#she is sooo funny about it tho like she truly doesn't fucking play

[carefulfears]

I hate when people dismiss the Phoebe thing as Scully simply having been jealous. She was his best friend first, and she did what any good friend would have

yeah it's pretty reductive, honestly. scully has been very protective of mulder since the pilot; the first 3 episodes of the show are literally her committing to him, holding a man hostage at gunpoint to find him, and cutting ties with her friends who make fun of him.

this was largely her arc in squeeze, after only having known him for a couple of weeks, as she defends him to colton multiple times

and, in the end, concludes that she would rather be “on the side of the victim” with mulder than climb the ladder with her classmates, and tells colton to fuck off the next time he’s rude about her partner

in ghost in the machine, she's disapproving of jerry from the moment they meet, knowing literally nothing about him except that he used to work with mulder

and she instantly recognizes the profile that jerry presents as mulder's work, whispering to him to ask if that's his, to which he replies "forget it, no" and then later fibs and says that jerry apologized for stealing it (once you tell your best friend you can't go back lol)

all of these examples pre-date her behavior in fire, and are episodes where she's put in situations navigating mulder around other men

y'all remember the first time she met krycek and just flat out refused to shake his hand lmao

i touched on this a little bit in my post on fire, but scully really was just so enthralled by him from the very beginning. she grew up on a military base with her navy captain father and two brothers, and her only relationships have been with older men in power.

she instantly is so aligned with mulder and that there's something different in him than she's used to, but she's aware that the openness and softness that she's so drawn to in him makes him more vulnerable, and she's desperate to protect it

in beyond the sea, the very next episode after fire, she screams at boggs that if mulder dies she'll gas him into hell herself, and boggs tells her that he's tasted the afterlife.

that it's a cold and dark place, and mulder's looking in on it now. she replies, "it might be a cold dark place for you, but it's not for mulder"

she knows him, and she's so moved by him and what he wants to do in the world. these are the values that she left medicine to follow.

"jealousy" honestly doesn't even compare to the kind of ferocious protectiveness that she feels towards him from the very start, she really doesn't trust anyone around him for anything. they can't possibly get it like she does, if they treat him that way.

he may not care if people call him names or steal from him or try to make him walk through fire, but he really is just her best friend. and she can't stand it.