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mytardisisparked · 5 months ago

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The World Will End

Scully thinks about kissing Mulder at different points in their partnership.

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She wants to kiss him.

The thought strikes her one day as they’re quietly discussing a case. Their heads are close together so they can keep their shared thoughts from the prying ears of the local LEOs trying to listen in, and her eyes wander down to his lips. They’re not all that far from hers. It would be so easy…

Something internal pulls Scully back from those thoughts like a bucket of cold water. She looks back up at his eyes, feeling her cheeks color against her will. Thankfully, he’s studying one of the pictures between them and hasn’t seemed to notice.

Why the hell does she suddenly want to kiss him?

Sure, he’s attractive; Scully has eyes that function. She’s noticed Mulder’s soft, hooded gaze and brilliant smile and nice jawline. She’s also noticed the way he calls her “Scully” or “Agent Scully” or “Doctor Scully” instead of defaulting to “Dana” like some of her other male colleagues. She’s noticed the way he defers to her while questioning witnesses. She’s noticed the way he’s quick to remind other law enforcement that she’s a medical doctor and, therefore, extremely qualified and deserving of professional respect.

She’s also noticed the way he runs headfirst into danger if it has anything at all to do with his sister. She’s noticed the way he allows the darkness to swallow him sometimes. He’s reckless with his life. He’s dangerous, in a way.

And, yet, she still wants to kiss him.

He smiles at her, flipping to a new crime scene photograph as he continues to talk about soil samples and local legends. She smiles back, despite herself. Her chest feels warm and fuzzy and–

No.

No, she can’t do this.

There is a line here, in the proverbial sand between them that, if crossed, will almost certainly end in destruction. Workplace romances never end well, in her experience, and the FBI likely won’t allow them to keep working together. She will be looked down upon even further by her male counterparts. Mulder will be mocked for more than just being a little “spooky.”

Nothing good will come of it.

And, the truth is, she likes what they have now. It’s not easy or comfortable, but it works. It works very well. Her world is steady on its axle, with Mulder, the X-Files, and her emotions orbiting it in careful synchronization. If one thing steps out of orbit, the whole system will crash and go careening off into space. They have a tentative friendship and mutual respect that she values deeply and would hurt to lose. They provide a push-and-pull set of perspectives to their work that gets good results. This is working.

And so, she does not kiss him, because then the world will end.

—

She wants to kiss him.

This thought is not new. In fact, she’s starting to tire of her own inner thoughts drifting in that direction. She’s thinking it more and more lately, likely because they have been getting closer. Something between them shifted after her abduction, and the resulting loyalty between them is somewhat astounding to her; she feels a strong pull to stay by Mulder’s side and, most of the time, she thinks he feels the same way.

What they have is good. Very good. He’s the closest friend she thinks she’s ever had, even when he’s frustrating and single-minded and full of hare-brained ideas that are bound to get them both killed someday.

Kissing him would change all of that. Their friendship is so new – so good – but there is a glass wall between them even still. Kissing him would shatter that glass, the shards would get stuck in their skin, and every action after that – every touch – would have the potential to hurt.

She likes him too much to risk that. She likes what they have. She likes this partnership between opposites and the balance that has come with it. They make a good team.

If they kissed, the world would end.

And, so, she does not kiss him.

—

She wants to kiss him.

He has kissed her plenty, on her hollowed cheeks and cold hands, but it is not enough. Not remotely. Her world is ending, drawing to a quiet close, and there are so many things she hasn’t done yet in her life that it makes her want to scream against the coming darkness with every last breath she has in her tired lungs.

And, she figures, if the world is about to end anyway, then why not kiss him? It’s one of those things she hasn’t yet done and it’s easier to accomplish than winning a Nobel Prize in medicine or solving some famous cold-case. Kissing Mulder would be so, so easy. And she wants to so, so badly.

But his world is not ending. Long after she is gone, his will go on. Is the taste of her dying lips really the taste she wants to leave in his mouth? If they cross that line, will his world end with hers? Or will that memory be what pulls him away from the darkness after she is no longer there to do it herself?

Will it be enough to help him fight his demons? Or will it push him further into their grasp?

She doesn’t know, and the thoughts make her head ache more than it already does. So she does not kiss him. She settles for cheek and knuckle kisses and prays that it is enough. It has to be enough.

—

She wants to kiss him.

She plans to kiss him.

She pays too much for wine and cheese at the motel’s front desk and takes it to his room. She flirts with him a bit and feels pleased when he seems to flirt back in his typically-Mulder-y way. She cracks open the wine and pours glasses and thinks about how it might taste on his lips.

And then, in an instant, he is leaving on a wild goose chase. He’s got a goofy look on his face and the pit in her stomach can’t decipher if he picked up on her intentions and panicked, or if he’s really that oblivious.

Or, perhaps, he’s rejecting her. The thought almost brings tears to her eyes as she tastes the too-cheery drink from the rim of the cold, hard glass.

She thought that his cheek and hand kisses in the hospital might lead to something more now that she’s healing, but she realizes that his forwardness, his bravery, might have been fueled by the fact that he might never see her again; the emotional equivalent of a one-night-stand.

She shakes herself mentally, realizing how unfair that thought is to Mulder. He isn’t like that. Is he?

She stands alone in his empty hotel room, drinking both of their portions of wine and eating their cheese. Her heart squeezes as she realizes that, despite everything, the world will still end if they kissed, if they tried to become something other than what they currently are.

And, at the realization that he has ditched her to go investigate on his own again, she wonders if the end of the world is already beginning.

—

She wants to kiss him. Just, not like this.

He’s standing in the hallway, but he might as well have been on his knees, for all the begging he has been doing. Their world has been slowly falling apart, their partnership fraying at the seams, but he still begs her to stay; he still tells her she’s his other half, that she’s saved him, that he needs her.

And now he’s leaning forward to kiss her.

Is this a kiss he really wants? Or is this just another way of convincing her to stay? His prior words feel like the edge of a love confession, but the sting of Diana’s presence and all that has happened since she arrived rip through Scully and threaten to tear her heart in half.

Does he mean it? Does he really mean this impending kiss?

Still, she lets him lean forward – unable to decide if she should meet him halfway or lean back and rethink everything she knows – until his lips brush hers and a sting, a physical one this time, pricks her neck. She ducks, feeling equal parts disappointed and appreciative towards the interruption.

But then the floor begins to spin. Her chest constricts. She’s falling to the floor, and Mulder is running, sobbing, clutching her with gentle, desperate hands.

And slowly, dizzyingly, the world seems to end.

—

She wants to kiss him, despite everything.

Despite Diana. Despite his betrayal. Despite the last few, tense months. Despite his arrogance. Despite his lack of apology.

Despite every last little thing , she’s standing there in the cool night air with his arms wrapped around her hitting baseballs, and she wants nothing more than to turn around and grab his stupid face and kiss him. She wants to kiss him into silence. She wants to kiss him into stillness. She wants to kiss him so he will stop touching her hip like that .

She’s almost angry at herself. She’s still angry at him. The crack of the bat in her hand sends satisfying shockwaves up her arm as her muscles stretch and flex and strain to hit the ball harder, harder, harder into the night sky.

She giggles and she isn’t sure if it’s the result of elation or some other carefully restrained emotion squeaking out past her defenses.

Damn it. Damn it all.

She hits ball after ball after ball because, at least, if she’s playing baseball she isn’t kissing him. The history and emotions between them are behind her, at her back. He’s warm and solid and steady there, and it’s easier to forget everything that has happened as shivers run down her spine.

She isn’t sure what will happen when the boy runs out of baseballs to load into the pitching machine. But she knows she will not kiss him.

She can’t.

She won’t.

Her heart is too fragile, too tender, too cracked. Letting herself give in after all the hurt and damage that has been done will break it. The world will end.

She hits another ball. And she does not kiss him.

—

She wants to kiss him, and she does.

One millennium ends. Another begins. The ball drops and the fireworks flash on the tiny screen above them and Scully doesn’t give a single damn because she’s kissing Mulder. And he’s kissing her back.

It’s rather chaste, but she can feel the promise of something more beneath it. Or, at least, she thinks she can. They break away and Mulder gives her a smile that is somewhere between silly and shy and, with a shrug, says: “The world didn’t end.”

Her own smile falters because she catches his double meaning and isn’t sure how to process it along with her own history of thoughts and emotions.

“No, it didn’t.”

Before she can fall into her own thoughts any further, Mulder is quietly wishing her a Happy New Year and putting an arm around her shoulders in a way that warms her all the way through. The hope she tasted in their kiss – their very first kiss – returns tenfold and she allows him, with a small smile on her face, to lead her out of the hospital to their shared vehicle.

When they finally reach her home, he presses a kiss to her cheek that feels entirely different than the kisses he left there during her battle with cancer. It’s still warm and full of affection, but it’s shyer, as though it’s asking a question.

She answers the question and pulls him back down by his coat lapels for another proper kiss on the lips, this one a little longer and a little less chaste.

He smiles after the kiss and wishes her a good night. A very good night. The best night ever. He stumbles away as they exchange goofy, silly grins and light giggles.

As he drives away, Scully looks up at the stars and smiles.

“The world didn’t end.”

—

She wants to kiss him and she does. Often.

She kisses him in the morning, when his eyes squint against the sun and his hair sticks up everywhere like dandelion fluff. She kisses him in the evening when they say goodnight and his lips taste like their shared pitcher of iced tea. She kisses him in the afternoons when he says something ridiculous and insane on their way to lunch at the diner down the road from their office. She kisses him often because she can. Because she wants to. Because he wants to.

Because the world does not end. Because it never will.

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randomfoggytiger · 11 months ago

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The Scully Family In-Depth (Part XIX): Eyes Averted, and Final Decisions

Thus far we've discussed the effect Scully's diagnosis has had on herself, her mother, and her brother. Yet, it's not until this scene in Redux II that we hear the Scully family bouncing off of each other in a crisis: what behavior they expect from one another, and what boundaries they do and don't push. It's an interesting portrait of resurfaced dynamics and shared familial traits.

More importantly, it sets up blink-and-you'll-miss-it explorations of their differing perspectives on Scully's odds of survival.

THE FIGHT

The scene opens on Bill’s building anger (“This is crazy, just crazy”) and Mulder’s somber, challenging response (“Well, crazy in what sense-- in that it might save your sister’s life?”)

The camera quickly cuts to Scully’s expression during their exchange. She closes her eyes in a controlled shudder at Mulder’s blatant acknowledgement of her illness, opening them only when she has regained mastery over her rocked emotions.

Bill is flabbergasted but contains his fury.

His control is very telling. In Gethsemane, he pushed and prodded his sister's motives-- why didn't you tell me? do you know what our mother's been through? "loyal to who, to this guy Mulder?"-- but never yelled. When he first met his sister's partner, he shook his hand and glowered but didn't tear him up (as he will later this episode.) And here, he's listened to Mulder's farfetched explanation of farfetched chips and cures but still refrains. Bill seems to have put himself under an injunction (be it his own resolve or Maggie's warning) not to provoke or punish; but that resolve requires restraint. As we see here, Mulder pushes his buttons and effortlessly dissolves that restraint in under two minutes.

“You’re not a doctor. You have no place even suggesting this… science fiction.”

Maggie and Scully bend their heads, their body language stiff and conflict-avoidant but not shocked or surprised. To them, a Navy man laying down the law is not a new phenomenon.

“It’s not science fiction,” Mulder insists, immovably calm.

This interaction is solidifying what Bill perceives to be Mulder’s character: insistent, thoughtless action followed by blatant denial of reality. For the first time, we hear Bill Scully holler.

“He’s never heard of it!”

Scully writhes in discomfort-- not wanting to be caught in the middle of her brother’s anger and Mulder’s last, pleading attempt-- and her mother catches it. Shaking off her role of quiet military wife immediately, she softly latches onto her son's arm and orders, "Bill."

Her son immediately complies, respectfully sighing out the bite in his voice. Turning to the doctor, he questions, “Have you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

Maggie takes the lead here, stepping in before Mulder or Bill can steer the conversation back to confrontation. “I think there’s an obvious… difference of opinion here,” she puts delicately, carefully laying down her unspoken expectations of both men.

Mulder nods, easily acquiescing; then turns to Scully when she quickly speaks up.

SCULLY'S DECISION IS HER OWN

Even on her deathbed, Dana Scully commands the respect to speak and to be heard. “I think… that everybody here has their heart in the right place.”

She spares a split-second smile towards her mother, affection and love pouring from her worn, red eyes.

Maggie's expression is not soft or warm: it's one of steely distrust. She is letting Dana advocate for herself but knows, already knows, she will disagree with the final decision.

It’s not a stretch to come to this conclusion, either: her daughter left medicine for the FBI, creating a rift in the family; her daughter signed a living will privately, leaving Maggie to grapple with the task of following it through without notice; her daughter was somewhere else in the wild when Melissa was shot and died in her place; and her daughter didn’t want to tell her about the cancer diagnosis at first, then swore her to secrecy after. She may respect that Dana has the right to make decisions for her own life, but she doesn’t trust her-- each choice Scully has made unintentionally wounded Maggie.

And since her husband’s death, Maggie seems less and less willing to “shove off” without question.

Bill, meanwhile, waits patiently for his sister to continue. However, when Scully insists, with strength in her voice, “But I need it to be my decision”, he shakes his head, attempting to break in with a gentle, “Dana--”

Here we see a Scully family tic. He looks down and away when something personally affects him. Here, when his sister considers putting "pseudoscience" in her neck; later, when he cracks himself open to weigh Mulder's motives in the hallway.

“I know you’re only looking out for me, Bill,” Scully begins, watching her brother's face fall, "but I don’t think you have all the facts.”

Her unbeatable spirit shines through-- faith in her facts and a little pride in herself. Assured, and believing she will pull through.

Mulder looks from her to Bill; and Bill, knowing he can’t budge his sister, looks down before laying the blame fully at Mulder’s feet.

It’s an important moment for his character: Memento Mori Bill would have blamed Scully for their father’s dashed pride and Melissa’s death. Instead, this Bill blames only Mulder for his family’s destruction. And even then, as much as he despises her partner, this Bill will still give him a opportunity to explain himself.

Seizing one last chance to countermand his sister's inclination, Bill looks to his mother, hoping she will talk her daughter out of it. Mulder catches this and swings his attention to Maggie's face, too.

“Don’t you think you should listen to your doctor?” she asks, diplomatically; tense, strained, and hoping Dana won't pursue the wrong path at the last hour.

“Yes,” Scully insists, taking a gulp of air for her weak voice, “I am.”

Mulder immediately reads between the lines, brokering her concerns to her doctor. “Will she have to stop her conventional treatment?”

An important incident occurs: Scully panics, terrified at the thought she will have to stop her treatment plan. Because, deep down, Scully doesn’t believe she will die: her treatment-- her science-- will save her; and if it fails, then Mulder’s magic tricks will cure her.

We know this to be the case because of her reaction to Bill’s incredulous, “You think you can cure yourself” in Gethsemane (post here); we know this because of her fright now that she will, perhaps, be disconnected from the medical safety net; we know this because she hasn’t, yet, accepted that death is imminent (and won't until Mulder’s chip “fails” and she falls apart in front of her mother.)

Scully desperately locks onto her doctor as he soberly explains, “To be honest, at this point, the only approach I have left with her particular cancer is… quite unconventional.”

Scully’s science has failed her; and she is crestfallen.

However-- as in everything that is too terrible to face immediately-- Scully brushes her desperation aside, shoring up courage by closing her eyes and clutching the chip tighter.

“I’d like to try this,” she determines, resolved.

The camera shoots back to Maggie, caught between shades of disappointment, frustration, and resignation; and she turns to the wall to hide her turbulent emotions from her daughter.

Maggie, like Dana, does not believe her daughter is marked for death-- she still wants her to fight, to take treatment, to turn to God and pray with Father McCue and trust to miracles. It’s a faith not unlike Mulder’s: they both believe, though she prefers to pray down the miracles and he to catch them in his hands.

Resigned, Bill resentfully snaps up his head to glare meaningfully at Mulder. Mulder, spotting the searing animosity from across the room, keeps his head turned, uncomfortably avoiding eye contact.

Bill, unlike his sister and mother, does not believe Scully will be cured-- the cancer is in her bloodstream, and all the family can hope for is a peaceful death. Hence, he buries the hurt and frustration her reticence caused, tries to steer the work away from her room, and intends to lay off of Mulder for Dana's sake. He is showing his love by guarding her last days-- not unlike Melissa’s bedside manner (posts here and here): both prepared themselves for their sister's death by looking out for her best interest (and by confronting Mulder mercilessly.) The difference between he and his first sister is that Melissa believed in the impossible, and Bill only in the probable.

And that's the reason he and Scully and Mulder butt heads: he's looking out for his little sister, but he doesn't have all the facts.

Scully, emotionally overwhelmed, takes a page from her mother and brother’s book by avoiding everyone’s eyes.

CONCLUSION

Maggie bears the scars of her daughter's decisions, calling in Bill to lean on his strength (while also keeping him wisely in-check.)

Bill has revealed that he prefers the status quo. Trusting that her doctor has done his best, he views Mulder's last-minute, untested, shaky-at-best cure to be a reprehensibly irresponsible suggestion. Without saying it out loud, he has resigned Scully to her fate-- and Mulder, brilliant man that he is, has noticed and resents it, picking at Bill's disbelief in small pokes or digs.

Mulder has doubled down on the untested and (seemingly) unscientific chip he picked up from the DOD as the cure-all for brain cancer. He’s already argued-- and won-- for it to be tried, handing out hope to the sick and dying. Bill, stubborn and distrustful, sees this trial as a moral failure; and hates his guts for it.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!