#cancer arc

[m6ya]

"SHE WAS ALIVE. LOOK AT HER EYES."

on dana scully, joan of arc & martyrdom.

the x-files, 1994-2018 / joan of arc, john everett millais / the collected schizophrenias, esme weijun wang / the passion of joan of arc, 1928 / ptolemaea, ethel cain / electra, trs. anne carson / euripides / on "girl with basket of fruit", jamie stewart / king, florence + the machine

[aloysiavirgata]

Prompt: leather jacket, pay phone, Southern accent.

Mulder’s Southern accent is pure Hilton Head; the Long Island Lockjaw of the magnolia-and-sweet-tea set. His mother’s people came from here and he learned to golf with them. Mulder knows about Lowcountry food and unironic madras trousers and herons in the pre-dawn light. He knows when to say “The War of Northern Aggression,” with a laconic wink.

Mulder knows all the lyrics to “The Battle of New Orleans.” He happily eats shrimp with the heads still on.

Scully - lower middle class Navy brat with aristocratic cheekbones and a chip on her fine shoulder - is his acceptable Yankee wife. She’s never going to say “pecan” the proper way. Never going to cut her eyes just right at white shoes after Labor Day. They named her Jessica and said she was from Sag Harbor, and the Louis Vuitton tote bag is getting her by.

Scully, in AquaNet and Lilly Pulitzer, misses Mulder’s Mid-Atlantic cool, his New England snobbery. Misses his firm opinions on Chicago-style pizza (a casserole) and Billy Joel (unironic legend). She wants her hand pressed to his sternum in a grey t-shirt and a leather jacket, a faded hoodie from the Vineyard.

Mulder (Emmett, she hisses in her own head) knows that quality families would never repair the upholstery because it’s déclassé to care. Would never

Mulder eats a cheese straw, Mulder nuzzles her tingling ear in the steamy June evening, tells a funny story at the Cavendish-Lawrence wedding.

“I swear to Christ, Jessica had to pull over and find a payphone,” Mulder says, to his starry—eyed audience. “My poor sweet girl on the side of the road with a tornado alert, ordering Christmas presents.”

Mulder clutches her to him, his fingers big and hot and wide against her waist as the audience titters with admiration. Mulder smells like fresh cotton and old money. Mulder looks like the best terrible decision she’ll ever make.

She’s going to fuck him tonight, she decides. She simply cannot stand it anymore, and it would be such a shame to waste away without having had him, like some medieval ascetic. She wants him to lick her tattoo, to bind her to the living world.

Mulder drops a kiss on her buzzing cheek, near the tiny neutron star encroaching on her very essence.

She hears the tide lap against the dock, laughs the way Jessica is expected to laugh.

She feels alive, like sparks rising towards the sun.

[randomfoggytiger]

Gethsemane, Bill Scully Apologia, and Maggie the Emergency Contact

Dialogue and Play-By-Play Analysis:

Bill: "I picked up the phone when they called Mom. I thought you could use a change of clothes."

Scully: "Thank you... where's Mom?"

Believing her cancer is still a secret, Scully automatically places Bill's importance below her mother, wanting to talk freely with Maggie (without Bill.) Bill sees and understands this; and is hurt that she still won't open up to him despite being here, now, for her. As of yet, he doesn't act on that hurt.

Bill: "I didn't tell Mom what happened...."

Scully: "...But I'm okay. Luckily."

Bill: "You're not okay, Dana."

Scully: "I told Mom not to tell you."

Bill: "Why?"

Scully: "Because it's very personal. Because I don't want sympathy."

For all of the just criticism against Bill later in this arc, here he is holding back his anger (an expression of his hurt) and listening, really listening to his sister. He keeps quiet, giving Scully room to fully explain herself; and even sympathetically locks eyes, giving her his full attention.

Another thing of note: he is staring at Scully with the exact look of sympathy she wanted to avoid. Mulder and Maggie know her enough to acquiesce to her "I'm fine"s; but Bill is her life-long peer, and siblings can't hide truths from each other as effectively as they can their parents or partners.

"You think you can cure yourself."

Bill realizes that his sister never told her own family-- him-- about her cancer because she does, even now, believe she can cure herself. He's stunned, shocked, even appalled; and that leaks into his voice, coming across as judgmental.

Scully doesn't deny it, caught; and sighs, frustrated, that he divined and overly-simplified something she hadn't expressed to anyone and probably would not have been able to without a beautiful speech prepared ahead of time.

"Mom tells me that you've gotten worse. That your cancer's gone into your bloodstream."

This explains why Maggie told Bill in the first place: she cracked under the strain Dana's edict of secrecy put her under, watching her daughter slowly die without any apparent attempts to circumvent that death or even to bond over their shared tragedy. Bill became her only recourse... and Bill spilled the beans (as he does, again, in A Christmas Carol.)

Scully is shaken by his bluntness, unable to shy away from the truth spoken so baldly to her face.

"What are you doing at work getting knocked down? Beaten up? What are you trying to prove-- that you're going to go down fighting?"

Scully: "Now, c'mon Bill--"

Scully is deferring back to an old sibling dynamic: Bill misunderstanding, or only understanding enough to feel she's acting out of turn; and her attempting to draw him away from his preconceived notions. In this case, however, he's right; and she's avoiding the truth of that (subconsciously.)

Bill stops her by slapping down the clothes, getting her full attention.

"Y'know what Mom is going through? Why do you think I didn't tell her when they called?"

"What should be doing?"

Bill: "We have a responsibility-- not just to ourselves, but to the people in our lives."

And he's absolutely correct here: Scully has been so focused on work and its promise of a cure that she's forgotten to give space to those suffering alongside her.

"Just, just because I haven't bared my soul to you or to Father McCue or to God, it doesn't mean I'm not responsible to those important to me."

Here Scully reveals she thought emotional distance and soldiering on was her way of protecting her loved ones from her burdens, providing them strength in the face of her worsening health. In reality, it worsened their fears and burdens; and furthered their isolation... except for, ironically, Mulder, who wasn't ready to face the implications of her impending death, anyway.

"To who? This guy Mulder? But where is he, Dana? Where is he through all this?"

Bill is less right here: from his perspective, Dana has (once again) wrapped herself up with a man whose authority and work ethic supersedes Bill's love and concern for his sister-- another in the pattern of their late father and Daniel Waterston and Jack Willis. Bill isn't stupid: his above reproach also reveals he knows Mulder knows about Scully's cancer; and the fact that her partner did and still left her alone to deal with it to "pursue his career" while Bill hasn't been able to be there to support her at all eats away at him, makes him hate the man. (And still he's civil when he meets Mulder, even talks with him in terms he believes a workaholic will understand-- "Let's keep the work away from here"-- only getting rough when he misinterprets Mulder's blank face in response-- "Let her die with dignity.")

Despite being wrong here, Bill still hits the mark; because Mulder did wander off on a quest. But Scully can't argue for Mulder without betraying her own reticence, her own need to keep Mulder in the dark for Mulder's sake-- because that would betray her feelings in a way that she doesn't want to discuss with Bill, especially after Mulder has consistently dodged that serious conversation for years now. So, she picks up her clothes and ends the conversation.

In-Depth Analysis

Maggie Was Scully's Emergency Contact

The hospital called Maggie when Scully was rushed in, unconscious; and while this doesn't outright disprove the theory Mulder might also be an emergency contact, it certainly fits in with the pattern of him being called to the hospital and let into Scully's room by Maggie and not the other way around (i.e. One Breath and Wetwired.) Furthermore, Mulder isn't alerted (that I know of) to a missed call from the hospital after his return to civilization, meaning the hospital didn't notify him at all.

Bill the Bully?

Is Bill a despicable figure? Most definitely... in a deleted Memento Mori scene-- which is why I think they cut it. Though his words are brusque, even cruel in their blunt honesty, Bill, apart from that scene, doesn't seem to willfully inflict or weaponize guilt against his sister, wielding it only as a reminder of how much her family is left out of her life, how much they want to be there for her and don't understand why she won't let them in. It's a fundamental difference in how they approach life; and both are forceful about their insistence on doing things their own way.

Scully is used to being everyone's source of strength (Maggie places her on a pedestal even above her brothers in Memento Mori), which hinders her from opening up or betraying her weakness. Being "the strong one" for so long turned into a fear of failing others; but this reticence has the opposite effect, ostracizing and distancing her family (and Mulder) in her struggles to keep them unaffected. Their divide grows as the years go on (though it seems an equilibrium of sorts has been reached after Emily, since she mentions them fondly in How the Ghosts Stole Christmas and indirectly in Millennium.)

Bill Is Right (in This Instance)

On its face, Bill's speech is unrelenting and out of left field... but is it, really?

Bill is told about his sister's cancer only when it has become irredeemably terminal. He arrives on land, either before or after Maggie's revelation, and finds the rest of the family ignorant and his mother having to shoulder that burden, alone, because his sister refused to let her tell anyone else the news-- meaning, Maggie has been suffering in silence the entire cancer arc, trying to abide by her daughter's terms for space and silence on the topic. However, Scully's definitive terminal diagnosis broke her; and Maggie, having no one to turn to support because Dana still refused to talk about it, finally confessed to her priest and reached out to her son for strength. Bill sees how hard this has been on her and tries to alleviate that burden by adopting his sister's methods: keeping Maggie in the dark as much as possible. It honors what he knows to be his sister's wishes and his mother's fears.

In this scene Bill is absolutely in the right. He and his sister, while not incredibly close, have no ill will between them; and he finds out that not only has she been slowly dying for months and sworn their mother to secrecy but she also still refused to tell him, even when he dropped everything to bail her and Maggie out with this act of kindness. This is wrong-- it is-- and his speech rebuking his sister is as deserved as Scully's are to Mulder whenever he acts only in stubborn self-interest.

Bill is hurt, Bill is grieved; and Bill drives that home, peeling back his sister's denial by exposing her true intent: "You think you can cure yourself." The ludicrous nature of her expectations-- cure incurable cancer and never tell a soul so she won't have to 'suffer' the shame or embarrassment of their sympathy or pity-- galls him; and he's right. It's Scully's struggle and her burden; but it's not just her struggle or burden: her family and loved ones are losing her, too, and that pain is just as powerfully frightening. Bill wants more from her than an immovable pillar of strength-- and that's a good thing. Maggie needed her to be "the strong one", and Mulder needed her to keep fighting; but Bill just wanted his sister to tell him the truth and let him in.

A last note: Bill grew up with Dana-- he knows her propensity to get lost in father figures and demanding authorities. He probably sees Mulder as another Daniel Waterston or Jack Willis, an extension of her undisguised adoration for their late father. He's naturally protective (as we see in Redux II, though grossly misplaced) and thinks Scully is losing that stability in herself the more engrossed she becomes in her work (ex. Gethsemane-Redux II and A Christmas Carol.) These fears and concerns are expressed in overbearing finger-wagging and anger rather than communication, a (sadly) common affliction in a family growing a more distant with time and lives necessarily apart.

Scully Believed She Could Cure Herself

Since Memento Mori, Scully's modus operandi has been to avoid, avoid, avoid the topic of her cancer (and the death of her father, her abduction, etc.) The following cases rarely touched on her illness unless she had a concerning diagnosis or needed further treatment, i.e. Zero Sum and Elegy. Radiation was likely ruled out as ineffective since the skirmish with Dr. Scanlon (and was a drain of her valuable energy and health without any chance of helping, regardless); so, Scully probably opted for more obscure treatments, buying time while she and Mulder chipped away at their work.

In the back of her mind, she believed, truly, that she wouldn't die: that her cancer could be tucked away from her family and cured before Bill or the others ever found out. As we know, Maggie bore the brunt of her daughter's edict of silence alone, finally caving when the cancer reached Scully's bloodstream. When Bill waits for an explanation-- staring at his sister's defiance and stubbornness and pure conviction that she's fine and that the family shouldn't be worried about her at all-- he figures out her blind expectation and avoidance-bordering-on-denial and says, appalled: "You think you can cure yourself." Scully dips her head, exposed and embarrassed.

The beginning of Gethsemane proves Scully was still denial: "my dying wish" she professes on the one hand only to reject the priest and shake her head at Bill with the other. No, Scully did not expect to die alone without her family there. When Bill demands, "We have a responsibility-- not just to ourselves, but to the people in our lives", she parries, "Just because I don't bare my soul to you or to Father McCue or to God." Scully thought she was doing her duty by keeping her loved ones in her thoughts while carrying out her solitary battle. When Bill strips her of her further excuses-- "Who? To this guy Mulder?"-- it peels back her hyper-focused perspective, reminding Scully that it's not just her and Mulder fighting the world.

She did her family and Mulder and herself a disservice by pushing them all away to "protect them", as she realizes in Redux II: being "strong" stripped them of the ability to support each other and was damaging in the long run. In this, Bill is undeniably correct. However, where Bill is wrong is that he doesn't see that Scully believes in Mulder's ability to save her, that by following him she is doing what is best for herself.

Her partner's fervor and hope give her strength; and his inability to break under defeat keeps her fighting even in her darkest hours (and does end up saving her life.) Scully put such faith in Mulder and his abilities and his theories that she kept council only with herself (as much as possible) to keep him going, to keep the weight off his shoulders (and her mother's and her family's) so that they could move forward as a well-oiled machine, ready to snatch the cure whenever they got their hands on it. And Mulder did get his hands on it... and then it failed.

She's dying; but it's not until the cure fails that the dam breaks: everything Scully had been fearing comes rushing out of her. She gives in, crying to her mother about her crumbling lack of faith-- because the miracle cure didn't work, because her months of waiting and hoping in private were all for naught, because she's going to die and there's no possible way to escape. But it's also freeing: she can own her fear, hold onto her mother, clutch Mulder's hand, cry with the priest, finally lean into and start to heal from the weights she's been holding on her back, alone.

And she prays: death is near.

Scully Wanted to Please Bill, Too

As she told Ed Jerse in Never Again, "There are other fathers."

The ouroboros twirls on and on in her personal life, goading her to both make a stand for herself and to placate Bill's expected reactions. In this situation, she did deserve his anger; however, this dynamic continues to play out in Redux II and A Christmas Carol, separate circumstances that are outside Bill's scope of understanding or perspective. After each confrontation, her brother always backs off and begrudgingly acquiesces his sister's boundaries; but it's easy to see why he clings to his late father's behaviors-- viewing them as the only way his sister will confide in him-- and why Scully automatically responds to-- albeit with more guilt than openness-- and rejects his methods.

It's an aspect of their relationship that fell to the wayside as the series barreled onward; but there are hints of resignation on his part after the events of Emily unfolded the way they did (silent support in the courthouse and true remorse in the church.) Scully, however, is locked in grief and unwilling to open back up, yet. We're never shown on-screen what happens next; but he seems to have caused her no further problems in spite of her professional and personal scares in the future (including almost being burned alive, an unexpected trip to Antarctica, job demotion, and getting gut shot all within the span of a few months.) Perhaps he gave her up for loss, perhaps he stayed close but distant, perhaps he withdrew from the drama all together. We'll never know; and, ultimately, it's up to individual interpretation.

Conclusion

This scene sets up the hinge upon which the cancer arc (and any future Scully family drama) twists and turns.

I don't believe Bill is bad, or even malevolent: he, like any other person in a family strained with distance and death, doesn't seem to blame Scully entirely or for long; and only wishes to get through to her somehow. We saw him bully her as a child but we also saw him gift and teach her how to use a bb gun. Scully, meanwhile, balks at and softens over Bill's bluster and overstepping, always effectively putting him in his place after courteously listening to his opinion. We saw her yell and shove him as a child but we also saw her gleefully play alongside he and Charlie.

In conclusion: like all sibling relationships, there are headbutts and there are fights; but it seems, at least by their conversation here and succeeding ones in the future, that any hitch or bump in the road is smoothed over, ironed out, or fixed before it becomes permanent. Bill makes excellent points that Scully takes into consideration, changing her future dealings with Maggie and Bill and even Mulder (namely, her willingness to open up in Detour); and Bill, having said his peace, supports his sister in her decisions the rest of this arc and later in S5.

That we know about.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

[deathsbestgirl]

god. the thing about mulder & scully's conversations in never again, is they're having two conversations at once. and sometimes they understand that, and sometimes they don't.

scully starts by asking him why she doesn't have a desk. and mulder tells her he always thought 'that was her area.' which disappoints her. because they're not on the same page. if she had a desk & a nameplate, the x files would really be hers too. that's hard for mulder to accept because a big part of him believes she shouldn't be there. not because she hasn't earned it or doesn't deserve it, hasn't proved herself, or that she doesn't really care about the x files. or actually, yes because of those things. she has dedicated herself and lost so much, she believes in him and the work, and he can't trap her down there with him. she's supposed to move up & move on, have that normal life she sometimes thinks she wants and mulder believes she wants.

but to scully, it's like there's no room for her. she's a visitor. she doesn't have evidence of her value, to the x files or to mulder.

then he gives her the assignment, acts like her superior instead of her partner. he tells her she was just assigned and this is his life. "and it's become mine."

now mulder's insecurities come out. part of him wants her to move on, but he can't let go of her either. she's made him a whole person.

then he tells her 'maybe it's good we get some time apart' and he doesn't tell her where she's going and he knows she'll go to philadelphia. i think he kind of expects to hear from her. but he's on vacation and she's working. 'at least she's there to keep an eye on things.'

and she's bothered again when he doesn't trust her judgement. it leads her to more questioning & doubts.

in the beginning, she took him at his word. she believed him and she thought she understood. she followed him, and chose him over & over again. not just the work, she chose mulder.

when she was on her deathbed after the abduction, ahab didn't convince her to live. mulder did. she had the strength of his beliefs. in irresistible, she trusts mulder with her life. but she has to be strong for him, she can't be vulnerable. she doesn't want to be someone he needs to protect, someone he'd destroy himself for.

at the end of never again, mulder is angry & petty and he doesn't seem to get it. but i think he understands when he goes to say "yes but it's become mine." it's their work. it's their life. they belong to each other.

but he didn't say it. they both know now, but they maintain the silence.

in leonard betts, i think you can tell mulder understood more than he did at the beginning of never again. he barely voices his theory, let's her say what he's thinking. when she asks for his help, he gives it. he tries to make her laugh. in the end, he validates her. she did good work!! be proud!!

scully's fear & disquiet at the end bring us to her strength & clarity at the beginning of memento mori. mulder's validation becomes him bringing her flowers at the hospital, learning he's the only one she's called. scully held her strength to tell him the facts, so carefully of her fatal diagnosis. his questions lead them to the x files, the other women abductees they met before.

mulder bolsters her, because she isn't as strong as she appears and she has always drawn on his strength, his beliefs.

they maintained silence, but through the cancer arc, they're forced to face exactly what they are to each other, as they continue leaving it unsaid. yet they become so physical, they go further for each other than they have in the past.

in detour, scully tries again. she's not dying anymore. she's in remission, she survived and she's ready. but mulder runs into the woods chasing an x file, and we see scully settle into painful acceptance. she can't be mad. everything's different but it's still the same.

[apocalyptichearts]

knuckles white dry, gang of youths x the cancer arc

[pollyna]

Based on this fanart and on a lil brairot with @redhead-writes, who wrote half of it. y'all should go and reblog the art rn.

Bradley sees in a video that people with loved once who had cancer cut their hair so the loved one won't feel alone in their struggle. When Bradley comments on that, over dinner, that maybe he could do the same and Mav could too, Ice stares both his husband and his kid in the eyes and "if you do that you can start searching somewhere else to live until your hair are back" and he leaves the dinner table. The point is that Ice loves their hair. Loves running fingers through their hair. It calms him down. So no, no one is getting haircut because how could they be trying to take that away from him because someone does stupid things as cutting their hair to show support? They can show their support trying not to say stupid shit like that and Ice knows he's probably being a little arsh and the momet Bradley is going to talk to him he's goinf to apologise and try to explain why it's important for them to not do such thing. Not for him, not ever.

So, instead, Bradley decides to grow his hair a bit longer, and sometimes, after a longer day in the hospital, Ice spends a couple of hours with him, trying to fix the nest his kid has decided to grow on his head and he gets comfortable enough to be able to finally relax.

(With Mav, the ritual is the same, but not really. After the first time the man shaves his head, Ice doesn't let anybody else get near his head if not his husband. It's painful because the first time he had to watch all his hair fall on the bathtub, it felt a little like he was never going to see them again, but now, when they are in the same situation, Mav hums softly along the radio and washes his head with Mav's favorite shampoo and Ice feels a little better, after. It doesn't fix shit, his hair are still growing up all fucked up and his voice isn't there more than it is, but he feels less lonely, less ready to let go.)

[katesfatcat]

Msr/cancer arc tidbit ❤️

[bakedbakermom]

orpheus + eurydice

imagine being loved by me.

[wolfsnape]

The fact that, in Memento Mori, the first person Scully tells about her cancer is Mulder and he is also the one she writes an entire diary of love letters to, to help him get some comfort and make some sense in losing her

[irenespring]

House MD Fanfiction: "Observation" (House/Wilson)

My Wilson's cancer arc fix-it fic is finally completed! On this episode of Research, we see Scary Immunology Intern finding the cancer in time for Wilson to live happily and healthily ever after. Here is the fic: Observation.

I am sorry it took so long, and am so grateful for everyone's patience, support, and kind words. I love this fandom :)

------

Fic Preview:

Over his career, Wilson has learned that early detection is the most important factor in a patient beating cancer. He knows this. He knows it so well he can say it on autopilot. But as House says, doctors never think they can get sick. So it's a good thing someone else in his department isn't asleep at the wheel.

----

Please heed the tags! This is a cancer-arc fic so the angst gets pretty heavy before the happy ending.

[soufflegirl]

(repeat until death)

[agent-troi]

Eight Nights of Mulder, Night 4: Endurance

Summary: Mulder comforts Scully after a particularly rough cancer treatment.

@eightnightsofmulder @today-in-fic

ao3 link

She was so terribly brave, with her shadowed eyes and sunken cheeks, her hair hanging limp and faded as she wasted away before his eyes. He could never have asked this of her, would gladly have endured it in her stead rather than watch her suffer this way.

Except she would never have let him. For some bizarre reason, she refused to hold him at fault for the worst and latest in the series of agonies she had suffered since her partnership with him began. 

His greatest, most deep-seated fear was that the real worst was still yet to come. 

“Mmmph…” Scully lay half-collapsed against him on the couch. Multiple blankets were piled over her, and still she shivered. “...‘m thirsty.”

“Hold on.” Mulder brushed her hair out of her face and pressed his lips against her forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

He went to the kitchen and poured her a glass of water from the tap, then returned to the couch and gently tilted her chin up to face him. “Here.”

She took a few small sips from the glass, then fell back against the cushions, apparently exhausted from even that minimal effort. Her breath came out in a series of ragged exhales as she closed her eyes, and Mulder thought she had fallen asleep until she spoke:

“Sorry.”

His heart cracked open. “What could you possibly be sorry for?”

Scully slowly blinked her eyes open and looked up at him, her eyes wet. “For leaving you all alone. For what’s going to happen to you when I’m gone–”

“Don’t.” He cut her off as terror-fueled denial seized him. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re gonna beat this thing, okay? Scully, you–”

He swallowed hard, tears springing to his own eyes as he wrapped her in a fiercely tender embrace. “I need you to get through this. I need you to live, Scully. Promise me that you’ll keep fighting, okay? Please?”

His desperate entreaties were met only by muffled snores, and a rush of warmth and affection seized him even as he thought his heart might break in two.

With all the reverence and awe he had for her, he lifted her into his arms and carried her gently to bed, tucking her in and pressing a goodnight kiss to her forehead.

“Sweet dreams, Scully. I’ll be here for you when you wake up.”

[aloysiavirgata]

Dancing that ISNT the PMP scene. Fucking love you gorgeous. ❤️❤️❤️

3 AM finds him waking up stiff and disoriented in the vinyl chair of her hospital room, his feet propped on an upside-down plastic wastebasket. His tie is hanging from the IV pole.

Mulder tests his joints, grimaces at the left shoulder. He’d overstretched it at the pool, shredding 2000 meters in under 30 minutes. He’s been lifting more, been running until he vomits. He doesn’t know if he’s punishing his body for being fit or trying to radiate so much health she’ll absorb it.

Perhaps if it’s the second he’ll need to feed it something other than coffee, Diet Coke, and sunflower seeds. Must be the first.

He examines her narrow form in the bruised light. Scully’s breath snuffles a bit at the cannula and he scans for blood at it but sees none. Her cheekbones curve resolutely past her patrician nose, down to her full, dry lips. There is a small tin of Smith’s Rosebud Salve on the fake wood nightstand. He resists the urge to rub a layer over them. He resists the urge to kiss her beautiful, cracked mouth.

Mulder sighs a bit, runs a finger around the back of his collar. She looks warm to him, looks safe and cared for and utterly beyond his ability to be of use. But he stays anyway, like one of those dogs that sleeps at the grave of its master.

He roams past the nurse’s station, where Jane and Esther give him sympathetic looks. They aren’t supposed to let him sleep in Scully’s room, but Esther is from Yorkshire and calls him lamb and duck and love, and he’s pretty sure he could get the lithe Jane in bed if he wanted to.

He’s drowned his sorrows in lanky brunettes before though, and it never quite took. Turns out he’s a man for dainty gingers.

The radio at the nurse’s station plays “Carolina In My Mind” and he hums along softly, making a styrofoam cup of tea. His father was happy in Raleigh. He was too, as much as he was happy anywhere. He thinks he might move down when Scully goes into the ground, a truth he can only admit at 3 AM. At all other times he will save her.

“Nah then, duck,” Esther says. “Tea from the machine, yer daft ‘apeth, when I’ve a proper kettle ‘ere? ‘Ow’s thy lass?”

He shrugs, smiles vaguely. Jane smiles back. Vaguely.

Mulder presses his head to the faded green wall as his tea steeps. It’ll be terrible, but strong. That’s good enough for him.

He hears a soft shuffling and looks up.

Scully in her spotless white robe and soft slippers, Scully like a Willow Ptarmigan approaching winter. The skin around her eyes is the delicate color of sublimated iodine.

“Scully,” he says, at a loss. She is beautiful in the way of alabaster vases, of all things that can shatter.

She yawns, lips shiny with the salve. Her hands are very thin when she covers her mouth. “Wonderful Tonight” begins on the radio now.

Esther smiles, looks away. Jane checks her watch and walks down the opposite corridor.

“Tea?” Scully says. “That’s more my brand. Why are you still here?”

He gulps the bitter brew. Winces. “I fell asleep,” he says, which is an answer but no answer at all.

“Mmm,” Scully says. She prepares herself some tea as well. Her white hands on the cup, her lower lip snagged between her teeth.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” Mulder says.

“You didn’t. I just woke up. I do that a lot. My circadian rhythm…”

They don’t talk about her suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus deep within her brain. Of what it might mean if it’s off kilter.

“I was noisy,” Mulder lies, looking at her nose again. He moves like a cat in her room. Like a thief in the night. “Banged into the bed.”

Scully smiles serenely. “It’s all right.”

Jane stalking the perimeter, Jane frowning at her clipboard.

The moon out the window like a scythe in the dark.

He loves her, does she know? Does he know what he would do to save her and how he’d do it and that he’d swim through blood and blood and blood for her, 2000 meters and back again in a heartbeat?

Scully puts her tea down, Scully looks at him with her late summer eyes in this month of her birth. Scully is dying.

On the radio, The Beatles begin “Let It Be,” and what the fuck, he draws her in, her tousled hair and fluffy robe and her rattan ribs.

“Mulder,” she says, peering up. She clutches his left hand with the pale garden spider of her right.

He twirls her beneath the fluorescent lights. He kisses her her forehead because if he kisses her mouth like he wants to she will die.

Jane does another lap and Esther pretends to read a chart and Scully murmurs along with Paul McCartney.

Mulder watches the flat light bounce off her hair, watches her sway, watches her smile for a moment. She tucks her head against his chest as the song ends, doesn’t withdraw.

“Angel Is A Centerfold” begins, which is hardly the mood he wanted, but they both laugh and the scythe of a moon fades away as they sing Na-na, na-na-na-na, Na-na-na, na-na-na-na in something like harmony.

He doesn’t know what song is next, but he holds her through it and the next one and a few more and Esther and Jane are replaced and the sun begins to burn the blackness away and Scully is warm and awake and alive in his arms for at least another day.

[randomfoggytiger]

The Cancer Arc and Scully's Reliance on Mulder's Strength

(Requested by @perpetually-weirdening~)

Rob Bowman said of Scully in Memento Mori: "Here is the lurking truth through the story: that Scully really does have that tumor and she really is in trouble. And trying to keep a mask of stoicism and strength in front of Mulder. She knows he’s actually, I think, more emotional or more unstable about it than she is." (post here.)

Scully's Reliance on Mulder's Strength in Season Four

That episode brought to the surface Scully's dichotomy: desperately steeling herself to shield her loved ones from further fear and suffering while desperately crying out for that strength herself. Penny helped fill that void as a fellow sufferer (a quality Scully seeks from Mulder) and a nurturer (a quality Scully seeks from Maggie); but her death only taught Scully to keep fighting, not to be fearlessly transparent in her suffering. "I won't let this thing beat me", Scully declared, beaming in Mulder's unabashed pride of his little fighter. Scully stood on her own two feet, ready to conquer any force that stood in her way but had yet to realize just how much of that confidence was rooted firmly in Mulder's support.

Beyond the Sea is the first time we see Scully become unglued by the potential of Mulder's loss-- someone she's shifted her entire viewpoint to his after her own faith had been shaken ("I thought that you'd be pleased...")-- but it's not the last: Irresistible was when Scully became aware of how much she relied on Mulder's strength; Pusher was when she became unhinged at a man playing Russian roulette with her partner's life; Quagmire was when she unfurled how much Mulder had become her new Ahab; Memento Mori was the momentous shift in her belief in herself with his support; and Elegy built on these moments with another therapy revelation.

It's Scully's nature to struggle with vulnerability, with relying on someone else to help fill her own gaps. Her interpretation of the Apollo keychain was a new height for both of them: Mulder understood Scully, using a snowball decorated with sparkler candles to distract from the deeper sentiments disguised in her birthday trinket (his own version of a Milagro charm.) And Scully knows Mulder-- taking the sum of their partnership, adding in their unspoken bond, and multiplying it by his fear of her cancer to correctly equate how chasm-deep his love and devotion and fear is.

Elegy was raw because she had no place left to hide under or for Mulder (or herself) to cling to; and Scully felt she was letting Mulder down, an unwilling passenger on her rotting, sinking ship.

Demons was her attempt to save him; and that, too, failed.

Gethsemane: Scully lip-serviced the control of her ship over to the cancer, seemingly ready to give up and die with dignity (as Bill later put it.) But when Mulder accidentally wrested for control, she stepped in and pushed him away from the wheel: because Scully hadn't truly given up. She stood her ground, fought Mulder on his investigation, rushed around for a cure or at least proof of her disease when handed the chance, and got back up every time she fell down (until she was too weak to continue.) And Bill, for all his faults, read her correctly-- "You think you can cure yourself?"-- dragging Scully's dying hope into the harsh and garish light, and wounding her sensibilities in the process.

We know Scully hadn't truly given up (and that Bill was correct) because we see the moment she finally does. Redux II started with Scully still being impossibly strong for everyone else-- allowing Mulder to cling to her hand without comment, smiling upon Maggie and Bill, and acting the model, uncomplaining patient-- but at the end of the line-- her science fails, Mulder's chip doesn't work, and all that is left are miracles-- she finally gives in. When she tells her mother that everything has failed, Scully breaks down, sputtering about her lack of faith and impending death. Furthermore, she clings to the last symbols of her strength to give her courage: Mulder's hand and her childhood cross.

As an important aside, Scully's mask of strength also extended to Maggie, reassuring her mother in Memento Mori that she was "okay" and felt "fine" while holding back her own fear as Maggie fell apart. Her mother's "You've always been the strong one" was incredibly important: Maggie singled out this trait for her youngest daughter-- not her brothers and not Melissa. High praise... but a heavy burden, too; and it was a burden Scully ingrained into a habit, cracking her wide open in Beyond the Sea and patching herself back together with purposed ignorance after One Breath. It's why she told Mulder about her cancer first: the blow of bad news could only be softened by someone she could lean on, who admired her need to stand upright while not letting her fool herself with the sacrificial desire to battle her demons alone. (Even though Maggie supported Scully with everything in her-- crying, hugging, soothing, calling in the priest for reconciliation and comfort-- her daughter was still denying parts of herself, clinging to Mulder's undemanding agnosticism rather than confronting another of her Schrodinger's beliefs. Death, Scully thought, was a large enough unanswered question to deal with, let alone religion... until Death was no longer avoidable; then it became merely an opening statement.)

Redux II asked Scully a question: Did she do enough; or did all her efforts to do the right thing--accidentally cutting off her support system in her attempt to protect them-- fail them all in the end? It was Mulder who answered it: assuring her he wouldn't take the deal because he ultimately trusted her judgment, allowing her to hold his hand when the priest appeared, and showing his partner he trusted her strength by letting it go. Scully knew she could only get that support from her partner; and, though she cherished the immoveable love from her mother, there was only one person she thought of first.

What Scully had failed to see in Mulder when they both stood in Memento Mori's hallway was that his pride had stemmed from his adoration of the strength in her weakness; and that is what had fueled him most of the season... until Elegy made him realize that Scully's strength was mostly a front to not let him down. His misinterpretation had-- blindly-- led him to believe that the Truth and his partner's grit would save her; and that Scully would keep him informed, always, if her condition progressed or worsened. When she didn't, it shook his foundation, plunging him into the insane actions of Demons. She, meanwhile, thought she had focused Mulder's gaze ahead on his mission without having to pause to look back and worry about her-- and part of that was to convince herself, too, that her cancer wasn't a problem big enough to be focused on. However, Scully realized her own misinterpretation when Mulder's constant, fixated gaze became more and more apparent (Tempus Fugit, Max, and Zero Sum.) Her veil of strength began to falter in Elegy-- which cast her conviction in science into doubt-- and Demons-- when Mulder's near-suicide underscored how lost he had become (permanently, she feared. Gethsemane almost proved her correct.)

Bleeding into Season Five

Detour was Scully's attempt to build on this new enlightenment; though she withdrew when Mulder's main focus remained captured by creatures that go bump in the night. Mulder, meanwhile, still carved out moments to share those creatures with her, requesting a song while in shock and signaling for a dance in a black-and-white Cher concert. Emily backtracked Scully into guilt after the funeral-- the sandbagged coffin destroying Mulder's previous heartfelt speech and her hard-won peace; but her Redux II transformation never truly left her, popping up again in All Souls when she sought out and opened her heart to Mulder once again.

Why was Scully less forthwith to her partner during S5 after all the progress of S4? Because, besides Emily's death and visitation, Mulder was going through an intensive personal crisis (post here); and Scully wasn't willing to add to send him spiraling backward into the near-disastrous patterns of Demons and Gethsemane by adding to his stress. She spent most of S5 season in damage-control mode; but, of course, that can only go so far before she, too, was burnt out. And that just so happened to be in The End.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

[deathsbestgirl]

thinking about en ami, mulder talking to skinner about scully.

she said she was fine in beyond the sea and all through irresistible, even after she was kidnapped. and she didn't give it up until mulder lifted her chin and their eyes connected.

scully continuously says she's "fine" when she really isn't. it's one of the most dependable things about her. she's "always the strong one" and she fights harder to be that when she doesn't feel strong.

through the cancer arc, starting in memento mori when her nose starts bleeding and she tells him to 'stop looking at her, she's fine.' it continues in elegy and shortly after we learn her cancer metastasized.

this is after her dad, melissa, after the cancer, after emily. mulder knows what "i'm fine" means and it means something is wrong and she's trying to handle it on her own — which almost definitely means she shouldn't be handling it on her own.

mulder has leaned on scully so much, she wouldn't let him go through anything alone. not samantha, not his mother. he is endlessly trying to do for her what she does for him. he knows what it's like to go through life alone. she may have her family, but she doesn't lean on them either.

scully is so serious when she tells karen kosseff that she draws on mulder's strength. if she didn't have him & their work, i don't think she would have soldiered on the same way.

[leiascully]

Ficlet: Highways and Backroads

Just a little ficlet thinking about Memento Mori.

Scully gazed at the image of her brain.  How strange it was to see inside her own head, despite the hundreds of scans she'd seen before.  How strange it was to see the mass and know it for the ill omen it was.  Not just a shadow or a smudge: the specter of death, approaching slowly.

She had lain in the machine and thought about Mulder.  She could lie still and think of Mulder.  Fanciful thoughts, only half-related to the matter at hand.  It wasn't an fMRI; she couldn't see the parts of her mind that lit up when she thought of him.  Instead she thought about how similar they would seem, scans of her brain and Mulder's: one image blurred and one pristine, but otherwise nearly indistinguishable.  The eggshell skull, the grey matter within.  

It wouldn't show the truth of them, she thought.  Her mind, tidy as a highway map, on ramps and off ramps at regular intervals.  Nevermind how many of them ended in dead ends or wilderness - she'd tried to block those off.  But Mulder's mind was like a county highway, winding through woods and little towns.  The scenic route.  She never knew what would be around the next corner: a brilliant shaft of sunlight illuminating a field of wildflowers or a sasquatch browsing among the ruins of a homestead or a strange little town where the diner coffee was a religious experience.  The world's biggest ball of yarn, maybe.  A cabin with creaking floors where gravity was supposedly reversed.  Something new each day revealed itself in the winding backroads of his thoughts.

She loved traveling the road of his mind.  It took her to such interesting places.  She loved the actual roads they drove to get to the small towns where magic was still rumored to happen.  They had wound through the woods and up the mountains in a hundred anonymous cars, chasing stories.  Even if she didn't believe in the Mothman, she could see the appeal of the story.  Once upon a time, we were important.  Once upon a time, the wilderness took a form like ours.  We feared it.  We loved it.  It showed us the truth of ourselves.

She still believed she had paved the only path that would have brought her to where she'd wanted to go.  The physics department, the medical school, the FBI Academy had all been full of men who only saw past her stature and her tits when she could prove she was more rational than any of them, more measured, less tied to all the earthy wisdom that Missy loved.  She didn't have the liberty to leap to conclusions; she had to document every step of her journey from one idea to the next, mile markers assuring her mentors that she wasn't going to veer into feminine foolishness.

Still, all of it had brought her here, to a white room with fluorescent lights, facing the silhouette of her own mortality on the horizon.  Perhaps all roads led to this particular Rome: to the hospital, to the mortuary.

She would have to tell Mulder.  He would refuse: the shadow she knew to be a tumor would be reduced under his critical gaze to a sunspot or someone's malicious thought.  He would take her down a different path, a track traced through the wilderness, to some unforeseen happy ending.

He would be wrong.  But she would enjoy the journey.