#scully you’ll never believe this

[thortwenty151]

[baronessblixen]

Fictober Day 14: Always Stick To The Plan

Prompt: "Did you stick to the plan?"

Angst fic: The moment between Mulder, Linda Bowman, and Scully in "Kitsunegari" plays out slightly differently… Rating: T, wc: 961

Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober24

The anger blazes hot under his skin. His finger is poised and ready to shoot. He stares at the woman, at Robert Patrick Modell’s sister, tasting bile on his tongue. The woman who just shot his partner.

How many times has he been there just in the nick of time? How many times has he heard Scully yell his name? The gun had been at her temple. Now… now. He doesn’t want to think about it. Can’t think about it. Scully on the ground, pale and lifeless. A sea of blood around her, her life drowning in it.

His finger twitches. How easy it would be. A life for a life. But nothing he’ll do will bring Scully back. Nothing he can do to ease the pain that’s threatening to bring him to his knees.

“I’m gonna kill you,” he screams. Just one more second. He will pull the trigger and end this once and for all.

“Don’t listen to her, Mulder.” The words are so familiar, but the face, and the woman saying them, are not. Don’t play her game. He won’t play her game. She’s trying to weaken him, make him believe she’s not who he thinks she is. Then she’ll pounce.

“You were right about her,” Linda Bowman continues. “It’s me. I’m Scully.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Doubt shoots into him like a dagger. What if he’s wrong about the game she’s playing? He has to get it right. He thinks of Scully. Of his Scully. The body lying there on the ground. That was Scully. He’s seen that expression on her face before. The sheer panic. The twitch of her lips. It was her. It is her. Linda Bowman is messing with his head.

“I’m Scully,” she says again. “Mulder, listen to me. She wants you to kill me because she knows you’ll never forgive yourself.”

Well, she’s right about that. In a flash, he sees his future. Calling Mrs. Scully and giving her the news. The funeral. The life after. There’s a void. Nothing more than blackness. Her brother had warned him. They have all warned him and now, he’s killed her. Linda Bowman might have pulled the trigger, but Scully’s blood is on his hands.

“You killed her,” he growls. “You did this.” His finger is still on the trigger and his aim is true.

“Mulder, you-,” she trails off, and her expression changes. Except Mulder can’t read it. He doesn’t know this woman at all. “Did you stick to the plan?” The question comes out of nowhere and hits him right in the chest.

“What?” he asks.

“Did you stick to the plan?” The voice is all wrong. The look on her face is undecipherable but these words... Last year, on their way back from seeing Eddie Van Blundth, Scully came up with it. They spent most of the drive in silence, neither of them knowing what to say. What’s there to say when you’ve almost made out but one of you wasn’t even you? But then Scully said they needed a plan. A phrase. Something that would let the other know it was them whenever evidence pointed to the opposite.

Mulder had laughed it off at first. Because he was still hurt. Hurt and confused. “What kind of plan?” he’d asked eventually, deciding it couldn’t harm. It was just in case after all. And then Scully came up with what turned out to be the perfect plan.

“Did you?” she asks again, bringing his mind back to where it’s needed. He sees himself back in that car, Scully next to him. She’d said, “Whenever one of us isn’t sure, we’ll ask ‘did you stick to the plan?’”

“But why?” Mulder had asked.

“Because. If it’s you – or me – we will know. We’ll know there’s no plan. The impostor, however, won’t know. They’ll try to make sense of it.”

And he got it. He turned to her, amazed. Scully had grinned at him and he’d known that everything would turn out right in the end.

It should have been him asking. Him asking Scully about the plan, but in his pain and anger, he hasn’t even thought about it.

“Scully?” he asks in disbelief.

“It’s me, Mulder-” Her reply is swallowed by a gunshot. Mulder winces as if he’s been shot. He’s still staring at the woman – at Linda Bowman. Except she no longer is Linda Bowman. She’s Scully.

“Scully,” he says again. She squeezes his arm in passing, kneeling on the ground to check the other woman’s pulse. This time Mulder looks. For a split second, he sees Scully there. The way he’s seen her minutes ago. He saw it. He watched her pull the trigger and crumple to the floor. Lifeless. The image disappears and now it’s Linda Bowman. He blinks a few times to make sure.

“It’s over,” Scully says and it’s her voice. It’s her. He spins around, looking her up and down. He reaches out and touches her arms, her hands. He cups her face, observing her. She lets him, doesn’t say a word.

“It’s you,” he says over and over again. “I thought I lost you. I thought I lost you for real this time.” He doesn’t think and acts on instinct. He throws his arms around her and holds her. Just holds her as tightly to himself as he can. Only when her arms go around him, too, does he break down, letting his tears flow.

“I’m here, Mulder,” she whispers, kissing his temple and every spot she can reach on his face. “I’m all right. We both are. You did stick to the plan,” she adds with a whisper and he hiccups a laugh, not letting go of her. Not ever letting go.

[randomfoggytiger]

Collector's Edition: Melissa Scully, the One and Only (Part I)

Melissa Scully, a character with incredible impact compared to her minuscule screen time. Today, we honor her memory.

(If you're curious to read more Melissa-dedicated fic, I recommend The Other Side: Melissa Scully's Recs's site.)

Loose chronological order below~

audrey_cooper/Audrey Cooper's Fairy Tale

Melissa dug in her feet and made tracks on the thin ice covering the sidewalk. "You'll fall if you don't _slow down_." She emphasized the last two words with jerks on Dana's hand. Dana's mitten came off, and, already overbalanced, Melissa flopped down into the snow that was piled next to the sidewalk.

Melissa Scully is dragged around by her little sister (who may or may not have seen a cryptid.)

resistate's Scared at Night

Dana hears another almost-moan, this one following by a terrible scraping sound. Dana has half-convinced herself she has been imagining things. She jumps a little bit without meaning too and bangs her elbow on her bedside table by accident. "Melissa," she says urgently, before she can stop herself. "Missy!"

Pre-S1 Scully deduces that the noise under her bed is Melissa.

@minuete-blog/Minuete's

The Scully Sister

Charlie, bless his soul, told Mom he planned to stick up for a kid that was being bullied in class.  Dana, the overachiever, wanted to ask her teacher for extra credit on the history project regarding California missions on top of the required diorama all students had to turn in.  Once it was my turn to speak, I blurted, “I’m not going to get confirmed next year.”

Melissa's slow journey away from religion.

Porch Talk

Dana glared at me as she chewed on her bottom lip. A smug smile crossed my lips. “I thought so. Dana, if you’re doing this to nab a guy, then he’s definitely not the one for you. If you’re doing this to get attention, then believe me, you got it. Just don’t hide the genius that you are. That’s the real you.”

Pre-S1 Melissa has a very serious talk with her little sister.

@mulders-boyish-enthousiasm/muldersboyishenthousiasm's Dear Stubb

Mom helped me fill a lot of papers to redirect letters and subscriptions I receive through mail. Melissa could not stop hovering over my shoulder sending me good vibes using a new age technique she just learned. Bill didn’t even bother to feign interest in my going to Quantico. And Ahab… well… Ahab avoided me most of the time. What about Charlie you’ll wonder? Charlie’s absent. As usual.

Pre-S1 Scully writes about her family and new assignment to an unidentified friend.

Beshter's X-files Seasons

"Mom said you were in town, I thought you would call." Scully pulled away, glancing at her stove where strange and good smelling foods were bubbling.

"Yeah, well it's Tuesday. We always have dinner on Tuesday, remember?" Melissa produced a key from her pocket, waving it in front of Scully. "And as I remember it was my turn to cook."

"That was a year ago, Missy." 

Melissa Scully appears many times in this sprawling epic spanning the first seven years Scully spent on the X-Files.

zulu's

First Sight 

How her parents had managed to live such confined, orderly lives for over thirty years was beyond her; something to do with a military mindset, she supposed. Bill and Charles had never minded, not like her--or Melissa.

Pre-S1 Melissa pokes a few bears after Scully announces her new assignment.

Third Memory

Melissa gasped. This was far more than a dream vision. It was cold here. She smelled the acrid sickness of antiseptic and vomit, heard the insistent beeps and shushing of life support equipment. She knew it was Dana's mind that touched hers, and she felt herself sliding down into her sister's memory. She tensed and called out, "Dana!" In her bedroom, alone, there was no answer. She was falling, falling into Dana's thoughts, into her sister's past.

Anasazi Melissa taps into Mulder's aura.

Shelba's The Man of her Dreams

Months passed; she forgot about the dream. Then one night in late summer, she gasped awake, shaken to the core. The man from her dream had returned in a nightmare. His long body was fastened to a chair, if a chair had been made by Dante.

Pre-S1 Melissa has unknowingly dreamed of Mulder for years.

@frostbitepandaaaaa/FrostbitePanda's Nine Minutes and Then Some - Chapter 4 (Ao3)

Missy almost chokes on a cherry tomato, looks up at her sister to see if she’s suddenly been replaced by someone else. But Dana Scully is still there, pushing her fork through her spinach, her face carefully schooled.

Post Pilot Melissa sides with Mulder against Scully.

@viceversawrites/viceversa's One word prompt: Maybe (Ao3)

“He’s, uh. He’s tall.”

“Dana, you’re tiny. Everyone is tall compared to you.”

“He’s tall compared to most people, Melissa. And he, uh.”

“Come on, spill it.”

“He has a nice face. It’s… sad.”

S1 Melissa gets Scully to admit her new partner's cute.

@katy-kt-katie/Katy_KT_Katie's

“Jersey Devil” ficlet (Ao3)

“Who?” Scully asked, washing dishes, phone propped to her ear with her shoulder.

“The guy…that dad you went out with. You wore that beautiful lace dress?”

“Oh, Rob.”

“Rob….” Melissa said, stretching his name as if prodding her for any salacious details.

Post Jersey Devil Melissa figures out Scully might have a crush on her partner.

Fictober Day 17 Post “One Breath” (Ao3)

Mulder’s eyes shot up to meet Melissa’s; a deer caught in the headlights, trying to decide if he should admit or deny his feelings.

“ You should break the ice, let her know that she’s on your mind, ” Melissa encouraged.

Post One Breath Melissa encourages Mulder to make some moves.

@just-a-donut-who-reads/just_a_donut_who_reads 's One Day 

Missy warned me not to take on the assignment to the X-files. She said it would be dangerous. It is. She said it would be frustrating. It is. She said it would drive me mad, make me question everything I learned in med school and in Quantico...

That said - on the X-files, I have something Missy never anticipated.

An excellent view.

S1 Scully realizes she has a crush on Mulder.

@swinging-stars-from-satellites/bravest_person_in_Wonderland 's

a faint and faraway sound

She didn't see the glance shared between Melissa and their mother, who had been disagreeing over something else just before they sat down to eat, but were the two who understood the best — Dana was liable to take this too much to heart, and if she couldn't change the way she spoke, she would take it as a personal failing.

Scully worked hard to overcome her childhood lisp... and feels a bit hurt when Mulder draws attention to it.

scully and monica (scully's sister, iirc?)

Dana holds the phone between her shoulder and ear, precariously stretching the cord as she tries to carry a frozen turkey over to the sink without dropping either it or the phone; her parents are coming for Christmas dinner tomorrow, but Melissa predictably couldn't make it.

AU-- S1 Scully may have quit the FBI, but that doesn't stop her sister from bringing up Mulder.

💬?

"Missy," Dana says after breakfast, still sitting at her mother's table while Melissa insists on taking care of the dishes. Maggie had left momentarily to run to the store. "Promise you won't think I'm insane."

Post Beyond the Sea Scully asks Melissa if she believes in ghosts.

Whumpay Day 5/Lu's Whumpay 2022 - Chapter 5

"When's the last time you ate?" Asks a voice somewhere out of his range of vision, and Mulder turns in the hard plastic hospital chair to see who it is.

Melissa Scully, all five foot five inches of her — plus three extra inches of platform boots — stands in the doorway of the waiting room, her arms crossed and eyes surprisingly clear, considering that she's been here as long as he has. When he doesn't respond right away, she raises an eyebrow and asks again. "So, how long has it been? I know you haven't slept, but I'm not about to get on your case for that."

One Breath Melissa reads between the lines of Mulder's behavior.

@leiascully's (Ao3)

OctoberFicFest Day 9: Herbal Tea/OctoberFicFest 2021 and OctoberFicFest Day 13: Crystal/OctoberFicFest 2021

Missy’s apartment is cluttered, but it’s a cheerful, kitschy kind of clutter.  There are at least three tarot decks, and those are just the ones Dana can see from her mismatched chair at the battered kitchen table.  The whole apartment smells faintly of herbs and incense.  There are bunches of flowers hung over the doorway to dry and crystals scattered over most of the horizontal surfaces.  On the coffee table, a Ouija board is half-buried under a pile of paperbacks.  The planchette rests in a lipstick-smudged wine glass.

“No crystal ball?” she cracks.�� 

Melissa's kitschy kitchen and crystals have a lasting impact on one Dana Scully.

Scully gets the below toe ring in S4

She bought the ring on a whim from a basket on the counter at some little witchy shop that she visited out of nostalgia for the scent of incense. Melissa had worn a toe ring when they were younger and it had driven their mother crazy. Scully had thought it looked elegant and just a little daring. She felt tender for that younger self while she browsed the display of rings, stirring through them.

Melissa sparks an unlikely interest.

@slippinmickeys/SlippinMickeys/Slippin' Mickeys's

Scully and Missy talk about her work 

“But what’s he like?” Missy asks, hand curled around a chunky mug, her fingers playing with the string of a tea bag. She asks as though it’s a question with an easy answer, like Mulder’s some sandy-haired podiatrist who enjoys cooking and tennis.

“I don’t know,” Scully answers truthfully. “He’s… brooding. Quick-witted. Intelligent.”

Melissa’s eyebrows go up. She probably shouldn’t have led with brooding.

S1 Melissa assures Scully she's not poking fun.

Can we please have more Missy and Scully conversations, thank you😁 

There’s a brightness to her sister that lights up the gloom of the room, an overeager, watery delirium in the eyes reminding Scully that she’s had A Very Close Call.

Post One Breath Melissa carefully fills her sister in on Mulder's behavior.

The Concept of Dualism

“Dana and I are going to come pick you up,” she said, “what time are you being released?”

Scully could hear a dull mumbling from the receiver. 

“It’s fine, she could use the fresh air. We’ll see you then.”

Scully leaned back on the couch. 

“Thanks, Missy,” she said, “if you can help him get settled into his apartment, I’m sure I can find somebody to-” 

Melissa cut her off. 

“Oh, I’m not taking him to his apartment,” Missy said, matter-of-factly, “I’m bringing him here.”

Post Dod Kalm Melissa insists on nursing Scully and Mulder back to health.

Old Chem pt 3

Melissa looked at it a moment and then gave him a firm grip, observing him appraisingly while she shook it maybe three seconds longer than was polite. 

“So is it Dr. Mulder, then?” she asked, releasing it. 

“Just Mulder,” he said.

AU-- Old Chem Mulder meets one Melissa Scully.

Belated Birthday wishes and a Prompt: Valley of the Sun 

“Heard you were trying to do this without me,” he said with a smile, tossing the towel to the floor and kneeling down next to the bed to take Scully’s hand.

“I didn’t think it would happen this fast,” Scully said, and could feel another contraction coming on, the pain so intense she let out a howl.

“I did,” Missy said under her breath.

Scully was too caught up in the grip of agony to give her any grief for it.

AU-- Valley of the Sun Mulder surprises his pregnant partner with a familiar face.

@wtfmulder's (Ao3) are you wearing space pants (Ao3)

“Missy helped me make it,” she shrugs, setting the card back down. She is so bad at faking nonchalant.

S1 Mulder is affronted by a prank... or is he?

Michelle Kiefer's Only The Ones Who Believe

Melissa had been the only one who supported her decision to join the FBI. "Dana, no one can walk a path set by someone else. You have to choose your own way." What would Melissa say now? Because Dana--I can't go dancing, I have to finish my chemistry paper--Scully has set off in a direction she could never have imagined.

Post Little Green Men Scully wishes Melissa could give her advice.

AUs

Skinfull's Before

“Let me guess…” Melissa hummed on the other side of the phone. “You’re in the bath, you have a hot chocolate, you’re just in from work and you had a chicken salad for dinner, at your desk in the morgue. Your fridge is bare. Much like your dating life.”

AU-- Melissa is determined to set her FBI morgue sister up with a date... but she might be a bit too late.

CaptainLyssa's

To FBI or Not To FBI

Biting her lip, she hoped her next question wouldn’t come as a complete surprise to her family. “Has Dana told you if she’s pregnant?’

“What makes you think your sisters pregnant,” Maggie hedged, wondering at Melissa’s intuition.

AU-- Pre-S1 Melissa seems to sense that not only has her E.R. sister been swept up in a whirlwind romance, but that she might be (is) already (accidentally) pregnant-- and that there is danger and intrigue whirling around Scully's new boyfriend.

Time Slip

“Missy?” Scully managed before the pounding increased in her head.

“Dana,” Missy asked, carefully watching her sister sit up and reach an unsteady hand to the base of her neck. “Who’s Mulder?”

AU-- S6 Scully is shot back in time, before her FBI recruitment.

Sukie Tawdry's The Way Things Are (1) and The Way Things Are (2)

"Mulder, your sneakers are muddy," Scully said, trying to hide her pleasure at the sight of her dripping partner. "This is my sister, Melissa. Melissa, this is my partner, Fox Mulder."

"The prodigal daughter?" Mulder asked, toeing off his sneakers. Drying his hand against his pant leg, he leaned over the table to shake Melissa's hand. "It's good to meet you."

"I wouldn't have missed this for the world." Melissa studied Mulder's face with fascination. "I just had to meet the man who knocked up my baby sister."

AU-- S1 Melissa sweeps back into Scully's life after her sister trips into an accidental pregnancy, kidnapping, and shacking-up situation.

MSR Collection: Devotion Chapter 2 and Chapter 3

“It’s just—she can sometimes push people away and act like things…like they don’t bother her,” Melissa said. “But she deserves someone who can get through that and understand that.”

“I understand a lot about Scully,” Mulder offered. “I’m learning more every day, and I…I look forward to learning everything I can.”

“Then you’ve got my blessing, or whatever, for what it’s worth,” Melissa said.

AU-- Post One Breath Melissa is delighted that Mulder and Scully are dating (and senses there is something else they aren't saying.)

@sigritandtheelves/DarlaBlack’s

AU: Melissa Didn’t Die

Melissa’s recovery is slow and painstaking, and Scully helps her through every step. The sisters grow closer than they’ve ever been, until eventually, they are both ready to go back to work. By then it is October and chilly. Mulder has had months to learn, to remember, what life without Scully is like. They’ve talked on the phone, had lunch a few times, and he’s visited with both her and Melissa, but it has of course not been the same. He’s a little lost without her. 

AU-- Paper Clip Scully and Mulder's relationship changes after Melissa doesn't die.

Birth Day

It takes her an hour, but Melissa’s jeep finally rumbles up the drive, too fast, like she owns the place. The older sister emerges, swinging out her door almost before the jeep has stopped. “Somebody having a baby over here?” she calls to them. She drags out an enormous purse, a kind of floppy tote in purple tie-dye.

AU-- Doula Melissa is there for her sister and her partner.

@baronessblixen's (Ao3)

Thinking About Babies

All Dana is thinking about these days is college. Doing well. Becoming a medical doctor. She’s trying to get a glimpse of her older sister sitting there on the bed, but all she sees, or thinks she sees, is a silhouette. Her long hair falls into her face and she brushes it away quickly, almost angrily. She needs to get it cut and soon. It’s not practical and Dana is practical – or wants to be anyway. Long, wavy hair is for girls who spent their days at the beach. Dana is no longer that girl.

“A career is not the most important thing in the world.” The sheets rustle and Melissa comes into sight. She smiles secretively and leans over Dana’s shoulder to look at her homework. Who does homework on a Friday night? 

Pre-S1 Melissa and Scully have a weighty conversation that the latter revisits, years and years later, in a place called Home.

Bruises 

“Melissa and I- well, Missy had this idea to take this self-defense class and she made me go with her. She thought after… after Duane Barry it might be a good idea. I told her I don’t need it,” she chuckles, remembering their conversation. Melissa wouldn’t accept no for an answer. “I got a bit carried away.”

Post One Breath Mulder stresses over bruises on Scully's wrist.

Another Banner Year (Ao3)

Scully opens the door after a series of frantic knocks. As soon as she does, Melissa barges into her apartment, her hair as furiously red as her face.

“Well, hello to you, too,” Scully says while her sister just stares at her with a wild look. The anger on her face is a familiar sight that reminds her of her childhood.

Post Our Town Melissa drops in after Scully's latest on-the-job trauma.

Merry Christmas, Darling - Chapter 21

"Dana and Fox, sitting in tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g," Melissa hums, making kissing noises.

S2 Melissa enjoys teasing Scully about her shopping partner.

It’s a Match

Melissa Scully stares at him, waiting for him to confirm or deny it. She quirks an eyebrow, much like his own Scully does. It shakes him out of his stupor.

“Would you please be quiet,” he hisses.

AU-- S2 Melissa corners Mulder at a Scully family party, determined to get the truth out of him.

25 Days of Christmas - Chapter 20

“Where do you want me?” Mulder asks Scully, rolling up his sleeves. “What can I do?” 

“We need someone to do the dishes,” Melissa says with a sweet smile. 

“I can do that.” He gives her mother and her sister his best, most charming smile before he pushes past them and starts washing the dishes.

“That was a joke,” Melissa whispers into her ear, watching Mulder with big eyes. “Can I borrow him for one weekend?”

AU-- S2 Melissa dares Scully to make a move.

could you do msr cuddling for comfort pls?

“You need to gohome, Scully. Where is your mother? I thought maybe you could stay with her fora while.”

Disappointment bubbles up inside of her. She can’t recall the last time Melissa smiled at her, made fun of her. The only picture in her head right now is not of her sister. It’s her mother blinking away angry tears.

Post Paper Clip Scully is afraid to go home.

Can't help myself also #18 😍😍😍/Secret Spots

“We should go back downstairs.”

“I haven’t seen your room yet.”

“Later,” she promises and his eyebrows shoot up. “I didn’t mean-” but maybe she did. Maybe that’s exactly what she meant. “Later,” she repeats and he nods, his face eager. “Now come on.” She takes his hand but before they descend the stairs, she presses him against the wall – into that one spot Missy showed her one time. 

AU-- Post Millennium Scully introduces Mulder to Melissa's secret cubbyhole.

mulder braiding scully's hair during the iwtb era ❤

"Melissa and I did this for each other," Scully says, sounding wistful. "We'd talk about boys and school. Well, she talked about boys." They both chuckle, remembering their sisters.

Pre-IWTB Mulder braids Scully's hair.

The Day I First Saw You

There they are: Frohike, Byers and Langley, who is wearing a Santa hat and clinging to a shrimpy fir, looking ridiculous.

“We saw it first!” He complains now, his glasses fogging up from his fury.

“You did not!” A woman with long, wavy hair retorts, trying to push him away.

“Please refrain from violence,” Byers says, sounding anxious.

“This is my tree,” the woman says. “Its aura is clearly attuned to mine.”

“Its what?” Langley asks, exchanging looks with his friends. 

AU-- Pre-S1 Mulder, Scully, Melissa, and TLG meet while the squabbling over Christmas trees.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[onhiatus-xxsksxx]

Almost Heaven

Summary:

Mulder’s attempt to find more exciting cases to investigate while stuck in the bullpen turns into another weekend trip to the forest.

Meanwhile, Scully is faced with a tempting offer that could change both her future and their lives.

This story is complete, and I’m going to post one chapter a day.

AO3 | Back to the Beginning | @today-in-fic

Chapter 3: Drivin’ Down the Road, I Get a Feelin’

Interstate 66 Saturday, November 28th, 1998, 7:30 am

Scully turned her face towards the car window, trying to cover a yawn. They were already outside the city, heading west. Leave it to Mulder to knock on her door at 6:30 in the morning, eyes bright and restless like a five-year-old on the way to the ballpark.

You could’ve said no, her inner voice pointed out helpfully. She smiled to herself. Not likely. She loved their little adventures nearly as much as Mulder did. Not that she’d ever admit that to him. Scully gave him a sideways glance. Mulder was humming along to the radio, chewing on a sunflower side. She watched him reach into the bag between their seats, pulling out another seed and licking the salt off of its shell. No, there were certainly worse places to be on a Saturday morning than being in a car with Mulder.

And he’d brought her her cup of coffee, of course. Perfect, like always. She took a sip of the still-hot liquid and felt the caffeine enter her bloodstream, waking her up a bit more.

Scully loved their little routines as of late. They’d always been close, but since their return from Antarctica, things have shifted. She glanced into her cup, watching the coffee swirl. Now Mulder brought her coffee each morning just how she liked it. And he never left the office without giving her shoulder a little squeeze or brushing her arm before wishing her a good evening. And of course, the calls where they now talked about more than just work. She’d told him about her Sunday lunch with her mother just a few days ago, both of them laughing about the stories her mother had told. And they’d begun to end those calls with wishes for sweet dreams, good nights, and long pauses. Scully closed her eyes against the warm rush that made her face flush and her heart race.

It wasn’t like she wasn’t following her own routines now, either. She didn’t even ask when she touched him wherever she felt like it these days. Scully was surprised he hadn’t called her out yet on constantly checking him over, brushing through his hair, feeling his back and chest, or just grabbing his arm. Picking up the phone after the first ring each night probably wasn’t secretive either, she sighed. Whatever was going on, it seemed to be an underlying agreement between them that they keep doing it—unfortunately, without talking about it.

What else is new? she wondered. Their unspoken communication was great, but sometimes she wished Mulder would also use words. And you’re talking to him about it? her inner voice questioned, and she sank deeper into her seat, taking another sip of her coffee. No, she wasn’t either. That was true. But that needed to change. She was tired of running in circles.

She leaned sideways in her seat, pressing her shoulder into the back so she could watch him fully. “So, where are we going exactly, Mulder? I believe you skipped that part on the phone last night.”

Mulder turned to her briefly before turning his eyes back to the road. “Does ’Country roads, take me home’ ring any bells for you, Scully?” he grinned.

She gave him a confused look. “What does John Denver have to do with our little trip? Please don’t tell me some farmer has seen his ghost in a national forest.”

Mulder laughed and then puckered his lower lip into a pout. “No ghosts, Scully. Just some good old mystery.” He pulled out another sunflower seed from the bag and put it on the tip of his tongue. “Only two more hours, and we’ll be there. You’ll get to visit the beautiful state of West Virginia. It’ll be fun,” he added, wiggling his eyebrows.

Scully sighed and turned towards the vents, trying to adjust the airflow. The windshield wipers were working at a steady pace to keep the constant rain off the windshield. “I hope you’re not planning on us traipsing around in this weather, Mulder. Nothing says ’fun’ like being soaking wet.”

“Think of it as an adventure. I know you like adventures.”

She glanced at him, feeling almost giddy with their easy banter. “My idea of a fun adventure involves less rain and more heat. And maybe a nice, cozy cabin with a fireplace.”

Mulder raised an eyebrow and winked at her. “Keep talking, Agent Scully! What about the heat?” he wiggled his eyebrows.

“Be careful what you wish for. I might be willing to turn up the heat—and you might not be able to handle it after all,” she playfully replied, not shying away from his look.

Mulder blinked, but was the first to break eye contact, his eyes refocusing on the road. He took another sunflower seed, chewing thoughtfully. “Ever heard of the West Virginia Mothman, Scully? I plan on making his acquaintance today.”

Scully kept watching him, a small smile playing on her lips. “I can’t say I have, Mulder. But if it’s got you fascinated, I’m not sure, it’s something I want to meet in the first place,” she quipped.

Mulder smiled at her indulgently. “Oh, you of little faith. Wait and see. We’re going to meet Mr. Murphy at ten, and he’ll show us to the clearing where he saw the Mothman.”

A clearing in the forest and a Mothman? So much for that fantasy of a weekend getaway, she sighed, leaning back in her seat. But secretly, she couldn’t suppress a smile. She loved it when Mulder got like that. His enthusiasm was utterly contagious and was one of the many things that had made the decision to stay on this weird assignment all those years ago surprisingly easy. She shook her head at herself. Mulder’s passion for the unexplainable might be charming, but one of these days it will get us killed, no doubt.

“You know, Mulder, sometimes I wonder if your mysterious creature sightings aren’t just your way of getting me alone in the middle of nowhere.”

Mulder chuckled, his eyes still on the road. “And what if you were right?”

Scully’s smile widened, and she leaned her head back against the headrest, closing her eyes. “Then I’d say you’re more of a romantic than I would have thought,” she joked lightly, but her tone held some seriousness.

Mulder glanced at her, a genuine smile on his lips. “Who knows, Scully? Maybe I am.”

[stxrdust-widow]

The X-Files first watch: Season 1 (Mid-season)

Top episodes: 101, 103, 105, 106, 108, 111

Character thoughts: Scully. Girly. Hater. Non-believer. How convenient you’re never around when the paranormal shit happens. Also, as a woman of science, how do you NOT believe in other/higher life forms?? Frankly, I find it ignorant that anyone might believe that we are the only intelligent (debatable) life forms in the entire galaxy. Sorry, but I gotta side with Mulder on this one. And speaking of Mulder. My boy. My loony-tune. I admire your persistence and your conviction that you’ll make a believer out of Scully. However, I do agree with home girl that you should absolutely ‘think horses, not zebras’ - at least initially.

Thoughts so far: They were wayyy too comfortable with each other in the first few eps. Where’s the annoyed ‘do I have to be here?’ ‘does she have to be here??’ attitude? Who cares, I’ll eat it up every time.

[darkesttimelinestuff]

"Do you recognize this?"

Day 7 of Fictober! How am I still doing this? Really proud that I've been able to write every day.

I had a lot of fun finding pictures for today's story.

Prompt #7 - "Do you recognize this?"

Find me on Ao3

Scully had turned her office upside down and inside out looking for her passport. She knew exactly where it was. Where she always kept it. Or, at least where it should have been. 

Maybe Mulder had moved it. He sometimes tossed things aside without realizing it. That’s how she had lost her paycheck once, until it turned up at the bottom of some of Mulder’s papers. Neither was quite sure how it had happened, but from then on Scully was certain to keep important documents as far from Mulder’s reach as possible. 

“Mulder, are you sure you didn’t touch the things in my desk?” she called across the room.

“I’m sure!” he shouted back defensively. “What business would I have going through your desk?”

“Because I always keep my passport right here,” she said, pointing to a drawer, “and I don’t see it. And if I can’t find it, we can’t go to Mexico tomorrow.”

Mulder stood and crossed the room to her desk. “Let me check,” he offered. “Two sets of eyes are better than one, right?”

She motioned with her hand, giving him permission to look.

“Be my guest, but I doubt you’ll find it. I’ve searched that desk twice,” she insisted, slumping in a nearby chair in frustration. 

As Mulder bent over the desk in concentration, Scully checked out his ass. Even in his 50s he had killer buns! 

“It’s so unlike you to misplace these things,” he was saying. “I’m a little disappoint…”

And then he stopped. 

“What?” she asked, worried that maybe he found her passport but it was damaged or expired. 

“Oh wow!” he exclaimed, standing up and examining something she couldn’t quite see. 

It looked like a small paper and she suddenly became very self-conscious. 

“What is it?” she asked, reaching for his hands, hoping to pry them open.

“Oh, it is the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen,” Mulder said, “and I can’t believe you never showed me!”

“Mulder, what is it?” she demanded, cursing her short stature. 

“Do you recognize this?” He held up a photograph.

“Oh, my god,” she said, feeling both embarrassed and defensive about the picture. “I haven't thought about that in a very long time.”

The picture showed a young Dana Katherine Scully on a bed in a black lace push-up bra and panties. She hated that word, but there was no better term for it. They weren’t underwear; that was too plain. No, these were panties. The kind a partner used their teeth to slide down your legs. 

This was Dana, not Scully, and she was bold and sensual, rather than pragmatic and sensible. Her smothering eyes said, “come fuck me,” and you couldn’t deny her anything. 

“Well,” Mulder said, licking his lips, “this is fucking incredible.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes! I love this! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this.”

“There are,” Scully said hesitantly, “more.”

“I need to see them,” he replied, almost too excited.

“Well, this was back when I first started at the F.B.I.,” she said, searching for the other pictures. “My friend suggested it and I don’t know what possessed me, but it seemed like a good idea.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No, not at all! I’m very proud of these pictures. But they’re more for me than anyone else. Ah! Here they are,” she said, handing him the rest of the photos.

The pictures showed a progression of Dana Scully shedding a man’s white button-up shirt, so that she was hugging her lace-clad breasts, posing suggestively on a bed, and, in the last one, looking right into the camera with nothing but a sheet wrapped around her.

“Well, I would be honored if they could also be for me.”

“They aren’t a secret. I just forgot about them,” she admitted. “So much has happened to us.”

“We’ve known each other, what, over twenty years,” Mulder said, “and you never thought to show me these?”

“Twenty-five years.”

“I’m really glad you lost your passport,” Mulder said, studying each and every photo.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s5 episode 11 thoughts

after a lovely vacation romp to maine in the last episode, i am wondering where we will visit next. i liked the last one so much that it’s follow-up will face great challenges!! i also have heard that the next one is a fan favorite, i believe? so interested to see where we go from there.

ah, i think i have seen a screenshot of this episode where scully makes a very annoyed face. and it’s fantastic. but that is all i know about it.

another AI episode! buddy, if only the writers could see what we live in now. i mean, they’re probably still alive. but did they picture sentient computer programs writing essays for nurses and doctors and lawyers in school when penning this script? no. they did not. and yes, i have seen these things in my time at college. we are cooked.

post-episode thoughts: bi scully you are SO important to me!!!!!!

anyway! let us begin.

we open at a diner. where someone is typing on a very beat up laptop. covered in duct tape. king of being on a budget.

the waiter asks laptop guy if he wants his coffee warmed up, and he answers with “no, but i’ll buy another one if you’ll leave me alone” which instantly makes me think this guy is like, some sort of terrorist. and he also is coughing. suspiciously.

whatever he is trying to get into, his access has been denied!!!

a mysterious number calls another guy named jackson on his cell phone, saying that his partner stole his money, and he wants to help him get revenge. the voice says his enemy is in the diner… jackson heads out to investigate

and another guy gets a call that the person who wronged him is in the diner!! and then another!!! and another!! there’s going to be a whole meetup!! one of violence!!!

this laptop guy at the diner is just typing, typing, trying to get into… whatever it is that won’t let him in while others arrive. this diner will be making bank tonight if they all get something to eat. but it doesn’t seem like any of the people coming in know each other… tension is very high as everything is quiet and they take their seats. 

computer guy finally does something to get into the system and coughs. menacingly. saying there is nothing that can be done.

and he puts in a CD…. is he gonna blow this place up??!?!?

BUT we will never know! because US marshals come in, and a gunfight erupts!!

nooo, the poor diner :(

intro time….. scully <3

now what is afoot here. and whatever happened to our deep throat 3.0 figure? she was here for a minute and then dipped. will we see her again today?

the agents are here at the diner to investigate the crime scene, trench coats billowing around. how many trench coats do these guys have? they tend to be darker, but i have a light brown one of stereotypical trench coat color, and i wonder if that would pass in their fashion book

the marshals were here to catch a guy named pico salazar who worked for a cartel, but i think the funny part is that he escaped from federal custody 3 months ago and scully had no idea who tf he was. she’s a busy woman!

no mr. salazar was present, however, there were a lot of other criminals at the scene. “mulder, these are street-level coke dealers, minor wholesalers at most” <- that sounded brutal coming from her lmaooo. read them again for me!

“it’s 2:45 in the morning, you mind telling me what it is we’re supposed to be looking for?” <- NOOOO the FBI needs to STOP WAKING HER UP!!! LET HER SLEEP!!! mulder seems wide awake but this is not surprising.

the answer to what they are looking for is: donald gelman, the hacker guy from earlier, who is a silicon valley software pioneer. who had been missing since 1979!!

he was about to make a deal that would turn him into the second bill gates, went hiking the night before, and was never found again??? that’s weird. mulder must have a mental encyclopedia of notable missing persons. among other subjects.

the computer has seen better days

mulder supposes that this was a hit- bring together 8 known criminals, then call the marshals, and a gunfight was inevitable- but scully says gelman was clearly dying, so what was the point of calling a hit?? a great question from someone known for asking great questions

“you want to kill the brain, not the body” <- i don’t like that response, mulder

scully’s driving today. HE STOLE THE LAPTOP?

“mulder, that’s evidence!” “gee, i hope so” <- LMAO??? what the hell is this guy doing. she is so sick of his nonsense i'm crying

he pulls out the CD while scully looks deeply troubled. and it starts playing a nice little song!!! it's called "twilight time". she’s freaked tf out.

he brings the laptop and CD to the lone gunmen, who are nerding out. big day for guys like them. gelman is famous in their circle. they’re gagged to learn he died; “a brother goes down”, says frohike

LMAOOO scully is reading their lone gunmen newspaper while they do whatever the hell it is they do… there’s an article on the front about infrared monitoring… she wants to go home!!!

langly is trying to hack the code keeping them out of the laptop...

scully comes in again with the steel chair of facts and logic: “anyone, uh, think to check his email?”

LMAOOO i paused to write that down and mulder’s face is PRICELESS he looks soooo proud of her 

woah… old email… had a nice little animation of a mailbox!! makes me nostalgic for something i never knew

gelman's email says david is missing and the hunted has become the hunter. i assume that refers to the AI…? the message is from “invisigoth”

LMAOOOOO mulder puts together that the string of numbers is an ID for a shipping container and she looks SO IMPRESSED i’m HOWLLLING she wanted to climb him like a TREEEE 

(author's note: if anyone has this gifset PLEASE tag me in it. scully was alternating between incredible levels of "i am so over this nonsense" and "we should kiss about it" for mulder AND esther. truly a woman at her limit. god. i love her)

off to shipping container land. is that a place where you can just… visit? he’s trying to give scully directions, but i don’t trust his navigation skills. 

why is there loud music playing from this shipping container… goth rave???

they find the right container, but NOOOO, HE GOT ZAPPED by whoever was inside!!!! she’s worried!! “i’m alright, go, get her!” <- that’s a man focused on the mission

scully is running and running and she tackles this mysterious woman!!! but she zaps scully!! “stop or i’ll shoot”, scully warns, and you KNOW she isn’t messing around!!

BAM! shoot she does. didn't land on her, but it must have been close

(the taser CGI is killing me lmaooo)

yeah, you better surrender. “thank you", scully says <- LMAOOOO she’s had ENOUGH and pins her against the wall to handcuff her

it seems she was just living here… oh, invisigoth is mad!!! she tells scully to bite her!!! i would be mad too tbh but like. they have a good reason to be there! gelman is dead! so maybe let’s be a bit more professional!!!

her computer is beeping beeping beeping…. she says it’s a missile locking onto them?

WOAH scully stopped her with a hand to the chest 😳 

(it was at this point i was Noticing Things between them...)

but mulder believes that they really are going to get blown up!!! scully is PISSED!! she has had ENOUGH!!! she hit a bunch of storage containers on the way out and sure enough, they narrowly missed an explosion….. what does this goth girl know…!!!

lmaooo, now for a nice little drive in the country while they figure out wtf to do with the goth in the backseat. mulder’s stuck in the passenger seat, his legs barely fitting in there. 

mulder clocks that this is about a sentient AI that i guess gelman let loose online to evolve (uh, okay)

“what was your role in all of this? were you the bass player?” <- LMAO SCULLY HATES THIS WOMAN (mulder’s side eye is fantastic as well)

invisigoth recites all her academic credentials (of which there are many, and they are deeply impressive) and then when scully asks her to explain what she did for gelman she says “you wouldn’t understand” ohhh the girls are fighting!!! 

scully pulls over at some random place to get out of the car and yell at mulder!!! we have to stop waking her up at 2 in the morning PLEASE! she thinks it’s all nonsense. maybe invisigoth launched the bomb herself!!!

but invisigoth says that the AI knows her voice and will strike if she talks on the phone… they were working with the AI and then one day it wouldn’t “come when we called it” (is this like a puppy?)

scully’s face is so funny lmaoo

“it’s not a program anymore; it’s wildlife loose on the net” <- i do not think AI really works like that, but i don’t know enough about it to dispute the situation 

invisigoth says that the AI killed david because he was trying to kill the AI!!! and twilight time CD is the kill switch

so they take her to the lone gunmen, who are starstruck!! meanwhile scully is gagged to learn her name is “esther nairn” LMAOOO

“are you gonna take off my cuffs, or do i have to do this with my tongue?” “you don’t want to take a vote”, says mulder <- LMAO WHY TF DID SCULLY DO THAT WITH HER TONGUE I'M CRYINGGGGG

am i sensing some bisexual undertones… like, it’s not just me, right…?

(this was the point where i had to actually Pause and make a post to make sure i wasn't just imagining all of this. after the tackling, the cuffing, the way scully stopped esther by her chest, scully lowkey bullying her, being gagged her name is esther, AND the tongue thing... and thankfully, multiple tumblr users confirmed that it was not, in fact, just in my head. which i am deeply thankful for)

scully’s taunting esther about the AI tracking her. so i guess now they have to go to the physical location of the hardware and give it the kill switch. sure. i guess.

frohike is admiring esther. frohike needs to be sprayed with a water bottle like a naughty cat.

SCULLY IS SO MAD LMAOOO “why don’t you just call him? oh, right; death from above” I LOVE HER ANGRY BAHAHA

(scully flirting by being mean is so fucking funny. i don't know if i would have anticipated that for her character, but now that i've seen it, i embrace it. it was like she hated this woman so much but was also unfortunately attracted to her and she wasn't going to let those seemingly mutually exclusive things get her down)

oh my god, when esther mentioned needing someone that works for the government to do her little hacking scheme, scully looks SO angrily in mulder’s direction… and he really is SO pretty….

i always take time to appreciate how pretty scully is. now we get one of those moments for mulder, as well.

so, off to virginia to do some crime. mulder is here alone and must scale a pole to get to the optic fiber connection? sure, why not. meanwhile, scully sleeps at the lone gunmen head quarters… but invisigoth slash esther has set herself free!!

she’s holding scully at gun point!!! “buenos dias, muchacha” <- okay so i’m not the only one seeing this? right. 

(deep, resigned scully sigh)

wait, i was so invested in whatever the hell it is these two have going on, i didn’t even acknowledge that all the lone gunmen were sleeping together LMAOOO on their little couches!!! aww. best buddies having a sleepover!!

but mulder is… at another pole? 

he calls her “scully?” (most flat, angry voice you have ever heard) “yup.” LMAOOO

he found an abandoned chicken farm with a T3 connection and she says “dandy” <- LMAOOOO

“where are you? it sounds like you’re driving” “you are correct, sir” BAHAHAAAAA

NOOOO, ESTHER HAS HER AT GUNPOINT TAKING HER TO FIND DAVID and she looks SOOOO OVER IT. do not hurt her, esther.

nah, you can’t get between mulder and scully like that… NOT COOL.

mulder’s in the damn trees of virigina??? and he finds a trailer??? 

meanwhile esther, who is now wearing a lone gunmen badge on her jacket, finds an entirely destroyed house where she meant for david to be!!! this is not promising

scully reaches for the handcuffs and unlocks herself from the wheel…. but esther is sobbing and doesn’t notice. did she put her hand back in there to disguise it??

scully’s reaching for the gun…. WOAH esther hands it over to her “go ahead. put me out of my misery”

(scully.exe does not compute. hot goth holding me hostage is now crying in my car: ????)

OH MY GOD, SCULLY PUTS HER ARM ON ESTHER’S SHOULDER WHILE SHE SOBS

(she might be a hater, but even more than that, scully is a lover. gently caressing the sobbing lady who just asked her to kill her)

WOAHHH loud ass noise as mulder approaches this trailer YEESH!!! damn, i had to turn the volume wayyy down!! no warning!!! 

whatever is in that mysterious trailer sees him on a screen…. is this the house of the AI? is he going in there??? will he be blowed up??

his fingerprint is captured and matched!!

WAIT, WE SEE MORE OF HIS PROFILE….

oxford university AB in psychology, graduated summa cum laude in 1982, quantico in 1984, assigned to violent crimes in 1988, x files in 1990….

SO THAT MAN GRADUATED FROM OXFORD IN 3 YEARS WITH A BA AND THAT’S ALL? he definitely carries himself with the air of a dude who did his masters is all i’m saying. maybe that's just what happens when a character is played by a guy who went to 2 different ivy league schools.

idk how much of this i should subscribe to because… god only knows if it will reflect canon or not. would like to get one of these snippets of their whole careers for scully. just so i know what to keep and discard in my fool's errand of calculating her timeline.

wait, back to the wreckage of the house that was exploded with scully and esther. “i lied to you”, she says. okay. so this is getting intimate. 

“imagine being mingled so completely with another, you no longer need your physical self- you’re one” damn. that’s crazy. and also now i am definitely NOT imagining these undertones. like at this point, they’re overtones.

she was going to live forever with david in the AI, but gelman stopped it, because he was afraid of what would happen.

ohhhh, esther finds a picture of her and david in the wreckage :( she says she loved him so much… writers knew it was getting a little too gay lmao

(frankly, i see this as a win for bisexuality)

scully points out that maybe david wasn’t there when everything exploded; maybe he was somewhere else. very thoughtful to console your crying kidnapper in this way, scully.

mulder, meanwhile, is climbing under the trailer, looking for clues. he’s unscrewing something while a little robot on the inside roams around!! aww it’s kinda cute!!! 

he entered from below and climbs in to find a maze of wires and endless rows of computers AND BLEH A DEAD GUY????????????? he looks like the life was sucked out of him!!!! and damn, it is david!!!!!! EWWW YUCKY

oh shit, mulder is being strapped into the same contraption that must have killed david….. this is not looking good!!!

he wakes up in a burn unit treatment wondering wtf is going on… oh, his arms are really burnt and they’re telling him to relax. this is not helpful!!! 

“is it bad?” “you’re in good hands” “my arms hurt” awww poor sweaty burned man :( around 800 people are wheeling him in…. and he sees a huge knife???? for the chopping off of arms??

is this some sort of dream scenario…? these nurse outfits are too weird…

“no, wait… call my doctor. you have to call… my doctor. call dr. scully. please call dr. scully” <- OMG NOOOOO he's scared and he describes her as his doctor… god, can you imagine????

(this gave me ideas of doctoring. which we have already seen in extreme scenarios, but can you imagine him being like "ugh, i have a headache" and she just drops into MD mode. i would like to picture it very much)

this old man is approaching him, and the nurses have weirdly long nails…. man, i don’t like that at all…. he’s being injected with stuff and a saw is buzzing next to his head……. this must be a terrible dream

back in the real world, scully cannot reach him!! esther says this is because the AI has adjusted to her voice on scully’s phone

they are racing to that chicken farm to try and cut it off… esther is using dial up in the car. yo, did dial up work in the CAR??? that is crazy. i could have been playing neopets on the go.

mulder is being visited by a scary evil nurse… did they cut his arms off….. NO!! just one arm!!! oh god. i never wanted to see his arm cut off.

WAIT, WHY IS THIS EVIL FANTASY NURSE WEARING A CROSS NECKLACE LIKE SCULLY?? hey. let’s unpack that at a later date. while she holds him down and says they’re evil and they want something from him.

HOLY FUCK SHE’S SMOTHERING HIM WITH A PILLOW???? “shh, or they’ll hear you” what da hell.

scully and esther are reaching a bridge… but the AI has found them!!! they’re right near a flammable tanker truck!!!

scully climbs up ONTO the truck of the nearest driver to tell him to MOVE and i am shocked by her truck climbing talents

meanwhile, esther is on the bridge that is now moving!! scully’s running after her, telling her to drop the laptop!!! and at the last second she throws it out to the water.

wait. what the fuck is cooking in mulder’s subconscious? why are three nurses rubbing him while he lays under a crucifix. and then he says he has a good dream??? and then she smiles and says it wasn’t a dream.

i don't like that. not one bit.

nurse nancy, you’re freaking me tf out. she says he has to tell “them” about the kill switch… the AI must be concocting some sort of weird nightmare thingy??

they took both of his arms!!!

SCULLY COMES IN WITH A GUN?? AND STARTS BEATING UP THE WOMEN?? LMAOOO THAT SPIN KICK WAS CRAAAAZY

what the hell. 

she’s yelling in his face while he sits there with no arms, asking if they have the kill switch… then he says “of course we do” and kicks her with his feet???

and he breaks the computer simulation???

omg, the scully computer model is killing me…

we should unpack that mixture of his worst fears and deepest desires (arms cut off, nurses touching and torturing him, religious imagery, scully coming in to save the day action hero style) but frankly i don't really want to think about such things at the time. i'm cool with certain parts of mulder's psyche not being analyzed.

he’s calling out to her!!! “scully, help! help!” but no one is around!!!!

esther and scully pull up to the chicken farm place and find his car…. esther is calling “here kitty kitty”, but we have to let her do her own thing…. 

they are also shocked by the terribly loud noise which scully quickly silenced with a few well aimed shots…. that is a woman who get things done!

mulder’s calling out to her!!! but the AI inserts him with more goo and he’s gone!!!

she’s sneaking in through the bottom of the trailer like he did, but she shoots tf out of the little robot i previously thought was cute. good. serves the evil robot right. and lord, she’s beautiful as she sneaks in. with esther behind her. 

they find david all sucked out of life. and scully sees mulder in the contraption. “mulder, can you hear me?” <- nooo, the robot is sneaking up on them!!!! 

the robot wants the kill switch!! esther had it in her pocket!! but if she gives it to the AI, it will “vaccinate” itself against the virus!!! this seems like late in the episode to introduce this idea, but again, i say sure, why not?

mulder is being zapped and scully says to put the kill switch in NOW!!! she goes and shoves it in herself!!! she said idgaf if this AI blows up the world, i need him safe!!!

holy FUCK!!!! “you’re gonna be okay, i’m gonna get you out of here” she says to his limp body as twilight time plays…

(oh, i'm emotional as she tries to lead him away..........)

but esther is frantically typing….

she’s crying… no… i realize what is happening as she tells scully to leave……

despite the imminent risk of explosion, scully comes back for esther… “you don’t listen, do you?” <- ohhhh…. esther strapped herself into the machine thingy!!!

scully, run!! take that injured man and beat it!!!!! esther does not wish to be saved!!

bam!!! the machine blows sparks and then it is annihilated from the sky!!!!

scully is guiding his barely conscious body through the woods…. then they visit the scene later

mulder ponders if esther was able to upload herself into an artificial life

“electrons chasing each other through a circuit- that isn’t life, mulder” “yeah, but what are we but impulses- electrical and chemical- through a bag of meat and bones? you’re the scientist, you tell me”

back at the lone gunmen's lab, their computer reads “BITE ME” in red letters against a black background!! esther!! she is here!!

(do the lone gunmen have a new friend?? can she be called upon to help during tricky situations?? or is she happily frolicking in the internet with david?? or is the answer that she can do both??)

cutscene to nebraska, where kids are playing with a football. a trailer is locked behind a fence, where one of the kids threw the ball. he goes in to fetch it…. but he is being watched by a camera!!!

NO!!! so did the AI live??? and somehow migrate to nebraska??? to watch random children?

for my own sanity, i choose to believe no ❤️

okay, so post episode thoughts: this was definitely a really, really good standalone ep. we had the whole emotional arc, and then the standard “well gee, i think it’s still out there” just when you think there’s hope.

i thought the premise sounded boring, and it actually turned out to be pretty interesting. we saw these weird sexual-ish fantasies of mulder being torn apart and scully saving the day, which are interesting, even if it's not exactly what i wanted to watch. and in the real world we saw her cradling his limp body out of the woods! which is exactly what i DO want to see!

and the skeptic was skeptical of science! but computer science is like, totally different from chemistry and stuff, so i can’t really blame her. she was PISSSSSED to be woken up in the middle of the night and then dragged on a wild goose chase!!! even pulling over the car just to yell at mulder!!! that is real fury!!

and i SWEAR i did not imagine that tension. she was attracted to esther but also mad as hell at her. we've all been there, scully. great insight into scully's type. she seems to like people who are terribly smart.

like i said before, i thought it was a really good episode!!! i’m not sure if it would make my top episodes list, but it would be close if not. i grew attached to esther, and i hope that she becomes the 4th lone gunman and offers insight from her digital abode, and that whenever they’re stumped they can turn to her and say “esther, what do you think?”. and she can beep beep boop and come up with a response. or maybe they can tell her about the latest movies and scientific discoveries. hard to imagine what the digital afterlife looks like and the capability for interaction between the real and digital worlds.

call his doctor…

[scullysexual]

You're Never Just Anything To Me (11)

@today-in-fic | ao3 | Prev. Chapter

A look into Mulder and Scully’s relationship starting from Millennium going all the way up to Requiem.

XI. Theef.

A baby grows inside of her. She touches her still flat stomach and can feel its life force beneath the skin.

“We should move,” says Scully. Her mind has wandered again, thinking of scenarios where they are successful. Her latest appointment with Dr Parenti had brought her more hope that this IVF route could work.

“We should move in together, get a house.”

She feels Mulder freeze beneath her.

“Are you sure?” he asks, his voice laced with uncertainty. The sound of it tugs her chest and Scully sits up.

“Of course. Are you okay with that?”

A massive grin breaks out across his face. “Of course I am, Scully. I’d love to move in with you.”

Her own smile breaks through. “Not far, though. Somewhere close to my mother and work so you don’t have to waste unnecessary time commuting in.”

“What about you?” he asks.

His face has fallen slightly and this, Scully had spent the past couple of weeks thinking about.

“I think I’d go back to teaching.”

Mulder nods but his mood has shifted slightly. He seems disappointed. He looks away.

“Hey,” Scully says, her hand on his face, bringing his attention back to her. “I’ll still be there to argue against your ridiculous theories.” It restores the smile on his face. “And you’ll see me at home.” Home. Their home.“And then you won’t get sick of seeing me.”

“I never get sick of seeing you.”

They spend the rest of the night talking about it, all properly for the first time. Talking about it earlier felt taboo, like they were going to jinx something (not that Scully believes in jinxes or anything of the kind) but this was something she didn’t want to tempt. Now, she is so sure she has nothing to worry about. For the first time in a long time there is excitement, there is hope, something to look forward to.

…

It feels like the flooring of the hospital has given out beneath her.

The words take a moment to process fully and when they do, they hit her like a ton of bricks.

I’m sorry, Dana. There was no success this time.

No success.

There is no baby. There is nothing growing inside her. No baby to hold or nurture later on, nothing to tether her and Mulder together. There will be no house.

Scully wails. Folds in on herself on the floor of the hospital and wails so loud she disturbs the other patients. Dr Parenti stands there looking on, detached and emotionless, not even human.

…

Mulder spins the ring between his fingers.

He only got here an hour ago but it felt like he had been waiting a lifetime.

The front door clicks and Mulder jumps, hastily shoving the ring into the pocket of his jeans. Scully emerges and instantly Mulder knows something is off. His heart beats wildly in his chest, his stomach shrouded in anxiety.

“It didn’t take, did it?”

She shakes her head and crumples before him. Mulder can’t tell what hurts him more- the knowledge that it didn’t work or the way she falls apart in ways he’s never witnessed before.

He pulls her into his arms and she goes with no struggle, completely engulfing her in his embrace. He is crying, too. Before now, he never realised just how much he wanted it and how much he wanted to be the one to give it to her. He would give her the entire world, wrap it up in a little bow if she asked, but he can’t even give her something as simple as this.

“There has to be other ways,” he says, immediately searching for a solution. “Adoption or surrogacy, or…something.”

But Scully shakes her head. “There’s nothing. That was my last and only chance.”

He doesn’t want to believe that this is the end.

“But adoption, Scully.” He thinks about all the kids they’ve encountered on their cases, parentless the majority of them there, how they would attach themselves to Scully (and even sometimes himself) longing for a parent to care for them. “So many kids who need love and you can give it to them, they can become as much as ours as any biological—”

She shakes her head, pulling away from him, tear-stained cheeks and red-eyes. She looks exhausted. She looks hopeless.

“They didn’t even let me adopt my own child. They would never let me near somebody else’s.”

“But that was different. It’s the two of us now, you won’t be a single mother—”

“Mulder, stop.” He does stop, he comes to a sudden halt. “I don’t want to hope anymore. All it does is make you hurt.”

She pulls away from him completely then, floating away towards her bedroom. Mulder stands, feeling robbed of everything, watching the door to her bedroom close gently behind her.

…

Her period arrives and it paralyses her.

It’s flow unpredictable every time, this time she bleeds through and stains her sheets. She can do nothing but watch as Mulder changes the sheets at 2am, red-eyed and groggy.

Scully changes in the bathroom, her abdomen cramping painfully. She tries to dissociate from it all, opening the cabinet and pulling out the packet of paracetamol as if it wasn’t her doing it.

There’s a rap against the door.

“The bed is ready, Scully.”

She takes one pill and then the others. She thinks about taking a third, a fourth, a fifth, taking the entire packet until the pain all goes, until she feels something else.

There’s another rap.

“You okay in there, Scully?”

She exits the bathroom only having consumed two pills. She holds a hot water bottle in her arms, filled and warm, and looks at Mulder sitting in her bed.

“You might as well go Mulder,” she says as she climbs in. She keeps her back to him, her distance from him and seeks the hot water bottle out for comfort instead. “Find somebody else who can give you whatever you want. I’m broken.”

His arms fall around her and as much as she wants to pull away her body is a traitor and nestles into him instead.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “You’re what I want.”

She sinks further against him and his lips press kisses along her shoulder and neck. She’s so tired, the energy completely drained from her that she closes her eyes, begins to drift off…

“Marry me.”

She thinks she made it up.

She startles awake.

“What?” Her body turns towards him.

“Marry me.” Even in the darkness she can see his pleading eyes. “Please.”

Her mind is full but she can’t form her thoughts to make sense.

“I…”

She watches as he recedes into himself.

“It was stupid, just ignore it,” Mulder dismisses.

But she can’t, he has said it now.

“One day,” she promises and Mulder nods.

His hands join hers at her stomach, pressing the hot water bottle into her skin, holding it like the baby they can never have.

“Never give up on a miracle,” he whispers into her ear.

Scully closes her eyes, a thief steals their baby.

[aloysiavirgata]

Ms

Hi A.V.,

Apologies in advance, but you're so talented, I just had to throw this out there and see what happens. Rhyme time, four word prompt: sarcasm, phantasm, protoplasm, orgasm.

Absolutely love your work!

“Patriarchal systems ruin everything,” Scully says. “I mean sure, you’ll hear people talking about how in medieval Europe they believed a female orgasm was necessary for conception, but it was just so that rape allegations could be dropped if the victim became pregnant.”

She stabs angrily at a beet.

Mulder holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not defending it. I got my DPhil in psych but I’m hardly a Freudian, I read Half the Sky. Big fan.”

Scully glowered. “Do not. Get me started. On Freud.”

He won’t, he never does.

“Anyway,” she says. “I mean look, I’m a cradle Catholic, it’s my comfort zone, but….”

“The Patriarch, the Kid, and the Sacred Phantasm not doing it for you anymore, Doctor Scully?”

She sighs at a candied walnut. “I just…I don’t know. Maybe I need to be more in touch with the Divine Feminine. The Blessed Mother, in Catholic terms.”

Mulder ponders this. “Funny you work with so many men in dresses.”

Scully smiles a little. “Listen, I’m glad to be practicing medicine again, I am. But Ybarra is…” she rolls her eyes skyward, assuming the Heavenly Host will understand her dilemma.

“No fucking fun at all and a complete asshole besides?”

Her thin smile grows to a full grin. “Pretty much.”

Mulder touches her face then, just a quick thumb at her Michelangelo cheekbone. “Well, I’ll keep your skills sharp. Sarcasm, sardonism, irony…all the major classes of smart remarks. I got you, babe.”

Scully laughs her adorable laugh. “What a lucky girl I am.”

“As long as you’re aware,” he says, modestly.

Scully furrows her brow. “Though, actually…what is the difference between sarcastic and sardonic? I was never clear.”

Mulder spears a chunk of roasted potato, gestures with it vaguely. “I believe that was covered at Oxford at some point too, actually. But I don’t recall, and who cares about semantics? Pop quiz, hot shot - what’s the difference between protoplasm, cytoplasm, and the biological ectoplasm?”

He sits back, waiting.

Scully, of course, looks smug. “Well, the nucleus is inclu-“

“Oh my god, shut up,” he says, and leans across the table to kiss her.

[slippinmickeys]

Three Part Harmony (18/?)

Twelve hours alone in a cell, and then back into the interview room, this time shackled to the floor. When Skinner walked in, Mulder had a distinct sense of Déjà vu.

“When I asked for a lawyer, I wasn’t expecting you,” Mulder said. “We tried that once. Didn’t go so well.”

“I remember,” Skinner said, dropping heavily into the chair across from him.

The room didn’t have a window, just a bluish fluorescent light that hummed at a frequency that made Mulder want to hitch his shoulders up over his ears. Skinner’s countenance was grave.

“What is it?” Mulder asked, his first thought: Scully, Scully, Scully.

Skinner sighed. “They’re sending me back to DC. My task force as well.”

Mulder unclenched a little. “We got a whole task force? The girls at the salon will never believe this.”

Skinner ignored him. “I assembled it myself,” he said. “Level heads. Uncompromised .”

The man was warning him, Mulder realized.

“You worried about the local yokels?”

Again, Skinner breezed past his glib comments. “You’re to be transferred to a federal facility in Utah,” he went on. “Transportation by US Marshals, the whole nine yards.”

“They’re really rolling out the red carpet. I’m humbled.”

“Once I leave, I can’t help you, Mulder,” Skinner said plainly. “The agent taking over was sent from on high. The providence of which stinks to high heaven. You’ll need to be extremely careful. And you are going to need a shit-hot lawyer.”

“Think the mesothelioma guy I saw on TV is available? I’ve heard good things about class action.”

Skinner leveled a crestfallen look at him. “You’re being awfully flippant.”

“That’s because I remember how this goes,” Mulder said, suddenly weary, thinking of a baton ringing off the bars of his military cell. Wrong answer!

Skinner sighed. “Your fate may well be decided, Mulder,” he said sadly. “But hers isn’t. His isn’t. If they’re nearby, they should go. And they should not stop moving.”

Everything inside Mulder went flat. It felt like Mount Weather all over again. He sighed. “Can you tell her?” he said quietly. “Can you let her know what’s happening?”

Skinner licked his lips, nodded solemnly.

“Before you leave town, you really ought to try the pie at this one diner on route 80. Coffee’s good, too.” Mulder gave him a significant look.

“I know the place,” Skinner said, his eyes soft. “I’ll be sure to stop in.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

When she was a girl, just up from Georgia, the stink of burning crosses still sharp in her nose, Rhonda Fitzsimmons befriended a wild doe with black-tipped ears.

The deer had a noticeable limp in her right foreleg, and would frequently bed down under the trees behind Rhonda’s uncle’s cabin with her small matriarchal herd. But when the other deer would wander off in the morning to search for food, Rhonda’s doe would stay put, sometimes lolling for the entirety of the day in the soft, fragrant needles of pine.

Rhonda would watch her from the back bedroom, thinking at first that the deer was just comfortable and lazy, but realizing, when the poor thing tried to stand, that she was in fact hurt, and wasn’t moving on with the other deer because she couldn’t .

The girl recognized in the animal a familiar, as wounded as Rhonda was, equally as unable to move on. She named the doe Peaches, and imagined her fur was as soft as the stone fruit from the fields Rhonda had so recently and regretfully left.

She began sneaking carrots and apples from the crisper drawer, wilting celery, various vegetable odds and ends that she quietly plucked from her uncle’s composting pile, and took them all out behind the house, walking softly and quietly, and throwing them as best she could through the stands of trees toward the injured deer.

The other deer, if they were around, would leap from their beds as Rhonda approached, their tails flung up to reveal the white danger! signal intrinsic to the species. But Peaches, unable to leap like her sisters, would remain prone, her ears swiveling, following Rhonda’s every move, her glistening black muzzle bobbing, sipping the air for information hidden from less sensitive noses.

Rhonda would then back away respectfully and turn to go back inside, watching from her window as the deer would slowly and shakily rise to her feet and limp to whatever Rhonda had left for her, chewing lazily with her right leg pulled awkwardly up, the smooth cloven hoof an arrow pointed at her underbelly.

Peaches and her herd would sometimes disappear for days or weeks at a time, and Rhonda would wake in the night, squinting into the dark, trying to see through the inky black night, convinced the deer had finally succumbed to her injuries. And then, at times she would least expect it, like a soft, rare apracity after long gray winter days, there Peaches would be; thin but whole, her liquid eyes seeming to search out Rhonda’s.

The deer, her leg injury never quite mending, would go on to visit Rhonda for two more improbable years before finally disappearing from the mountain and Rhonda’s life, as though she had waited for the girl to heal where she could not. As though she was a quiet answer to a silent prayer.

Rhonda remembered Peaches now, as she watched the mother and her young son, reminding herself that the chances for a miracle, though infinitesimally small, were not exactly zero.

XxXxXxXxXxX

When Agent Bryson walked in, Mulder pinched the bridge of his nose. He tried to recall if he’d ever seen an episode of Law & Order that took place entirely in an interrogation room. He would have turned it off.

He wondered if the Sheriff department’s door had even shut on Skinner and the rest of his team before Bryson barged into the interview room carrying a thick Manila file folder and the acrid scent of stale cigarette smoke.

The man looked Mulder over eagerly, which irritated him to the point that he casually looked down at his wrist, as if the booking officer hadn’t taken his watch.

“Mr. Mulder, my name is Special Agent Bryson with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I believe we were once eligible to share the same credit union.”

Mulder ignored him, again looked at his wrist, then rubbed the strip of pale skin.

“You have somewhere else to be?” Bryson asked, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice.

Mulder shrugged. “Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.”

“I’ll say. You’re in some trouble.”

Again, Mulder shrugged, sensing that his blasé attitude was getting under the other agent’s skin, and drawing a small amount of satisfaction from the offense.

Bryson narrowed his eyes and lowered himself into the chair Skinner had vacated.

“You no longer have the assistant director to protect you.”

“That much is obvious,” Mulder finally spoke. “I’m going to exercise my right to remain silent if it’s all the same to you.”

It was Bryson’s turn to shrug. The other man studied him for a long minute and then opened the file in front of him, scanning the contents for far longer than he needed to. Mulder was willing to bet the guy knew that file inside and out.

Finally the other man flipped the folder closed and sighed, looking at Mulder frankly.

“How about we both stop pretending that we don’t know exactly what each other wants.”

The buzzing from the overhead lights seemed to get louder, and Mulder cracked his neck before speaking. “You’re willing to admit that you have no interest whatsoever in justice? That you’re merely a tool in the machinations of more powerful men? That’s unexpected, but refreshing.”

“I’m talking about what we both want, Mulder,” Bryson said. “And only some of those wants are at cross purposes.” The man looked at him as if willing him to get on his page. Finally he asked, “How’s Scully?”

At the mention of her name, his stomach rocked in upheaval, but Mulder remained stonily silent.

“Dry climate, high altitude,” Bryson went on. “Either of you ever get vertigo? Short of breath?…Nosebleeds?”

His inflection on the last word made Mulder’s blood run cold.

“We don’t really care about you, Mulder,” the man went on, not knowing what kind of storm he’d ignited in Mulder’s heart. “And though Scully has proved useful in the past, her contributions… Well, we have what we need from her. In fact, I could probably be talked into dropping the charges against you. Letting the two of you walk free.”

Wants, Bryson had said. The bastard wasn’t off the mark.

“In exchange for what?” Mulder asked, already knowing the answer.

“I have two…colleagues…with a very interesting story about something that happened to them in a little boy’s bedroom across the state line in Montana.”

With the birth of William, Mulder’s wants had shifted. Seismically. With the same kind of tumult currently running roughshod through his heart. In a flash of rage, Mulder pulled on the chains that secured his handcuffs to the floor in impotent fury. Bryson had the temerity to laugh.

“William’s number had been called, but his priority stature has gone through the roof, Mulder. The next time we come for your boy, we’ll be sending a lot more than just four mercenaries.” All pretense that Bryson was an upstanding federal officer whose sole aspiration was the interest of justice was gone.

Mulder tried to stand, but the chains held his hands at knee-level, forcing him to stoop. He wanted to throw himself at the agent, could understand why chained dogs still hurled themselves against their restraints. He wanted to bark, growl, slaver, rip the man’s throat out with his teeth. If Bryson noticed, he didn’t care.

“The forces coming to take William will be like the very hand of God. People will get hurt.” ‘People,’ Bryson said. Scully , Mulder heard.

Mulder dropped heavily back into the metal chair, beads of sweat on his upper lip.

“Bring the child to me, and nothing will happen to Scully. You’ll both be free to go, to get back to your lives in DC, if you want. See your families. Reacquire your assets. No more running.”

Mulder’s mind reeled, but Bryson continued to sit there casually.

“The two of you can make other babies, Mulder,” he then went on. “You’ve certainly had a lot of practice lately.”

Blood was rushing through his head in such a roar, he barely heard the viscous words coming out of his own mouth.

“Fuck you.”

Bryson shrugged. “Suit yourself. Juries don’t take kindly to kidnappers. Though it will take months to bring you to trial. Lot can happen. Life has a way of…metastasizing.”

Mulder had to breathe through his nose to calm down. He had to remind himself; they had sent the chip to Agent Doggett when they’d removed it from Scully’s neck. Should anything turn sideways with her health, she would go to him and they could reimplant it if necessary.

William would need to separate from her until they could figure out a solution, but, Mulder hoped, Bryson’s threats were more empty than he realized. Mulder could withstand anything so long as he knew Scully and William were out there somewhere safe. He could withstand separation. He could withstand death itself.

He’d done it before.

“Tell me where they are.”

Mulder breathed deeply, regained his composure. “Over my dead body,” he said.

Bryson sucked on his teeth, nodded.

“You’re far more useful to me alive.”

When Mulder didn’t respond, the smile that crawled up Bryson’s face was serpent-like, revealing wide, brilliantly white teeth.

“Wherever you are, Dana Scully is never far away,” he explained. “And I know your son is with her. She gave him up once. She won’t make that mistake again. She’s terribly predictable.”

Dana Scully was many things, Mulder thought. ‘Predictable’ didn’t make his top twenty.

“So what does that make me?” he wanted to know.

“Bait,” Bryson said, flashing an incisor.

[oohnotvery]

The Coldest Night of the Year (Chapter 6)

A soft light seeps through the slats of Mulder’s blinds, waking her slowly. Scully stretches out her spine, smiling at the feeling of Mulder’s warm body behind her, of his arms loosely encircling her. With the power still out, she can’t read the time on the T.V. set, but her body is telling her that she needs the bathroom quickly.

As delicately as she can, she moves Mulder’s arm off and wriggles out from under the blanket. Cursing silently at the chill that blasts her, she pads off to the bathroom. She’s returning to the living room when something catches her eye and she turns.

Diana is perched beside the kitchen countertop, her fingers curled around a glass of water. She is still wearing Mulder’s t-shirt, but it doesn’t bother Scully as badly this time around. Diana didn’t get to wake up wrapped in his arms.

Diana’s lips curl slightly at the edges and she beckons for Scully to approach. Hesitantly, Scully walks up to the counter and meets the other woman’s eyes.  

“I see Fox was a gentleman last night,” she starts quietly, her voice just a purr, “keeping you warm on a cold night.”  

Scully raises a blunt eyebrow but doesn’t respond. She knows Diana is just trying to get in her head.

Diana takes a step closer, her eyes narrowing. “I know you,” she starts. “I know that dopey, lovesick look in your eyes. I know how you feel about him, and I know why you’re here. You probably think you were victorious last night. That you won him.”

Scully tries not to react, keeping her face stoic. Inside, her stomach churns.

“But I’ve been there. I’ve had him,” Diana continues. “And all those things he says to you and promises you—that you’re the only one he wants, that you’re the only one he wants to hold at night—are fleeting. What he loves are his X-Files. What he wants is a partner who believes in him and believes in his theories. And you’re not that and never have been. At the end of the day, you’re just a tempting piece of flesh he’s never gotten to gnaw on. Once he’s had you, he’ll tire of you, because you can’t possibly hold his interest. You can’t possibly keep his love. You’re a fun toy now, but that fades when he realizes you’ll always be there to question him, or debunk him, or distract him.” Her mouth settles into a grim smile. “And that’s when he’ll return to me. Because you may have a history, yes, but I’ve known him longer. I was there when the X-Files were founded. And those files will always hold a greater sway in his heart than you ever could. So that’s why I’m not upset this morning. I just have to be patient. Wait him out. Maybe it’s months, maybe it’s even a year that he gives himself to you. Time will tell. But you can bet one thing for certain: I’ll be here at the end of all things, waiting to welcome him home.”

A rustling noise breaks her attention and Scully swivels her head. Mulder is walking towards them, his hair wonderfully sleep-mussed and t-shirt bunched up on his abdomen. He cocks a head towards them and grins a little.

“You ladies gossiping without me?” He scratches the back of his head and suddenly, Scully is sure he’s never looked so clueless in his life. Her heart nosedives in her chest as Mulder stares at her. She knows she shouldn’t let Diana’s words affect her, but they are things she’s told herself, many, many times. You don’t need me, Mulder; you never have. I’ve just held you back.

She swallows under his searing gaze. Ignoring Diana, she walks over to the kitchen cabinet and with trembling hands, pulls down a glass. She drinks two cups of water before turning back around.

She can hear Diana and Mulder discussing something, but her ears are buzzing and she can’t make out their words. She just knows she needs to get out. She needs to go. She needs to be by herself and think, dammit.

Sparing Mulder a quick glance, she heads towards the bathroom and collects her clothes, which have mostly dried. Ignoring the cold that blasts her naked skin, she yanks on her pants and sweater and throws Mulder’s clothes in his hamper.

When she returns to the living room, he cocks his head questioningly at her.

“Somewhere you need to be?” he asks with a frown.

She attempts a small smile. She needs him not to worry; not to question; not to hold her up. “I really need to get home,” she says.

He frowns deeper. “Scully, give it a few hours. The snow just stopped. You won’t be able to get a cab until the roads have been cleared.”

She shakes her head. “I could use a walk. Plus, I bet the buses are running.”

“A walk?” he asks in disbelief. “That could take hours in this weather—”

“The buses are running,” Diana interrupts before Scully can proceed with her ridiculous plan. “I heard them go by earlier this morning.”

Mulder shoots Diana a dark look and turns to Scully. “Scully, this is crazy—”

She forces her smile even wider. “Thank you for a great night,” she tells him, hoping that will stave him off. “I’ll call you when the phones are back on,” she lies.

Mulder continues to protest her departure all the way up to the elevator, but Diana is following them closely and for once, Scully is grateful. It gives him no chance for private conversation.

She braces herself for the unbearable cold as the doors swing open, but barely feels the sting of chill on her cheeks. She steps out into a truly magical scene: snow lining the sidewalks and piled high on the sides of the buildings; a quiet, empty street.

She decides to walk. The snow is so fresh and powdery that her boots tread through it easily. The sun warms her face and the wind is calm, so for a while, she feels at peace with the exercise.

And it seems Diana was right, indeed: the buses are running. It takes her a few attempts to get on the right bus heading into the city, but she eventually figures it out.

When she gets home, her building has regained power, which is some comfort. She makes a kettle of tea and runs a hot bath, blasting the heat as she does. Not until she is fully submerged in the tub does she allow the weight of Diana’s words to settle.

I’ve known him longer. I was there when the X-Files were founded. And those files will always hold a greater sway in his heart than you ever could.

She swallows past the lump in her throat. Is Diana right? Will Mulder eventually tire of her once he’s had his fill? Is she just a temporary attraction, a temptation he’s always felt but has never acted on? And once the thrill of newness is gone, what will she be to him? A distraction, a non-believer, a liability.

She sinks beneath the bubbles, letting the warm water wash away her tears.

[cecilysass]

20 Fanfic Questions

Thanks for the tag (days and days ago now) @randomfoggytiger.

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 21 as of today, which is kind of wild. (I have some on Gossamer, too, because: old.)

2. What's your total AO3 words count?306,501. Working on another longer-ish one that will bump that up.

3. What fandoms do you write for?The X-Files by and large. One time I wrote a fic for a very popular fandom of the 00s I never actually posted, and now I feel differently about that fandom and never will. I can imagine a world where I might write for another fandom, but I am pretty XF-centric right now.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?Chicken Dinner, Pause, The Boy on the Beach, The Kaleidoscope, Unobserved.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?I do respond to comments, but not all the time. I get behind in responding, and then I have to not respond to any of them to make it consistent, if that makes any sense at all? (Because someone might wonder—why did she respond to that comment and not to mine?) I know, I know, I'm sorry.  I honestly love every single comment, and I prefer to respond to them. When I have my life together, I have had great conversations in comments before. 

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?As I read over my work, I have not done a lot of angsty endings, although I have plenty of angst. I have a very old fic written the summer between season 7 and 8 called Opposition and Synthesis (one of many post-Requiem fics) that is on Gossamer and ends angsty, but that’s not a widely read piece any more, lol. I would say of my more recent work, probably Ice Water ends the angstiest. 

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I have lots of happy endings. I couldn’t say.

8. Do you get hate on fics?Nooooo, not per se. I have gotten very critical comments from people who are disappointed by the turn the fic has taken, or comments taking issue with my interpretation of canon. I remember someone didn’t like the idea of Scully going on dates at all in the break-up era, and they complained about that in the comments on End of Story. That’s a difference in headcanon, so sometimes it’s frustrating when people feel theirs should prevail. But I haven’t really received what I would call “hate” exactly (so far) for which I am grateful.

9. Do you write smut. If so what kind? I have, but it’s not my favorite. It’s completely hypocritical of me because I like to read it, but it’s not my most comfortable area of writing. I think it’s a problem of not being terribly visual.  I do feel sometimes it’s necessary to a story, and my betas peer pressure me into including it sometimes, too.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?I haven’t. 

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? No.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes. People translated some of my fic into Russian one time.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before? No. I would like to do that. 

14. What's your all-time favourite ship? Mulder and Scully. Duh.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? Okay, I have told this story a few times, so bear with me if you’ve heard it, but I had a WIP I hadn’t finished between 2000-ish and 2021. That’s right. Twenty years. It would be very reasonable to assume I was never finishing that fic, as the first two parts had been up on Gossamer for years and I had not been seen or heard from in decades. Then during the pandemic I came back to thinking about the show, and when I came back to the fandom there were oddly people who still knew my fic. And I remembered this WIP and still had some of the ancient Word files of later chapters on my Google drive, so I decided to make a little project of finishing it and posting it to AO3. And now it’s finished. (It’s called Bloodline. You can read it and see if you can tell where the narrative is written 20 years apart.)  So I don’t believe in doubting you’ll ever finish WIPs. Never say never.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think dialogue. I would not have said plotting when I restarted this hobby, but I do think I have gotten better at plotting. And I do plan things out. I do a lot of research.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Smut. Logistics in moving around in general – like when someone is standing or sitting and how they move from one place in the room to the other. I write in present tense a lot but past tense sometimes, so sometimes I mess up tense absent-mindedly. I’m also a very slow writer who rewrites a lot. When I see people get a prompt and then post the fic a few days later, my mind is blown, because I could absolutely never. People who do Fictober also have my deep respect, because that would be a very, very hard thing for me.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I would only do it very sparingly or with extensive help, as I’m not a fluent speaker in anything but English. I could probably write a little French or Spanish dialogue to understand (I think I did write a tiny bit of Spanish dialogue in We’re Not Here To Get Involved In Personal Problems). But I would really want a more fluent speaker to look it over if I were doing any significant amount.

19. First fandom you wrote for? The X-Files, really, if you don’t count that middle school Victoria Holt romance novel sequel I wrote for English class.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? I’m going to choose three, okay? Is that egotistical? I’m sorry if so. I’ve always really liked Jackson Van De Kamp’s Not-So-Final Repose. It’s not perfect, but it’s quirky and fantastical and sentimental and has a special place in my heart. It’s also more like a play, which is probably one of the genres my writing is most influenced by. I also really like The Boy on the Beach, which took a year to write and involved so, so much research, which was fun and a positive experience. Finally, I like How To Eat Pleasant Holiday Meals With Co-Workers, which was a prompt for a holiday exchange (early MSR Thanksgiving) that I expanded into a series of Thanksgivings over the years. I ended up really enjoying imagining each of those Thanksgivings, especially the last one. That last one is my forever post-revival headcanon now lol.

Would anyone like to do this? I'm going to tag @mollybecameanengineer if she hasn't yet, but anyone should.

[billdecker]

I’ve spent nine months perfecting my 40th birthday party playlist and I think I have it. It’s split up into kinda eras/musical obsessions of my life and songs that mean a lot to me/remind me of people no longer in my life, so here we are...

Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes

I Predict a Riot - Kaiser Chiefs

Apply Some Pressure - Maximo Park

Banquet - Bloc Party

Michael - Franz Ferdinand

Mirror Kissers - The Cribs

Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand

Somebody Told Me - The Killers

Fell In Love With a Girl - The White Stripes

One Step Beyond - Madness

The Sound of the Suburbs - The Members

Jilted John - Jilted John

Anarchy in the UK - Sex Pistols

Teenage Kicks - The Undertones

Ever Fallen in Love - Buzzcocks

Going Underground - The Jam

Rock the Casbah - The Clash

Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way - The Blow Monkeys

Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears for Fears

The Look of Love - ABC

Wishing I Was Lucky - Wet Wet Wet

Breakout - Swing Out Sister

Yes Sir, I Can Boogie - Baccara

Dancing Queen - ABBA

Best of My Love - The Emotions

Got To Be Real - Cherly Lynn

Never Too Much - Luther Vandross

Boogie Wonderland - Earth, Wind & Fire

You To Me Are Everything - The Real Thing

The Snake - Al Wilson

Move On Up - Curtis Mayfield

Land of 1000 Dances - Wilson Pickett

Do I Love You - Frank Wilson

Get Ready - The Temptations

Reach Out, I’ll Be There - Four Tops

My Girl - The Temptations

I Can’t Help Myself - Four Tops

This Old Heart of Mine - The Isley Brothers

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross

I Wanna Dance With Somebody - Whitney Houston

Respectable - Mel & Kim

London Nights - London Boys

When Will I Be Famous? - Bros

Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley

You’ll Never Step Me From Loving You - Sonia

Too Many Broken Hearts - Jason Donovan

Love in the First Degree - Bananarama

Venus - Bananarama

One For Sorrow - Steps

All That She Wants - Ace of Base

Love to Hate You - Erasure

Love Shack - The B-52′s

Sweat (A La La La La Song) - Inner Circle

Baby I Love Your Way - Big Mountain

Shine - Aswad

Would I Lie To You? - Charlie & Eddie

Return of the Mack - Mark Morrison

Save Our Love - Eternal

Stay - Eternal

Naked - Louise

Maybe - Emma Bunton

Mi Chico Latino - Geri Halliwell

I Turn To You - Melanie C

Out of Your Mind - True Steppers, Dane Bowers, Victoria Beckham

I Want You Back - Mel B, Missy Elliott

Re-Rewind - Artful Dodger, Craig David

Scandalous - Mis-Teeq

Flowers - Sweet Female Attitude

I Know Where It’s At - All Saints

Never Ever - All Saints

Stay - Lisa Loeb

I Quit - Hepburn

Drop Dead Gorgeous - Republica

Trouble - Shampoo

Bitch - Meredith Brooks

You Oughta Know - Alanis Morissette

Celebrity Skin - Hole

Weak - Skunk Anansie

Don’t Speak - No Doubt

Torn - Natalie Imbruglia

I Want It That Way - Backstreet Boys

Crazy For You - Let Loose

Love Me For a Reason - Boyzone

Keep On Movin - Five

Be the First to Believe - A1

Love Here I Come - Bad Boys Inc

I’m a Man, Not a Boy - North & South

House of Love - East 17

Let’s Get Ready to Rhumble - PJ & Duncan

If I Give You My Number - PJ & Duncan

I Should Be So Lucky - Kylie Minogue

Never Too Late

Step Back in Time

Better the Devil You Know

Spinning Around

Can’t Get Blue Monday Out of My Head - Kylie, New Order

Girls & Boys - Blur

Connection - Elastica

Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana

Creep - Radiohead

Song 2 - Blur

Your Woman - White Town

Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve

Change - Lightning Seeds

Trash - Suede

A Girl Like You - Edwyn Collins

Disco 2000 - Pulp

Common People - Pulp

Country House - Blur

Mulder and Scully - Catatonia

World in Motion - New Order

Three Lions - Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds

Wannabe - Spice Girls

Say You’ll Be There

Who Do You Think You Are?

Spice Up You Life

Stop

Old Before I Die - Robbie Williams

Rock DJ

Millennium

No Regrets

Angels

Babe - Take That

Once You’ve Tasted Love

It Only Takes a Minute

I Found Heaven

Could It Be Magic

Everything Changes

Pray

Relight My Fire

Two Can Play That Game - Bobby Brown

I Luv U Baby - The Original

Don’t Give Me Your Life - Alex Party

Never Let Her Slip Away - Undercover

When I’m Good and Ready - Sybil

Ride on Time - Black Box

The Rhythm of the Night - Corona

No Limit - 2 Unlimited

Get A Way - Maxx

The Key The Secret - Urban Cookie Collective

U Sure Do - Strike

I Breathe Again - Adam Rickitt

Spaceman - Babylon Zoo

Red Alert - Basement Jaxx

Feel It - The Tamperer, Maya

Freed From Desire - Gala

Mr Vain - Culture beat

What Is Love? - Haddaway

Gypsy Woman - Crystal Waters

Finally - CeCe Peniston

Free - Ultra Nate

Dreamer - Livin Joy

Let Me Be Your Fantasy - Baby D

I’m Alive - Stretch n Vern

Set You Free - N-Trance

disco tits - Tove Lo

Coconuts - Kim Petras

Outside - George Michael

It’s a Sin - Pet Shop Boys

Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Gimme Gimme Gimme - ABBA

Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler

Let’s Dance - David Bowie

Temptation - Heaven 17

Gold - Spandau Ballet

Karma Chameleon - Culture Club

Club Tropicana - Wham

I’m Still Standing - Elton John

Uptown Girl - Billy Joel

Young at Heart - The Bluebells

Come On Eileen - Dexys Midnight Runners

I Could Be So Good For You - Dennis Waterman

Amarillo - Tony Christie

Delilah - Tom Jones

The Best - Tina Turner

All Around the World - Lisa Stansfield

The Time of My Life - Billy Medley, Jennifer Warnes

Especially For You - Kylie, Jason

Perfect Moment - Martine McCutcheon

Chains - Tina Arena

A Design For Life - Manic Street Preachers

Yes - McAlmont & Butler

I Do This All The Time - Self Esteem

Zombie - The Cranberries

This Charming Man - The Smiths

Paranoid Android - Radiohead

The Wonder of You - Elvis Presley

Don’t Look Back in Anger - Oasis

Baby I Love You - The Ramones

[jodithann827]

Pretty Woman 10/11

Rating: Explicit / posted on AO3 / tagging @today-in-fic

Waldorf Astoria

3:28 pm

Pool Deck

“You’re glowing,” Missy states. Dana blushes uncomfortably, hating when any spotlight is focused on her; even a sweet comment from her sister.

“Seriously, Dana, you seem different.” They are sitting on the edge of the pool, their feet skimming the silky, cool water.

“I guess I feel different, Missy. I feel…” She searches for a word, coming up with the echo of Mulder’s earlier revelation, “Alive.”

“Oh my god, Dana,” Missy suddenly states while simultaneously pulling her sunglasses away from her eyes so that she can stare into her sister’s.

“What?” Scully asks, innocently.

“You kissed him,” Missy accuses.

Dana starts to shake her head, but never one for lying—especially to Missy—she turns her head shake into a nod of admittance.

“Dana Katherine Scully, have I taught you nothing? Do anything you want, just no kissing on the mouth,” she scolds.

“Too little too late for that sis,” she replies, crimson spreading across her neck, reaching higher and higher. Melissa gapes at her. Scully bends her head, as though she’s being chastised like a child, even though Melissa is silent. Her stare says it all.

After what feels like an eternity, though is probably less than a minute, Melissa says, “You’re in love with him.” Scully remains quiet, unable to deny her sister’s accusation. Melissa sighs at her sister’s silence.“This is why I told you, never, ever kiss on the lips.”

“It’s more than that, Melissa. I think I fell for him after that first night. There’s something about him, he’s changed me, and I think he has changed himself.”

“Dana, this isn’t the fairytale you used to dream about when we were kids. He’s not going to sweep you off your feet. The world doesn’t work like that,” Missy tells her, a cynical tone in her voice.

“You don’t know him, Missy–” she starts.

“They’re all the same, Dana,” Missy insists.

“Where is this coming from, Missy? Miss ‘everything happens for a reason’. Miss ‘souls can spot their mate’, yadda yadda yadda crap?” Scully knew Missy wouldn’t believe her, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t hurt by Melissa’s comments.

“You’re right,” Missy says, easing up a bit, “I’m sorry. I just question how much you know about him.”

Scully exhales. She knows her sister, while very open-minded, would never understand. She quickly changes the subject. “Let's go have a late lunch in the hotel restaurant. I’m meeting Mulder back in the room when he’s done at the office before he heads to the airport.”

SocialPro Headquarters

Beverly Hills

2:45 pm

The smell of stale smoke fills his nose before he even looks up to see the owner of the offending stench. Not bothering to knock, Mr. Spender strolls leisurely into Mulder’s office. Mulder knows it isn’t possible, but it seems the temperature drops suddenly by at least 10 degrees.

“I’m glad you called me, Mr. Mulder,” Spender says, taking a seat and wasting no time, “though I have to be honest, I wasn’t sure you were going to.”

“Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I was going to either,” Mulder genuinely responds, “but I’m leaving tonight and one thing I dislike is leaving loose ends.”

“So you’ve given my offer some thought?” Spender asks, nonchalantly.

“I have,” he responds, cautiously, eyeing the man in front of him. It’s as though they are doing a very carefully choreographed dance. Mulder’s lack of continuance spurs Spender to anger.

“I’m sure you’ll be very happy working for me,” he begins to say.

Mulder crosses his arms in a protective manner and states, “no deal.”

“Excuse me?” Spender questions. A flash of trepidation moves across his face, though it is gone as quickly as it came, replaced by the poker face Mulder knows well.

“I said, no deal. I think that’s pretty clear,” Mulder reiterates.

“You don’t know what you–”

“I know exactly what I’m doing, Mr. Spender. I watched my father spend years working for people just like you. I may be in this business for the money, but I won’t trade in lies and deceit. You haven’t given me a clear answer from the moment we met. Yes, I might be turning down buying your

Company, and the great deal of money I could

Make back from it, but I think keeping my dignity and self-respect is well worth it. And the bottom line is that I don’t trust you. Good day, Mr. Spender.”

Aghast, Spender stands and makes his way to the door. Turning back towards Mulder, he threatens, “You haven’t seen the last of me, Mr. Mulder.” The slam of the door on his way out shakes the walls.

Mulder unfolds his arms and gently pinches the bridge of his nose before lowering his head to rest on his desk. Yes, he lost out on a great deal of money, however, if there is anything he learned this week, it’s that it’s better to have a soul than a large wallet. His business will be fine. He can recover. He still has multiple social media platforms.

As Mulder runs through contingency plans in his head, he hears the creak of his door opening, and then Diana’s soft voice.

“Fox? Is everything okay? I just saw Mr. Spender on my way in. What did you say to him? His face—I saw a lot of anger.”

At first, Mulder doesn’t respond to her, somehow anticipating the lecture that will leave her lips.

“Fox, tell me you closed the deal,” Diana demands. He finally looks up and catches her eye. She knows him so well that he doesn’t have to confirm her suspicions. The look on his face tells her everything she needs to know. “How could you?” She challenges.

“It’s not the way I want to do business Diana,” he’s brief. Suddenly he has the overwhelming urge to see Scully. “Look, Diana, I’m not going to argue with you. I have some things to finish up here and then I need to get going. I’ve got a flight tonight and I need to meet with Scully before I leave.” He’s shuffling through papers on his desk, clearly having nothing left to say to her. A lightbulb suddenly goes off in Diana’s brain and she slinks out of Mulder’s office.

Waldorf Astoria

Penthouse

4:00 pm

After she leaves Missy in the lobby, Scully goes about her afternoon, straightening up the hotel, packing her things, and fidgeting. She can’t sit idly by waiting for Mulder. She replays the conversation with Missy in her head as she moves about the penthouse. Of course fairytales don’t exist. Scully is a practical person. She knows there is no such thing as a fairytale ending. It’s a slightly cynical thought, but true nonetheless. Mulder is due to leave in a few hours to go back to New York. She’ll never see him again. The thought of this makes her heart ache exponentially, a feeling she has only felt one other time in her life.

Pull it together Dana, she scolds herself. A knock at the door pulls her from her depressing thoughts. Heading towards the door, she yells, “Mulder, did you forget your key?” Whipping the door open, she is suddenly facing Diana, not Mulder. She hastily wipes the surprised look off her face and opens the door wider to allow Diana access.

“If you’re looking for Mulder, he’s not here,” she explains, closing the door and following Diana into the living room.

“You must think you’re so special,” Diana comments, gently tracing the top of the mantle on the marble fireplace. Her back is turned, but Scully hears every punctuated word.

“Excuse me?” she asks anyway. This time Diana turns towards the smaller woman.

“You must think you’re so special,” she repeats.

“Why is that?” Scully asks, leaning against the arm of the sofa.

“How did you get him to do it?” Diana asks, as though Scully is fully aware and part of the conversation.

“Do what? Diana, if you need Mulder I’m sure you can find him at the office–”

“He turned the deal down,” she states matter of factly, glaring at Scully, as though Scully is directly responsible for all of the world’s misfortunes.

Realization slowly dawns on Scully. She doesn’t say anything, sensing Diana isn’t done speaking.

“He was doing fine,” she begins to explain. “He was going to be here for a week, close the deal, and head back to New York. He was going to spend a lot of money to make an obscene amount of money in the long run and be in a perfect position for any other company his heart desired. Fox had everything going for him, and then he met you.”

“You seem to think I–” Scully begins, but apparently Diana isn’t finished.

“You changed him,” she accuses.

Scully closes her mouth. She can’t deny that Mulder seems different from the man she met on the strip that fateful evening. Maybe she did have something to do with the change. But surely he wouldn’t become a different person unless he himself was ready, she reckons.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Diana,” Scully says.

“I mean, sex can cloud someone’s judgment. You’ve been with him all week, so I guess the amount of sex he’s had…” she trails off and Scully looks astounded. She protectively crosses her arms around herself. “Don’t get me wrong,” Diana continues, slowly advancing towards the couch where Scully is stuck in place. “There are definitely times I’ve played out different scenarios of him and me in my head. We are of the same world, a world you know nothing about.” She motions for Scully to sit, Diana, taking the spot across from her. Sitting, Scully tries to interrupt, though Diana doesn’t give her a chance. “He and I are educated. You aren’t. Fox and I travel in the same circles. Do you even have friends or merely acquaintances? Your precious Mulder and I make a reputable living. You,” she pauses for emphasis, looking her up and down reprehensibly, “you have sex for money.” She goes in for the kill. “I see the way you look at him. You’ve fallen in love with him. He will never love you. You’ve merely been a bright and shiny new toy for him to play with this week, but I see you for who you truly are; a whore.”

Tears threaten to spill from Scully’s eyes, but she won’t give Diana the satisfaction. Unsure how to respond, Scully stays ghostly silent.

“You know,” Diana continues, “I have a lot of wealthy clients. Say the word and I can hook you up with all of them, one after another–”

“Enough!” a voice bellows, catching both women off guard. Scully turns to look and suddenly sees Mulder.

“Fox–” Diana begins, but is abruptly cut off.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought you could say such horrible and hurtful things, Diana. This amazing woman sitting here is a person, with a heart of gold. How dare you make her think otherwise. Because you’re what? Threatened? Territorial? Just a plain bitch?” he pauses, collecting his thoughts. “Get out. I can’t so much as look at you, let alone think about working with you,” he demands.

Without another word, or glance in Scully’s direction, Diana stands and makes her way to the door. She turns, quickly, “Fox–”

“Get out,” he yells again, holding firm in his decision.

The minute they hear the door close, each lets out a breath.

“Mulder—” Scully starts, but is quickly cut off.

“Baby,” he says, attempting to embrace her, “I’m so sorry. She said horrible and awful things.” Scully flinches when Mudler makes contact. He pulls his hands back, burned by her withdrawal.

“She’s right,” Scully points out, “I get paid to have sex with people. I didn’t go to college—hell, I didn’t make it through high school. And we are most definitely opposites, Mulder.”

As she’s talking, Mulder shakes his head. “You are so much more than that, Scully.” He’s silent for a minute, the two of them at an impasse.

Standing, breaking the silence and tension, Scully looks at him sadly. “You really should get going, Mulder. You don’t want to miss your flight.”

“It’s a private plane,” he tells her, reaching for her hand. She pulls it back, away from his reach.

“I’m all packed. Thank you for letting me keep the clothes,” she says. Mulder nods, sadly. Scully continues, “I uh, I was going to tell you, before Diana dropped by, but I decided to get my GED. I would like to eventually go to college. I was always interested in science; pretty good at it too, actually. After this week, I don’t know, but something feels different. I can’t go back to the life I was living.”

“I’m proud of you, Scully, really,” he says, his pure, sweet self shining through.

Scully grabs her string bag, swings it over her shoulder, and takes the suitcase in her other hand. Before going towards the door, she steps into Mulder’s space and gently kisses him on the cheek, simultaneously pushing a folded piece of paper into his hand.

“Don’t read that until you’re in the car,” she instructs. She makes her way to the door, but stops short, turns, and faces him.

“Thank you for seeing me, Mulder. The real me. That person hasn’t been seen in a long time.”

She turns to go before he can answer, not wanting him to see the tears beginning to fall.

[onhiatus-xxsksxx]

Liberating the Mirage

Summary:

When an assignment goes horribly wrong, Mulder has to race against time to find Scully.

But sometimes the line between reality and illusion blurs—and it turns out there’s more than one locked door that needs to be opened.

Notes:

This is my little contribution to Fictober, a yearly event that celebrates writing and reading—and fall. All of which are good things in my world.

Since there’s no way I can come up with a new story every day, I’ve decided to write one fic that includes all prompts from the Fictober 2023 prompt list. They’re all in bold if you want to seek them out specifically. You can find the list here: Fictober 2023

This story is complete, but to keep in the spirit of Fictober, I’m posting one chapter a day.

I hope you’ll have as much fun reading this fic as I had writing it.

AO3 | Start at the Beginning | @today-in-fic and @xffictober2023

Chapter 3: Mementos

Annapolis, Maryland Margaret Scully’s House

Mulder took a steadying breath and rang the doorbell. He noticed the curtains move and then the door was pulled open hastily.

“Fox! What a surprise,” Maggie Scully said, waving him inside and closing the door again. “What can I do for you?” She looked at him questionably before realization hit her and she froze. “Is it Dana?” she asked fearfully.

Mulder just shook his head. “I just want to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Scully,” he said softly, touching her arm. “We are looking for Dana right now. We believe she’s with a suspect we were surveilling,” he swallowed, trying to find the appropriate words to tell Scully’s mother once again that her daughter was missing. Why could he never relate any good news to this woman, he wondered.

Maggie’s face remained motionless, her tense silence urging him to go on.

“I was wondering if you had heard anything,” he asked hopefully. One look at Scully’s mother told him everything he needed to know. There had been no contact.

Maggie shook her head and ushered him towards her kitchen chairs. “Take a seat, Fox, and tell me what happened,” she demanded. “Do you want some coffee?” She turned around, pulling down a cup from her cupboard without waiting for his answer.

Mulder dutifully sat down and accepted the coffee she placed in front of him. Despite her stoic face, her hands were trembling.

“Why do you think anyone would contact me? Has she been kidnapped again?” Maggie asked finally, looking him right in the eyes.

Mulder lowered his head and slid his index finger around the cup’s rim, avoiding her eyes. “She was supposed to watch one of the exits at a warehouse, and both she and one of the people we were watching disappeared.”

The tension in the room felt thick enough to cut it with a knife, the quiet hum of the refrigerator the only sound.

He raised his head and smiled at Maggie, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Let’s not expect the worst, Mrs. Scully. We will find her.”

Maggie nodded, not looking convinced. “Do you know anything about where she is? If Dana’s alright?”

Mulder pressed his lips together but refused to lower his eyes. His jaw muscles jumped. “We don't know anything right now.”

Maggie swallowed and sat down at the table as well. “I know you're doing all you can, Fox. Dana has faith in you. I know you’ll find her.”

Mulder kept silent, hoping her faith in him was well-placed. He took a sip of his coffee, the hot liquid scalding the roof of his mouth, and stood back up. “Well, I need to get going, Mrs. Scully. I just wanted to make sure that you hadn’t been contacted. If you hear anything…”

The shrill ringing of the phone interrupted him, and he turned his head towards the hallway. Maggie looked at him with wide eyes before hurrying over to it. “Hello?” She was silent for a few seconds, then handed the receiver to Mulder. “It’s for you,” she said, her eyes questioning.

Mulder took the phone from her, his heart speeding up. “Mulder,” he said, waiting for the other person to speak.

“Agent Mulder, it’s nice to get to talk to you in person for once,” the voice said, and Mulder immediately recognized it. Eddie Connolly. He’d had to listen to this man’s voice on surveillance tapes for the last four weeks. Mulder narrowed his eyes and turned his body slightly away, so Maggie couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“What do you want? Where’s Scully?” he asked as quietly as possible, gritting his teeth in anger.

The man on the other end laughed. “Not so fast. First, I want to know who gave you the information on how to find me at that warehouse.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mulder replied monotonously.

“Let’s skip the games, Agent Mulder. We both know that you’ve got people working on the inside, and I want their names. And in exchange, you’ll get your pretty partner back. Not quite as new as she was, but as close to it as possible,” he laughed.

Mulder felt an icy shiver run down his back, and he clenched the receiver tightly in his fist. “How did you know where I am?”

Connolly’s voice was deadly serious. “After what happened yesterday, there’ll never be a time when we won’t know where you are anymore. Don’t underestimate this group, Agent Mulder. So I suggest you do as I say if you want your partner back!”

Mulder closed his eyes, a sense of dread filling him. Oh, Scully, I hope you’re okay, he thought. He took a deep breath, feeling his neck muscles relax slightly. “OK, where do you want to meet?”

“Meet me at midnight on the sixth level of the U.S. Capitol Mall Parking Garage. Oh, and Agent Mulder? I expect you to come alone. If I see one single suspicious-looking person around, I’ll leave—and your partner is on her own,” he threatened.

“I don’t know if they will accept this,” Mulder replied, but he was already talking to the dial tone. Connolly had hung up. Mulder slowly put the receiver down and looked at Maggie.

“I need to go, Mrs. Scully,” he said, moving towards the door.

Maggie took a delicate hold of his elbow, and Mulder looked down at her. “Is everything ok, Fox? Did they find Dana?” Maggie asked anxiously.

Mulder turned back around and smiled at her, but his eyes remained haunted. He hoped Mrs. Scully didn’t notice how anxious he was to get out of there. “This call was about Dana. We’re a lot closer to getting her back home. But I need to get going now, Mrs. Scully.”

Maggie released his elbow reluctantly. “Please find her, Fox. I know she trusts you. If anyone can get her back home, it’s you.”

Mulder’s heart beat like a drum against his rib cage, but he didn’t shy away from her look. “I will, Mrs. Scully. I will.”

Then he turned around and walked out, shutting the door firmly behind him.

*** Thank you so much for reading. You can also find this fic on AO3.

[amplifyme]

I'm on the "keep the miracle pregnancy" side-- but C'MON CC. You had all of S7 to lead up to his finale, admitted the whole crew/actors knew it was leading up to Requiem's twist, had Amor Fati spaceship (and possibly En Ami chip), so much time and build up you could have done aaaaaand no. You literally threw up your hands, gave us a post-humous IVF timeline that can't fit in S7, gave no explanation for Scully's pregnancy and had everyone dancing around it. 1/2

The best moments of S8 were Doggett and Skinner friend bits and MSR (of course)-- and the MSR was only as good as it got because DD had his micro-expressions and most of Empedocles was add-libbed (even in the scripts it said something along the lines of "they'll know what to do here" or "they do something in this scene.") I HATE Essence/Existence. If I feel all soft and snuggly, I'll cue up Essence's monologue, some of Mulder/Doggett, the babyshower, and SKIP to the last 5 min of Existence. 2/2

The polite person in me wants to say "sorry for the rant" but the petty side of me says "direct all annoyance at CC, he started this." And that's another thing! CC has every right to torpedo his own series; and I'm pretty hands off and will just say "that's not canon", dust my hands off, and move on. But to then turn and point the finger at fans, who were invested (and continue to be in part) in his work and blame them? Wild. ANyWaY, thanks for letting me rant~.  ;DDD 3/2

Hey, I’m always up for a good rant myself! 🤣

I’ll support your support for a miracle pregnancy, even though just the thought of it makes me break out out in hives. I’m a believer in live and let live, and the idea that there is no right or wrong way to be a fan. Having said all that...

To put it bluntly, Chris Carter shit the bed when it came to pretty much anything post-Je Souhaite. There are certain moments in what came after that I enjoy, but I can only do that if I’m able to view them as AU, something completely separate from the series I came to know and love. And it’s not just that I object to the mangled storylines and characterizations, or the blatant retconning he had to do to untangle the mess he himself created. It’s that’s so much (IMHO) of what I loved about the series and these remarkable characters wasn’t there anymore. Everything was dumbed down and simplified and painfully pedestrian. I didn’t recognize anyone anymore. Frankly, I didn’t care to.

You’re correct that CC had every right to torpedo his own series. But here’s the thing: you’ll never convince me that he will ever consider the notion that he’s the one responsible for its steep decline. I think he still believes that everything he touches is golden and he makes no mistakes. Now most of us, if we’re self-aware enough, learn from our mistakes and alter our behavior going forward to integrate those lessons learned and at least try to do better the next time. Instead of doing that, CC gave us IWTB and the My Struggle episodes in the revival. Not just one or two, but four of them, each more badly written and nonsensical than the last. And he still thinks they’re masterpieces of film making and writing. But I guess if you’ve been fed a steady diet of ego-stroking and consume only positive press over a few decades, it becomes difficult to pull your head out of your ass and take a good look around.

As an aside, I took on the challenge, this new year, to finally watch S9, none of which I’ve seen - with the exception of The Truth. I made it as far as Mulder taking a shower in his black boxers and Scully’s, “He’s gone. He’s just gone,” explanation before I bowed out. I can’t do it. I just can’t. More power to everyone out there who enjoys what came after S7. I wish I could see what y’all do, but I can’t. Neither my eyes or my heart are up for the task.