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cecilysass · 8 months ago

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Shine On (7/16)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 7: Across the Parking Lot

Stern’s Bakery Arlington, Virginia February 22, 2015 3:30 pm

Inside, the bakery is warm and smells of yeast and vanilla. It’s an old-fashioned looking place, with chrome tables, a glass counter and specials hand-written on a chalkboard. An older man is sweeping as they come inside, and he gives them a friendly nod. He leans his broom against the wall and walks behind the counter, seeming to anticipate their order.

“Why don’t you grab a place to sit, Scully? I’ll order for us,” Mulder suggests, although they’re the only customers, so there are plenty of tables. He lowers his voice for the benefit of the employee. “Doesn’t seem like this is the type of place to have lattes though.”

“I’ll just have coffee,” Scully says, as she turns for a table. Mulder doesn’t like the wooden expression that is still plastered across her face. She’s not acting like herself.

“Good afternoon,” the man says. He’s got thinning gray hair and an impish smile. “Welcome to Stern’s. You should try the doughnuts.”

“Thanks,” Mulder says. He’s eyeing the pastries in the case. It’s late in the day, so they’re pretty picked over, but he’s tempted anyway. “Two coffees, two of those maple doughnuts please. No—three. Three doughnuts.” He turns around and looks at Scully, who is sitting at a table next to the window, watching the car across the lot. He lowers his voice. “And… do you have a cake? Like a birthday cake? Chocolate maybe?”

“Of course,” the man says jovially. “We have chocolate birthday cake. Would you like something in particular written on it?”

Mulder frowns. “Sure.” He picks up a pen on the counter and writes “Happy birthday, Scully” on a napkin. “Can you do that?”

“No problem. Piece of cake.”

Mulder acknowledges the corny joke with a lukewarm smile. “When you’re done, can you just box it up so I can take it with me?”

“Of course.” The man leans forward conspiratorially. “Smart idea, picking up the wife a cake.”

Mulder shrugs. “It wasn’t mine.”

Before coming into the bakery, Mulder had walked back to the car to hand Jackson his coat. He knew it’d be cold in the car with the engine off, and he might need an extra layer. Scully had walked ahead, and Mulder knew she was upset. He couldn’t help but worry about it, even though he was dimly aware Jackson could be reading his thoughts.

“We can’t stay long,” Mulder had said to Jackson, tossing him the coat. Jackson spread it over him like a blanket. “If you get too cold, come find us.”

“Yeah,” Jackson had said blearily, as though that wasn’t very likely.

“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” Mulder had added.

“Get a cake,” Jackson had mumbled, flopping down, his eyes already closed.

“A cake?”

“Birthday cake.” Jackson, opening his eyes a sliver, gestured a little in the direction Scully walked in. “It’s a bakery, right?”

Mulder had been surprised. “Right.”

“She was hoping you were surprising her for her birthday. She was hoping you called her because of that. Not bringing her a long lost kid.”

The words appear in Mulder’s mind from nowhere. She imagined reservations at a restaurant.

Mulder leaned over to meet Jackson’s barely cracked open eyes. He spoke very deliberately. “I don’t believe for one second that you saw in Scully’s mind … any disappointment. No fucking way.”

Jackson had stared back at him a second. Those green eyes that could see right into you. Literally.

Then he lay his head down and closed his eyes again.

Now, as Mulder carries two hot coffees and a bag of doughnuts back to their table, he can’t help but marvel at the idea that Scully might have been hoping he would surprise her for her birthday. What could that possibly mean? They aren’t together. Spending time together, celebrating birthday dinners together—that definitely isn’t what she acts like she wants from him. What does that imply? Is she holding things back? Is he maybe not getting the full picture?

It’s not really the most important issue right now, Mulder supposes, but it’s on his mind. And possibly Jackson’s, too, if Mulder dwells on it too long.

“Coffee,” he announces to Scully as he places her cup down in front of her. “With cream. And here is your nasty sweetener.”

“Thank you,” she says, stilted, pulling the cup and the small yellow packets of sweetener towards her.

“I got you a doughnut,” Mulder says as he sits across from her. “They’re maple. They look really good.”

He withdraws his own doughnut from the bag with a piece of butcher paper, then holds the bag out towards Scully invitingly. She stares at it blankly.

“No, thank you,” she says.

He shrugs, and takes a big bite of his. It is good, yeasty, light and chewy, with a generous slathering of maple glaze.

“So,” he says, through his mouth of doughnut. “There are a couple of things I need to fill you in on.”

“How did he find you?” Scully asks. “How did he know to come to you?”

“That’s one of them,” Mulder says, chewing. “It seems that someone helped him find me, but he won’t say who.”

“What?” Scully sits up like a rocket, and Mulder knows her well enough to be able to observe the muscles in her neck and shoulders tensing. “Mulder—”

“I know,” Mulder says, nodding. “I know. It scares the shit out of me, too. It means someone knows who he is, someone likely knows what he can do, and someone knows his connection to us.”

“We’ve got to make him tell us,” Scully insists. “It’s too important. He can’t keep it a secret.”

Mulder takes another bite of his doughnut and regards her skeptically. “Do you remember being thirteen, Scully? It’s not as easy as ordering him around.”

“But Mulder, this is a life or death—”

“You don’t make kids that age do anything.”

Scully stops, then seems to slowly deflate. “You’re right,” she says mechanically. “You’re right.” Her shoulders slump. “Especially if you aren’t really their parents.” She grips her coffee tight, and her eyes drift back out toward the parking lot.

Her defeated expression makes Mulder want to punch a wall. Once again he’s awash in the same old corrosive feelings about William: guilt, regret, heartbreak. The same feelings that he knows all too well can take him down, make him give up entirely.

But he can’t do that now, can he? The kid is here. He needs him right now. At his Agent Mulder sharpest.

He looks at Scully tentatively, wondering how to coax her back to her sharpest, too.

“You know,” he says to her. “It sounds like he had good parents. Like they did a pretty good job.”

Her eyes lock back on him. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” he says. He thinks of Jackson’s eyes, the feeling of warmth when describing his dad’s woodworking and his mom’s preschool. “He was loved. He felt loved.”

Scully stares back at him, and he waits, watching her eyes well up with glassy tears. He knows that Scully crying is an act that needs to be given its own space, an act that can neither be rushed or stopped. He reaches forward and envelops her hand in his.

“That’s so… I’m glad,” Scully says, her voice barely more than a whisper. She picks up a paper napkin with the Stern’s logo on it and dabs her eyes with the hand that isn’t holding Mulder’s. “But they were murdered, Mulder. What if the people that murdered them are the same people that brought him to you? What if they have an agenda we don’t understand? And what will become of him now? He’ll have so much trauma.”

“Well…” Mulder finds he can’t quite speak aloud his little fantasy, that Jackson might come live in his house, at least some of the time. That he might get to be a dad to a teenage boy, at least a little, and help him heal. That Scully might get to know her son, too. He knows it’s probably childish and unrealistic, and he isn’t sure of the effect of sharing it with Scully. “I don’t know,” he finishes. “But he has us now. We can watch out for him. I think we need to, given the unknowns.”

“You said you were certain he wouldn’t run off,” Scully says, releasing his hand, tilting her head and scowling. She knows him well enough to know where there is more to find out. “What else is there you haven’t told me?”

“Yeah,” Mulder says. He takes his last bite of doughnut, nodding slowly. “There is another thing.” He takes a swig of his coffee, considers his words carefully. “The telepathy I experienced, after I touched the artifact back in 1999… it seems to be back. In some form. Around him.”

Scully stares at him. “What are you saying? You’re reading thoughts?”

“Not everyone’s thoughts,” Mulder says. “Not like before. Just his. And not just his thoughts, but his feelings, too.”

Scully seems to be speechless.

“At first I thought it was my imagination,” Mulder says. “I thought since he was reading minds, I was remembering what that was like. And you know, I was trying to imagine what he was feeling. How scared he was. How overwhelmed, by all this big emotional stuff he was having to deal with. But then I started to understand. It wasn’t my imagination, and it wasn’t just empathy. I’m definitely hearing flashes of what he’s thinking, and feeling what he’s feeling. At least sometimes.”

“Have you… told him this?”

“No,” Mulder says. “No, but I’m going to have to. Obviously. Hard to keep secrets from a mindreader.”

Scully’s lips draw together tightly. With a jerk she tugs on the bag of doughnuts and fishes one out. She starts violently ripping off pieces and eating them. “And you’re not feeling sick, Mulder? Your head isn’t hurting?”

“No,” Mulder says. “Not like before. Not at all.” He watches her anxiously devour the doughnut. “I’m not as good at it as he is. For me, it’s just every once and a while. I think I’m feeling it when it’s especially intense for him.”

“Give me examples.”

“Well, I was just … he was walking upstairs in the house. Up to the guest room. And it just appeared in my head, his thought: I wonder what it would have been like to grow up here.”

She stops chewing, her eyes wide. “He thought that?”

“Yeah,” Mulder says.

Her lip trembles again. She places the doughnut back on top of the paper bag, looks down at it.

“Scully,” he says. He reaches out for her hand again, but she slides it away.

“So he can read my thoughts and feelings, and you can read his,” Scully says in a rough voice. “And I’m in the dark.”

“Scully,” he tries again.

“No,” she says shortly. “No. I know I’m being ridiculous.”

“It’s only natural for you to feel—”

“No. Forget it.” She shakes her head, smooths back her hair, and she seems to transform before his eyes into the respected doctor at Our Lady of Sorrows. “We need to pay attention to you, how you’re feeling,” Scully says, all business. “The last time you had this ability, it didn’t end well.”

“It doesn’t feel like that now.”

“Don’t hold anything back from me,” she says firmly. “If you’re in pain, speak up.”

“I will,” Mulder promises.

“Why does he have that effect on you?” Scully wonders.

“I don’t know,” Mulder says. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

“He didn’t when he was a baby.”

“Or maybe he did,” Mulder says gently, “and I didn’t notice. When we were all together, he was so small, and everything was so emotionally intense. I might not have realized that his feelings weren’t my own or that I wasn’t simply guessing what he wanted.”

And I wasn’t around long enough to really find out, Mulder thinks. He can tell the same thought is passing through Scully’s mind, because her eyes drop again.

They’re both quiet a moment.

“We should contact Skinner about how his parents’ case will be investigated,” Scully says. “Hopefully he can get the Bureau to look into it. We need to make sure there is someone we can trust on it. And if we can, it would be good to get access to the local law enforcement’s notes on the case.”

“We’d be able to get more access as F.B.I. agents,” Mulder points out.

Scully regards him warily, sipping her coffee. “What are you saying, exactly?”

“We could ask to be reinstated.”

“On the X-files?”

“Sure,” Mulder says, “or anywhere. So we can be back in the game. Find out what we need to know. It would also give us more reason to hold Jackson in our custody.”

He’d expected Scully to scoff at the idea, but to his surprise, she doesn’t. She nods slowly, picking up another piece of doughnut and nibbling at it.

“It’s a possibility,” she says, after a moment’s deliberation. “We’d have to talk to Skinner and see what he thinks.” She looks sideways at him. “And we’d be partners?”

“I can’t imagine a new partner would put up with you, Scully,” Mulder says, shaking his head in mock disapproval. “You’re very eccentric.”

To his great relief, she smiles a little. He can’t believe that she’s even entertaining the notion at all: of going back to the FBI, of going back to the X-files, of possibly being partners again. His heart aches to think of it. He’ll never be able to keep these kinds of thoughts under wraps from Jackson.

“When we finish our coffee, let’s take him back to the house,” Scully says. “Maybe we can call Skinner there.”

Mulder nods. “Agreed.” His eyes study her. She’s gazing out the window again absently, looking towards the car, her long hair winding around her face. She looks like a woman in an Italian fresco, pensive and luminous, he thinks with a lump in his throat. He’s never known anyone more beautiful.

“Mulder,” she says, her voice wobbly, still staring outside, “is he …okay? From what you’ve seen?”

He considers how to answer the question. “He’s a good kid. He has good instincts, I think,” he says. “But he’s hurting. Grieving. Scared. And thinking about you and me—what we mean in his life—is a big bunch of extra shit to deal with.”

“Especially me,” she says softly.

“Especially you,” he agrees. “But that’s in part because he’s thought about you for a long time, Scully. He’s seen you before—in visions.”

She looks at him again, surprised. “What kind of visions?”

“You’re going to have to ask him. But he mentioned you calling out for him.”

He sees her react, pulling back slightly. She takes a sip of her coffee, nodding stiffly.

“Are you okay, Scully?”

“I’ve had dreams like that before,” she comments. “I wonder if he was seeing my dreams.”

“Maybe he was,” Mulder says in wonder. And the curious part of his brain can’t help but give that some thought, because what a fascinating thing: that Scully’s dreams would be picked up by a telepathic biological son all the way across the continent like a ham radio.

“I wish I’d had regular visions of him,” she says. She turns again to look out the window. “All those years… I would have liked to have seen him in my dreams. Gotten updates.”

He knows she would have. He knows it intimately: the sting of her longing for William, her bottomless regret.

His instinct is to climb around to sit next to her, to put his arm around her to comfort her, but he doesn’t know if she wants that from him anymore. He wishes she would ask.

He wishes she would say his name and pull his arm around her and rest her cheek against his chest. He wishes she would let him hold her for an hour, for longer, for all night. He wishes he could read her mind.

***

In the car, Jackson is breathing in, counting to four, holding for seven, breathing out. He tries to do it exactly like his therapist said, but he knows this probably isn’t the kind of mental distress his therapist had in mind.

He presses his eyes shut and tries to quiet down his shine. If he wanted to, he knows he could shine into their thoughts with no problem—the bakery isn’t that far away—but he has no desire to. He wants quiet. He wants peace.

Even so, it’s not entirely quiet and peaceful in the car. There are steady low level emissions of emotion from Scully even from across the parking lot. A constant background hum of anxiety and tension.

Jackson understands anxiety, obviously. The part of him that’s teetering on adulthood understands why she is anxious. He can even sort of sympathize. The part of him that’s still a little kid can’t help but wish she felt more … joy.

Isn’t she happy at all to see him? Mulder said she had really wanted to for a long time. But instead, every emotion she has about him—every thought, every memory—is twisted up with a kind of pain Jackson can’t even comprehend. He knows her life has been difficult; he has seen enough in her memories and Mulder’s to grasp that.

He just wishes she could somehow see him separate from all the sadness.

He sits up on the seat, Mulder’s coat tucked around his legs. He knows he needs help. He just hopes he can get it.

He massages his own temples with his fingers and tries again to relax, clear his mind.

Hey. Hey. Are you there?

He tries to project his thoughts outward in the way she taught him, thinking of them like they were radio waves.

You told me to check in. I’m checking in.

He wonders if there will be any sign whether this is working. He pauses a moment, and only hears a horn honking somewhere on the street behind him. Of course not. A sign would be too easy.

I need help. I’ve done everything you’ve said. I haven’t told them anything. But I need your help.

He waits, clearing his mind again to prepare, to make room for any response. He listens to the sounds of the busy road, to engines whirring past, tires screeching. Dimly his shine is aware of minds in each of the cars, busily going about their lives.

There isn’t an answer.

Are you getting this? Are you there?

I need help, Rose.

Rose?

He curls back down on the seat under the coat, frustrated. Maybe she can’t talk right away. Maybe the answer will come later.

He closes his eyes and enjoys the relative quiet, listening only to the sound of his own inhale and exhale.

Even in the stillness, from across the parking lot he feels the continuous thrum of Scully’s worry, a low droning buzz like a bee hive.

As he breathes in and out, he realizes it’s not just her worry he’s feeling. It’s shot through with something else, some different emotion. Something deep and fierce and glowing hot. Something he suspects must be the way Scully loves.

***

#xfiles fanfic #the x files #x files fanfic #fox mulder #dana scully #x files #xf fanfic #msr #jackson van de kamp #x files revival #my fic #shine on

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mulders-too-large-shirt · 2 months ago

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s4 episode 17 thoughts

hey guys. i need answers…. i need them.

but i have a strict “one episode a day” and “post the thoughts from last episode before starting the new one” rule and!!! i must follow the rules.

i wish this episode relied less on the assumption that the audience knows how planes work. but. i digress.

back to who i was before this episode....

a lot of you may know that it is scully and mulder time.

ohhhh i’m reading the episode description and i see what is going on here… a two parter!!! well, i am prepared to handle this, yes i am. we have been due for a two parter, so i look forward to learning about this UFO.

let us open with a pretty shot of the sky… we are somewhere over upstate new york… a good place to be

in a plane. this guy seems drunk. i do not care for how he looked at this woman.

“you could fly every day for the next 26,000 years before you’d have an accident”, says drunk guy that will most certainly manifest a plane crash

shaggy redhead sitting next to drunk man seems very afraid of the dude on the back of the plane in a suit. uh oh! let me guess…. alien bounty hunter?

(author's note: nah. it was a good guess, though!)

suit man just locked himself in the bathroom and pulled out the spring in a pen to a dramatic flourish. is the pen spring supposed to indicate something to me? because i do not associate them with danger.

oh! he made a little gun out of pieces. huh. kinda neat. even if it is terrifying. just from a DIY perspective.

sometimes i forget that before 9/11 you could just do stuff on planes and no one really gave a damn

but now the plane is shaking. man with gun is watching all the screaming and jostling go down. redhead seems very scared while bright lights shine into the plane. oh! and then a window/door thing gets sucked outside??

deeply unfortunate.

(cue spooky intro)

WAIT! we are at a restaurant with mulder and scully and someone is bringing out a cake??? and they are singing happy birthday to her!!! oh my gosh, is it her birthday or is this a ploy by mulder to get free cake?

“I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS YOUR BIRTHDAY, SCULLY” <- JDHDJJDJD IS HE REALLY ABOUT GETTING THAT FREE CAKE LIFE????

no, no, it IS in fact dana scully's birthday, a remarkable occasion indeed. however. there is no funnier thing than faking a birthday to get cake at a restaurant. and maybe i need to write that fic someday.

oh my gosh, she says he has never once remembered her birthday, so he says something about it being the way he likes to celebrate them, every 4 years...... THIS IDIOT 😭😭

i cannot believe this man... he can remember any myth he read when he was 11, but he cannot keep his best friend's birthday in his head. and while that is a tragic flaw and indication of his ahab-ness, the fact that he knew scully was sick so he stepped it up still says a lot.

oh he brought a GIFT shut up!!!!!! and he pulls out a tiny little box... she says “oh you have GOT to be kidding me” and he jokes about turning the alien implants into earrings but it’s an apollo 11 keychain 😭😭😭 STOP this is so sweet!!!!! oh my gosh he wanted to make sure she knew she was loved

(her birthday is in february so i’m not sure i see the connection to her and apollo 11 beyond her being a general nerd, and i think her birth and the moon landing happened in the same year, but i digress)

someone is talking to them! “oh promise me this isn’t leading to something embarrassing” she says <- HDHSJDHJE

but no! this woman- sharon- confesses to have followed them there??? well that is very creepy. and that she was told to talk to them if something happened.

GIRL!!!! LET HER HAVE A NICE DINNER 😭

sharon says that her brother, max fenig, was bringing them something that night, but the plane he was on went down.

and how did he know where they were going to be? i am going to assume that he is simply a stalker and not that mulder arranged for a UFO information exchange on scully's birthday. no ma'am. i refuse.

(also, i was distracted by mulder chewing on something this whole scene. at first i thought it was a cigarette, but then clearly it wasn’t, so maybe a lollipop? looked too big to be a toothpick. oh god, don’t tell me he’s a toothpick guy)

anyway. plane crash time. let's go to the conference where the plane people discuss such news.

initial reports say no survivors. people are smoking in here which is crazy. i understand that this show takes place in the 90's, but sometimes i lowkey forget until i see stuff like that and go ohhhhh right right.

this has been a sad turn to date night!!!

they’re listening to the last audio recording from the plane, and the pilot is yelling “my god!” and “mayday!” which is not inspiring any warm and fuzzy feelings

so mulder asks if there was any evidence that the plane was intercepted, because we heard the voice say it was, but plane guy who is in charge of this meeting says hmm, nope, not that i know of.

(is the pilot saying that there was an interception.... not evidence... of an interception??)

mulder says well, there was a famous alien abductee on the plane. which gets the crowd giggling.

scully is watching like ohhh my god and when plane guy asks if this is an official FBI position he turns and looks to her and then says no. plane guy says he is trivializing this tragedy. WHICH I DISAGREE WITH!

IF there was a man claiming to be abducted by UFOs, and the plane he was on mysteriously went down, and the pilot said it was intercepted, but for some reason the fact that the pilot SAID THAT is being disregarded- i'm sorry, my red flags would be going off. for multiple different reasons. if i were plane guy i'd be thinking, gee, maybe this max character was a government target- i mean, if he got famous off of UFOs, who is to say he wasn't up to more shady activities? maybe he was planning a coup in the dominican republic, or smuggling government secrets of a nature that is still important but less outlandish than UFOs, or embezzling, etc. all i am saying, from my reasonable skeptic point of view, is i would think hmm, that's odd. we'll have to note that for our investigation, mr. mulder. maybe max was targeted for a specific reason, aliens or no aliens.

of course, this plane guy claims there WAS no max fenig on the plane, but it seemed pretty easy to lie pre-TSA

“sure know how to make a girl feel special on her birthday” HDHJSJDKSJDJDJDJDJ

nooo... i feel bad for birthday scully :( why is he always up to some sort of alien shenanigans instead of cherishing her? :( i GET it, i get his life's mission, etc etc but cherishing your friends should be mandatory, especially when it is a friend as lovely as scully

at the crash site, things are looking very very very sad. many bodies are in bags.

but where is the plane??

poor scully has to shout due to all the helicopter noises, which had to be a pain to film.

what would finding max fenig prove? mulder doesn’t know. but perhaps that 1 life was worth sacrificing 133 others.

damn. that’s a downer. and we started on such a high note!!!!

the guy who had the DIY gun on the plane has been entirely cut in half. but one of the people from the IIC (and what the hell even IS the IIC?) took his gun!! it was the guy with the big mustache! and they’re spraying him with some stuff? that can’t be normal practice, can it?

scully sees a watch on a corpse’s arm :( mulder sees some glasses :(

they each find a watch!! and the watches from the victims say 8:01, but the time of the crash was listened as 7:52!!!! so… what is the truth??

“nine minutes, scully. do you remember the last time you were missing nine minutes?” <- is that a rhetorical question or a throwback to the pilot

mulder seems to think now that perhaps max was on the plane, but did not finish the journey with the rest of the passengers… hmm… like they shot him??? what do you mean, cryptic man???

oh! one of the people from the crash is alive!!! get a medic NOW!!!! scully is here!!!!! she is telling you what he is going to need and you had better get it quick!!!

now scully is waiting for a plane in the cold. what!!! she is cold!!!! get her inside!!!

she was waiting for sharon from before, who brought all of her letters from her brother max. scully says that they think she isn’t telling them everything, and that she had better do so. NOW. she is not messing around.

oh!!!! the man who was alive has burns that are associated with a high level of radiation!! see, i assumed he just was hit by a piece of flaming sky junk. that foreshadowing went right over my head.

it was drunk man from before who was burnt!!! so is it whatever max had on him that was radioactive??? they confirm that it was max, he was just using a pen name, which he had a lot of.

max worked at job with plutonium and uranium. well. maybe that could do it. not sure what he’d to do with all that or how it got on a plane. maybe it could have caused the crash.

mulder is launching into his “max HAD to have been abducted” theory and about how no one will ever believe him and it will go unsolved forever. scully keeps trying to cut him off…

max is back!!!! where from???

oh. he is dead. that is how they found him.

mulder still doesn’t think the crash is explained.

sigh. you just want to have a nice birthday dinner with the guy you've thought was cute for the last 4 years, and he never once remembered your birthday until now, but then he gets an alien call and slips into ahab mode. scully has truly suffered so much.

sharon is reading many many many letters when a flashing and shaking occurs!!! more aliens???? oh man. this is intense.

CUT TO BLACK??? rude as hell. where did sharon go!!!

(i think i know where sharon went)

okay, now mulder is walking among the many bodies recovered from the crash scene. he finds max and unzips him. and in his pocket he had mulder’s business card!!! despite it being covered in blood, he puts it in his pocket, and seems very sad. it cannot be an easy thing to see. but still. blood-borne illnesses, man.

he is now unzipping more and more bodies. what do you think, you beautiful tortured man?

he is furious that the IIC is going to claim that they don’t know what went on. and i still don't know what the IIC is. maybe they don't even know about the alien stuff. not everyone has CSM levels of alien knowledge.

(side note... why do you think deep throat was snitching to mulder?? was it part of CSM's plan, or did the fight? was it toxic old man yaoi?)

back to the matter at hand. “mulder, why can’t you just accept the facts?” (with his hand on her back, walking her away) “because there are no facts, scully. what they’re telling you, what they’re going to report, they’re the opposite of facts- a claim to ignorance of the facts” oh man, he’s yapping! but he has a point.

“claimed steadfastly, ignorance becomes as acceptable as the truth” <- he’s lowkey right though… he ate with that one thing

still pissed he cannot remember birthdays.

he points out that all of the watches have been stolen that show the difference in 9 minutes between the reported and the actual crash time!!! and that somehow they need to figure out what happened in those 9 minutes. hmm. is this a possible task?

well, with a rental car, you can go anywhere, including to this military base.

oh no!!! someone already came and asked this military man (later revealed to be named louis frish) about the crash, the night it happened! oh no… someone else has a lead

hmm….. hmm…. some discrepancies in stories are occurring here. it must be CSM.

uh oh... the minute they leave, louis frish says to his buddy that he told them “what he was supposed to say”… there is STRANGENESS afoot!!! this other guy says if they come back, he’s gonna tell them the truth.

back to the motel…. well, sharon is no longer there!!! surely you recall the lights and the shaking, etc etc! the landlord seems to think that she trashed the room and dipped, and is telling our agents they MUST pay for it. she was making her 5 seconds of screen time COUNT.

“okay scully, hit me with your best shot, what do you think happened here?” (deep sigh) “i haven’t a clue” <- i love when they admit they don’t know wtf is going on. i think it’s very endearing.

plane guy shows up!!! mulder is being snippy with him about the lack of evidence, but he comes with evidence in hand!!! he won’t make an announcement though, because he’s afraid he’ll sound as crazy as mulder. woah… plane guy redemption arc??

the plane had wear and tear marks, but the gag is it was a brand new plane!!! and all of the cracks radiate from the door they think was blown off!!!

big shoutout to mulder for trusting his door launching instincts.

back at the air force base….. the one guy who said he was gonna snitch has a bullet hole in his head!!! and three cars are rapidly approaching!!! including one with shady mustache man who was spraying drunk guy’s body!!!

louis frish is hiding on the roof. hmm. hope they don't climb up there to check.

mulder is rocking back and forth, listening to the audio from the flight. then he busts out a rotary phone and spins it with great determination. another forcible reminder of the 90's. also, him rocking back and forth was funny. it was giving old man on a porch energy.

he’s calling scully!! she sounds very sleepy and points out that they have been up for over 36 hours, but he asks if she can please come over, as he thinks he has heard this voice before

yayyy, they can say they know who the voice belongs to, and then fall asleep all cuddled up <3 and everyone lived happily ever after- the end!

NO!!! when she gets out of her room, someone GRABS HER!!! this guy is closing her mouth and saying not to scream, which really makes a person want to scream more, i can imagine.

it’s louis frish??? saying he caused the plane crash???

girl. i was ready for some snuggling.... gtfo with this nonsense.

ooooookay, so it was frish whose voice they heard on the recording! frish says he was ordered to lie about what happened to the flight…. and now he’s fessing up that he saw a second aircraft shadowing it, then an explosion, then the disappearance.

plane guy is saying that this guy must be a liar. but mulder says there has to be a THIRD aircraft, shot down by the intercept aircraft, which caused this crash. so there has to be a second crash site.

man, i was still thinking about them cuddling, but sure. sure, we have 3 aircraft now. i'm getting lost but i'll just roll with it.

plane guy says that if there is a second crash site they need to find it. i cannot get a read on him. also, frish the whistleblower needs to be kept somewhere safe because the military is clearly gonna kill him.

time to head out…. but cars are approaching!!! can a man who hasn’t slept in 36 hours do a high speed chase? well, he sure can, but the question is more about the ethics than the actual possibility.

mulder’s crazy idea is to drive straight into a landing plane which just BARELY works and scully straight up was looking death in the face.

plane guy goes to the OG crash site and sees a UFO!!! it has a beam it is scanning down on the wreckage!!!! he seems entirely gagged and runs towards it, which is not what i would do in that situation. i would be hiding. and then it wooshes away!!!

NO!!!!! it is above him now!!!!!! the beam is shining upon him…. but it wooshes away again. phew. that was very close.

however, a woman is wailing in the trees. SHARON??? is that you??? plane guy is running toward the voice!!!! and it is sharon!!!

plane guy holds sharon as she sobs and begs him not to let them take her again…….. which is a lot of responsibility to place on a random guy, but clearly she has been through a lot.

mulder and scully and frish are trying to get on a plane now. but mulder says what if there IS no second crash site because the second aircraft never fell??

well, i was just getting used to the idea of there being a second crash site, and now it has been taken away from me!!! but i assume he is saying that the UFO must have gotten away fine???

(author's note: no! no, i assumed wrong, for he surmised correctly that it crashed underwater? again, was i supposed to be following that? because i wasn't)

scully does not want to take frish back to DC by herself, and who can blame her? that’s a long drive with a strange man! and surely now mulder is going to run off and engage in some sort of antics!! probably to get himself kidnapped and all that!!!!

aww, but he waves goodbye as their airplane takes off. and then he sets out into the night.

he drives out to the lake where he thinks maybe the UFO got away, where some guy is telling him there is a hovering light flying over every now and then

scully brings this frish guy back to her HOUSE??? she says she needs to get some stuff before she talks to her agent in charge and i’m thinking no!!! what if he’s lying!?! you brought him into your house!!! what if he gets you?!?

he’s having a crisis of faith on if he’ll get arrested for lying about the plane crash, and i’m sorry to hear he has to live with that guilt, but let’s do this in a place where she doesn't live.

she says she will do her best to tell his story to someone who can help him. which is very kind of her. but again. let us not bring strangers to our residence.

and he asks to make a phone call to his girlfriend and say he’s safe but i’m thinking noOooOoo why does it have to be on HER phone???? i don’t trust this man at all!!!!!

mulder is sailing out into the lake with this random guy. oh he’s gonna scuba dive. you see, that isn’t something you should do without experience, but here he is. that's the kinda crazy fox mulder brings to the table.

scully takes frish to a restaurant, and who is here but PENDRELL!!! yelling about her birthday. he tries to buy her a drink, and she points out she is with somebody. he laughs and says well let me buy him one too. good for him!

BUT MUSTACHE MAN IS HERE. he is trying to SHOOT frish. and pendrell is bringing his drinks over and HE GETS SHOT as SCULLY SHOOTS MUSTACHE GUY.

oh my god. is she gonna watch PENDRELL DIE RIGHT THEN AND THERE???

well i thought he was a bit weird, but i didn’t want to see him BLEED OUT!!!

mulder is diving. into god knows what. i’m scared he’ll get the bends or something. or run out of air. or any other horrific scuba related phenomenon.

but there is something down there!!! something big and metal. i’m scared some sort of evil creature is going to jump out.

BAH! ALIEN!!!!

okay, he didn’t jump out, but he was unexpected.

and the light is back!!!! it must be the UFO!!! come to get the alien and maybe the mulder in the process!

end scene.

woaugh….

we started with birthday dinner and ended with dead alien and dying pendrell. what a piece of TV.

honestly, the episode was good, don’t get me wrong. but there was so much happening so quickly that i was a little lost. can you blame me? first we had two aircraft and then three and then two crash sites and then one and then two but the other one was underwater. and it was going really fast.

i firmly believe that in media like this when the world is always about to blow up, you need to take time to make me care about the characters living or dying. you can't replace character development with a ticking time bomb or blow after blow after blow and expect that to be compelling writing. and while i think in the past seasons there has been an excellent balance of character development to character torture or fighting the end of the world, this season has been very heavy handed on the character torture. and i want to make it clear: i am an angst enthusiast. but also, after a certain point, it's like, are we here to just watch these guys suffer? is that what brings us before the TV screen? you don't need an even ratio of character happy time to character sad time- a small amount of character happy time can go a long, long way, so i'm glad we started with some today- perhaps the first all season?

what i'm trying to say is that the opening is going to to get me through a lot of hard times. but still... mulder doesn’t remember birthdays………. this man... i want to shake him like a rag doll and knock some sense into his head.

oh pendrell... how i wonder where your story will go next!

#bonks mulder with the LOVE YOUR FRIENDS stick #aliens. aliens underwater. dead alien body underwater.#aliens are secondary to the plot. i watch for the hetbait.#juni's x files liveblog #the x files #txf

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im-a-goddamn-cat · 7 months ago

Text

Sweet Birthday

MSR/Mulder x Scully || Rated: G || Words: 652

Summary: Mulder gives Scully a lovely birthday celebration.

A/N: Me finally writing another XF fic after so long? Yes, yes I did. This is a birthday gift for my amazing girlfriend, Gaby ( @daenerys-tarrgaryen / tudorregina on AO3) <3 Happy Birthday, Gaby! :] I love you so much! <3

Enjoy!

AO3 || FF.net || ↓

Scully knocked on Mulder's apartment door. It was her birthday and he told her to come over as he had a surprise for her. She assured him that she didn't need a big celebration but he insisted on it. Scully didn't mind as she was always happy to spend time with Mulder.

Mulder opened the door and when he saw her, he smiled and she smiled back. She smelled some sort of food from inside his apartment.

"Hey Scully," he greeted her. "Come in." Scully entered and slipped off her shoes like Mulder to feel more comfortable as Mulder made his way to the kitchen. After getting her shoes off, Scully made her way to his kitchen where she saw pizza, soda, a small cake, a bouquet of flowers, and some sort of wrapped gift on the table.

"Happy Birthday!" Mulder exclaimed happily.

"Aww, Mulder. You didn't have to do all this," she said.

"I didn't but I wanted to because it's your special day," he told her. "Come on, let's dig in!" Mulder sat down at the table and Scully did the same. Mulder put a couple pieces of pizza on a plate and poured a cup of soda to give to Scully before doing the same for himself. They began to eat.

"Mmm, this pizza is delicious. Where is it from?" Scully asked.

"I made it."

Scully's eyes widened a little. "You made this? Mulder, it's incredible."

Mulder laughed. "What? You're doubting my cooking abilities?"

"No, I just never knew you had an affinity for cooking."

"Well, get ready for the cake because I made that too, and dare I say I'm better at desserts than normal food." Scully raised her eyebrow at that.

They continued eating their pizza and then ate the cake, which was just as good as Mulder had implied.

"That was delicious, thank you, Mulder," she said.

"Don't thank me yet, you still have other presents," Mulder replied. He handed her the bouquet of flowers and the small wrapped box.

Scully looked at the flowers and smelled them. "These flowers are beautiful, Mulder, thank you," she told him happily and Mulder smiled. Scully then picked up the box and unwrapped it. She opened it up and inside were a pair of silver earrings in the shape of bunnies.

"Ohh, these are adorable!" she said happily.

"I'm glad you like them. I saw them and remembered you told me that you love rabbits so I thought you'd like them," he told her.

"Well, you were right. I love them and the flowers. Thank you, Mulder." Scully smiled at him. She took her current earrings out and put in the new ones that Mulder had given her and Mulder smiled at the sight. Mulder got up from the table to grab a small hand mirror for her. He handed it to her and she looked at the earrings in the mirror. They looked amazing.

Mulder then moved into the living room and gestured to Scully to follow him. She did and when they were in there, he went over to a music player and began playing some sweet, beautiful music. He then walked back over the Scully and held his hand out to her.

"Care for a birthday dance?" he asked her.

Scully smiled at him and took his hand. "I'd love to."

They put their arms on and around each other and began to dance. They danced together while looking into each other's eyes and smiling. Scully slowly leaned up to kiss Mulder and he kissed her back. It was a tender and loving kiss. When they separated, Scully put her head against Mulder's chest. She basked in the moment of swaying to the music with the person she loved most in the world. No words were needed as they could feel the love from each other.

It was one of the best birthdays she's ever had.

#my fics #txf #the x files #x files #x files fanfic #txf fanfic #msr #fox mulder #dana scully #sculder

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freckleslikestars · 11 months ago

Text

March 6th

a look at some of Mulder and Scully’s anniversaries throughout the years, spanning from mid-Season One to post-Season Eleven

I wote this for the philefest zine and then completely forgot about it until right now.

2411 words, read here on AO3

March 6th 1994

She arrives, as usual, ten minutes early, a sweet smile and her hand tucked behind her back as she places two disposable coffee cups on the desk and drops her briefcase to the chair that’s unofficially become hers, ‘gotcha something.’

The twinkling mirth in her eyes is infectious, and he kicks his feet from where they’re resting on the edge of his desk and leans forward, elbows on the desk, ‘oh yeah?’ He’d called her in on a Sunday to go over their travel plans to Tennessee, and given that, he was mildly surprised that she was in such a good mood.

‘Mm-hm,’ she pulls her hand from behind her back, revealing a cupcake with a single candle in it. After a quick rummage in her pocket, she pulls out a disposable lighter and sparks a flame to life, ‘ta-da,’ her soft murmur, suddenly shy as she presents the little confection to him.

‘My birthday’s in October, Scully.’

‘Yeah, I, um...’ she swallows, clears her throat. ‘Today’s the- it’s March 6th. It’s been a year since I joined you on the X-Files. I figured...’ she shrugs and sighs, ‘I dunno, it’s stupid.’

‘No,’ Mulder shakes his head rapidly, smiling disarmingly, ‘no, it’s not stupid,’ he thinks about the box on his bookshelf at home that he’d agonised over whether to give her as he wrapped it the night before. ‘May I?’ he points at the candle, and she nods, clearing her throat again after he blows it out. ‘I, uh, I think I’ve got a knife here somewhere; we can split it?’

‘Sure,’ she ducks her chin, hiding her smile, as she passes it over.

On closer inspection, a grey fondant alien face tops the buttercream, and he grins up at her as he hands over her half, ‘happy first anniversary, Scully.’

March 6th 1995

He’d almost lost her. She’d been taken, and he almost hadn’t been able to get her back, and for three months, he’d been wracked with guilt and lost without her. But she was alive. She was still right there by his side, and he could see the determination that lined her face as she stuck by him, refusing to budge, refusing to leave him.

Their first year together was tame in comparison to the insanity that had befallen the two of them in their second year as partners, and he wonders idly if it was only going to get worse. He can’t imagine anything worse than sacrificing his sister for her.

He’s bought a cake, just a little one, from the grocery store round the corner from his apartment, and he’s stuck two candles wonkily in it. It’s less personal than the little alien cupcake Scully bought last year, but the store didn’t have anything more appropriate, and he knew how much Scully loved chocolate and how she wouldn’t have chosen it herself for some misguided belief that she needed to maintain her figure. So a decadent chocolate cake for six with wonky candles is what it’s going to be.

Her face lights up when she walks in and sees it, her grin widening further when she looks up at the shy smile on his face.

‘I think it’s your turn to blow them out this year,’ Mulder says as he strikes a match and lights the candles.

She nods as she sits down, blows them out and props her chin in her hand as she gazes longingly at the cake, ‘Mulder, do you think we’ll still be doing this next year? In five years’ time? Ten?’

He grins and cuts into the cake, daubing chocolate frosting on her nose before handing her a slice, ‘I think, Scully, that we’ll be doing this for another thirty years. Minimum. You’re not gonna get rid of me that quickly.’

March 6th 1998

‘We’ve got a detective coming in to talk to us about a dead drug dealer at ten,’ he says as she pushes through the door, a tray of cupcakes balanced in her hands. She’d been up most of the night trying to bake them, her mom on the phone as guidance. It was chemistry and physics, things she excelled at, but somehow baking was not her forte, and it had taken three attempts to get them right. But her mother’s pink lemonade cupcake recipe was always a crowd-pleaser, pink frosting and all, and she had wanted to do something special.

Five years. Five years in his basement office, chasing unbelievable things. Five years of missing time and abductions and cancer and sisters. Five years of surviving. That was something worth celebrating.

She nods in acknowledgement, depositing the tray on the desk and whipping out a pack of candles from her pocket, ‘well, that gives us two hours to enjoy cake, then.’

‘They look...good,’ he hesitates, and she rolls her eyes.

‘They’re rustic, okay. I’m not the most...artistic. Next year I’ll get my mother to make them.’

‘No, really, they look great. I’m sure they taste delicious.’

She smiles, lighting the candles, ‘I should hope so. I’ve been looking forward to this.’ They’d skipped cake last year, her appetite waning and neither of them in the mood to celebrate. With a flourish, she presents the candles to him, waiting for him to blow them out, and frowns when he hesitates.

‘I think you should be the one to blow them out. You missed your turn last year.’

She gives a small nod and breathes in, extinguishing the five flames in quick succession.

‘I, uh, I got you something,’ he says, clearing his throat and rummaging through his desk drawer.

‘Mulder, you didn’t have to get me anything.’

‘Actually, I got it for you a long time ago, but it never felt like the right time,’ he shrugs, pulling it out with a quiet ‘a-hah.’ He hands the box over, nervously biting his lip as she delicately opens it. ‘It’s, uh, it’s a snow globe.’

‘I can see that.’

‘It’s got a UFO in.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, it does,’ she smiles softly. She shakes it, watching glitter swirl around the little cartoony spaceship. ‘Thank you, Mulder, I love it. Happy five years.’

‘Happy five years, Scully.’

March 8th 2003

She’d been working the graveyard shift in a bar two towns over from the motel they were staying at that month, bringing in what little cash she could to fund their constant running, and time had started slipping. Neither of them had looked at a calendar in more than a month, her birthday having gone unnoticed and unrecognised, and it was only because he’d grabbed a paper from the motel reception that he even noted the date. So, whilst she was sleeping the day away, the curtains drawn and the rattly heater struggling to take the late-winter chill off the room, he donned his coat and baseball cap and headed out to the nearest store.

With gas station cookies and a disposable lighter, he perches on the edge of the bed and gently shakes her awake, brushes the back of his forefinger across her cheekbone when she stirs, ‘hey, Beautiful.’

‘Mmm, time is it?’

‘Just gone noon,�� he murmurs, smiling when she groans and rolls away, ‘it’s March, Baby.’

‘March?’

‘Yeah. We missed our anniversary.’

She buries her face in the coarse motel pillow, mumbling, ‘our anniversary was months ago, Mulder.’

He gives a sad chuff, nodding at the other anniversary they missed, ‘no, not that one. The day you came in and turned my life upside-down. We’re a couple of days late, but...’ She drags herself up, rubs her eyes and smiles blearily at him, cupping his scruffy cheek. ‘I couldn’t get cake or candles, but I got cookies, and you can blow this out,’ he flicks the lighter on, holding it out for her to blow out, and she gives a quiet chuckle.

‘Ten years, huh?’

‘Ten whole years. Happy anniversary, Baby.’

March 6th 2013

It’s dark out when she phones, and he’s been staring at the ceiling for an indefinite amount of time. He’s numb, unable to muster the energy to lie convincingly when she asks how he is; if he’s eating properly and getting enough sleep. He tries to feel something when he hears her sniffing and stifling a sob, tries to summon enough emotion to make his voice not sound flat when he tells her he misses her.

It’s not until he looks at the phone screen when she hangs up that he realises it’s twenty years since they met.

March 6th 2018

Her hair’s short again, almost the length it was twenty-five years ago, and though the laugh lines and the crease that permanently furrows her brow these days have deepened, her eyes still hold that same disbelieving mirth they twinkled with that first day as she held her hand out for him to shake.

‘You’re staring,’ she says, peering over the top of the case file she’s studying.

‘Am I?’

‘Mm-hm,’ she nods over at his laptop, ‘that expenditure report was due with Skinner yesterday – lingering over it isn’t going to help your case any.’

‘What makes you think I haven’t finished it?’

She smirks, ‘because I know you, and I know how much you hate expenditures. And because I’ve heard you type no more than ten words in the last two hours?’

He nods, still not taking his eyes off her, and shuts the lid of his laptop, ‘did you ever think, all those years ago, that we’d still be down here a quarter of a century later, filing motel and gas receipts?’

‘Honestly?’ he nods, and she sighs, shakes her head, ‘I don’t think I ever allowed myself that fantasy. We’ve overcome so much; the fact we’re even still talking is a miracle some days.’

He nods contemplatively and stands up, idly noticing the crack of his knees and creek of his spine, and holds his hand out to her, ‘come on, Scully. There’s cake waiting for us at home.’

March 6th 2023

He lets her sleep in, turns her alarm off and leaves under cover of darkness, intercepts Sammi as she comes barrelling across the landing towards their bedroom, ‘woah, Kid, not today. Mommy’s sleeping in.’

‘She sick?’

He chuffs a laugh as he swings her up onto his shoulders, shaking his head as he lopes downstairs with her, ‘no, it’s just a special day today.’

‘Like Christmas?’

‘Not quite, Honey,’ he sits her on the kitchen counter and gets to work making pancakes, ‘today’s our anniversary.’

The pre-schooler mulls that over, her sleep-mussed curls bouncing as she tilts her head in contemplation, ‘what’s an anibersary?’

‘An anniversary is when we celebrate a special day in our lives – your birthday is an anniversary.’

‘My birthday’s in October.’

‘It sure is, Kid, like mine,’ he nods, ruffles her hair as he passes her a tumbler of milk, ‘but today is special, ‘cause we’re celebrating the day Mommy and I met.’

‘Was it a looooong time ago?’

‘It was. A super long time ago.’

‘How long?’

He smiles and starts flipping the pancakes, ‘you guess.’

‘Ummm, I don’t know. Three years ago.’

‘Three years ago? Nope. Shall we work it out together?’

‘Yeah,’ she bounces on the counter, and for a moment, he marvels at the little being he and Scully created, all life and energy and fluffy pyjamas with rubber duckies on.

‘Okay, well, how old are you?’

‘I’m four.’

‘Okay, so we have to have known each other for more than four years. And do you remember what Mommy said about how long it takes to make a baby?’

‘Nearly a whole year!’

‘Yeah, that’s right. So let’s round up to five years. What else do you know?’

‘Umm...’ she sticks her thumb in her mouth as her brow furrows, and he gently removes it before pointing to the picture of Jackson holding her on the fridge, ‘Jack-Jack!’

‘Yeah, you’re brother. So, do you remember how old Jackson is?’ she shakes her head and he smiles, ‘that’s okay. He’s twenty-one – nearly twenty-two. So we add a year onto that and we get...?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘Good job. So, Mommy and I have definitely known one another for at least twenty-three years-‘

‘That’s a really long time.’

‘It is, but I’ll tell you a secret – it’s been even longer than that.’

‘How much longer?’

‘Seven years longer. Can you do that math there? What’s twenty-three plus seven?’

She counts on her fingers, her jaw dropping when she comes to an answer, ‘you’ve known Mommy for thirty years?’

‘Mm-hm. And meeting her was the best thing that ever happened to me.’

‘Even better than chocolate cake?’

He barks a laugh, stacking the pancakes onto a plate and sticking a candle in the top, ‘even better than chocolate cake.’

~ X ~

She wakes to a wet kiss on the nose and musical giggles, her daughter’s wide blue eyes pressed close to her own, ‘whatcha doing, Baby?’

‘It’s your anibersary.’

‘Mm, it is. Do you know what that means?’

‘It means Daddy’s got you a surprise,’ she whispers, and Scully cranes her neck to look over at Mulder sat at the end of the bed, giving him a coy smirk.

‘Oh, yeah? Daddy’s good at surprises.’

‘It’s pancakes.’

‘Pancakes?’

‘Uh-huh,’ Sammi sits up, dragging Scully to sitting, too, clapping her hands when Mulder presents the breakfast tray, complete with pancakes, hot tea and a flickering birthday candle. ‘Can I blow it out, Mommy?’

‘Sure, Baby,’ she smiles over at Mulder as their daughter huffs at the flame, mouthing ‘I love you’ at him.

‘I’m gonna get her dressed in a minute, then Jackson’s coming over to take her to school and bring her back later for dinner, which leaves the whole day just to ourselves.’

‘The whole day, huh?’ she spears a small triangle of pancake with her fork and holds it out for Sammi to take, finger-combing the tangles from the soft, downy hair of her baby bird.

‘The whole day, no interruptions, to do anything your heart desires.’

‘Whatever shall we do?’

‘Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of something,’ he grins, his smile softening as he watches his girls sharing their syrupy breakfast, thinking back all those years ago, trying to remember if he knew – if he had even an inkling – that day she walked into his office in a too-big suit, just how important she was going to be to him.

tagging @today-in-fic

#does anyone know what happened with the philefest zine?#my writing #txf #xf fanfic #the x files #msr #x files fanfic #x files

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enoughslices · 3 months ago

Note

You mention in one of your tags (related to the Emily episode) that you read an interview regarding Gillian's pregnancy and that some cast/crew comments were well-meaning but insensitive. Do you remember the interview or what they said?

The 90s were a fun time for music, tv, and entertainment, but it must have sucked for the women who had to deal with such a Macho and sexist Hollywood. Feeling compelled to go back to work shortly after a C-section out of "guilt" or fear for one's job "hurts" just to think of it because I know the pain of a C-section and just wanting to stay still when it feels like a stitch is going to tear.

:cracks knuckles: Let's goooooo! First of all, I can only imagine the pain and recovery from a C-section is super intense, full stop. 💜 I know from seeing friends go through it that it can be rough and traumatic even with access to deep rest and real support. It's absolutely horrific to me to try to imagine filming ten-days after an emergency C-section. I was able to find one of the main articles that gave me this impression, and it was this one from TV Guide, March 1995. I've excerpted some of it below and bolded some of the things that felt slightly infantalizing/not great to me. I should say before we dive all of the way in that I think part of what reading this article for the first time left me with was a sense of what an absolutely wild, overwhelming, and isolating time it must have been for Gillian, with some added 90s workplace misogyny and paternalism as icing on the cake.

It's worth going into this bearing in mind that Gililan was 25 at the time of this interview and 24 when she started the show and found out she was pregnant. She lied about her age to get the job - she said she was 27. Both her husband-at-that-time and David are 8 years older so they were ~32 when all of this was happening. Chris Carter would have been 37. She and her first husband, who was on the art direction team for the show, had a whirlwind 6-month romance then spontaneously eloped to Hawaii and accidentally conceived on their wedding day (which the full article goes RIGHT into 😅 but I'll skip ahead to the relevant bit):

A pregnancy would mean limitations on her work schedule and missing episodes - no one could predict how many - in the second season. "I knew I needed to make my decision about the pregnancy first, before broaching the subject with the producers," says Anderson. "I couldn't be wavering. Having this baby was the right decision for my husband and me. But it was like, 'Oh, my God. They did all this for me and now look what I'm doing to them.' So many things go through your mind. So yes, I was worried." Apparently with good reason. According to several sources, executive producer Chris Carter was not pleased. "He went ballistic," says one source. "He wanted to get rid of her." Two other insiders back up that claim. "They were considering recasting," confirms Anderson. "I heard a lot of stuff through the grapevine, and it was not comforting." Not so, says Carter. "I never, ever considered replacing her. It's a lie. If anything, I was the loudest voice saying: We have to protect this show and this person. Scully and Mulder are two characters that the audience has invested in, they are the secret to the success of the show, and we have to find a way to make this work." How did all of this affect Anderson? "She's grown up," says wardrobe supervisor Kieft. "Getting married and having the baby has matured her, I think, and given her a bit of stability. When she was pregnant, we did have a bed standing by, and whenever we could, we would get her to lie down. But she is quite a strong little person." In fact, Anderson missed only one episode and was back to work - after an emergency C-section - in just 10 days. "I was getting restless," says Anderson. "I wanted to get back to work because it was really hard on David, and it's the two of us up there, you know?"

So just to break this down:

Reading between the lines a bit, it sounds like she felt pretty certain that if she didn't share the news with her mind firmly made up and her feet planted, the producers might try to coerce her into having an abortion. Sit with that for a minute. (I am fully and passionately pro-choice but the operative word is choice.)

If three anonymous sources and Gillian herself all say Chris Carter was absolutely incensed about her being pregnant, he was for sure Big Mad and is just trying to cover his ass for PR. There's evidence for this elsewhere as well.

I really do think this last passage was truly well-intended but it hits a lot of points that leave me feeling uneasy. The idea that pregnancy has helped her grow up or ground her, this sense that people were making sure she rested when she was forced back to work immediately after a harrowing emergency c-section, and everything about the phrase "strong little person."... to me it just sort of betrays an environment where GA was habitually treated/perceived sort of like a little girl and not an adult woman with full agency.

Just. Ten. DAYS!!!!! It's a crime.

This next one isn't as bad by any means, but here's a quote from her hairdresser earlier in this same article:

"In the beginning," says Marsden, "she had trouble with her lines, and I think it kind of upset David because he is so accomplished. He's worked in feature files. He's worked with Brad Pitt. And he can learn his lines"-Marsden snaps his fingers-"like. But I know he appreciates how hard she works."

Now obviously, there's nothing overtly wrong with what he's saying here, and it's explicitly laid out in the article how David was the first person she told and that he was supportive. But this quote (and the article taken as a whole) provides a sense of overall atmosphere to me: she's young, she's green, everyone's already a little impatient toward her, and then she was also pregnant.

There's also this article from USA Today in 1994:

The C-section put her "out of commission at least an extra four days than they were planning." She figures everyone is "a little sorry" for sending her back to the grind so soon. "But it seems to have worked out. I think. So far," she says, breathless and bemused.

Does this mean they were originally planning for her to return to set SIX DAYS (???) after giving birth? (??????!)

In the same article, casting a bit of doubt on the earlier narrative that she was just "a strong little person" that they had to coax into lying back down:

Surprise: It calls for her return as skeptical FBI agent Dana Scully--albeit lying in a coma for most of the episode, which aired last week. "That did help a bit, but I mean, with 60 people around you and all the lights, it's not an unstressful situation."

Also in the USA Today article:

When she learned of her pregnancy in February, it defined the phrase mixed blessing. "It was wonderful news, but it scared a lot of people. It scared me. The show was doing relatively well, but it was still very young and there was the possibility of it going one way or another. It could have crashed, and I would have been somewhat in the middle of that. It was a rough time letting people know I had made this decision and deciding how to work with it, and for them, whether to recast (the role)."

I interpret that as something like: if the show had stopped doing well and there was anyway it could be pinned on her pregnancy/absence, it would have been chalked up as her fault. I feel like I'm forgetting something major in terms of crew saying condescending/sort of shitty things (am writing this at midnight because of who i am as a person, so if I remember I'll reblog with it tomorrow) but if you poke around the gilliananderson.ws archives from that time, a lot of the articles focus on or mention her pregnancy or being a new mom, and she speaks pretty candidly about having feared for her job and being absolutely exhausted and fully in survival mode. When you consider that all of this coincided with her being thrust directly into major fame, it's A LOT! This recent Bustle article (Feb 2024) on where Gillian Anderson was at 28 is also somewhat illuminating.

Thanks so much for the ask! I'll share more if I can remember where I saw it! 😅

#txf #txf bts #the x files #the x files bts #gillian anderson #txf meta #tw c section #tw pregnancy #i'll try to dig up more tomorrow #txf text posts

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insertsparkleshere · 2 years ago

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Speak Now - Rosa Diaz x Reader

Summary: Rosa's wedding to Pimento doesn't go as planned. (Inspired by the Taylor Swift song of the same name, the bridge of which makes me absolutely feral).

Word Count: 902

Pronouns: None, but she/her reader intended

Published: 12/18/2022

Note: I totally didn't accidentally post this on my main what are you talking about

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Gina is the only one who knows that you're in love with Rosa Diaz.

Frankly, you're surprised that she hasn't told anyone yet, but she kept your secret. Mostly because you didn't tell anyone when you found out that her and Charles had sex, but it counted.

Rosa's romance with Pimento had been...Interesting, to say the least. To you, it came out of nowhere, but you did your best not to pay attention to Rosa's love life. You wanted to stay sane and not-jealous, thank you very much.

But Pimento...They made sense together, you had to admit. You just hated him.

Jake and Charles still didn't get why, and neither did Hitchcock or Scully. You were pretty sure Amy had an idea, and Terry definitely had his suspicions. Holt had figured it out ages ago - you could tell - but he didn't say anything, which you were grateful for.

Until he did.

"(Y/L/N), see me in my office."

"Yes, Sir."

Rosa snickered. "Someone's in trouble."

"I'm sure it's nothing. Know Holt, I put a period when there should be a semicolon somewhere in my most recent bout of paperwork."

You step into Holt's office. "You wanted to see me?"

Holt stares at you, for a long moment. "Close the door."

"Okay..." You shut it.

"And the blinds. Santiago can read lips."

You frown, but do as he asks. "Is something wrong, Sir?"

"Are you okay?"

"What?"

"Diaz and Pimento's wedding is next week. Your feelings for Diaz are...obvious. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Sir. Whatever makes Rosa happy. And, right now, that's Pimento."

"Hm."

"What?"

"Have you considered telling her?"

"Once. But it's not meant to be. I've accepted that."

"You're a detective - act like it."

That was the moment that Rosa Diaz fell in love with you.

It was the third Halloween heist. And you were explaining your plan.

"I planted the idea of a Halloween Heist in your head three years ago. I wanted to have one, and I wanted to win. None of you have ever seen me get competitive, and I knew that Jake would obsess over this. Especially if he thought it was his idea.

"So, I gave you the idea for the Halloween Heist. And I waited, because I knew you'd take it into the many years to come. I didn't want to win the first one. And I considered winning the second, but the third seemed more poetic.

"All of you adore my baking, so, I decided that I would make a cake. For whoever won the third Halloween Heist. And then I said...What was it? 'It's not done yet, I wanted to make sure it was perfect.' And then I set myself up in the break room, already on Jake's team. He would want the cake, and he'd tell me to work on it while Charles guarded the briefcase, and Rosa went in to get it."

"What about Rosa?" Jake asked. "You could never betray her."

"You're right, Peralta, I couldn't. So, what do you think we did? You're a detective - act like it."

It was teasing, and off-handed, and you were riding on the high of victory, but it felt like Rosa's world had stopped.

"You were working together."

"Exactly. We made a great pair, don't you think, Rosa?"

"Yeah."

And you smiled, and Holt had looked over at Rosa, and she knew that he knew that she was completely screwed.

But Rosa knew that you didn't like her. So, she left it alone. And she met Pimento. And they got together. And it was stressful, and crazy, and every time he left, she found that she only ever wanted to talk to you.

But she ignored it, because emotions are for babies.

Or so Rosa told herself.

The day of the wedding came. You sat near the front, but behind someone, praying that no one would be able to see if you cried.

Your heart was shattering. But Rosa's happiness was more important than any pain you were feeling.

So, you tuned out for most of the ceremony. You didn't know if you could stand it.

"Speak now, or forever hold your peace."

There was a moment of silence.

There's my last chance. Your heart whispered.

You stood, hands shaking.

Hitchcock and Scully looked equally confused.

Realization was dawning on Charles's face.

Amy's eyes were wide.

Gina was smiling. She looked like she was about to laugh.

Terry looked worried.

Jake's eyes were bouncing from you to Pimento to Rosa and back again.

And Holt was neutral. You glanced over at him, and he nodded.

"This kind of wasn't what I thought was supposed to happen." You say quietly. "Right, um...I'm sorry. I just...I can't let you marry Pimento knowing that I could have said something and told you how I feel. And I didn't want to do this here, but I chickened out before, and...And now I'm here."

Rosa stepped off the pew, walking down the aisle towards you. You stepped into the aisle yourself, swallowing hard. The worst possible options raced through your mind.

Instead, she stopped inches away from you. "Hi."

"Hi." You whispered. "Sorry."

"Don't be." She leaned forward, kissing you softly. You froze, short-circuiting. Out of everything that could've happened, you hadn't expected this. "Let's go."

You nodded, and she took your hand, and you ran.

So glad you were around

When they said, "Speak Now."

#brooklun 99 #b99 #rosa diaz #rosa #jake peralta #halloween heist #hitchcock #scully #amy santiago #gina linetti #charles boyle #rosa diaz x reader #terry jeffords #raymond holt #rosa diaz x you #rosa diaz x yn

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thanx-files · 2 months ago

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Season 3 Wrap-Up

Let’s skip the boring part. We know the routine by now, and I have a lotttt to say this time around. Thoughts on Talitha Cumi and S3 below the cut.

Talitha Cumi

My least favorite season finale so far, if I’m honest. It’s not that the stakes weren’t high enough, it’s that I was confused for a lot of this episode. I, like Mulder, have precious little patience for Cancer Man and his musings, and there were a LOT of musings in this episode. I’m going to have to read the Wikipedia plot summary for this one. Also, not enough Scully.

Season 3

My favorite season so far. I know, I know “Thanx, you’ve said that every season!” If you’ll recall, I was on the fence about season 2 being better than season 1 (Pilot my beloved) because I feared recency bias. But I feel very strongly that S3 beats out both S1 and S2 pretty handily, recency notwithstanding. Why? Because it’s fun, in a way. The first handful of episodes are less so, but as the season finds a rhythm, there are these brilliant little character moments. Skinner gains a lot of depth this season, for example, but he also has some killer one-liners that tell us he is playing this game for better or for worse.

And as for Mulder and Scully? If there is one thing these two will do, it’s talk on the phone. Those were some of my favorite details this season. The classic “it’s me,” but also the way they can’t stay off the phone in Coprophages. The way Mulder knows Scully will stay on the line to eavesdrop in Avatar. Mulder, our “ticking time-bomb of insanity” starts to show his Captain Ahab side more (hello, Grotesque???). And Scully gets to call him on it! More importantly, the moment I’ve been waiting for: they finally let Scully be so so Catholic.

This season just went crazy, I don’t know what to tell you. There are some seriously unhinged episode progressions — and I’m not even talking about the two-parters. Coprophages to Syzygy to Grotesque (just two eps before Pusher)? Quagmire to Wetwired? Stop it.

5 fave eps (now with more musing!):

Revelations - I told y’all I wanted more Catholic Scully, and this episode really delivered. I love that our skeptic is religious, however remotely. I love Scully. I love that there is this part of her which the X-Files never seem to touch — until they do.

War of the Coprophages - The way they can’t stay off the phone with each other. The way Fox Mulder just HAPPENS to be in the cockroach town during the cockroach uprising. The bug that crawls across the screen. The way Mulder is eating chocolate cake while writing his report about how he narrowly escaped an exploding shit lab. The inexplicably exotic bug he squishes without hesitation.

Pusher - Fuck all the way off. The paper that just says “Pass.” “Smile, Scully.” Russian roulette. Russian roulette!!! I don’t need to tell you all about this. You already know. Plus, there’s this deeply unwell post I already made.

Jose Chung from Outer Space - I also already posted about this one, but the TL;DR is that this sitcom fanatic loves a frame story and a series of Events Which Probably Didn’t Happen Like That.

Quagmire - I KNOW I KNOW it was between this and Wetwired. But when it comes down to it, the Captain Ahab conversation is just too fucking good. Also, I feel I should honor the memory of Queequeg, who deserved better.

5 least fave eps:

The Blessing Way - It’s not that it’s a bad ep, it’s just not for me. I’ve never been much for the metaphysical “between life and death” thing where you talk to your dead dad and he tells you to keep living. This is because my heart is made of rocks.

The List - I’ve come to the conclusion that I just don’t like prison eps.

Piper Maru & Apocrypha - I just got lost. Glad to see Krycek again tho!

Talitha Cumi - See above.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to buckle my seatbelt for the [REDACTED] [REDACTED] arc. Maybe I’ll also rewatch the pilot just for kicks.

#the x files #txf #do you think i’m spooky?#x files #spooky mulder #fox mulder #dana scully #msr #dana scully md #season finale #season wrap up #talitha cumi #wetwired #pusher

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lesbianmarrow · 6 months ago

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chris carter rewriting chinga was like in order to disguise the wobbliness of the haunted doll plot in this episode we are going to have scully and mulder acting so so cute and silly. the fans will love it. they'll eat it up. we can even recycle what darin morgan did in the cockroach episode since people love that guy. piece of cake. so he went and did that and i saw it and knew full well exactly what he was doing and you know what? it fucking worked i did eat it up. who cares if the little girl and her doll dont really make sense. mulder's on the phone with scully twirling the phone cord like a lovesick puppy

#i am not immune to scullymulder cuteness #the x files #syl posts

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oohnotvery · 11 months ago

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The Coldest Night of the Year (Chapter 7)

Scully expects his knock at the door, but not quite this soon. It rouses her from her post-power outage fridge cleaning and she curses with a bottle of tepid milk in her hands. Taking a moment to throw out the carton, she wipes her hands on a dish rag and heads to the door.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move as fast as you did this morning, Scully,” Mulder says as he pushes past her to come stand in the middle of her entryway.

She stares at him in challenge and squares her shoulders. His eyes roam the apartment for a minute before settling on her. He looks like he’s freezing, which is just as well.

His eyes narrow slightly as he studies her. “What did Diana say to you?”

She blinks. “What?”

He takes a step closer, hands on hips. “What did that wretch of a woman say that made you flee my apartment with eight feet of snow on the roadways?”

Wretch of a woman. Her cheeks blaze. Licking her lips, she wonders how little she can get away with saying before the jig is up. How much is he going to extract from her?

Before she can answer, he sighs and steps into her space, tipping her chin up with a light touch. His cheeks are flushed from the chill and there’s a thick layer of snow caked on his boots. “Talk to me, Scully. What did she do to you?”

She stares at his feet as she speaks. “She reminded me,” she says slowly, “of all the reasons why this won’t work out.”

Large hands fall to her shoulders, squeezing gently. “Why what won’t work out? Us?”

She meets his eyes carefully and nods. A small, disbelieving smile plays on his face. “And you believed her—hook, line, and sinker? That’s not exactly your style, Agent Scully.”

Frustrated, she groans and pushes him away. Of course he wouldn’t understand just how venomous Diana Fowley’s words can be. He follows her through the kitchen and into the living room, where she collapses onto her couch with a sigh. Tugging a blanket around her legs, she waits for Mulder to sit across from her before she continues.

“Diana Fowley is manipulative, yes,” she starts, “but what she said to me this morning wasn’t at all untrue. She might as well have taken the words from my own mouth. That this . . . attraction between us—” Her cheeks blaze at the words. “—is temporary. That it’s merely a longing you’ve been wanting to fulfill for a while. That I’m a curiosity, but that at the end of the day, what you want is a real partner. Someone you can trust. Someone who doesn’t hold you back or—or try to discredit your theories.” She meets his eyes. “Someone like her.”

He stares at her for a long minute and she waits for the fallout to begin, for him to reach the same conclusion as her. But before she can open her mouth to speak again, he stands and walks over to her. Stretching out a hand, he lifts her to her feet and tugs her towards him. She feels her body go willingly, even as her mind warns her not to.

He leads her into her bedroom and plops down on the bed, shifting onto his side and beckoning for her to do the same. Warily, she lies down facing him, propping her head on her hand.

He reaches forward to stroke her cheek gently, and she feels tears gather at the edges of her eyes at his tenderness. It’s not fair.

“I don’t know that I can tell you anything to convince you differently,” he says honestly, continuing to touch her face, “because I’ve heard this from you before.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“In the hallway of my apartment, before Antarctica,” he supplies easily. “You told me the same things. That you held me back, that you weren’t a good partner for me.” His eyes turn soft. “Do you remember what I said to you back then?”

Biting her lip, she nods. How could she ever forget? “You told me that I saved you. That I—made you a whole person.” She swallows tightly, the memories choking her throat. “That you owe me everything.”

His expression softens. “Those things are all still true, Scully, but I’d like to embellish them a little today, if you will,” he whispers, his eyes twinkling.

She nods, blushing under his relentless gaze.

He scoots closer and presses a kiss to her forehead, then cups her elbow and squeezes. “I love you, Scully,” he says, “and not just as a partner or a colleague or a fucking curiosity, as Diana would like you to think. I think you are the greatest person I’ve ever known and will ever know. I have no doubts about what place you hold in my life.” Gently, he holds her chin so she has to look at him. “What I feel for you is the deepest, most sacred love I could ever feel for another human being. When I go to my grave—whether that’s tomorrow or fifty years from now—you will be the person etched on my heart. Everything else—everyone else—fades to black.” His eyes darken slightly. “So please don’t ever question my love for you again.”

Her breathing has gone shallow.

“All we’ve ever asked of each other is trust,” he says gently.

His lips brush against hers lightly, then firmly. When he retreats, he’s staring at her helplessly.

“So please. Trust me, not her.”

#msr #msr fanfic #txf #x files #mulder x scully #dana scully #the x files #fox mulder #x files fanfic #xfiles fanfic

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amplifyme · 2 years ago

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Promise

“New year’s resolutions?”

Mulder looks over at her with one of his sidelong, appraising glances. “Do I look like the type who makes resolutions?”

“Come on, Mulder. We’re stuck in this car on New Year’s Eve on what is most assuredly a dead-end stakeout all because you’re convinced that one Herman Jiménez is preparing to escort his family to a new home somewhere in the heavens, compliments of a spaceship steered by little green men. Humor me just this once and play along. And yes, I do think you’re the type to make resolutions.”

“Well, see, that’s where you’re wrong. I don’t make resolutions at the beginning of a new year. I make promises instead.”

“Do tell.”

“Resolutions are rules you’re pledging to hold yourself to. And by their very nature are prone to failure. Promises, on the other hand, are gifts we give ourselves, goals we set which are much more achievable than anything holding to hard and fast rules.”

“Oh, my God,” she sighs in exasperation. “Fine. Promises, then. Do you have any for this upcoming new year?”

“If I tell you, they won’t count,” he argues.

“They’re not birthday wishes you hope for as you blow out candles on a cake, Mulder. It’s okay to share them.”

“How do you know? I’m not taking any chances, Scully.” He fiddles with the radio dial and finds a DJ doing the countdown to 2001. They’re soon to hit the 30 second mark. “And besides, last year’s turned out pretty well. Why would I want to risk it and tell you this year’s?”

“You-” she stops short and studies him intently as the seconds tick down. “Was kissing me a promise you made to yourself last new year’s eve, Mulder?”

He holds up a finger to stop her as the far too enthusiastic DJ begins the 10 second mark in his countdown. At seven seconds he twists in his seat and leans toward her. By the four second mark, he has her cheeks held firmly in his warm palms. He has those mesmerizing eyes of his locked onto hers at two seconds.

“I’ll never tell,” he whispers and closes the small distance between them as the new year is ushered in on radio station WKIO: Your Station For the Best in Classic Rock.

“Happy New Year, Scully,” he murmurs against her mouth as he pulls away and gives her a thousand watt smile. “The best is yet to come.”

#x-files fanfic #msr #happy new year to all my mutuals and followers #may your 2023 bring you only the best of things #and may all your promises become gifts to yourself #random brain dump #promise #mine

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baronessblixen · 1 year ago

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Prompt: 13. "Come with me, hurry."

Fluff-ish, season 6: Diana throws Mulder a surprise birthday party. Chaos ensues. (wc: 1,461)

Tagging @today-in-fic @xffictober2023

Fictober Day 13: Don't Forget The Cake

“So,” Mulder asks her, his hand rummaging in his pocket, looking for his keys, “what are you in the mood for? Pizza? Chinese?”

“It’s your birthday,” she replies, her stomach grumbling. At this point, any food will do. “You decide.” Mulder finds his key and grins at her. He’s been in a good mood all day and it’s infectious.

“I think I’m in the mood for-”

“SURPRISE!” A group of people yells as soon as Mulder opens the door. He tenses up next to her, standing stock still. She puts a hand on his back, just to remind him that she’s there, but she’s not sure he even notices it.

“There you are,” Diana says. Of course, it’s Diana. Who else would plan a surprise party for Mulder? “I was just about to call and ask where you are. It’s late. We’ve been waiting for you.”

“I- I didn’t know,” Mulder stammers.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” she says with a big grin that showcases her way too white teeth. Scully’s eyes narrow. Either Diana hasn’t seen her yet, or she’s ignoring her. After all, she didn’t even invite Scully to this surprise party.

“Well,” Mulder says, clearing his throat. “I’m definitely surprised.”

“Happy birthday, Fox.” Diana practically purrs his name before she grabs him by his shoulders to draw him closer. The lingering kiss she puts on his cheek grazes the corner of his mouth and Scully finds herself inexplicably seething. She doesn’t count the seconds (though she almost does), but the kiss doesn’t end. Just when she’s about to interfere, and save Mulder from Diana’s grasp, she lets go of him, pulling him further inside – and away from Scully.

She’s never seen so many people in Mulder’s apartment. And so many of them strangers. She’s looking for familiar faces among them. Clearly, Diana must have invited someone they know. She sees Colton lurk in a corner with a beer in his hand, smirking. There are a few agents she’s seen walking the halls, but she doesn’t know their names. She doubts Mulder does. Even if, none of these people are his friends. Scully can’t find Chuck or even Skinner. Then, right when she’s about to give up, she sees the Gunmen.

“Agent Scully,” Frohike says with a dreamy smile, toasting her with a glass of champagne.

“We weren’t sure Diana would invite you.” Langly doesn’t beat around the bush.

“She didn’t,” Scully says, grabbing one of the champagne flutes from the table. There’s a small buffet, too, but the hunger she felt a moment ago has vanished.

“Then how did you know?” Byers asks her.

“We were going to watch a movie together.” It sounds lame, but it’s the truth. The smile Mulder gave her earlier when she asked him what his plans for tonight were – he didn’t have any – and whether he wanted to spend the evening together, is chiseled on her mind. He hasn’t stopped smiling since. Well, he has now. She watches him with Diana, nipping at her cheap-tasting champagne. Across the apartment, Mulder’s body language is wooden. He keeps trying to smile whenever someone wishes him a happy birthday, but every attempt falls flat.

“I think you better go save him,” Frohike mumbles, making Scully wonder how much he’s had to drink.

“Excuse me?”

“That woman,” Frohike says, pointing at Diana, who only has eyes for Mulder. “Is bad. I think, and you cannot tell anyone this, Scully. Promise.” Scully bites her lip, nodding. She’s sure now that the shortest Gunman is indeed drunk.

“I think she’s actually evil.”

“Okay, I think maybe you had too much to drink.” He shakes his head, turning away from her, and guarding his champagne flute like a treasure.

“She’s evil, Scully. She is. I like you so much better than I ever liked her. You can’t let her take Mulder.”

“She’s not going to-” but she stops herself. She doesn’t want to believe that Frohike is right and that Diana is evil. However, she can’t deny that she doesn’t trust that woman one bit. Mulder, however, does. It’s clear that he wants to please Diana by going along with her surprise party, even though he hates it. How can Diana know him so little? His eyes find hers from across the room. They’re pleading with her.

“What can we do?” Scully asks Frohike, her eyes still on Mulder.

“Leave it to me,” he says and she can only watch as Frohike twirls once and then throws himself across the buffet table. The resulting chaos frees Mulder from Diana’s tight grip who clamors and complains as she tries to fix it.

“Come with me,” Mulder breathes into her ear, making her shiver all over. “Hurry.” He reaches for her hand, pulling her with him. No one stops them. Scully can’t help but wonder how many people even know what Mulder looks like.

“Wait,” Mulder says before they’re out the door. He grabs the small, untouched birthday cake from the kitchen table, throwing Scully a mischievous grin, and then they’re gone. Mulder’s gurgling laugh as she pounds her palm against the elevator button, makes her giggle like a schoolgirl.

“Where can we go?” Scully asks. She’s out of breath, feeling exhilarated.

“Your apartment.” His answer surprises her. “There’s no way Diana will show up there.” She nods, though she isn't sure what Diana will or won't do. All of this will have an aftermath. She is sure of that much.

In the car, Scully is holding the cake that reads “Happy birthday, Fox”. She can only imagine how pissed Diana will be when she finds out that not only the guest of honor disappeared, but his cake, too.

“I’m sorry, Scully,” Mulder says out of the blue.

“For what? It was a surprise party. You couldn’t have known about that.”

“No, but I know Diana. A few days ago she said something about a surprise later this week and I completely forgot.”

Scully glances at the cake and considers Mulder’s words. What if she’s getting this all wrong?

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“It’s personal.”

“Ask away.” Mulder’s voice is soft.

“It’s none of my business, but are you- you and Diana, is there… did you- ever since she came back, have you two…” she can’t say the words. She doesn’t even want to think them. She knows how alluring an ex can be, no matter how much time has passed. In hindsight, everything looks rosier, easier.

“Have we? No. No, we haven’t. I mean she tried and I- I did kiss her once. I could tell she wanted more and Scully, I can’t lie, I thought about it. But I couldn’t go through with it.”

“Why not?” she blurts.

“I think you know why.” His words are simple, but his answer is anything but.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“Hm, I owe you a lot and I’m glad you asked, Scully. I should have told you, but how do you let your partner know that you didn’t sleep with your ex without it sounding strange?”

“You know, Frohike told me to save you. He said he thinks Diana is evil. I think he was drunk.”

“Oh, I’m sure he was. But I’m also sure he believes it.” Mulder gives her another one of those bright smiles he’s been throwing her way all day.

“You’re not all worried about your apartment?”

“No. The Gunmen will make sure everyone leaves.”

“What about Diana?”

“She too. I think it’s time I change the locks. I have no idea how she got into my apartment.”

“She doesn’t have a key?”

“Why would I give her a key?” Mulder sounds genuinely surprised. “We’re here.” He parks the car in front of her building and neither makes a move to get out. “Diana is going to be so angry that we stole that cake and ate it ourselves.” He’s grinning from ear to ear.

“You don’t think she poisoned it, do you?”

“Let’s find out.” He uses his finger to dig into the cake and Scully watches as he licks the dough off of it. “Not bad. You want some?”

“I prefer to eat with a fork.”

“Let me just give you a little taste.” She doesn’t know what to expect, but it’s not Mulder leaning over and pressing his mouth to hers. She tastes lemon, dark chocolate, and Mulder. Her favorite taste of all, she decides.

“Happy birthday to me,” Mulder whispers as he leans back into his seat. “Still want to spend the rest of the day with me?”

The rest of my life, she thinks.

“Yes,” is what she instead. “Let’s go have some cake.”

“And more?” he asks, his hand on her back leading her inside.

“We’ll see.”

#fictober23 #i wanted to throw mulder in front of a car for his birthday #but i already did that in 2020 #so throwing diana at him instead #msr #xf fanfic #my writing #my fic

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cecilysass · 8 months ago

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Shine On (8/16)

Read on AO3 | Tagging @today-in-fic

Chapter 8: is William okay

Farrs Corner, Virginia February 22, 2015 5:00 pm

The trip back to Mulder’s house is superficially quiet. There is the hum of the engine and a few polite words from the two adults in the front seat, who also occasionally treat him to concerned looks. But of course it isn’t really quiet for Jackson.

Scully’s thoughts and feelings are like some mixture of a thunderstorm and an orchestra in his brain, some pieces discordant and frightening, some beautiful, some just nonsensical, almost all overwhelming.

Sometimes he looks out the window and tries to limit all of the input down to only words, to just the part that is language. That seems more manageable, but it never entirely works. What emanates from her is never purely words. It’s always interrupted by jarring pops of some sharp emotion.

—maybe a neurological impact, which is something we should have him examined for oh god why didn’t I when he was a baby? I should have done it then, maybe I could have prevented something—maybe he can hear this, think about something else—so easy to depend on Mulder, too easy, so much his old self, looks so good, so happy, is he frustrated with how I am acting? just so obvious I’m such a fucking mess—William, back then I was such a selfish coward, oh no God think of his little baby face, his sweet baby smell, how could I, why did I, I should have—

He can’t stand it. He can’t stand listening to such a steady current of pain.

As they come into Mulder’s house again, Scully looks pale and withdrawn. She sinks down on the couch, wrapping her arms around herself and leaning her head back. Jackson can’t help but think of the last time he saw them both here, at this house, when Mulder and Scully were fighting two days ago. She seems so different now, like she belongs here. Like it’s her house, too.

He knows from both of their memories—and from what Mulder has said—that it was hers, that she lived here, too, for several years. That they had been together until relatively recently. Nothing either one of them has thought or felt really explains why they’re not together any more.

Mulder has carried in a square cardboard box with the bakery logo that Jackson knows is a birthday cake. Somehow, Scully hasn’t noticed it at all; she’s just so completely distracted. Mulder’s gone to set the box down in the kitchen. He calls out to them.

“Either of you want something to drink?”

Jackson and Scully, both on the couch, look up simultaneously. “No, thank you,” Scully says. Jackson shakes his head.

It doesn’t feel as bad as it did, right now. He still definitely feels it, the waves of feeling from her, but he thinks she must have calmed down. Or that she is making a conscious effort to quiet her mind and heart.

He’s still wondering if he can go hide in the guest room upstairs, discreetly trying to get as far away from her as he can, when her phone begins to buzz. She reaches into her pocket with a confused expression, as though she forgot she owned a phone. She lifts it to her ear.

“Hello?” she says. “Marco, hi.” She stands, walking away from the couch to a corner of the room, lowering her voice. “What? Why? What’s going on?”

Mulder walks back towards the couch, a glass of water in his hand, and Jackson doesn’t miss how his eyes sharply fix on her as he sits.

Marco? The single word from Mulder’s mind plummets through Jackson’s shine, weighted down with worry. Marco.

“What?” Scully breathes into the phone. Through her, Jackson’s shine receives a flood of images of a fancy house all … messed up, torn apart, drawers pulled out of dressers, papers scattered across the floor, windows smashed. “Oh my god.”

Mulder sits up straighter on the couch, his expression now one of concern.

“Yes, that’s—yes, that’s the thing to do,” Scully says quietly. Her eyes meet Mulder’s across the room for a moment, and then she looks away again. “Thank you for helping, Marco. And for letting me know.”

There is another beat while she listens. “No,” she says, and Jackson feels her conflict. “I don’t think I’ll go back tonight. I’ll stay here. At … a friend’s.”

Mulder stirs restlessly on the couch, crossing and uncrossing his leg, and even without focusing on him, Jackson picks up fragments of thoughts coming through from him: anxious, aching, wondering.

“Yes,” Scully answers on the phone. “Thank you. I’ll check in tomorrow. I really appreciate all of this.” She begins to walk back towards the couch. “Goodbye, Marco.”

Jackson and Mulder watch her as she steps over Mulder’s legs and sits wearily between the two of them on the couch, rubbing her temples. For a moment she doesn’t speak.

“You and I need to do a check of the grounds around the house,” she says to Mulder, sounding tired. “Are your security systems still up and running?”

“I turned them back on the night he got here,” he says. “Why? What happened?”

“My house has been ransacked,” she says. “It sounds like… someone was looking for something. Maybe information. Which means…”

“Someone knows he came to find us,” Mulder answers. “Probably someone is looking for him. And if they’re at your place, they’re probably eventually here, if not already.”

He stands up right away, reaching towards the spot in his jacket where Jackson already knows he conceals a gun.

“Do you have another weapon?” Scully asks. “I’d rather be armed if we’re going to walk the perimeter.”

“Yeah,” Mulder says, nodding. “Of course.”

Jackson watches them in awe as they get prepared, these dangerous former FBI agent biological parents of his. It’s hard not to feel a little impressed, although he’s also nervous.

He’s surprised by Scully’s feelings, and Mulder’s too, because they aren’t nervous. Not about this, anyway. For them, this is just something that needs to be done. His shine detects that hard, hot quality in Scully again. Inside she is glowing like a poker in a fireplace.

“Is your … house okay, Scully? All your stuff?” Jackson asks her before he can stop himself.

Scully had been loading a gun of Mulder’s, but she looks over at Jackson. Her eyes widen at his question, and he feels something lighter, something airy enter her.

“Yes,” she says quickly. “I mean, it will be. It’s a mess. Marco—my friend—he says he’ll call the police and straighten up a little for me.”

“That’s nice of him,” Mulder says blandly, turning his back to her as if to check out the window.

“It is,” she says absently. Her forehead wrinkles. “But I don’t think I should go back there tonight, in case it’s under surveillance. I assume I can stay here, Mulder?”

Jackson snorts, and both Mulder and Scully look at him, startled. He can’t explain the joke, which is obvious to him but apparently not to either of them. Of course she can stay here. Doesn’t she see that Mulder would have her stay here all the time, forever? It doesn’t seem like you would really need a shine to see that.

“Yeah,” Mulder says, his eyes cutting sideways at Jackson a moment. “Sure, no problem. As long as you need.”

Her gun now loaded, Scully looks down at her attire and bites her bottom lip.

“Do you think I could maybe … borrow some clothes before we go outside? This is an expensive sweater.” She grimaces as she looks at it, and Jackson’s shine takes in a series of images he doesn’t entirely understand: shoes with broken heels, torn dress pants, a blazer with a gaping bite out of it. Memories, he assumes.

Mulder nods, shrugging. “You know where they are.”

She nods, and turns to go up the stairs. Mulder sits back on the couch, examining his own weapon in melancholy silence. His mind is a particularly dark and twisty path, but Jackson can guess what he’s thinking about. He honestly feels sorry for him.

“Marco is her neighbor,” Jackson informs him impulsively.

Mulder looks up at him, his eyebrows raised.

“They, like, watch each other’s houses when they go on trips. She isn’t … in a relationship with him or anything like that. Marco’s married to a man named Joe. I could shine her memories and it was all, like, watering plants and small talk.”

“Oh.” Mulder nods, looking embarrassed. “Right. Yeah.” He bites his lip. “You don’t happen to see if there is someone in particular that she’s seeing…” He stops himself, shaking his head. “Never mind, fuck, Jackson.” He lets out a frustrated breath. “I’m way out of line.”

Jackson just watches him curiously, thinking of his friend Louis and his doomed crushes on girls. This isn’t the same thing, really, but Mulder isn’t as different from Louis as he might have thought. For such an old guy and for someone who was basically married to her, he doesn’t seem to know anything at all.

To his surprise, it’s almost like Mulder knows what he’s thinking, because he meets his eyes and smiles shame-facedly. “I guess I seem pretty hopeless.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, why aren’t you guys together anymore?” Jackson asks. “Why did you break up?”

“You can’t see that in her mind?”

“Not really,” Jackson says.

Mulder sighs heavily. “It’s complicated,” he says. “But I think part of it is that … sometimes I can be a tough person to love.”

Jackson thinks about that, tries to make it fit with what he has seen. “I don’t know,” he says. “That doesn’t really seem right.”

Mulder’s eyes meet his just as Scully thumps down the stairs, wearing an enormous hooded sweatshirt that says “Martha’s Vineyard” on it and some rolled up sweatpants.

“All right,” she says briskly. “Let’s do this.”

Mulder stands, nodding his agreement.

“You stay inside, right here on the couch, okay?” Scully tells Jackson. “Don’t move near the windows.”

Just in case of gun fire, she thinks. But don’t want to scare him.

Jackson lifts his eyebrows. “Got it,” he says. “I’ll lay low.”

It’s not until they walk out the door that Jackson realizes that he could have told them whether there was anyone else on the grounds. His shine can get a read on who is around, or at least whether someone is around and where they are. And right now, the only minds he senses nearby are Mulder’s and Scully’s, both of them popping and crackling with feelings and thoughts.

He stretches out on the couch, lying down and closing his eyes. He listens for any sounds outside. He can’t hear much with his ears. It’s quiet here at Mulder’s house.

In Mulder’s kitchen there’s the sound of a clock ticking.

Then a sharp slice of anguish. Of pulsing anxiety.

Mulder. Oh Mulder, no.

Jackson springs up on the couch, his body rigid.

There is the sound of a gunshot. Then another.

His heart pounding, he pushes out his shine desperately around him, feeling for either of them, confirming they are still there.

Is he okay is he okay is Mulder okay

Scully. Thank God.

Jackson wraps his arms around himself and rocks back and forth on the couch. They’re both alive, anyway. He feels overwhelmed with relief, and he’s not sure whether it’s coming from him or them.

William William William is William okay

Could anyone have gone inside? I didn’t see anyone. Is he okay? Is Jackson okay?

It’s like they’re both tugging on him, pulling hard on his shine to come towards them. Jackson doesn’t think. He just acts. He runs to the door and throws it open, and he sees them both, maybe thirty feet away, guns extended. They are staring back at him in the door.

“Stay inside, Jackson,” calls Mulder urgently. “Don’t come out.”

Jackson doesn’t listen. He runs outside, feeling an overpowering urge to be near them up close.

“Jackson, don’t,” Scully repeats.

“Who was it?” Jackson asks breathlessly, reaching them. “Who did you shoot at? What did they want?”

“A man,” Mulder says grimly, grabbing his arm. “And I’m not sure. Let’s go inside.”

Scully is looking all around them, her eyes scanning the area, her weapon still raised. “I don’t understand, Mulder. I know I hit him.”

Mulder’s jaw is set. “Yeah,” he says. “I think we’re lucky we weren’t in closer proximity, or his blood might have made us sick.”

Scully’s head snaps towards him. I didn’t think there were any left. I thought they had been killed off years ago.

“Inside,” repeats Mulder. “We need to get him back inside, Scully. Now.”

Scully nods her agreement. They take hold of each of Jackson’s arms and practically lift him off his feet into the house. Mulder turns to lock the door, then immediately crosses to his desk to start going through a drawer.

“Are you okay, Mulder?” Scully watches him, her body swaying slightly back and forth. Jackson can still feel terror pulsing off of her in tiny waves. For a moment there, he knows she’d really thought Mulder could be in danger. He felt her desperation. It’s exhausting to Jackson, the intensity of her emotions. He stumbles back over to the couch and sits down.

“Yeah,” Mulder says. He produces what he was looking for in the drawer, a tool shaped like a sharp spike. “I was looking for this. We may need it.”

“I thought the shapeshifters were long gone,” Scully says. “You think that’s what he was? Why?”

“Shapeshifters?” Jackson asks. “For real?”

“All I know is that you didn’t kill him,” Mulder answers Scully. “Despite a direct hit. And I thought … I thought I saw something green where your bullet hit.”

“If they’re still around, then who else is?” Scully asks in a tense voice. “Who’s coming after him?”

Mulder and Scully look at one another. Jackson’s eyes bounce back and forth between them. “I couldn’t sense him, with my shine,” he comments. “He was invisible to me.”

That gets their attention; both of their heads swivel to look at him. “Oh yeah?” Mulder says. “And that’s not something that usually happens?”

“No,” Jackson says. “It’s not.”

Scully’s eyes examine him, and Jackson again is hit by what he’s coming to consider her signature combination: fear and love, white hot steel.

“We should call Skinner,” she says in a quiet voice. She’s looking at Jackson but speaking to Mulder. “We need the X-files. We need to do whatever it takes to get the X-files back.”

***

Mulder and Scully sit at Mulder’s dining room table and talk on the phone to this man Skinner for a long time, maybe thirty minutes. He’s their friend, Jackson gathers, but also their former boss. And he must be someone they trust, because they tell him more than he would think they would, although not everything.

Jackson reclines on the couch for a while and listens, wondering if anyone will remember they need to eat dinner. He thinks of his house back home, of the regular meals, of his mom and dad across the table and their cheerful conversation about topics like the new Wal-Mart and who was going to win the World Series and how Jackson’s grades were. He wonders if these biological parents ever have normal conversations. If they ever do normal things like have Taco Tuesday.

Dinner seems unlikely to happen any time soon, so he decides to go up to the guest room. He could use a little privacy.

He kind of likes this guest room—the room that was supposed to be his, he reminds himself uneasily as he walks inside again.

It’s a small room with one window, a dresser, a bookshelf full of Mulder’s random books, and a single bed with a crisp navy and white patchwork quilt. The bed is messy—Jackson didn’t make it this morning. There is a book (Ghost Stories of Virginia) sitting on the pillow with a corner folded down to mark his place. Jackson picks it up again, flops down on the bed, and starts to read.

He hasn’t read for very long when he has the distinct sensation of somebody nudging at his mind. Like a poke at his shine.

It’s the weirdest feeling.

He lays the book down on his chest and blinks, trying to open his shine up to see what’s out there.

Tomorrow morning. Seven o’clock. Go out to the grove of trees behind the farm.

Jackson sucks in a breath. He can hear Rose’s voice, every word as clear as if she is speaking in the same room.

Make sure you aren’t followed. We can talk then.

Imperceptibly, Jackson nods his head, even though he knows she probably can’t see. His heart is thumping again.

She’s going to talk to him again. She’s going to help. He feels almost shaky with relief.

Almost without thinking he lets his shine drift and linger for a moment on the anxious, busy energy between Mulder and Scully downstairs. On their intense focus. On their surprising, desperate need to protect him.

***

#xfiles fanfic #the x files #x files fanfic #fox mulder #dana scully #x files #xf fanfic #msr #jackson van de kamp #x files revival #my fic #shine on

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atths--twice · 2 years ago

Text

A Surprise, a Birthday, and the Constellations

It's Mulder's birthday and after the night spent on a baseball field for her own birthday celebration, Scully has a special surprise planned for him.

In December, a tweet was posted by @gabby-msr that read: "Mulder teaches Scully to play baseball for her "birthday." What do you think Scully would teach Mulder for his "birthday"?"

@tofuttim tweeted back with a fabulous idea: "How to navigate the seas with the stars which she learned from her father when she was younger."

I LOVED that idea and added a bit to it. As a result, she approached me with the idea to collaborate on a story.

Well... we did, @tofuttim and I! It has been incredibly fun to write, working together and sharing ideas. We hope you all enjoy this sweet and fluffy little story. 💓

Scully sat alone at the desk in their basement office. Mulder was running down a lead and would not be back for another fifteen minutes. The moment of solitude would prove to be a perfect opportunity to go over the plans she had set in place for tomorrow evening.

She reached into her suit jacket pocket and pulled out a list. With a pencil in hand, she went through each item carefully making sure she did not miss any details. If she was going to pull this off, she would expect nothing less than perfection. She recited the handwritten inventory softly to herself:

Telescope, check Boat rental, check Whites Ferry Boat Ramp, check Compass, check Dad’s October night sky star map, check Lone gunmen, check Sea sickness medicine, check Birthday cake, pick up tomorrow at 8:00 am

After Mulder had surprised her with either her very early or very late birthday baseball lesson, she knew then she had wanted to do something special for him in return. To an outsider, his gesture might have seemed inattentive or ordinary, but Scully understood just how significant the act was. It was an expression of devotion, admiration and a long standing partnership built on trust.

Possibly more, she thought.

She picked up the phone and dialed the Lone Gunmen’s secure line and a familiar voice radiated through the phone.

“Frohike.”

“Frohike, it's me. Am I on speaker phone?”

“Yes you are, little lady.”

“Good. I'm just double checking to make sure you all have everything in place for tomorrow night.”

“Don't sweat it, sister. We have it all planned out. Mulder doesn't suspect a thing.”

“Good. I need this to go down perfectly, Frohike. There’s no room here for error. You know how intuitive Mulder is, he can't catch onto the plan. You boys need to be on top of your game.”

“We got your back, G-woman. Langly has Mulder believing we are taking him to visit a couple who have befriended a Sasquatch child.”

“A… what?” she asked and then shook her head, closing her eyes . “You know what, forget I asked.”

“Byers even created a fake email correspondence to make it all believable,” Frohike continued with a chuckle as Byers shouted out from the background.

“Don’t worry, Scully. We won't let you down!”

Scully took a deep breath of relief and nodded, opening her eyes.

“Perfect. Have him at the boat ramp a little before dusk, so let's say… five? Five thirty latest?”

“You got it. Oh… and Scully, I know I don't have to tell you, but this is going to blow our boy’s socks off. I don't think anyone has ever done anything like this for him… ever. Thanks for putting this together.”

Scully smiled into the phone, always appreciating Frohike’s candor.

“Don't thank me yet. We still have fifteen hours to go without spoiling the surprise.” She glanced at her watch. Mulder was due back soon. “Gotta go, boys. Thanks again.”

She hung up the phone, but not before she received a bye in perfect unison from all three gunmen and she laughed silently, but then she sighed. Her heart hurt thinking about Frohike’s words, but it only solidified her resolve to plan and execute the perfect birthday surprise for Mulder.

Failure was not an option.

Five minutes later, the basement office door swung open and Mulder, clearly exasperated but full of kinetic energy, shuffled into the room. He plopped down in Scully’s chair and grabbed some sunflower seeds out of his suit pocket, tilted his head back, and popped a few into his mouth.

She always admired Mulder’s ability to enter a room with confidence, no matter his mood. She sat at his desk, her arms crossed as she checked him out.

He was wearing his blue button down shirt, her favorite, sleeves rolled up to his elbows exposing his toned forearms. She could not help but think how incredibly handsome he looked.

Clearing her throat, she hoped her reddened cheeks had not given her thoughts away as he sighed deeply, his neck resting on the back of the chair.

“Dead end, Scully,” he said in a glib voice.

“I’m sorry, Mulder,” she said sincerely and then hurried on. “Would you mind if I head out a little early? I… uh… have some things I need to do.”

“Reallyyy?” he asked with a slight spike in his voice as he raised his head and an eyebrow. “What's so important that it can’t wait? Anything I can help with?”

She could tell she had piqued his interest. She knew her partner well enough to know, if she stayed any longer, his line of questioning would become more invasive and given the opportunity, he would be able to poke holes in any story she came up with of why she needed to leave early. She had come this far and she certainly was not going to be the reason the surprise was spoiled now.

“No, Mulder, but thank you.” She stood up quickly and walked around the desk to leave. Pausing beside him, she placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “Night, Mulder. See you later.”

Scully held her breath all the way down the basement hallway, certain he would catch up and deter her. When she finally made it into the elevator, she leaned against the railing and slumped her shoulders, letting out a deep sigh of relief when she did not see him.

This might just work, she thought, grinning to herself as the elevator doors shut.

___________

Mulder turned and watched Scully as she left the office. He found himself stealing glances and watching her more often than he probably should be. But who could blame him. Scully was stunningly beautiful and he could not help it.

But she was more than that, he thought, letting out a deep sigh.

When she shut the door behind her, he slumped down in the chair again, slightly disappointed. He knew he should not be because he was aware that he was the worst when it came to remembering important dates. But not Scully, not by a long shot. She always remembered special occasions.

His birthday was tomorrow, and he thought she would have mentioned it, especially considering he would be taking a personal day tomorrow and would not be in the office.

He had taken the day off to spend it with the Gunmen. They had called him, talking excitedly about a lead on a juvenile Sasquatch and had invited him along to authenticate the claim, to which he had happily agreed.

But deep down, he had hoped Scully might have asked him to a birthday lunch or even better, dinner and drinks. He would have gladly canceled any and all plans, if Scully had even hinted at either option.

One could only hope.

He stood up and stretched his arms towards the ceiling, letting out another loud sigh. He tinkered around the office for another thirty minutes then decided to head home to his apartment. Patting his pants pockets, checking to make sure he had his car keys, he gathered up some case files from his desk and headed out the office.

Turning off the lights, he shut and locked the door behind him, wondering if Scully would think to call him tomorrow and wish him a happy birthday.

_______________

Scully opened her eyes before the morning sun had a chance to greet her through her bedroom window. She rolled over onto her side, peeked at her alarm clock and rubbed her eyes.

6:00. Ahead of schedule, she thought.

She could hardly blame herself for waking up so early, as she was far too wired to sleep.

Wired and excited.

Today was October thirteenth, Mulder’s birthday. She smiled as she sat up and reached for her phone to call him, hoping he was still sleeping and not awake at this early hour. If he answered, it might jeopardize the surprise, as he might suggest that they meet for breakfast or possibly lunch. She dialed his number and when it went straight to his answering machine she was instantly relieved.

“Mulder, it's me. Happy birthday. Enjoy your day off. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She ended the call and put her phone down on the nightstand. Making her way to the bathroom to take a quick shower, she thought of her plan, mentally checking through her list once more and pausing on the star map with a smile.

When she was a little girl, her father had told her stories of sailors using maritime constellation maps to navigate the seas at night. Seafarers would create maps of the stars during the different seasons. With the constellations as their guide, ships were able to stay the course throughout the night.

One particular story always stood out to her and she would often ask her father to recite it, though she knew it by heart, which he would with a chuckle.

A young sea captain and his small crew of sailors were lost at sea one October night. He was newly married and had been gone from his pregnant bride for several months. The young captain used the constellations as a guide to steer his ship and crew back on course, bringing them home safely. The captain made it home in time to see the birth of their first child, which they named Corona, after the star cluster he tracked at night.

With that story in mind, she had come up with the idea to rent a boat and take Mulder out to “sea” to stargaze using the old maritime constellation map as a guide. Her father had given it to her years ago, smiling as he told her to “use it wisely.”

Scully could not help but think of his words as she also thought once again how employing the constellations as guides to navigate the seas at night was both romantic and pragmatic. She knew when she told Mulder the story she had loved as a girl, he would appreciate the juxtaposition of science and intuition.

However grand her plan though, she knew a trip to the actual ocean would be too far, and so the Potomac River, which admittedly was enchanting at night during this time of year, was the next best thing.

The river was large, but also close to the city lights and she had needed to find a section on the river that was away from the city to have a better view of the stars. Whites Ferry public boat ramp proved to be the closest spot, without going too far out. It was only two hours away on the Maryland-Virginia border and it offered stunning views of the stars at night.

It would be the perfect setting for her birthday surprise.

As an FBI agent, there were certain perks one could take advantage of and under the circumstances, she was not too ashamed to admit she had pulled a few strings to rent a boat. Everything was in order and going as she had planned and thanks to the help of the Gunmen, Mulder was still none the wiser.

She finished getting ready, smiling as she headed out to pick up some last minute things, including Mulder’s birthday cake, then she set out to pull off what could arguably be the biggest surprise of Mulder’s life.

_________________

Mulder woke to the sound of knocking. Startled, he instinctively reached over to his coffee table feeling for his glock.

Less groggy as he began to remember his plans for the day, he put his gun back on the coffee table with a sigh and sat up on the couch. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stood, taking a second to stretch.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

“Mulder, it's us. Open up.”

“Alright, alright… give it a rest. I’m coming.”

He dragged his feet to his apartment door and unlocked the deadbolt, turning around to head back to his bedroom.

��It's open, fellas.”

The door opened and the three Gunmen entered his apartment like a hurricane. Mulder turned around, gesturing in the air as he opened his bedroom door, and looked at them.

“Guys, it's early. Can you not be so… you?”

“Sorry, buddy. Langly doubled our expresso this morning,” Byers said apologetically and Mulder rolled his eyes.

“I'm going to hop in the shower. Don’t break anything while I'm gone.”

He smiled to himself as he turned on the shower, shucking his clothes as the water warmed up, thinking about the three grown men in his living room who were now trying very hard to heed his warning.

___________

Frohike paced the apartment while Byers and Langley sat on Mulder’s couch. All three exchanged glances. Frohike looked at his buddies, tapping his watch with a nod.

“This has gotta work,” he said. “We can't let the little lady down.”

“You know, Frohike,” Langly said, his knee bouncing from too much caffeine. “I think you just might be the only person who can get away with calling Scully little lady and still be walking upright.”

“What can I say, boys? I can’t help it if I’m her favorite.”

“Yeah,” Langly snorted. “Whatever.”

“You’re just jealous, hippie.”

“Alright,” Byers said, glancing at his own watch. “We get Mulder out of here as soon as he’s ready. Grab a bite and get a move on.”

“No fucking around,” Langly added and Byers shrugged.

“I didn’t say that,” he replied as Langley stood up to peruse Mulder’s video collection.

“But it was implied,” Langley said and Byers nodded.

“T-minus twenty minutes, fellas,” Frohike said and they all nodded.

____________

Scully stepped onto the boat, setting down the last bag of items she had brought with her and sighed as she looked around.

It was a beautiful fall day, the air crisp and the sun bright. It would be a perfect night for stargazing later, so long as the clouds continued to stay nonexistent.

Taking off her coat, the sun and recent activities warming her, she set about preparing for her trip down the river and Mulder’s eventual arrival, smiling as her stomach gave a little lurch of excitement.

___________

“Are you guys sure about this couple?” Mulder asked, sitting in the Gunmen’s van, staring at the park bench where the couple had agreed to meet with information about the Sasquatch child.

“Yeah. They said they would be here. We just need to wait.”

“They said at one. It’s almost two thirty now,” Mulder said skeptically. “I think they’re gonna be a no show, if they were ever the real deal to begin with.” He sighed and shook his head.

“Hey, man, don’t say that,” Frohike said, glancing quickly at Byers. “Sometimes it takes time. You know how people can be.”

“I can try and call them. They gave me a number,” Byers suggested and Mulder shook his head.

“Nah. Pretty sure that will be a bogus number. I had a feeling this was too good to be true.”

“I’ll try it, let me see.”

Just as Byers took out his phone, it rang and they all looked at one another.

“Hello? Yes? It’s Byers, yes. Okay. Where?” He looked at his watch and nodded. “Yeah, we can be there in… a couple of hours. You have the… oh. Yeah, I understand. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Good… bye,” he said, looking at his phone before hanging up. “Well, that was them. They said they were here, but there were too many people around. That they felt nervous.”

“So what do they want? Where do they want to meet?” Mulder asked, feeling both annoyance and excitement at the possibility of speaking to them.

“Whites Ferry boat ramp,” Byers said and Langley nodded, taking out the map guide he kept under the seat and began searching for the quickest route to Whites Ferry.

“A boat?” Mulder moaned, leaning his head back and closing his eyes with a sigh, already feeling seasick.

Byers looked at Frohike and they both smiled before Frohike jumped into the driver's seat, arguing with Langly as the other two put on their seatbelts.

_______________

Scully stood on the boat, her cell phone in her hand, tapping it against her thigh as she waited for it to ring once, announcing the arrival of Mulder and the Gunmen. Her mind scrolled through the rolodex of thoughts she had of the day and settled on the anticipation of what was to come.

Everything was ready, all she needed was Mulder.

Her phone rang and she jumped. When it did not ring again, she knew they had arrived and Mulder would soon be walking down the ramp. She slipped her phone into her pocket and grinned.

Staying out of sight, but standing where she could watch his arrival, she waited, her heart racing.

She saw him and she grinned, noting the excited trepidation on his face as he looked at the boat. The guys were not behind him, and would most likely already have driven away, as was the arrangement. She grinned again as she saw him sigh and then step onto the boat ramp.

“Hello?” he called out. “It’s Agent Mulder. You spoke with Byers earlier and said to meet here? Is it alright if I approach closer?”

“That would be ideal,” she said, stepping into view and smiling at him. He stared at her, stopping in his tracks.

“S… Scully? What…? How…?” he said, frowning as he shook his head. “But… I don’t understand.”

“Happy birthday, Mulder,” she said, stepping off the boat and onto the ramp.

“Birthday?”

“Yes. It is your birthday today, correct?” she teased and he nodded with a confused look on his face.

“But the…” He looked back toward the parking area and then back at her. “There was never a Sasquatch child, was there?”

“No,” she said with a smile, shaking her head.

“You planned this? The guys knew that you…?”

“They did.” He stared at her and she smiled again. “I needed time to get down here without you suspecting where I was for the day.”

“So you sent me on a snipe hunt?” he asked, a smile twitching at his lips.

“More or less,” she agreed with a nod.

“Okay… so, what’s the plan? I’m… They left didn’t they? Dropped me off and drove away?”

“They did.” She grinned and he nodded with a hum.

“I take it your car is not here and the only mode of transportation is this boat,” he said with a heavy sigh.

“Your assumptions are correct,” she said. “However, I did take into account your lack of sea legs. Or river legs, as it were. Hold on a second.”

She stepped back into the boat and picked up the sea bands she had bought, along with a bottle of water and the nausea pills. Stepping out again, she handed him the bottle of water.

“Here. Give me your arm.”

He held out an arm and she slipped the band onto his wrist, twisting it to the correct location. He switched the bottle of water into his other hand and she slid the band onto his opposite wrist, situating it as well.

“These are supposed to help with nausea, but I’m not entirely sold on them, so you should also take a pill to help it. Don’t want to ruin your birthday surprise by puking your guts into the river.” She smiled as she opened the bottle of pills and handed him one. “I think one should be enough. Don’t want you getting too drowsy.”

“I’d take drowsy over pukey any day,” he said, putting the pill in his mouth and opening the bottle of water. Drinking it down, he wiped his mouth and stared at her as he replaced the cap. “So a boat was the idea you had for my birthday surprise?”

“Yes,” she answered with a nod.

“Despite me needing all these precautions?” He looked down at his wrists and then back at her.

“Yes,” she said again and he hummed as he looked at the boat, a finger running across the band on his right wrist. “It’s something I love.”

“What?” he asked, looking back at her. She smiled as she turned her head to look out at the water.

“I’ve always loved the water. Boating. Sailing. It’s calming. My dad used to take us fishing when we were little. Sometimes the rocking would make me feel sleepy and he would laugh as I nodded off. There’s just something about it…” She looked at him again and she smiled softly. “You shared something you love with me for my birthday gift and I wanted to do the same for you. Yours just needed some… precautions.”

She glanced at his wrist bands and shook the bottle of pills and he chuckled.

“Well… then I suppose we should shove off,” he said and she nodded, excitement again stirring in her belly.

“You get in and I’ll take care of it.”

______________

Mulder smiled as he stepped into the boat, sitting down and watching Scully prepare the boat to leave. She was quick and sure as she untied the ropes and tossed the boat's bumpers from the outside of the boat into the inside. Giving it a good shove once she was finished, she hurried aboard, laughing as she did.

“When I was little,” she said, stepping to the steering wheel and turning the key to start the engine. “I was always the one to shove us off. Bill grumbled about it sometimes, saying it was a “man’s job” and my dad laughed, telling him to pipe down. I was the smallest and the quickest, not rocking the boat much when I jumped on.”

“I bet he hated hearing that,” Mulder said, smiling at her as she started backing up.

“He did indeed,” she laughed, turning the wheel when she had backed up far enough and then driving forward, not quickly, but at a comfortable pace.

“So this is my birthday present, huh? You shouldn’t have,” he said, remembering her words to him on a baseball diamond a few months back.

She looked at him with a smirk and he smiled as he looked up at the evening sky, the stars just beginning to come out.

“It’s not a Sasquatch child, I know, but…” she teased and he chuckled.

“It’s better,” he said softly, not looking at her, but watching her from the corner of his eye. He knew she had heard him above the sound of the motor by the way she glanced at him and he held back a smile.

Watching the water as they drove smoothly over it, he felt happier than he had in a long time. Especially on any birthday he’d ever had.

They did not really do birthdays, her and him, except the year when he had given her the Apollo Eleven keychain as they had shared dinner and drinks at The Headless Woman’s Pub.

They did not go there anymore, however. Not since Pendrell had been shot and then died. Scully said she would rather not eat there again, her eyes sad when he had suggested it one night.

No, they did not do birthdays. Yet this year… they were celebrating each other’s, sharing things they loved.

He turned his head and looked at her, admiring her profile and smiling at the small smile he saw on her lips.

“So,” he said, clearing his throat and adjusting the sea band on his wrist. “You had all the precautions. What’s the rest of the plan? Are we headed somewhere?”

“Not in particular,” she said with a shrug.

“Not to some rock in the middle of the river to have a good heart to heart?” he suggested and she laughed, the sound of it echoing out over the still water.

“I’m not planning on sinking another boat, no,” she stated, laughing again and he shrugged.

“That was Big Blue, Scully. Not your fault.”

“Mulder…” she said warningly and he nodded, looking around the boat.

“Where did you even get this boat?” he asked, standing up carefully and stepping toward the door to what he knew had to be a small cabin area.

“No. You don’t get to go down there,” she said, holding her hand out and stopping him from opening the door.

“What? Why not?”

“Because I said you can’t. Please sit back down.”

They stared at each other and she raised her eyebrows, her hand still blocking his access to the door.

“Is the Sasquatch child in there? Is that my surprise?” he teased and she rolled her eyes.

“Yeah. You figured it out. I’ve taken a forest dwelling cryptid from, not only its home, but its mother, and put it on a boat to take it for a cruise down the river. I thought it might enjoy being away from all it knows, locked in a cabin and waiting to be stared at by you with your crazy and excited eyes.” She stared at him and then rolled her eyes as she shook her head.

“Ah, Scully. You truly know the way to a man’s heart,” he said, covering his heart with both hands as he stepped back from the door, grinning at her. “I’ll do my best to act surprised when I see it.”

“You do that,” she said with a scoff and another roll of her eyes, shaking her head as she smiled. Putting up his hands, he sat back down and exhaled deeply.

“How did you get the boat though?” he asked and she shrugged her shoulders.

“I have my ways,” she said, glancing at him quickly.

“The guys help you procure it?”

“Nope.”

“Hmm…” he said, leaning back and crossing his arms.

“Agent Lincoln actually helped me out,” she said and he sat up with a slight frown.

“Did he?” he asked, as he pictured the tall, sandy-haired agent. “How?”

“Well, he happened to overhear me on the phone and asked if I was trying to find a boat to rent. I said yes and he suggested a guy he knew. I called him up and told him what I needed and…” She gestured to the boat with another shrug.

“Just like that?”

“Well…” She smiled at him and then licked her lips. “I might have implied it was for official bureau business.”

“You lied?” he asked in mock incredulity, his mouth dropping open. “Agent Scully, I’m surprised at you.”

“It’s not exactly a lie. We are federal agents and if we don’t technically use it for a case, how will they know? Maybe the mere thought of it will be their new claim to fame. People are drawn to odd things.”

“Are you trying to imply something, Scully?”

“No,” she said, laughing and shaking her head.

“I don’t know,” he said, leaning back again, Agent Lincoln no longer a threat in his head. “I think people at the bureau would say otherwise about us working together.”

“No they wouldn’t, Mulder. They don’t find me odd.”

It was his turn to laugh, looking at her as she smiled at him, pushing the boat to go just a bit faster.

____________

“Are you feeling alright?” Scully asked, noticing he had his eyes closed.

“Hmm,” he hummed with a nod. “Not nauseated and only very slightly drowsy.”

“Well, I suppose that’s as good as it can be considering your shortcomings,” she teased and he huffed out a laugh, his eyes still closed.

She stared at him, his arms crossed and a smile on his lips, and she let out a quiet breath.

The memory of his arms around her as they shared a baseball bat, hitting balls out into the night sky and laughing happily, pushed its way to the front of her mind. It had been fun, silly, and perfect.

When she had left, her new suede coat, which was far too expensive, smelled of him. His cologne, deodorant, and him. The scent was simply Mulder, and one she would know anywhere. She had smelled her coat repeatedly, her stomach fluttering, until she had forced herself to stop, shaking her head at her almost childish behavior.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“What?”

“You’re staring at me. If we weren’t on the open sea… er river, without the fear of other vehicles close by, I’d be worried we might get into an accident.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying,” he said, smiling roguishly. “You seem more confident on the water than you do on the road. Maybe it’s the lack of needing to move a seat to reach the pedals.”

“Mulder,” she warned.

“It’s a compliment,” he hurried to assure her and she narrowed her eyes at him. “You said it yourself, you've always loved the water. I think it’s obvious in your ability to maneuver on it so well.”

“I think that medicine may be affecting you more than you think,” she grumbled and he laughed.

“All I’m trying to imply is that you look as though you belong to the sea, I mean river. As if you’re a seafarer who has taken on a watery quest, ferrying a soul across the River Styx or some such important task.”

“Wow… You’ve taken anti-nausea pills before, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Did it act as a truth serum as it seems to be doing tonight?”

He laughed again and shook his head.

“Nah. And it’s not from the pills. I thought it last time I watched you drive a boat. Just didn’t think to say it then.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, thinking of the last time they had been on a boat together. “Poor Queequeg.”

“Yeah,” he said softly as she sighed, her eyes on the water. He exhaled loudly and then hummed. “I understand what you were saying now. How you would find it sleep inducing when you were younger. Being on a boat, I mean.”

“You know, for a man who had a waterbed until very recently, I’m surprised that being on a boat makes you feel queasy, but that didn’t,” she said, giving him a look.

“Oh… it did at first. It took a while to become used to it, as the couch had always been just fine, especially with it being so nice and stationary,” he said with a chuckle. “What took longer to get used to though, were the mirrors on the ceiling. But once the waterbed busted, I took those down.”

“I’m sorry… what?” She looked at him, her brain trying to figure out if she had heard him correctly. “You… what?”

“Look, I didn’t put them there,” he said defensively, shaking his head. “They were just… suddenly there.”

“Mirrors. On your ceiling. They were just… there one day?”

“Yeah. Actually, it was the same day as the waterbed. Remember when we went to Nevada? By Area 51?”

“As if I could forget,” she scoffed.

“Well, when we came back, all of that stuff was there. And the apartment was spotless.”

“Did you order it all and you forgot?” she asked, her mind still on the mirrored ceiling, her thoughts racing at the images presenting themselves to her.

“Ha!” he laughed loudly, sitting forward and shaking his head again. “Do you think I seriously stood in my bedroom one day, looked at the ceiling and thought, you know what it needs in here? Mirrors. Really, Scully?”

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “Hearing you had a waterbed was quite shocking. This is… it’s…”

“Porny?” he asked with a grin.

“Well… I…”

“Believe me, it’s what I thought,” he said, standing up carefully and walking towards her. He stood beside her and leaned against the closed cabin door. “There can only be one reason people put mirrors on the ceiling, and it’s definitely not to stare at their own selves in bed.”

“But,” she said, swallowing hard, her throat dry. “You’ve taken them down now.”

“And without ever getting the true use out of them,” he said, sighing as he looked down and shook his head slowly.

“Oh?” she asked, her heart fluttering oddly at that information.

“Yeah,” he said, looking at her with a smile. “Now the only things up there are pencils, as it should be.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, her thoughts still on what those mirrors and what would have shown if she had been in his bed.

Stop it, she said to herself, shaking her head as if to get rid of those thoughts.

“Mulder, you never cease to amaze me,” she said, looking ahead and turning the wheel to the left, although it was not exactly needed.

“Because I took them down? Should I have kept them up and shown them to you first?”

Her breath caught, which she covered with a cough. She glanced at him and then looked away.

“No. That’s not what… I mean to each their own, but I… No,” she stuttered as the smile on his face grew and he nodded.

“Yeah, it was good I took them down.”

“You want to drive?” Scully asked, desperately wanting to change the subject. Stepping to the side slightly, she made some room for him.

“Hmm…” he said, quirking his mouth and then shaking his head. “Thank you, but no.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I don’t know where we’re going for one, and for two…” He smiled, his eyes dropping to her lips before meeting her eyes again. “Seafaring Scully, on her mysterious quest, is enjoyable to behold.”

If they had been different people, a couple in some romantic fashion, she would have kissed him. Would have pulled him close and perhaps gotten a little handsy with him.

A lot handsy, she thought as the wind carried the scent of his cologne straight to her nose.

But they were not different people and so instead, she rolled her eyes as she took control of the wheel once again.

“I hope you’re not disappointed that there isn’t exactly a destination spot,” she said, suddenly worried that her idea would not live up to his expectations.

“Can’t imagine I’ll be disappointed,” he assured her as she looked at him.

“I… we just need to get a little further from the city lights.”

“Whatever you have planned, Scully, I’m completely… onboard. Starboard, actually.” He grinned and she chuckled softly.

“Technically, you’re port, as you’re to the left of me. I’m starboard.”

“Eh,” he said with a shrug. “Sasquatch. Bigfoot.”

Laughter burst from her, a deep belly laugh that made her lean forward over the steering wheel, gripping it tightly as her body shook from his incredibly corny words.

“Mulder…” she said, still laughing softly as she shook her head and he grinned at her, winking before he turned to look out at the water.

____________

Back in his seat now, Mulder hummed and he closed his eyes, the anti nausea medicine indeed causing him to feel tired. Added to the late hour he had gone to bed and his early morning visitors, he could have nodded off easily.

The engine cut off and he opened his eyes, looking over at Scully. She flipped a switch and he heard the anchor lowering. The boat rocked, and thankfully he found that it did not make him feel sick.

“I think the combination of the sea bands and the drugs you supplied are doing the job nicely,” he told her as he looked around and realized they were in a little cove.

“Good,” she said, opening the cabin door and turning on a light.

“Oh… can I go down there now? Am I allowed?”

“I suppose,” she said, rolling her eyes with a smile as she made her way down the ladder like steps.

He stood up and followed her down into the small cabin and looked around, his eyes falling on the kitchenette, small table, and the bed. Opening a door, he found a toilet and he nodded as he closed the door.

“You know, aside from the fact that I’d be on water, I think I could live like this- it’s simple, no fuss.”

“There’s no shower,” she stated as she took a large leather tube shaped item from the bed.

“We’re surrounded by water,” he replied and she gave him a disgusted look. He laughed as she shook her head. “Okay… I’d find some place and shower. It wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Hmm…” she hummed, shaking her head again. “I do love the water, but not enough to live on a boat. At least not one this size. It’s too small and the lack of a shower or tub, no thank you.”

“What do you have there?” he asked, pointing to the item she held.

“This…” she said with a smile, patting the tube. “This was a gift from my father. Something I’ve treasured, but haven’t had an opportunity to look at for quite awhile.”

“What is it?” he asked again, his curiosity piqued.

“It’s a constellation map,” she said, opening the tube and taking out the contents inside.

“What?” he asked, stepping closer as she unrolled the crinkly, but well preserved, paper out on the table.

It did not lay flat, so he looked behind him, taking spice containers from the rack secured to the wall and placing them on the paper, using them as paperweights.

“Thanks,” she murmured, smoothing the paper and letting out a sigh.

He glanced at her, seeing the soft smile on her face as she looked at the constellations drawn upon it. Looking back at the map, he saw some he recognized, but many that he did not know.

“You know, of course, that my father was in the Navy. He loved the sea, always speaking of it with great reverence.” She smiled again and he watched her trace the constellations, whispering their names softly. “He would tell us stories about when he was gone, but I would always pester him for different stories. There were many he knew, but one in particular was my favorite. I liked it for the romance of it, though I never would have admitted it, lest my brothers make fun of me.” She chuckled and he smiled with a nod of understanding.

“Tell me the story,” he said softly and she nodded.

“A young sea captain, who was newly married, was lost at sea with his crew one October night. They had already been gone for several months and while the crew was worried about their predicament, the captain's own thoughts were on his bride, who was pregnant with their first child.”

“Newly married… they worked fast,” Mulder murmured and she laughed quietly.

“Well, they’d had some time together before he left. Couple that with a lack of any type of protection and… well…” She smiled and he nodded as he raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

“Please continue,” he said. “Did they make it home?”

“They did,” she said, tracing the constellations again. “The sea captain used the constellations as a guide to steer the ship, bringing himself and the crew home safely. He made it in time for the birth of his child, whom they named Corona, after the star cluster he had tracked that night, knowing that it would be the one to guide him home.

Mulder smiled as she turned her head to look at him with a smile of her own.

“That’s a really great story.”

“Yeah. One of my favorites,” she said, looking back at the map. “I would listen to it and imagine this young man who, when it was discovered that he was lost, felt it keenly and-”

“Well, not only himself, but the entire crew,” Mulder interrupted, picturing the ship of men under the starry sky. “Most likely most of them were his own age, possibly even younger. Boys who would have gone to sea because it called to them or they were looking for work. All of them had families of their own, in some form or another. I’m sure they were all scared, but didn’t want to show it.”

“Yeah,” Scully said softly. “Exactly.”

“And the captain, being an intelligent seafaring man, knew the stars and how to read them. He knew how to bring them where they needed to be.”

“Yes,” she said again, nodding slowly.

They stared at one another, each imagining the story from different perspectives.

Mulder could picture himself captaining the ship, bringing all of the lost souls home and hearing the relief and happiness in the voices of the mothers and sweethearts who had been waiting on land.

Scully had always gone back and forth in her thoughts, wanting to both be on the ship as it sailed on the open sea, and also waiting at home, walking the shore as she waited for her beloved husband to return.

Her romantic younger self had imagined the homecoming many times, caught up in the happiness. The sea captain had always looked similar to Tommy Shanahon, from down the street when they were stationed in San Diego, anytime she would think of the story.

Now, as she stood in the small boat cabin with Mulder, his eyes shining from the story, she could only see him as the captain as he stepped off the ship, his eyes locking on hers as he grinned and hurried to her side.

“So,” she said, turning abruptly and also taking a small step back from him, the image vanishing. “What I thought, for your gift, is that I could teach you how to navigate by constellations, like my father taught me. I could show you and you could guide us back home.”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling broadly and nodding his head. “I would really like that. Show me what I need to know.”

______________

Scully watched Mulder as he slowed the boat down and stepped back to look up at the night sky, for at least the tenth time, and she smiled.

He had been very enthusiastic as she pointed out the different constellations on the map. He knew many of them, but not their precise locations. Using the map, holding it up and comparing what they were seeing, he grinned as he named the constellations.

“You sure you don’t want to use the telescope I brought?” she asked him again and he shook his head. “It would make it easier for you to see.”

“I appreciate the offer, but no thank you,” he answered, as he continued looking up. “It wouldn’t be as authentic.” She smiled as she nodded and crossed her arms.

“Well, it’s here if you change your mind.”

“Thanks,” he said again, pointing up. “Hercules. He almost looks like he’s dancing, don’t you think? Some weird dance moves. Do you see it?” he asked and she nodded as she also looked up at the sky. “Bootes now… it looks like a giant kite. And Serpens, it reminds me of a… huh, a satellite dish.”

“A satellite dish?” she asked, smiling at him.

“Yeah, look,” he said, holding the map up as she took her flashlight from her pocket and shone the light on it. “See how it’s a triangle with a bendy line? Definitely a satellite dish.”

“Okay,” she had said, turning off the flashlight nodding.

“I think Corona was a perfect name for the captain’s child,” he said as he kept staring up at the sky. “Not just because it was the constellation he followed, but because of the shape of it.”

“How do you mean?” she asked, frowning as she tilted her head back, looking at the Corona constellation and then turning her head towards him.

“It’s almost shaped like a horseshoe,” he said, pointing again as he traced the air with his finger. “With the ends of it pointing up, a horseshoe represents good luck being collected. Even if the captain hadn’t known, or been overly superstitious, he followed the stars with a lucky symbol attached to it. It was destined to be.”

He smiled at her as he rolled up the map gently and went back to the steering wheel. Increasing the boat’s speed slowly, he hummed under his breath.

She looked at him and then back up at the sky. Her father had described the constellation as a crown, which was how she had always thought of it. But now, she did see it as a horseshoe shape and she found that she liked it better that way.

Turning her attention to the water, she closed her eyes briefly as the warm fall wind blew through her hair. Opening them, she stepped closer to Mulder.

“You’re quite the natural,” she said, her eyes traveling over him, liking the way he looked manning the boat.

“Thank you,” he said, glancing at her and she nodded as she watched him.

“You just need um…” Placing a hand on the steering wheel, she turned it slightly to the left. “Only a little this way.”

“Hmm, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

They drove for a while, neither of them speaking, no other people out on the water, the city lights glowing dimly on the horizon.

“Imagine spending months on a ship,” Mulder said, breaking the silence.

“Didn’t you say earlier that you wouldn’t mind living on this boat, or one like it?” she teased and he nodded with a smile.

“True. But, me on my own is significantly different from a ship full of men. Especially as it wouldn't have a shower nor a toilet,” he said and she made a face.

“The air would undoubtedly be thick with the spice of men,” she stated and he laughed.

“I’m sure it was quite ripe,” he said. “But, I was actually thinking more along the lines of leaving your family behind. Your wife, children… I’m sure it was difficult.”

“It’s what my father did. What many men, and women, still do,” she said with a small shrug.

“Eh… I don’t see it that way, not exactly. With technology and more advanced vessels, it’s different,” he said, shaking his head.

“I suppose it is,” she said, thinking of the days when a ship would be gone for months, no word of where it was at times. Mothers, wives, and children not knowing if their son or father would return.

Again silence fell between them, her thoughts staying on the young captain, confidently following the stars that he knew would lead him home.

Though her journey to meet him at the ferry had felt longer, it seemed that it only took half the time to reach the harbor where she had rented the boat. Switching places, as Mulder was not accustomed to docking a boat, he followed her instructions to ready it, jumping out to help lead it in and tie the rope to the cleats in the front and back.

He grinned at her as he stepped back onboard, quite proud of himself.

She gathered everything up, including the small cake she had purchased for him. Placing it in a bag, she turned the lights off and left the cabin.

Dropping the keys in the after hours box as she had been instructed to do, she turned to Mulder and smiled.

“So… you had fun?”

“I did,” he said with a grin. “Much more than I had anticipated when I realized we would be spending time on the water.” He took off the sea bands and put them into his pocket. “They look and feel a little strange, but I think they worked really well.”

“Glad to hear it,” she said with a chuckle. “I do have something else for you.”

“Is it a keychain?” he teased.

“It is not,” she said, laughing again.

“An alien implant?”

“No.” She rolled her eyes and pointed to the picnic table underneath a street lamp a few feet away. “Let’s go sit down and I’ll give it to you.” He turned, walking ahead of her, and she smiled as she followed.

“It’s not exactly a gift,” she said, placing the bag on the table and taking out the cake. “But, it’s something you’ll enjoy.”

“Ohhh…” he said, sitting at the table and leaning forward with interest. “Is it chocolate?”

“Of course. But… wait.”

She opened the lid and then took out the sparklers she had also purchased. Pushing them down into the cake, she lit them with a lighter. They popped and sparked as she pushed it towards him.

She watched his face as he saw the decorations on the cake, highlighted by the glow of the sparklers. Looking up at her, his expression unreadable, he looked back at the cake and shook his head.

It was plain, with only vanilla frosting. On the top however, she’d had the bakery write Happy Birthday in brown icing. It also had a design, depicting their evening. A brown boat sat on blue water, the moon and stars above it. One constellation hung above the boat, a horseshoe crown shaped constellation, the yellow points placed in the exact locations.

“Scully,” he said softly as the sparklers continued to pop and spark.

“Happy birthday,” she whispered and he looked up at her again. She smiled and he sighed as he stood up and extracted himself from the table.

Standing in front of her, he shook his head and then pulled her to him, surprising her as he held her tightly.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “For everything today. I… It’s the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

“Surely not ever?” she asked with a small laugh, trying to lighten the sudden heavy feeling.

He pulled back, holding her upper arms gently as he nodded his head.

“Ever,” he assured her. “It was thoughtful and surprising. I never would have anticipated it. Thank you, Scully.” He pulled her close again and she sighed as she hugged him back, closing her eyes.

“You’re welcome,” she whispered.

They both heard the sparklers fizzle out and they laughed softly as they broke apart, glancing at the cake before looking at each other and smiling.

He cupped her cheek, his thumb running gently across it. She drew in a breath as he dipped his head and kissed her cheekbone, just above his thumb. Her eyes closed as he kissed her again and her stomach fluttered.

When he pulled back, she opened her eyes and let out a slow breath. His eyes dropped to her lips and she nodded ever so slightly. A smile pulled at his lips and then they were pressed to her own in a soft, slow kiss. Twice more he kissed her in the same fashion and then he pulled back, searching her face.

She smiled, her heart racing, and he grinned back.

“Well… let’s see if this cake tastes as good as it looks,” he said and she laughed with a nod. He caressed her cheek as he dropped his hand and they stepped back from each other.

He sat back down and took the spent sparklers from the cake as she took out the knife, plates, and forks from inside the bag. Cutting them each a generous slice, she handed him the piece with the Corona constellation. He smiled as he picked up his fork and took a bite, humming his approval.

She sat beside him and took a bite of the cake, which was indeed very good, but her thoughts were not on the sweet taste of it.

No, she thought only of the kisses they had just shared, the softness of his lips, and the gentle touch of his thumb against her cheek.

His knee bumped her leg and she glanced at him with a smile.

“If there’s an iced tea in that bag of yours…” he said, looking at it and raising his eyebrows. She laughed softly, reaching for the bag and taking out a bottle of iced tea. “Ahh, Scully. This birthday just keeps getting better and better.”

She laughed again as he opened it, took a long drink and then offered it to her. She accepted it and took a drink as he reached for the cake and cut himself another slice.

“Did I ever tell you about the Lizard Man in South Carolina?” he asked as she set the bottle of iced tea down.

She rolled her eyes with a quiet groan as he took a bite and began speaking. Tipping her head back, she looked skyward and sighed, ready to debate him about the scientific impossibility of a lizard man.

The Corona constellation was directly above them and she smiled. As it twinkled, she changed her mind, deciding to let him talk for as long as he wanted about whatever he wanted. She could wait until tomorrow to discuss the inaccuracies.

It was his birthday after all.

#the x files #xf fanfic #season 7 #birthday surprises #boats #constellations #stars #seasickness #teasing and flirting #fluff #birthday fluff #msr #happy #romantic fluff

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