back anytime soon,” Mulder says, glancing at his watch. If he can’t get rid of Diana any time soon, he’ll be late. He doesn’t want to be late. Scully deserves better than that.

“I don’t mind. 10 p.m.? Midnight?” She’s not giving up.

“I won’t be home at all tonight, Diana.” His voice is soft, but he sees the impact on Diana’s face. “I’m staying with Scully.”

“Oh. It’s like that.” He doesn’t correct her. He doesn’t care what she thinks. He doesn’t want to hurt Diana; whatever Scully might think her motives are, Mulder still trusts her. But all he wants is a friendship and he sees – more clearly than ever now – that Diana is not there yet. She wants more and he can’t give it to her. He is not in that place anymore. Everything inside him wants Scully. Now, and in the future.

“It’s like that,” he confirms. No matter what his and Scully’s official status is, she is it for him. His heart is taken. So is his time. Another glance at his watch and he steps through the door, locking it behind him.

“I’m sorry, Diana. Maybe another time. Do you want me to drop you off somewhere?” She shakes her head.

“I’ll take a cab.” She hands Mulder the wine. “Take that with you.” He stares at the bottle. While Scully loves red wine – way more than he does, too – she’s not allowed to have any for a while. Not with her medication. He’s slipping into caretaker mode; he knows Scully would do the same for him if the roles were reserved. They have been often enough.

“See you, Diana,” he says and waves at her. He leaves her standing there and he knows she watches him leave, but there’s nothing he can do. Or want to do. Scully is expecting him and by her side is the only place he wants to be.

[sigritandtheelves]

in light of recent events, here's a rundown (again) of all the ways txf has made wombs the source of horror, exploitation, medical rape, or (funny??) non-consensual impregnation. TW for these topics, obviously.

"Eve" - medical rape / impregnation with tampered embryos, and the completely tone-deaf scene with the mother ripping up the picture of a daughter she gave birth to because she was an abomination 🙃

"Ascension" / "One Breath" - GA's pregnancy used to set off the abduction/ infertility/ ova harvesting arc.

"Aubrey" - pregnancy makes BJ crazy and murderous, infected (via the womb?) with the spirit of someone who's still alive (???)

"Fearful Symmetry" - human wombs aren't the only ones being exploited! the aliens are coming after animal fetuses now too!

"Memento Mori" - stolen ova; Scully's infertility becomes a plot point; clones made from the product of medical rape.

"Small Potatoes" - goofy jokey rape episode, you know, for laughs. "If everyone is happy, and nobody got hurt, then hypothetically... where's the crime?" 😖

"The Post-Modern Prometheus" - more hilarious medical rape for laughs, now with Cher! "What's not to love?"

"Christmas Carol" / "Emily" - why are all the girl children disposable? Another child of medical rape who was (conveniently) "never meant to be."

Fight the Future - Scully is damseled once again and this time her whole body becomes a womb to host a monstrosity! Fun!

"Terms of Endearment" - so so so many dead babies in this episode 😭 Pregnant people can be victims OR monsters! That's feminism! 🙃

"Two Fathers" / "One Son" - this one might be a little bit of a stretch, but I'd like to point out again that Teena was 19 when she married Bill Mulder and any "affair" she had with CSM the following year was likely not terribly consensual, given what we see of their relationship later. She was 20 when Mulder was born.

"Signs and Wonders" - horrifying snake birth

"En Ami" - retroactively (2018) included yet another medical rape for Scully (though I 100% refuse to accept it); apparently, CSM is perpetually impregnating the Mulder men's partners 🤮

"Per Manum" - more medical rape by corrupt IVF doctors, and we learn that Scully's IVF attempt was probably tampered with, too. does any character deserve this much reproductive trauma?

"Essence" / "Existence" - yeah. we all know, and I'm not talking about it anymore.

Actually, the whole William arc. I'm just not gonna talk about it because it fills me with an unholy rage.

"My Struggle" - Sveta's medical rape / alien rape? idk, i won't watch these again.

"Founder's Mutation" - more of the same, yadda yadda, medical experimentation, monstrous births, etc.

"My Struggle IV" - we don't need to talk about it, but children and pregnancies are not disposable plot points, Christopher.

[bakedbakermom]

okay tonight the thing about s8 that's pissing me off is that mulder's disappearance (and, y'know, his fucking DEATH) is that goddamn if anyone deserves to be a happy giggling pregnant woman it's scully, and we were all robbed of that. can you imagine how ridiculously cute they would be shopping for baby clothes.

like i just can't fathom why they made some these decisions. shit was so dark you guys.

[actual-changeling]

@backintimeforstuff saw your tags and couldn't stop thinking about them.

you're right.

i don't think scully actually wants to be a mother to begin with, it's canonically only something she considers once she knows she CAN'T have children. her immediately becoming deeply obsessed with getting pregnant (as if that's the only valid way to have a child???) was just CC doing whatever tf he wanted.

she's not good with children, she's not the kind of person that is made to be a mom, starting with her loving & needing a lot of alone time and ending with her living in and with her work.

the "what if emily lived" question is always kinda funny to me because there is no scenario in which scully would have happily stopped working to take care of her 24/. she'd be bored out of her mind, frustrated, not sufficiently challenged in any shape or form, and it would kill her mind and soul.

worst case scenario, she starts unintentionally blaming the child, making it feel unwanted, and that's something neither the kid nor scully deserve to go through.

i hate hate HATE the show's obsession with pregnancy and infertility, it ruins so many plot points and arcs for me because i find it

a) unnecessary

b) offensive

c) not thought through in the least.

let scully be who she is, and she is not a mother. she's a scientist, a workaholic, a doctor, a pathologist, an fbi agent, a dog mom, a trashy romance novels reader, and mulder's partner. everything BUT a mom.

if she really wants to, let her adopt an older child once she reaches a point in her life where that would be possible without any kind of disadvantage for her or them.

additionally, i think it is incredibly icky and often somewhere between queerphobic and misogynistic whenever a nuclear family model is presented as the only way to have a happy life.

you do not need children or a spouse to be happy. you just don't. scully can be perfectly happy with mulder in whatever shape or form their relationship might take without throwing a child into the mix.

[randomfoggytiger]

*-*-*-*-*-*-* Brief Encounter *-*-*-*-*-*-*

-*-*-*- of the Interdimensional Kind -*-*-*-

Happy Birthday, @baronessblixen! :DDDDDDDDD

Words cannot express how deeply your work and your ways have impacted my experience in this fandom (and life, as a whole.) So, I shall keep all speeches short; and only observe that-- having spent a month first watching, then writing, then thinking and rewriting-- I hope this endeavor does credit to your favorite movie. You deserve it, and much, much more~.

*-*-*-*-*

Prologue

We're neither of us free to love each other. There's too much in the way.

-Brief Encounter

*-*-*-*-*

The clouds had gathered for a storm, but only succeeded in blocking out the sun. 

Whimpering drizzles pattered the windshield, streaked tears across the windows, glistened occasionally in the waxing moonlight. The road stretched on and on; and the wind, the rain, and the engine roared with cacophonous, irrepressible force. Her head thrummed with pain, drumming in time with Nature’s protestation. 

Twenty more minutes and she would allow herself to think. 

The trees on either side began to gather around fences. Then farmhouses. Then neighborhoods, landmarks taking shape in the mystic dark. Turns, lanes, and the final road. 

Then home. 

Five more minutes. 

Purse, keys, exit. 

Her mother met her at the door, gloved and coated and anxious. “We were worried sick-- are you okay, sweetheart, where’ve you been?” 

“Yes, Mom. It just took a while getting back.” 

“It’s been over an hour, Dana.” She paused, snappish and loving and hurt. 

“I’m sorry.” Purse, shoes, coat. “I won’t keep you, it’s late.” House slippers.

“Tomorrow, then. We’ll talk after your shift.” 

Kiss goodbye. “How was William?” 

“You should ask him, he’s still up.” 

Ask him, ask him. Can’t ask him. “Why? Does he feel sick--”

Her mother’s hands, warm and clean, gently touched her face, gently drew her chin away from the stairs. “He wouldn’t say. But he loves you, Sweetheart-- he needs you.” 

Scully stilled, stayed in that spot until her mother kissed her cheek, said her goodbyes, drove down the driveway and into the night. 

“But I don’t, Mom,” she confessed, startling as the wind howled and the house groaned. Their anniversary clock ticked its seconds loudly in judgment. I no longer love him.

*-*-*-*-*

Chapter 1

I'm a happily married woman - or I was, rather, until a few weeks ago. This is my whole world, and it's enough, or rather, it was until a few weeks ago. 

-Brief Encounter

*-*-*-*-*

Four weeks ago, she saw him. 

She saw him; and doubted herself, doubted the familiarity he shed in passing. Set aside the prickling sense of deja vu and kismet and every other word she’d once learned to give meaning. Dismissed the force of loneliness pinching, squeezing, crushing her heart. Labeled these sensations under false names and placed them in faulty categories. Stood in the weakening sun of a small-town airfield and refused to think until the skies opened up and the rains fell.    

It wasn’t unusual for rain to sweep the airfield and wash five to five dozen soggy souls into the small, stapled airport. Workers and servicemen, mothers and children were fractured into groups and driven off to their chosen recreational areas-- chaos and skinned knees and runny noses often mingled in the lunch hall; restraint and sopping boots and rustling purses often flocked to the lounge. 

Four weeks ago, only two wandered aimlessly down the long, rangy hallway. 

She heard his voice behind her, stumbling curiosities to an attendant; and turned, turned, turned against every force of nature to drink him in with her eyes. 

“I’m Fox Mulder, I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he was rambling, patting at his coat, rifling through his empty pockets. “Um, I don’t have my badge on me, but…. I need to use your phone so I can call my boss-- my boss, Assistant Director Skinner-- if I could just call him--”

“Mulder.” 

He stopped, a toy unwound with its key removed. Lost, vulnerable; a breath away from flustered, furious. 

His hair was dark, bangs flat. The creases in his forehead were smooth, the hollows under his eyes filled, the ridges of his cheekbones soft and young. He looked for all the world like a boy, innocence barely tainted enough to be searching for a badge in a coat. 

Fox Mulder wore a wedding ring. 

That ring shook Scully from fantasy to reality; and she stared at this man, this stranger, and didn’t run. She didn’t run, but maybe she should have.  

“Do I know you?” he asked, ring sweeping back and forth as Fox Mulder with the Federal Bureau of Investigation ran a hand through his hair. Stepped forward in cheap leather shoes and a mismatching cheap, polyester tie. “Ma’am?” 

“No,” she replied, but it felt like a lie. “But I overheard; and… and you can use my phone. Here.” 

He stared at her, stepped back, wrinkles appearing above his furrowed brows. Took her phone carefully, flipped it open like it might explode. Studied it like a holy relic. Looked back as if she’d given him a miracle. 

“You know where I can get one of these?” 

*-*-*-*-*

They ate lunch together. Something small from the food court, something he could eat one-handed while pressing buttons, opening and scrolling and marveling. She sat across and watched the wonder wash afresh over his face with each discovery, wondered herself what would inspire this abject devotion. 

A new song kicked on, overhead-- something the composer must have thought was heady on paper, in the sound booth; but was cheap and tawdry and overdone, pitchy and nichey, among the living. Fox Mulder slammed his thumb one last time, turned around, and tilted his head from side-to-side until he located the speakers. “Never heard that one before.” 

“Hm, neither have I.” Scully unwrapped her sandwich, delicately nudged the ingredients apart, and handed him a pickle with the tip of her manicure. 

“You don’t like pickles?” he asked, plucking it from her finger, trepidatious. 

“I do,” she realized, set her sandwich down. “My husband, William, used to love pickles. I never got out of the habit of trading for his onions, I suppose.” William’s fingers, cold and slack. William’s voice, damaged. William, changed. 

“My partner, Diana, prefers mustard on everything. Plain, only mustard. She’d take it with her coffee, but the Bureau’s got rules against that.” 

“Your wife?” A funny detail to neglect-- a wife at home-- with a female partner at the FBI. A funny detail she’d neglected, too, until his mouth softened around Diana. 

“Not my wife.” He let the statement rest, clicking a few more buttons until her stare realigned Earth’s gravity, pivoted his eyes back up again. “My partner. She put a ring on it,” Fox Mulder of the Federal Bureau explained, twitching his fourth finger, “but not my wife.” 

“Why not married?” Scully caught a new notification sliding across the screen, looked up in time to catch its reflection in his pupils. 

“We’ve never really found the time.” 

“I and my pickles, you and your ring?”

“No,” he chuffed, “Your husband's pickles and my partner’s ring.” 

“Well,” she conceded, crumpling up a wrapper to bide time. “You still haven’t called your boss. How do I know you’re actually with the Bureau?” 

“You wouldn’t have handed me the phone if you didn’t believe me.”

Perhaps there were moments that made as much sense, as much nonsense, as this, in recent years. Scully couldn’t remember them, couldn’t help wondering when life had started making too much sense. Stopped herself from wondering because she knew; she knew when. “And how do you know that?” 

“I’m a profiler-- ‘t’s what I do.” Fox Mulder stopped his idle investigation, drummed his hand on the table, wiped a stray dot of ketchup off his forefinger, and clenched his jaw. “I don’t even know if he’d answer my call. Can I tell you something?” 

“Tell me what?” She was eating the last of her fries, not quite sure when she’d started, not quite sure how they’d quickly disappeared. Not quite sure where this conversation was going; but suddenly sure, absolutely sure, where it was going. 

“I think I’m from an alternate universe.” He waited, shoulders tense, for her reaction. Waited longer, exasperated, when she paused, mid-chew, to weigh his seriousness. 

As if waking from a dream-- from a nightmare, its funk still putrid in her mouth-- and finding the world brighter and more beautiful for it, Scully blinked, sat back, and whispered, “I thought you were going to suggest time travel."

*-*-*-*-*

Though not out of the realm of possibility, dimensional travel was a topic neither wanted to explore in the din of the food hall. Reclaiming her phone and navigating them down the hall seemed the best option. Picking the cafe or the lounge or the tourist traps to settle did not. 

Fox Mulder spotted the rec room, old-school projector queuing up a movie as they scuffled in and settled in the back. In the darkness, they crackled with anticipation, the energy of like-minded intrigue and challenge flowing between them like an entity, like a conduit of another world, bearing messages and olive branches to fortify communication. 

It was 1991 and Fox Mulder was 30. It was 2004 and Dana Scully was 40. 

“If your theory is correct and we’re locked in an unfortunate crossover, then there would be some sign, universally, that the fabric of known reality was being torn through, or punched through, or, or, burdened, in some way, in order to break the known laws of physics. And there isn’t, as far as we know. I mean, have you noticed anything odd, Mulder, about our reality?” 

“I have, yeah.” He had snagged a bag of peanuts, the mainstay of all liminal spaces, during a brief but necessary cooldown from string theories and Copenhagen Interpretations. “You keep calling me Mulder.”

“What?” Scully moved away, jolted from the security their heated debate had given. Aware of the dangers a dark room with a relative stranger posed; began to seriously question how long they had been exchanging strange and alluring ideas. 

“Not Fox, but Mulder. The only ones who call me Mulder are field agents, or my superiors. But you knew.” He was reaching past her to the empty seat where they’d flung the coats; and she half-thought Mulder was going to grab his things and run, half-afraid she’d grab her things and run after. 

“Knew… what?” 

“That I preferred to be called Mulder. That I was going to propose something as wild as time travel. That I needed help calling my boss,” he added, mouth slipping into an easy grin, tap-tapping at the phone lying by her purse.��

An old, uneasy feeling slid into Scully’s gut, crawled up the back of her spine and clutched at her throat. “You think I’m behind whatever happened to you?” 

Mulder stopped, surprised she’d assumed his assumption of her guilt. Surprised he hadn’t assumed her guilt. “I think you’re connected to it, somehow. I believe the sooner that we--”

And Fox Mulder vanished, snatched away by the inscrutable universe. 

*-*-*-*-*

Chapter 2

You see, we're a happily married couple and let's never forget that. This is my home. You're my husband.

-Brief Encounter

*-*-*-*-*

She searched: the rec room, the lounge, the food court, the cafe, the terminal, the front desk, every space in-between. No one answered to his description: tall, hazel-green eyes, flat hair, Fox Mulder-- “a gold ring on his left hand”, she’d remember, then forget again. The day spent, she drove home, bereft of something she couldn’t name, couldn’t place. 

Her mother answered the door, updated her on the home health nurse’s instructions while Scully tucked away her purse, slid off her coat, unbuckled her watch and placed it with the keys. Listened as Captain Scully’s widow promised to drop in tomorrow afternoon.

“William’s asleep, but he finished a sudoku puzzle today. Dana, you should have seen his face-- it lit up with pride.”

“Oh, Mom….”

“I know, dear,” she cried, gripping them both in a long, tight hug. “He said Mom just like he used to. He even asked for his special candy afterwards.”

“He always asks for his Thursday candy.” 

“That doesn’t mean it’s not a good sign. Oh--!” Maggie darted away, disappearing into the kitchen where the faint whistle of a kettle began to shriek. “I made tea to take up with you. Hopefully it’ll help settle his stomach after the medications.” 

“Thanks.” Acquiescing and agreeing were all Scully felt up to, the smell of peanuts on her hands, on her sleeves narrowing her abilities to a singular focus. To the mystery of the vanishing Mulder, and his theory of her connection to his displacement. He was no longer displaced, now; or, rather, she hoped he was back where he came from. 

The house was emptied, dinner eaten and tea drunk, before she was aware time had moved on and left her behind. 

She was at the table, and William’s scratched-up worksheet hung proudly on the fridge. Her mother had written Time: 8 hrs., 8 min., 8 sec. in the top-right corner and -William underneath. A thin, whispery line under -William was drawn from dash to ‘W’ before the writer changed his mind and started afresh, tracing badly over the old one but following it through to completion. (William’s line) was scrawled underneath, with a neat, precise arrow pointing upward to his contribution. 

William no longer finished crosswords, no longer lobbed her questions across the table, across the couch, across the room; no longer asked her, in Trebek accent, “What’s Mount St. Helena?” to make her smile. William no longer drove, no longer left home, no longer left bed. 

Time had left Scully behind again: it was seven thirty, it was eight, it was going to be eight fifteen. She was tired, it was late, her husband was awake by now. It was eight twenty by the time her dishes were done, eight twenty-five when she began to trudge up the steps and realized her heels were still on. 

“William? Are you awake?” 

His door was already open a crack, wooing her with lamplight and weeping violins. Sharing William’s secrets, or the allure secrets, to draw her closer and closer in. Her iPod was playing Bruch’s Fantasía Escocesa Op.48, the third on a playlist he’d requested she or her mother or the nurse cobble together. Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor, Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy. 

“Violins are beautiful,” she’d told him one night when he was relearning her. “I can always hear them on the opposite end of the house.” And he’d laughed, the mirth of one relearning himself, and kept asking which were her favorite songs. She’d express a preference once, and he’d forget; and ask her to repeat it countless times. Bruch and Grieg and Mendelssohn had worn thin, then reinvented themselves through necessity-- for both their sakes. 

Her husband driving home from work, dashed on the road, split open, by a drunk. Her husband seizing on the table during major surgery. Her husband surviving, a miracle of God. Her husband becoming gravely ill, losing two years of recovery due to brain lesions. Her husband losing his job, losing his independence, losing himself, completely. 

She’d misspelled Grieg as Grief, once. 

“Yeah,” his voice piped, long a smothered under the coverlet. Sleepy, accomplished.

“Your meds on the desk?” 

William’s second “Yeah” was quieter, drifting off before Scully finished shuffling across the shag carpet. Shaking one of the pill containers softly by the bed lump made it shake, further evidence he’d fallen neatly into a doze; but his hand slowly maneuvered out from the pile of blankets, grabbing at the air until she secured it with her arm. 

“First one,” she dictated, humming affirmatively when he echoed her. “Don’t chew, remember?”

“Not for the night pills.”

“Right. Not for the night pills. Do you want to take them all at once, or with some water?”

A head-shaped lump shook-- no-- and she guessed that meant no water. 

“All right. I saw your sudoku today. You finished it in eight hours?” 

“Yes.” The s stretched out, theatrically. “I still don’t like it.”  

Knowing he couldn’t see, Scully squeezed her eyelids shut until stars behind them faded into darkness. “I know. Do you want to do something else? I can have Mom bring you a different puzzle in the morning.”

“No, I. I want… to like it.” Voice matter of fact, smooth. As smooth as extensive damage would allow. William Smooth, as he called it on his good days. 

“I know, William.” 

“I want to like things, Dana.”  

“You’re still healing.” Slipping onto the bed, she patted him to scoot backward. Cautiously. He’d fallen on his side again. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes.” He played with her arm, rubbed and smoothed the fine hair there. “And I solved kid sudoku today.” 

“It’s still sudoku, isn’t it?” 

“Yes.” Long s, tired. 

“Do you want me to read tonight?” He hummed, groaned. A broken but healing sound that reminded her of Mulder’s frantic, searching eyes. “Moby Dick? Just skip the…?”

William chuckled. Light, tonight. “Just skip the kissing parts.” 

“All right, all right. But you owe me when it’s your turn to read.” Moby Dick, collector’s edition, hardback, lay face-up on her end table. With practiced ease, she heaved off the bed, around the baseboard, and back again before her husband had a chance to nod off. Pushed his Thursday treat into his hands and settled while he thumbed it absently. “Chapter 16, The…. Oh, my mistake. There’s no title for this chapter.”

“Hm. Melville?”

“Yes, Melville. ‘Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side--’”

Scully read; and the candy dropped to the floor, and William slept. 

*-*-*-*-*

Chapter 3

I imagined being with him in all sorts of glamorous circumstances. It was one of those absurd fantasies, just like one has when one is a girl being wooed and married by the idea of one's dreams. 

-Brief Encounter

*-*-*-*-*

She saw him, again, at the airport. 

“Dana!” Mulder yelled, bursting from the teeming crowds of collected newcomers. “Dana Scully!” Hurried, harried, haggard, he rushed down the hall where she stood, wallet in hand, by a food stall. 

“Mulder--” He was here, he was here, and what did it mean? 

“What day is it?”

“Mulder, how did you--”

“Dana, what day is it!” He was gripping her arm; she was dropping her wallet. “I need to know.”

Someone was asking if she needed help, someone else was handing her her wallet, and a third person had recognized her, she could see it in his eyes. “It’s nothing, we’re fine, my friend’s just upset, Mulder, let’s go to the--”

“Dana!”  

“It’s Thursday, Mulder! Let’s go--” But where would they go? “Let’s go, Mulder.” 

Tugging his hand, plucking his sleeve, pulling at his arm, Scully caused him to yield. The fight left and he followed, shoulders drooping, to the car where she swiftly undid the locks, threw on the air, and told him to loosen his collar and take deep breaths. He was sweating, and flushed, and stank. 

“How long have you been here?” she asked, handing him a bottle of water always kept in case of emergencies. 

“All morning. All night, I think. I woke up to someone patting my face. Didn’t have my badge, didn’t have cash, didn’t have your phone.” 

She snapped away, glaring thunderously up at him. So used to standing above William that it annoyed her having to look up to a man. “You stole my phone?” 

Mulder’s head rolled from right to left, trying not to blink when a flat, sweaty bang fluttered, caught in his eyelashes. “I didn’t mean to, Dana, it was in my hand when I teleported.”

The fight curled and snapped and wanted to bare fangs, but now was not the time to lay blame. Not when they had a crisis on their hands. 

“Where were you before you… ‘teleported’?”

“Home. I think. I came home from work and went to bed. I woke up, here.”

“Was Diana there with you?” 

Mulder scowled-- at her, or in recollection, or over some third thing he hadn’t shared. “No, Diana wasn’t there. She was out of town.”

“Was she there last week?” 

“No.” The scowl deepened, and he drew upright to analyze her evenly. “Do you think she’s involved in some way?” 

“I don’t know, Mulder. I just… want to solve this as much as you do, and we have no place to start except the variables. What changed from last week to this? What changed from last week to the week before? Any, any difference in routine, in, in professional or personal relationships?” 

His face smoothed, conscious diving deep into the unconscious for answers. The shift and the click of his mind, its turning and butting and rerouting, were visible/through the green of his eyes, in the tugs of each zygomaticus muscle. 

“Dana, I never made it home.”

“I thought you said--” 

“No, no, I thought I did, too. I was flying back to D.C. after wrapping a case. And I… I stayed behind, got a late flight, and slept on the plane. I don’t remember waking up.” 

“Were you traveling last week?”

He nodded. 

“On a case?”

“It’s why they put the ‘I’ in FBI’,” Mulder shrugged, lips curling, eyes twinkling when she gave him a pity smile. 

“Did you fall asleep at the airport?”

The gears, turning. Without another word, he leaped from the car, blinking against the sunlight. 

“Mulder, where are you going--”

“The airport, Dana. I was here, at this airport, last week.”

Evil can lurk behind the heart of any man, she knew. But it was hard to imagine 1991 rural West Virginia in such turmoil that it had to personally call in an FBI profiler. “Really.” 

“Yes. And yesterday, the plane would have had to fly over this airport to land in D.C.” 

“So, I’m not the problem,” Scully whispered, watched his inconsistent double growing and shrinking on the hood of her car. “I didn’t cause this.” 

Mulder was quiet, too quiet. He was waiting for an explanation, his arms bending, melting over each other in the car wax. 

“Last week, you said I was connected to… this.” 

“I thought you were, Dana. And I was wrong.” 

A wail from the mercurial wind promised rain; and they both looked up to see distant clouds gathering, blackening. She dipped down, grabbed her spare umbrella, and closed, locked the car. He shut his door, too. 

“Lunch,” she decided. “Bring your wallet next time. You owe me two meals and a phone.” 

*-*-*-*-*

Mulder was expertly juggling two green salads dripping in bacon grease, two wraps coated in garlic sauce, and two supersized, overpriced waters when he drifted back to her side, looking from her to the display and back again. “This where I found you?”

“This is where you made a scene, yes.” Rich vanillas and caramels, salty toffees and shortbread, woody almonds and pecans, butters, creams, and chocolates blended, broke apart, came together in an unmistakably luxurious scent. One that deceptively passed itself off as simply coffee, simply butter, simply vanilla, all while evolving into unimaginable decadence. Simply delicious. A matter of survival. 

The server looked up and grinned-- a regular. “What’ll it be for William today, Ms. Scully?”  

“Two Billy Butters, please.” 

“They make fresh candy here?” Mulder asked, chest swelling as he took methodical, insatiable gulps of air. 

“Yes,” laughed the server, punctuating her statement with a smack, catching the register with ease as its door sprung open, “every day a new batch.”

“You must be talented bakers.” 

The server laughed again; and Scully smothered a chuckle, knowing what was coming. “No, no one’s a baker here! We simply make up the treats.” 

“They serve family recipes,” she explained, “passed down to the owner.” 

“Yes-- and very good ones, too. Anika learned them from her grandmother; and she follows the instructions, and we follow her instructions. And every Thursday,” the server chattered, pleased to have a captive audience, “we put secret messages inside William’s wrapper for him to read.” 

“He’s always pleased to read his messages. Thank you.” Fishing out her change, Scully handed a five and declined the receipt, tucking a candy into her purse and handing the other to Mulder. “For you.” 

“Sweets for the sweet?” he returned, palming his reward with unexpected tenderness. 

“Alms for the poor. Let’s go find a place to sit.”  

*-*-*-*-*

It happened while she was trying to tell him a story. 

Melissa was perpetually slipping in the creek because Scully couldn’t get past that part without giggling. Mulder was chuckling, too, trying to help her rework a sentence or start the story someplace new-- in vain. 

“You look so young,” he said; and the world stopped, it melted, it was consumed by the burning flesh of the sun. Cold, beautiful, fearfully made wonders bloomed from the stars, stretched their wings into nebulas, formed their magic into galaxies. 

“How?” she trembled, fearing, believing. 

“Your eyes.” His voice was impossibly soft, his gaze immovably fixed. “They contain… everything, Dana.” 

Languages of the ancient dead thrummed and rang and sung inside his eyes. Immutable strengths that fell greater men and plunged down, down into the deep. Love, she knew, that was more precious because it could not be taken, only given. That would not let her go until she turned away. 

“Scully. Call me Scully, please.” 

*-*-*-*-*

Chapter 4

It's awfully easy to lie when you know that you're trusted implicitly. So very easy, and so very degrading. 

-Brief Encounter

*-*-*-*-*

I no longer love him. 

The rain keeps falling, she mused, afraid to move from the door. Scully didn’t know what she meant to think; only that she did, and that was what she thought. 

“I’ll be here next Thursday,” Mulder had warned, grin splitting his face when she gave up the act and smiled, too. “I’m buying.” And that had seemed too wonderful for words, too tender, too glorious. 

That’s why she thought of the rain: the night had shuttered in and the heavens had opened, dashing down their young ones against her windshield, trapping the moon in their little bodies splattered on the car wax. It was too wonderful, it was too glorious, warned Icarus’s wings. It had to end before it started. Before it continued. Before it came to a filthy, fleshy conclusion.  

The rain had flooded in as her mother left, dripping, dripping from her hair, dripping, dripping from her clothes, dripping, dripping from the walls and ceiling and onto the floor. Spreading inescapable mirrors Scully must tread through to ascend the stairs. 

The server will recognize him. We’ll have to stay in the car, with the sun visor up. But my car will be seen, and the visor will add to suspicion. Someone I know will be there, and will spot us.

And it would break William, irreparably. 

He was sitting up in bed, head bent towards a sudoku booklet in his lap, shocks of silver hair sprouting from sutures sewn lengthwise across his skull. Her irrepressible, unbeatable, unsinkable Molly Brown sinking into a man she didn’t recognize-- one without likes, dislikes, preferences. One who clung to the booklets handed to him because they were handed, to her books and her music because she volunteered them. Who shied away from stories before the accident, before the illness, before the lesions and the loss of that last bit of himself. He loved her. He needed her. 

She had believed she loved him, too. 

William shuffled to the next song, and the next before she could face him. 

“'She walks in beauty,'” he quoted, painstakingly looping a circle before looking up to her. 

“'In the night',” she finished, settling on the bed, under the quilt before unfolding her palm. “For you.” 

“Ah, a Thursday surprise.” William carefully closed his fingers, one by one, around the gift before slowly lowering his arm to the bed. One by one his fingers pawed at the wrapping, one by one they peeled back this, then that corner. “Did Anika make this looser just for me?” 

“Hm, no. I think your fingers are getting stronger.” 

“That’s good. One of these days I’ll be able to hold your hand properly.” 

There existed a violent and fierce love in her soul for the wounded fighters with odds stacked against them. She knew it. She needed it, craved it. “Give me your hand. We can try now.” 

He became still, muted in the face of challenge. “I… think we should wait until I’m stronger. I don’t want….”

“William,” she pleaded, dabbing at the tips of his fingers, closing them in her doctor’s hands. “I’d never hurt you.” Please, she thought as his exhale shuddered and creaked. 

Slowly, slowly, he nodded. Slowly, slowly, she slid her palm over his, slowly, slowly pressed on it until the candy wedged between them. 

“Try,” he whispered; and she clasped his fingers and tugged them towards her own. 

Scully waited for the Eighth Wonder of the World. She waited for resurgence: for the disintegrated terra firma to reconstruct its borders, for the galaxy to be shrunk, infinitesimal, and swallowed by the immeasurable pull of a black hole. But there was only waiting, then wincing, then a noiseless yield in William’s stifled groan. Her hand sprang back, wrapper sticking to her hand like flypaper. 

“William--” 

“I’m fine, Dana, I’m fine.” 

“You’re not fine, William--”

“You’re not, either.” 

The wind machine whirred and the iPod played Mendelssohn and neither moved. Could move. 

Working her throat past the taste of hot iron, Scully dipped her chin and focused on breathing. “Do you still want to hear what Anika says?” 

Yes, he nodded. “Yes.”

She peeled the wrapper off, held it between both her index and middle fingers, worked her thumbs under the smudged, smeared, illegible script. Sighed, aimed for a believable lie. “She sends her love.” 

He nodded yes, no, or perhaps nothing intelligible. “Will you help me lie down? I, I can’t….” 

“Yes, William. Always.” 

*-*-*-*-*

Chapter 5

As it is, you're the only one in the world that I can never tell. Never, never. Because even if I waited until we were old, old people and told you then, you'd be bound to look back over the years and be hurt. And my dear, I don't want you to be hurt. 

-Brief Encounter 

*-*-*-*-*

She didn’t go Thursday. 

She wouldn’t. Couldn’t, not after the week William had. Not after she’d watched him meekly tailor his preferences to hers, watched him choke down a tasteless bran muffin not because it was tasteless but because he was proving himself. Not after he’d clung to her hand like a failure and tried to solve a sudoku a day for the nurse to hang on the fridge-- proof that he was better. 

Scully couldn’t stay home, either. 

She told her husband, “I can’t swing by the airport today”, and drove as fast and as far as possible before coming back to herself. 

The breeze sighed into her window, unfamiliar with its scent of golden sunshine and golfer grass and white flowers and old metal; twisted somewhere concretely in her chest. It was the type of breeze, the type of day, that siphoned wishes from the ether, transmogrified them into reality.

She couldn’t be here, either. 

*-*-*-*-*

Scully drove into the hospital, let the car idle in the parking lot, and listened. Wondered if it was fate that the sky remained cloudless. Wished Mulder would materialize from the oppressive heat like an Arthurian legend, a mirage that promised unconquerable hope. Hoped he wasn’t wandering lonely and hungry, distraught she hadn’t shown. Wondered if he did bring his wallet, wondered if she was missing out on a king’s feast. 

It hadn’t rained today; and she wondered if that was a sign. 

*-*-*-*-*

“Dana!”

Scrubbed, prepped, and reading through the schedule, Scully knew, knew it wasn’t Mulder; but her hands wouldn’t pry away from the clipboard no matter how she willed them. By the time she’d straightened and released a breath, a fellow doctor flanked her, throwing intrusive questions and curious glances behind a cup of coffee and two, three, four scratches on a sheet of desk paper. 

“Dana, I thought you took off today--” It was Dolly: innocent curiosity in one hand, rumors and unending speculation in the other. A far cry from Mulder; an inescapable force of her own. “Was there an emergency autopsy? I didn’t hear about one, mind; but then again, I’m hardly ever up to date on morgue affairs--” 

Scully grit and bore it, chastised herself for not anticipating gossip. Smiled at a passing student as she mused on the inescapability of Thursdays-- how they attracted run-ins and questions and mysteries she wanted to avoid after William’s escalating traumas. One transfer hadn’t escaped them; a second was not only impractical, but cowardly. She’d resigned herself to fate and chose her battles.

Then Mulder appeared. 

“It’s not William, is it?” Jerked back to reality, Scully stared, eyebrow up and eyes slit and sharp while her interlocutor rambled on. “He was doing so well this past month, y’know. Maybe he just wanted some alone time with your mom--”

Scully cut in, sharp and demanding. “How did you know my mother stays with William on Thursdays?” 

"Now, now, Dana, don’t get your back up. You told me before, remember?” Had she? “You poor lamb, it’s all the stress you’re going through with… your situation. And understandably--”

“Excuse me,” Scully mumbled, speeding away from the desk, mentally lost to time slots and autopsy assistants and trying, trying, trying to remember if she’d mentioned that fact before. No, I haven’t. She must have learned it from Mary or…. She paused, feeling an immense rush to sit down; and resisted the impulse. I didn’t tell her. I know that much. 

Thursdays were Thursdays, Mary would be spoken to, and everything, she reassured herself, was fine. 

*-*-*-*-*

William was pretending to be asleep when she came home. Her mother, puzzled, greeted her at the door, ushered her in with a worried, “He said he was tired.”

“Did he have any headaches, Mom?”

“No.”

“Lethargy? Speech irregularity? Did he skip meals?” 

“He missed supper, but… do you think anything’s wrong, Dana? He kept asking when you’d come home.”

“Mom--.” Scully did not want to have a conversation-- not now, and definitely not with her mother. “I’ll go check on him, okay? He’s probably catching up on some sleep he missed.” 

Unappeased, unabashed, Maggie Scully grabbed her daughter’s elbow before the latter could retreat. “Dana,” she warned, and Scully stalled, head down and mouth flat. “Is there something wrong I should know about?”

‘Something wrong.’ How wrong and right that word is. “No, there isn’t. I’m going to try to coax him to eat, all right? I love you.” And she hurried into the kitchen, hurried past the bare fridge-- No sudoku, today-- hurried back with his cold supper, hurried away from her mother’s parting, “Careful, sweetheart!”, and hurried up the stairs and down the hallway. Wished that she were hurrying farther and farther and farther into an abyss to think.  

William was pretending to sleep, but at least he had the decency not to snore. 

Releasing a breath, Scully laid the tray down on his end table and navigated the thin strip between his bed and the wall until she came to the master bathroom. A long, relaxing bath; a short, cleansing shower; and a detailed skincare ritual ate up close to an hour of her time, pushed her nearer to the crucial nine o’clock when she could climb into bed and end Thursday. 

The house was groaning with age-- young in comparison to other houses, young like the houses her family would inhabit at each Naval station. It was a comfort to her to own something so closely linked with carefree times, to offset a recovering spouse and longer, demanding hours with the sense of ‘settling in.’ But there were no haunted voices to fill up the attics, or the basement, or the corners where William’s wind machine whirred, and Mendelssohn was whippled on repeat. 

“Dana?” Her husband called, scratchy and retiring. Old before his years. 

“Yes?” She sat on the toilet and clasped her hands before her face. Waited, listening. 

“Did you bring home… something?” 

It was Thursday; and he’d forgotten what she’d said in parting. 

Scully straightened the bathroom, swept out in a cloud of warm vapor, settled on the edge of his bed and touched his fingers, his elbow, his shoulder while he worked it out. 

William waited, waited, waited; then couldn’t meet her eyes. “I forgot again, didn’t I?” 

“Yes. I’m sorry.” 

He stiffened under her touch, tried to pass off a lean-away by readjusting his posture. She didn’t chase him. “I’m sorry,” he echoed; and pretended to sleep. 

*-*-*-*-*

Chapter 6

This can't last. This misery can't last. I must remember that and try to control myself. Nothing lasts really. Neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long. There'll come a time in the future when I shan't mind about this anymore, when I can look back and say quite peacefully and cheerfully how silly I was. No, no, I don't want that time to come ever. I want to remember every minute, always, always to the end of my days.

-Brief Encounter

*-*-*-*-*

She was late. 

She was late, she was late, and she wished she could be later. One glance between them and he knew. It was over. 

Mulder remained fixed, a statue with dark stubble and dark eyes, deaf and dumb to the irregularity of the busy crowds swirling around him. So, Scully went to him, reaching out to grab his hand in a way she hadn’t in many, many years. It was sure, and it was true: Mulder’s hand from another life, another world. 

“I haven’t been honest with you,” she admitted, swiping her tongue across her lip in shame. “You know I’m married to a man named William.” 

He nodded, tender. Serious. “His full name is Fox William Mulder-- isn’t it, Scully?” 

She missed that beautiful, beautiful mind. Knew her Mulder missed it, too. “You knew.” 

His eyes were the same microcosm of green, growing things, his voice the same fathomless deep. His heart the same tinderbox that set fire to the world. “I haven’t been honest with you, either.” 

Of course he has secrets, this unfathomable man. 

“Diana and I aren’t partners.” His hand slipped through his bangs, his hair, ring thudding against his head as a reminder, as penance. “She transferred to Europe a couple months ago.” The hazel in his eyes was gone; and they were brown, lonesome and dark. “I’m joining her in the spring.” 

“Mul-- No.” Diana Fowley, perched sympathetically next to a victim, cataloging wounds and weaknesses. Compiling names for the abduction census. Mulder by her side, bangs and ring and penance. “Not with her. Not like this.” 

“I was recruited, Scully. They know where she is, my sister. I’ve told you about Samantha?” 

“Yes.”

“They told me they knew where she was. That they’d take me to her.” 

He could not sacrifice the altar of his mind for so little, could not lose it there as he had here. “Mulder, she’s dead. They took her, and they kept her prisoner, and they experimented on her. She died in California six years after she was taken.” 

“That’s what they said, too.” And his eyes were green, sick. Resolute. The stars behind her lids were falling, falling, falling.

“You can’t go to Europe, you can’t give in, Mulder. These men have no conscience-- the evil they do to save their own skin is beyond words. But we don’t become like them. We fight, Mulder. We fight, and we survive, and we win.” 

“We don’t, Scully.” 

She paused, and a tremor of premonition passed through her. Cold, foreboding. Her tongue couldn’t form the word cancer while the world spun and Mulder looked at her with strange, dead eyes. 

“Dana Katherine Waterstone died in a car accident one Saturday afternoon with her husband and his daughter. The driver, Maggie Waterstone, took a wild turn into traffic. She wasn’t road-ready but had insisted on driving. Dr. Waterstone and she survived most of the impact. Scully… did not.” 

There must be another explanation. “She, she might have been a different Dana Katherine. Maybe your universe’s way of playing a cruel joke.”

“I had some friends look up the obituary. Read the memorial. Visited her grave.” Mulder’s shoulders dropped, his neck drooped, his young face looked impossibly old. “I had a busy week.” 

Her fingers launched forward, clung to his cold arm like ivy. “Don’t do this.” 

“I have to, Scully.” His resolve: unmatched, unchanged. Still the same man who ran after her to the ends of the earth. Who questioned her, challenged her. Who laughed with her in the rain. There would be no Bellefleur graveyard in his universe.  

“Mulder, I love you.” 

Mulder looked up from the impossibly polished floor, a secret smile tugging at his mouth. In another universe, it seemed to say, I would have said, ‘I know.’ “You have William.” 

“He’s not--,” and she clung tighter-- couldn’t, wouldn’t, knew she had to let go, “--you.” Tried to swallow the tightness in her throat, tried to blink back ineffectual tears. Icarus had warned her. 

“But he’s stable.” Yes. “Dependable.” Yes. “Won’t blink in and out of your universe at inopportune times.” Yes. 

There was one last terrible look-- she peered up, fixed her gaze, and opened the gates of her soul. He’s not you. Mulder looked, and looked; was touched to the quick, and opened his mouth in reply.

And Fox Mulder vanished for the last time.  

*-*-*-*-*

Chapter 7 

I had no thoughts at all, only an overwhelming desire not to feel anything ever again.

-Brief Encounter 

*-*-*-*-*

Four weeks after it began, it ended. 

She was home early-- very early, because there was nowhere else to go. 

Scully made record time leaving the outskirts of society, passing, unawares, by the woods, the fields, and the roads until the house’s pinched and preening veneer rose from the earth like a tomb. She shooed her mother away with a simple, “I need to talk to William”; then sat in the kitchen, sat in the living room away from his pinned paper on the refrigerator; fell into the gloom of late afternoon, and dozed. 

She was wakened by an animal cry of pain, deep and wrenching screams echoing through the house. Scully shot off the couch, shot out of the room, shot up the stairs, shot through the hallway, shot to his room, chanting, “I’m coming, William, I’m coming!” He continued to scream, continued to thrash when she burst through his door, wouldn’t hear her, “William, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?” above the terror that gripped him, that turned his face red and sent sweat dripping across his quaking body. 

“William!” She yelled, finally desperate, giving his shoulders a shake until he burst from dreamworld and glanced wildly about him, locking onto her with his one good arm as unto salvation, gripping her to him as he howled, tearless, voiceless, into her hair. She heard “-ully, -ully, -ully” tumbled clumsily in his mouth. 

“Mulder--”

“William,” he whimpered, clumsy and reproachful and terrified. “William.” 

“William, William, it’s me, it’s Scully, shhh--” 

“Dana.” 

“It’s Dana, William. It’s all right, I’m here, shhh, I’m here.” 

His poor broken body would spasm if he continued this abuse. As gently as she could, Scully rolled over him and tucked herself into the dilapidated quilt, ignoring the tear her husband’s foot had rent near the bottom, ignoring the burst of humid, sweaty air that billowed from the coverlet. Pulled him closer, let him pull her closer. “William, it’s me, it’s me.” 

“Thank you,” he murmured, clutching at her with his good hand, pawing at her with his other. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

“For what, William?” Waited for his words, wondered if his breath would have slowed or his heart would have stopped or his brain would have burst if he’d kept on howling, trapped and alone and afraid.

“Thank you for coming back to me.” 

His eyes were fathoms and fathoms deep, hurt and broken and humbled. And they watched the storm break, and Dana Katherine Scully crumble.  

*-*-*-*-*

Acknowledgments

All my thanks to Anika, whose support embraced and encouraged me in the fandom. Happy Birthday, and many more years to come~! :DDDDDDDDD

*-*-*-*-*

I shall be uploading the chapters to Ao3 here.

Tagging @today-in-fic.

[television-overload]

Fox Mulder really is the perfect subject for a retelling of It's A Wonderful Life. If I were a writer for the show during its original run, I would have pitched an episode where Mulder gets to thinking that everyone would be better off if he'd never been born, only to meet some supernatural being who makes it so for one night, and shows him the consequences.

Mid IVF arc. Mulder in extreme denial, thinking Scully deserves far better than him. He turns down an invitation to spend Christmas with Scully's family and instead watches the movie on his couch and falls asleep.

Samantha would still be abducted. CSM would be running free and unchecked. Scully might have returned to medicine. He'd go looking for her, of course, only to find her trapped in an unhappy marriage with a husband who doesn't want children. Everyone whose lives he saved would be gone. The conspiracy would have progressed so far, that humanity was suffering already, if it wasn't happening out in the open yet. The FBI would be corrupt from the inside out. The X-Files would never have been rediscovered.

And in the end, he realizes how much of an impact he has had, even when it doesn't feel like it. He begs to be sent back to his old life, so he can tell Scully how he feels now that he isn't letting the guilt over what has happened to her hold him back. He runs to her mother's house, where she is celebrating Christmas, and tells her he loves her, right there in front of her whole family. And she tells him that the IVF worked (because I love happy endings) and they're both overjoyed.