#paging dr scully

[is-on-its-way]

Scully wouldnt be a surgeon after season 8 or whenever you think the show ended. Firstly logically that would take too long to swap into that career shed need to train and everything and I just think surgery would get excruciatingly boring for her. The same thing every day day in day out…

but I can believe she would jump right back into practice internal medicine. That would not be boring, she could speak to people figure out whats wrong with them like new puzzles every day. she would, of course, be drawn to and infamous for finding the most bizarre and off putting cases. Things other doctors throw their hands up at. The people doctors dont have time for so they say youll he fine and send them off with a prescription for aleive and valium. So much so when a weird one comes in the nurses or ER drs automatically page her. If its not weird its not interesting she would be bored OUT OF HER FUCKING MIND with normal peoples problems. gastritis and angina and such. It would make her a dream doctor by the way, all the people, all the women, who get told theyre just anxious and theres nothing wrong with them… and their pain doesnt matter or is inside their head… she would listen, she would hear them, and you better believe she would search for the truth.

[enigmaticxbee]

XF AU - Fic Recs

When the world was unrecognizable and upside down, there was one thing that remained the same. You... were my friend, and you told me the truth. Even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant... my touchstone (or, alternate universe and canon-divergent fics):

Contemporary AUs:

A Companion Unobtrusive by @slippinmickeys - She needed a roommate. He needed a room.

The Annapolis Grant by @slippinmickeys - Fake relationship! Scully hires Mulder to pretend to be her boyfriend.

Aprons and Scrubs by @lokisgame - Scully’s a doctor and Mulder runs a bar.

Five Years and a Lifetime by @monikafilefan @slippinmickeys - One night stand AU. Five years later, Scully and Mulder work at the same pediatric hospital, and Scully's four year old daughter bears a striking resemblance to the picture of a dark haired girl that sits on Mulder's desk...

Skin by Annie Sewell-Jennings - In a world where Mulder and Scully have never met, fate intervenes and brings two worlds colliding in the city of Charleston, as a vicious murderer reigns and a storm approaches.

Sinners Come Down by aster_risk - Six years into her marriage to Daniel, Scully meets Fox Mulder at a bar one night, and they get talking and fucking over alcohol and self-pity.

In the Best Interest of the Child by @mldrgrl - When tragedy strikes, Mulder is forced to take guardianship of his young niece, but the matter is complicated by the arrival of a sister-in-law he's never met.

Historical AUs:

By the Dim and Flaring Lamps by @sunflowerseedsandscience - Civil War AU. Captain Mulder befriends Private Scully who’s hiding a secret…

The Countess and The Earl by @slippinmickeys - Regency Romance!

Old Growth Forest by Andrea - Mulder and Scully travel back to frontier times

Rocky Mountain Interlude Part 1 and Part 2 by Jacquie LaVa and Tess - Mulder and Scully travel back in time to solve the case of a Colorado mining ghost

The Science of Sex by @if-the-seascatchfire - Masters of Sex AU. Mulder and Scully are doctors in the late 1950s who undertake a years-long study about human sexuality, and as part of the research, they also have sex with each other - you know, for the science.

Out of this World:

The Magician by Suzanne Bickerstaffe and Jennifer Lyon - Fantasy series where Mulder and Scully travel to another world full of magic (one of the first fanfics I ever remember reading!)

Out of the Little Grove by @slippinmickeys - Crossover with His Dark Materials (a mashup truly made just for me, my 13 year old self would have been over the moon)

Blinded by White Light by @dashakay - Post-colonization. What are we, but the sum of our memories? A classic.

Julia and Gabriel by Mish - Post-colonization. A new identity, a new, dangerous society, an unchanged heart and soul. Gave me Hunger Games vibes for some reason (although written years before that was published)

Canon-Divergent: Pre or Early Series

Eleventh Hour by Rachel Anton - Mulder travels back in time to find college-aged Scully and change everything.

Belphagor’s Prime by Prufrock’s Love - When Scully disappears Mulder travels back in time to a pre-X-Files Scully for help.

In Another Life by @mldrgrl - What if there was no conspiracy? What if Mulder was just a regular FBI Agent? What if Scully was just a bureau pathologist?

How They Met by @peacenik0 - After an encounter at Scully’s FBI academy graduation party they must determine how to deal with their past and their undeniable attraction to one another when partnered up.

One Week at Quantico by CrossedBeams - What if Mulder had been teaching at the Academy when Scully was training…

Paging Dr. Scully by @mangokiwitropicalswirl - Mulder keeps ending up in Dr Scully’s ER.

Only One Choice by @sisterspooky1013 - Scully was never assigned to The X Files.

The Way Things Are by Sukie Tawdry - A season 1 one night stand changes everything. Baby-fic.

Departures & Arrivals by anarchybeauty - After the X Files are closed in 1994, Scully moves on. Two years later, she runs into Mulder in an airport.

Right Hand Return by humphreywrites - Scully is returned from her abduction with a baby, no memories of anything prior to her captivity and some PTSD.

12 Rites of Passage and 12 Degrees of Separation by Anne Hayes - mytharc story written very early in the series run.

parent_1 by @markwatneyandenesemble - It’s 1996, Mulder’s been off the X-Files for three years, and not speaking to Scully. They’ve almost moved on with their lives. Almost.

Canon-Divergent: Mid Series

A Different Place by @myownsuperintendent - When Mulder successfully brings one of the Samantha clones back from the farm with him in Herrenvolk, she must learn to adapt to a different life.

Once More With Feeling by skinfull - While on a stakeout Mulder is shot in the head and loses his memory.

Iolokus by rivkat and MustangSally - Mytharc AU. Painted across the barren and desolate reaches of Texas, the shadows of the Project put additional pressure on Scully and Mulder's already fragile relationship. After a hostage crisis raises more questions about the Project's breeding program, Scully begins her own investigation, leaving Mulder to choose between saving her and saving himself. Pretty disturbing but fascinating, a classic.

Arizona Highways by Fialka - Mytharc AU. Visions of Melissa lead Our Heroes on a case confirming the existence of a series of Emilys. But does Melissa really have a message, or is it all in Scully’s head? Another classic.

Heuvelmans' On the Track by @mashnotesofthemythopoeic - post-FTF mytharc AU, truly a ride you’ll never forget.

The Leap and Landfall by Ambress - Scully has a one time opportunity for motherhood, given to her by the Kurt Crawfords.

All That Is Dark and Bright by @malibusunset-xf-blog - Emily lives AU.

Five Years and One Night by Shalimar - Scully leaves the X-Files post-Emily but gets drawn back in when Mulder discovers Emily wasn’t the only child created.

Cubed by Louise Marin - Mid-season 6 Scully does a little body-swapping of her own. Can she and Mulder make it back to each other? Do they want to?

The Boy on the Beach and Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's 1999 by @cecilysass - One moment she was sitting in the chair. Her chin up, her expression ice. And the next moment she was gone. Fantastic exploration of the Samantha storyline.

Canon-Divergent: Late or Post Series

40 Weeks by @malibusunset-xf-blog - What if the IVF attempt in Per Manum had been successful?

Mobius by L.A. Ward - Post-Requiem while investigating the disappearance of a physicist, Scully finds someone she didn't expect - Mulder. But is it her Mulder?

By the Wind Grieved by Karen Rasch - Mulder is returned several months post Requiem but he doesn't know who he is or what Scully and he are to each other. Together they must reclaim the past before their enemies take away their future.

Deadalive AU by @markwatneyandenesemble - Mulder is returned but is missing several years of memory.

The 13th Sign and 7 Days in May by Prufrock’s Love - Post-Deadalive. Mulder saw no reason for life, death, sex, Armageddon, or emotional dysfunction to stand in the way of true love.

Hurricane Season by rah and beduini - Post-Existence week at the beach with the Scully family and baby Wim.

Terra Firma series by @malibusunset-xf-blog - Post-Existence domestic family drama, a classic comfort read for me.

2008 by MystPhile - With the quest at an end, the X-Files closed in the year 2000. Our heroes went their separate ways. In 2008, they meet in Bloomingdale's and the past, present, and future are explored.

Dr. Scully's School for Exceptional Boys by Prufrock’s Love - More than a decade had passed. Mulder had no reason to hole up in his apartment alone, wearing a Three Dog Night T-shirt with dried mustard on the hem and blue jeans that had seen better days. He wasn't "saving himself" for anyone. Especially not Her. Though she remained epically, beautifully, brilliantly kick-A-S-S.

Machines of Freedom by Amal Nahurriyeh - post-IWTB. The end of the world is coming. And they're doing everything in their power to stop it.

North of Zero by @slippinmickeys - Post-IWTB, post-colonization. The bombs have fallen. The aliens have come. What’s next?

Canon Parallel AUs:

I've got you under my skin by cuits - In a universe where soulmate identifying marks exist and affect a part of the population, would Mulder and Scully's relationship evolve any different? Unfinished but complete through Existence so it still ends in a satisfying place.

Half-light by skuls - Mulder and Scully get a second chance.

The Family G-Man by Neoxphile and FelineFemme - A double tragedy strikes Mulder the week before Christmas of 2003. What if he could go back and change things, save the son one lost and give the other the family she wanted? Could it keep them safe?

[gildedskully]

OC intro post ? On MY page? it's more likely than you think...

Meet Dr. Quinn Scully, archaeologist by day, Ghostbuster by night. He's a genderfluid metalhead who uses any/all pronouns interchangeably without preference.

They met Ray Stantz at Columbia and they formed a bond over paranormal studies, eventually leading to Ray pulling him into the Ghostbusters regarding some artifacts that "may or may not be haunted."

She works at the American Museum of Natural History, typically working behind the scenes but on occasion giving guided tours of a few exhibits.

They're a rather charismatic person and are always willing to lend a hand. He's a bit daring while Ghostbusting, not always thinking about their own safety over catching the ghost. She can be morbid at times and seems to not fear death.

They end up becoming close with Egon and develop feelings for him, although they believe he's not interested in them. (He is)

[xf-cases-solved]

S1E17: E.B.E.

Case: Bro, I watched and (mostly) paid attention to this episode, took notes on this episode, and read the Wikipedia page about this episode, and I'm still not 100% sure I know what happened in this episode. TL;DR, there might have been a UFO spotted, carrying an E.B.E. (extraterrestrial biological entity), and the shadow government might be trying to hide it. Or maybe the shadow government is trying to make them THINK that they're trying to hide it to distract them from ??? Deep Throat is telling the truth. Unless he's lying. Maybe he's telling half-truths. He lies to protect himself. Or maybe he lies to mislead Mulder. Maybe he's physically incapable of lying. Maybe he has never once been able to tell the truth. Maybe there are two Deep Throats and one only ever lies and the other only ever tells the truth and you have to solve his riddle. Whatever. That's for Mulder and Scully to deal with. The actual main purpose of this episode is—LONE GUNMEN INTRODUCTION!!! 

God, I love those sluts.

(Oh, also, at the beginning of the episode, some government officials are trying to get rid of Mulder and Scully, bc that's usually what happens, and instead of trying to be circuitous and Political™️, the guy just sighs, sounding super over it, and says, "Just go away." That's not relevant to the case or anything, I just thought it was really funny.)  

Does someone die in the cold open: Unclear. It's possible an alien was kerploded, but really, who's to say?

Does Mulder present a slideshow: No

Does the evidence survive the investigation: Homie, idek if there was evidence to begin with. I don't even know if there was an actual CASE, or if this was just Mulder dragging Scully along for a fun extracurricular activity. 

Whodunit: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Convictions: lol

Did they solve it: No. They don't even get experience points. Fuck you.

[how do i determine if a case is solved? check the scale here: x]

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: The Lone Gunmen periodical—your monthly top news source for all things conspiracy. Who killed JFK? What's the government REALLY doing with all those AI devices? Have you checked your twenty dollar bills for any tracking devices lately?

Subscribe today to find out!

***

General Total Stats:

(green means stat has changed since last ep; red means new stat added to list)

Total Cases *Definitively* Solved So Far: 8 (streak ended)

Total Number of "Mulder/Scully, It's Me" phone calls: 1

Total Number of Times Scully Has Conveniently Not Seen Something Crucial: 5 (i'll say that her not running after Mulder and ergo missing the entire scene with Deep Throat counts)

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Been in Mortal Danger: 5

Total Number of Times Scully Has Been in Mortal Danger: 6 

Total Number of Sexually Charged, Uncomfortably Intimate, and/or Flirty Moments Between Friendly Coworkers: 10 ("i think it's remotely plausible someone might think you're hot." excuse me, sir?? 😳😏 also, "you're the only one that i trust." like damn, use your inside voice. every time these two talk about trust, i feel like i'm watching their amateur porn)

Total Number of Autopsies Scully Has Performed On Screen: 1

Total Number of Times Scully Plays Doctor: 2

Total Number of Times Mulder Talks to an Informant: 10 (there was a lot of deep throating in this episode, and no i will never be mature about that name so don't even ask)

Total Number of Times People Making Out in a Car Are Hurt or Killed: 2

Total Number of Nosebleeds: 4

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Tasted/Sniffed/Touched Something Questionable Without Following Proper Safety Procedures: 2 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "Trust No One": 1 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "I Want to Believe": 2

Total Number of Times Someone Says "The Truth is Out There": 1 (i might have missed some before this, bc i thought i was tracking this stat already, but apparently i wasn't. we're just gonna pretend otherwise tho, mk?)

Total Number of Cigarettes Cigarette Smoking Man Has Smoked: 2

Total Number of Maggie Scully Sightings: 1 

Total Number of Lone Gunmen Sightings: 1!!!

Total Number of Alex Krycek Sightings: 0 :(

Total Number of Times I Had to Look Up What State the Episode Takes Place in Even Though I Literally Just Watched It: 5½ (whatever. i know part of it took place in i think mb iraq? and then they were at the lone gunmen's house and the hoover building so they had to have been in DC too. so leave me alone 😔)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look at an Episode's Wikipedia Page to Fill This Out Because It Was Fucking Confusing and/or Too Boring for Me to Pay Attention: 4 (at the end of my notes on this episode, i literally wrote down "i have no idea what happened in that episode." and it was tru 😌)

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 2 thoughts

woohoo! we are back for another s2 moment! each night i do my duolingo and then have mulder and scully time <3

so we open on a boat which is already awful. boats are lowkey horrific. and something grabs a man working on the sewage and pulls him under. what the hell! worst case scenario on MANY fronts

then we see our good friend mulder who is listening to audio recordings. and boy was this a scene, because he had sunflower seeds everywhere, cartons of takeout scattered, a million empty cans and cups, and a page of little doodles. all while he sits in the dark.

i figured perhaps this was the squalor of the single man apartment, but no! someone opens a door and light pours in, and tells him he has to leave and someone else will take over his case. and that poor man gets forced into his disgusting space. truly the king of not giving a fuck. please try and give one fuck for me mulder

skinner moves him to a murder case in new jersey and he's all "but why did skinner want MEEEEE"

anyway he goes into the sewers, which are thankfully now free of eugene tooms due to the hard work of that one escalator... everybody say thank you escalator... and he finds a body and says send that back to the FBI

mulder busts into skinner's office to yell at him while he was IN A MEETING oh mulder!!! i get ur mad but have some decorum! he's like WHY are you wasting my time! well mulder if you want to work your way back up the ladder i think screaming at ur boss is not a good place to start!

(we also see that skinner's first name is walter and that he has a picture of bill clinton on the wall which i know made sense at the time but in 2024 it's just really funny. there's old willy looking over business)

cutscene to mulder Pondering in the dark and look! enter our dear friend scully!

"is this seat taken?" she asks "no, but i should warn you i'm experiencing violent impulses" he replies. "well, i'm armed, so i'll take my chances" she answered, and i audibly said "AWWW" <3 how sweet

he says he wants to leave the bureau! but she is his only reason to want to stay! gasp! we are gonna have to unpack that later!

she's like but you have a body right...? can i see the body....? can i pls pls pls pls be involved in ur case?

girl's night: autopsy edition! this body was quite decomposed and it had me wondering how exactly they film these scenes, and while i was pondering the process of making a prop body, we hear a loud thunk of scully removing the dude's rib cage to which i nearly fainted but we were Fine it's okay

and i'm holding my breath trying to deal with seeing this dude's insides when we get a WORM JUMPSCARE crawling about in his corpse

back in new jersey we see more sanitation workers and another man getting pummeled by the sewer beast... have we considered giving these men a raise?

the man has a nasty wound and i wrote "i am not built for this" in my notes but mulder strolls into the doctor's office while he's being checked out to investigate... we see the wound that the sanitation guy thinks is a snake that got into the sewers... and i'm thinking that doesn't sound right but i don't know enough about sewers to dispute that information

scully calls and he has to hang up and he gets ANOTHER call and picks up like "scully not now >:(" BUT THE GAG IS... it isn't her... it's some guy saying he has a friend in the FBI....... um

scully has mulder come down to the lab to show off the worm she found and give the audience a nice PSA to not eat raw meat! thank you dr. scully! we then get some worm facts and she seems pleased

BUT MULDER IS MEAN and he accuses her of being responsible for the phone call and she looks so hurt! she says she wouldn't betray his confidence by talking about him wanting to leave! mulder i get that you're in your questioning era but literally one episode ago she picked up your mostly dead body from a jungle compound so?? let's be rational here???

the next scene involved blood coming out of sanitation man's mouth and mostly what i wrote at this point was a few variations of "AUGH" "i cannot look" and "cannot handle this"

at the sanitation plant they capture whatever this Thing is and oh my. well. all i can really think of are those fake mermaids. you know the barnum fake mermaid hoax? or is that too 19th century niche? well either way, it looks like that but Worse. and equipped with suckers. it's a gnarly beast to gaze upon and i wrote more "AUGH"s here

cutscene to scully on a computer reading worm facts. back when you used a big ol computer to research creatures. i miss the 90's (disclaimer: i was not alive for them at all)

mulder lets her see the creature (which they have put in a mental hospital?) and she is SO excited to see this sort of beast BUT she figured out it was connected to the first attack because someone slipped a magazine article with a hint under her door!!!! looks like there really is someone on the inside...

she also says "i'd consider it more than a professional loss if you decided to leave" WAHHHHHHH <- me crying like a baby at this line

mulder's sitting in skinner's office like a kid stuck in detention and skinner says they're gonna prosecute the worm monkey baby thing and i nearly cried at the mental image of putting that beast on trial. skinner was like "you want to put it in the zoo?" I fear that's far more reasonable.....????? like how is he gonna testify he's WORM MONKEY BABY THING

mulder is again very pissed off and tells skinner that they could have saved the second man (who died in the shower while i was looking away from his bleeding) because he had agents who could have handled it but he shut the x files down and skinner is like. i know. but i was just following orders... tea....

okay so i THOUGHT the worm monkey was baby sized but now they're taking him somewhere else and he is full man sized... but he breaks out of his restraints, we hear a gunshot, and he escapes into a toilet... NO, i yelled to the sanitation worker on my screen, THE WORM IS INSIDE (he couldn't hear me)

mulder's at the scene and gets another mysterious phone call telling him he CANNOT mess this case up because there needs to be undeniable proof the x files must come back... okay no pressure!

so the worm monkey is somewhere in the sewer plant and scully calls like "i think the little worm we found was a baby and it's looking for a place to lay its eggs so we CANNOT let it escape"

(mulder and another worker go into the sewers without any sort of worm monkey handling equipment, idk i was thinking a shotgun might be appropriate here. like what did they think they were gonna do? wrestle it?)

the other worker falls in so NATURALLY our hero mulder (who is still a hero even if he has been cranky af lately) jumps in after him

and mulder GUILLOTINES the worm monkey in what can only be described as an average fox w 🔥🔥

at the end we see scully and mulder once again meet on a public bench in the dark, where she shares that the genetic testing proved that this thing was actually a mixture of human and worm that came from radioactive waste at chernobyl??? so. that's fucked up. haven't they suffered enough.

(but i like that this is a monster made possible by humans and yet still very real, even if that seems... an unlikely story... still, for dana scully's sake i'm happy this is something that can be proved by Science)

((although i hate to know what the implications are for the chernobyl dogs in this universe...))

we end with a shot of worm monkey baby, who has been split in half, re-opening its eyes. now i do think sea worms can sometimes grow back so this isn't SHOCKING. but it is displeasing nonetheless.

overall, listen; mulder, you've had it rough. they've slashed your life's work and you doubt reality. but man. clean your desk up. be nice to scully. skinner is clearly on ur side. i need to shake his stupidly tall frame and knock some sense into him. that beautiful woman wants to tell you worm facts and you should be writing it all down intently.

(good angst though, love that she's the only reason he wants to stay. and love her little autopsy time <3)

[starbuck09256]

The enigmatic Dr. Scully

Tagging @today-in-fic and @xffictober2023

It's been a while xf fam! But I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. Thank goodness for Fictober! Hope you enjoy this little slice I came up with.

Season one, Mulders thoughts on his new partner.

He hadn’t prepared himself as well as he thought. His research into his newly assigned partner had glossed over her brilliance, significantly. Her thesis resonated with him on an intellectual level that made Phoebe seem almost illiterate, which was most certainly not the case.  Most would assume he had a certain type of woman he liked, tall, dark hair with a classic old money look that can’t be faked by even the wealthiest of the new money. That wasn’t his type, not really, the problem was women who had come from backgrounds like his had something else in common. Education, yes education, you see men of wealth needed a companion who could hold their own in conversation. Who read the Times, the Wall Street Journal. These women were well-bred and educated in a way that previous generations of women would never imagine. Phoebe and her father’s connections, prestigious schools, even Diana and her senator of a father. 

His type wasn’t looks, and the fact that he sat here on his worn couch with a copy of Dr. Dana Scully's senior thesis with so many notes in the margins that he had 8 pages of additional addendums on a yellow legal pad gave him more than a pause for concern. Dana Scully could easily be his downfall. Her thesis and thoughts had plagued his mind for weeks since he first read it. While originally he believed she would be a skeptical scientist and discredit his work at every possible turn, her thesis pointed to a different person altogether. She was certainly pretty, which he had already discerned from her FBI photo. She outranked him in the shooting range and about 95% of the bureau. Might be a good thing to have a partner with a guaranteed good shot. Unless she was going to be shooting at him, another ripple of anxiety rolled through his mind.

Why put her on the X-Files? Why saddle her brilliance in the basement? She wanted to get into fieldwork, she had a reputation as being a well-liked, informative instructor at the academy. Of course, some of her classmates were proving they would do anything to climb the federal ladder, not at all unusual for new recruits. He tapped his pen against the pile of pages of math and theory that had him questioning his own marginal knowledge of the universe. 

He had mentioned he liked it. He more than liked it, and damn if he didn’t like her too. This was not the time to fall for a badly veiled ploy. He taps his pen more before tossing it on the stack of files as he rubs his face standing up to pace a bit trying to order his thoughts of her once again. He isn’t sure what to make of her. She had followed him out to Oregon, and while she didn’t agree with his theory, the way she had gathered extra evidence, as she had studied Billy Miles's feet. She understood. On some level she was just like him, searching for the truth in a litany of lies. She was far more open-minded than she let on. She was far more righteous and loyal than he had originally thought, and he has been desperate to talk to her since. 

While he is proud that he hasn’t called her again since he let her know that the reports they filed were gone, his mind is begging him to engage her in another mystery. He needs more time with her. More time to figure out the enigma that she is. His stellar reputation and education have provided him with a way to look through people dissecting their interests, their fears, and their motives. Has he become so complacent that this new partner of his, confounds his mind so easily? Or has something much worse occurred? Has he finally found a woman that leaves him in the intellectual dust? 

He pulls out a report of a missing test pilot in Idaho. What would the enigmatic Dr. Scully think of a missing test pilot? How far would she challenge a military command that her own father has been a part of for over 20 years? He wonders and his own damn curiosity about her allegiances and thoughts have him picking up the phone and dialing before he has a solid plan to engage her. 

She agrees to meet him tomorrow at a bar just down the street from the bureau. His mind finally catches up and again asks him how smart it is to meet the woman, who has been plaguing his mind incessantly for the last 4 days, at a bar. Thank god he suggested a 2pm meeting. Will he buy her a drink? That could be an easy test. If she is open to a drink, would it speak to her willingness to fall in line with the secret lynching the bureau has planned for his continual embarrassment? Or will she point out that it is 2pm and she has other work to do? He told her he had a case that he didn’t want to share at work. He has a feeling should they continue on this journey it will not be the last time they meet in secret someplace outside the walls and ears of bureaus halls. He sits back against the worn leather, a smile stretching across his face. At the very least he will get to see her again, and talk with her, and for now, just knowing that tomorrow his mind will need every fiber of fortitude to dance with the brilliance of Dr. Scully is enough. 

[spencelle-secret]

profile introduction

i decided that i wanted to give my page a little intro!

my name is sunny (this isn't my real name), and i'm an artist and a writer. i use she/her pronouns. i'm currently in college for illustration and creative writing. i've had tumblr for a while, but never used it often until now! i love to write fanfiction and i love drawing fanart but i don't usually post fanart.

here's a list of fandoms i'm either in or have dabbled in:

the x-files

law and order (mothership, svu, criminal intent)

fbi

criminal minds (og and beyong boarders)

ncis

rizzoli and isles

forever

russian doll

yellowjackets

abbott elementary

wanda vision

the boys

m*a*s*h

star trek

star wars

stranger things

pokerface

and more!

some celebrities or characters i like are:

isobel castille, connie rubirosa, clara segar, jo martinez - played by alana de la garza

elle greenaway, carmel, deborah ciccerone-waldrup, anita novak - played by lola glaudini

spencer reid, raymond - played by matthew grey gubler

darcy lewis, max black - played by kat dennings

cyrus lupo, jubal valentine - played by jeremy sisto

nadia vulvokov, megan, charlie cale - played by natasha lyonne

joyce byers, lydia deetz, veronica sawyer, susanna kaysen, lindsey - played by winona ryder

dana scully, dr. bedelia du maurie - played by gillian anderson

feel free to ask me questions! i'll answer almost anything!

[precedex-files]

As I am Precedex-Files, we HAVE to talk about this. I get it, Mulder and CSM aren’t in a normal hospital, but for the love of Reticula can someone please tape this special agent’s endotracheal tube? It is going to fall out. I know Mulder’s face is pretty, but his comatose self needs that tube to stay right where it is. And also tape his eyes, we can’t give Fox a corneal abrasion! And while we are at it I hope they’ve been giving him some stress ulcer prophylaxis too. I give them credit with the EKG lead placement though, they did get white on right for CSM. Someone page Dr. Scully to come fix her human STAT. If not then Precedex-Files, MD volunteers as tribute in her place! 😜

[aparticularbandit]

Thank you so much fir fixing the timeline page for thecreaminhiscoffee! I thoroughly enjoyed the stories, and your takes on Roger and Jessica Rabbit's relationship! I'm so grateful to you for making the threads readable! :-) Do you know if you'll do the same for the timeline for nearlostcauses?

Yes, thank you, sorry I didn't answer your other ask, I saw it and then intended to answer when I had those links fixed!

They aren't fixed currently, but I plan on fixing them for you! (I've actually fixed the ones with Scully before and am. frustrated with tumblr for changing how links function so most of them don't anymore. The one with the Greek title, ironically enough, still does??? Don't ask me why; dear tumblr.)

The past few weeks have just been. mentally rough for me. So it's like - sometimes I can do things and sometimes I'm not in a good place for doing things! And when I've been in a place for doing things, I've been prioritizing fixing things here or writing. (I have been writing something with Jess, actually! That's borne out of that timeline! ...ish! I'm just. very very slow right now. I was on a much better writing schedule last year. And the year before that. This year has just been rough!!)

Which is more information than you asked for. T.T

TL: DR: I plan on updating them for you, and I'll tag you when that gets done! Sorry for taking so long. ><;;;;;

[ladiesandwitches]

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[mangokiwitropicalswirl]

Paging Dr. Scully chp. 7: Ice (3)

Paging Dr. Scully 1: Squeeze / 2: Jersey Devil / 3: Shadows / 4. Ghost in the Machine / 5. Ice / 6. Ice (2) 

Ice (3) 

The door clangs shut, reverberating through the corrugated tin walls of the bunker. She pauses a moment, the sound of his “goodnight, Doc,” dissipating in the darkness. She takes in the details of the empty dorm, the cluttered desk and hutch, family photos, posters and an unwrapped birthday gift. A mini mausoleum.

A chill runs down her spine and she shoves the desk against the door. “Don’t forget, the spots on the dog went away.” She leaves the light on.

To say the trip has not been what Scully expected would be a drastic understatement. She’s not sure what she imagined — cozying under a blanket with her notes, Mulder looking up at her from a pile of evidence, snow fluttering down outside the windows? Had she pictured a roaring fire? Had there been a big soft rug in front of that fire? — she’s mortified her subconscious got things so wrong. Whatever she’d imagined, it never included getting snowed in in a bunker, or a growing collection of mysterious corpses. Or unidentifiable black boils erupting on man and beast alike.

The flight in on the jostling plane should have been the first clue that she might be getting in above her head, but she had been too preoccupied by the sensation of Mulder’s hand over hers where it gripped the armrest. It wasn’t like her to be swept away by novelty and adventure, but she’d be lying to herself if she said she hadn’t liked the feeling of respect and deference emanating from the other investigators when they understood she was there at the FBI’s behest. She was used to commanding a room in her ER, but these credentials were something even headier and intoxicating.

But when Mulder begins behaving erratically, the impulsiveness of her choice to come along hits her full force. After the pilot dies and the storm keeps closing in, she listens open-mouthed in awe to him arguing why they shouldn’t kill the organism that is laying waste to everyone it touches. He sounds crazy.

“The meteor that crashed here a quarter million years ago could have carried that type of life to earth. If we kill it now, we may never know how to stop anything like it in the future!”

His argument is that of a curious bystander, not someone facing the possibility of his own harm — or hers. She almost admires the detachment, that his enthusiasm for the arcane and undiscovered creatures of the world extends to parasites and worms. Almost.

“I don’t want to waste a minute figuring out how to kill this thing,” she shoots back, stone-faced, a wall going up between them, for the first time insurmountable by their usual flirtation.

“Aren’t you curious about what this all could mean?!” he counters, “how we could use this information for the greater good?”

“Honestly? No.” She barks.  “I just want to get out of here alive. I don’t share this insane need of yours to hunt down and preserve every multi-celled organism that science might have overlooked!”

He looks more wounded at her words than she intended. The stress and lack of sleep have gotten to her, made her punchy and unguarded.

“Well, I’m sorry you can’t see the possibilities,” he huffs and turns away back toward the pilot’s corpse.

Now she’s the one who’s wounded. He thinks she’s by-the-book. Unimaginative. Square. She pushes past him and heads back down the hall, stepping over the corpse as she goes. At the door she stops and looks at him pointedly. “I shouldn’t have come along.”

“Dana, wait,” he follows her into the corridor. “I’m sorry. I never should have gotten you involved in anything like this.”

“No.” She swallows, eager to both end the argument and to put some distance between them. “You shouldn’t have.”

The thump of her dorm room door is louder than she intends, but it’s effective. On the other side of it, she hears him take a measured breath and walk away.

In the morning, she manages to conduct herself professionally, honing some rusty differential diagnosis skills without the benefit of laboratory tests or the scanning technology that she usually relies on. Mulder is polite, appropriate, but edgy. She hates that he’s still carrying his gun.

When they find Murphy dead, his throat slit and his body in the freezer, her whole insides go numb. She thought she knew Mulder— knows him — but could he kill a man? Has she come this far without weighing the possibility that she doesn’t know him yet at all?

When the others start to blame him and his eyes beseech her —“Doc, it’s ME!” he shouts — she wants to run, or cry.

“Mulder, you may not be who you are!”

When they confine him, she’s relieved. She hates herself for feeling it, but she does. Relieved she doesn’t have to look at him with the mixture of confusion and desire that clouds her judgement when it comes to him.

They busy themselves with experiments. The air inside the bunker seems to thicken and turn. She feels like she’s choking, like she can’t explain herself clearly. Like it’s the inside of a tomb. All the ER training in the world cannot have prepared her for what she’s doing now, peering at prehistoric parasites through a microscope and hoping her wits will be enough to get them home.

And nothing prepares her for the look in his eyes when she flicks the light on in his darkened room. He squints back like a cornered animal. “Doc, I’m not infected. It’s one of them.”

She takes a deep breath, wanting to believe him, but clear in her understanding of the situation. “No one’s been killed since you’ve been in here…. and we’ve found a way to kill it.”

She watches the way his eyes widen fearfully as she explains the plan to infect him with another worm. She tries to see some evidence he���s in there, whole, that these outbursts haven’t been the fault of some grotesque creature that has latched onto his brain stem.

“I don’t trust them,” she hears him plead. “I want to trust you.”

She swallows, the air in the jumbled storage room somehow thicker than it was a minute ago. She’s sweating, the hair at her temples curling, her uncertainty pulling her voice into a stretched whisper.

“Okay. But they’re not here now.”

He nods, meets her gaze and turns around. She’s reminded of how tall he is, she has to stand on tiptoe to run the pads of her thumb along his spine. She hears him let out a little gulp of breath as she yanks down the back neckline of his shirt. His skin feels clammy, damp, and for a minute she imagines other, better scenarios when she might want to run her hands along his neck. His muscles quiver underneath his skin, holding something in check as her fingers run across his shoulder blades and she settles back down on the balls of her feet.

A look of relief spills across her face as he turns to look at her. For a half-second, she wishes he would smile, but his expression’s still intense. When she turns to go and he grabs her arm, she gasps. Now it’s his hands on her body that makes her sweat, makes her weak-kneed. His fingers lift the damp tendrils at the base of her scalp and he cups his hand along the plane of her neck.

She’s quivering and her mind reels in a carnival of imagined gestures — his hands on her waist, her hands on his jaw, his mouth on her neck, her breath at his ear. It’s completely inappropriate to the gravity of the moment, given what they’re facing, but she can’t help it. The air is choked with tension, as if the atoms in the room have rearranged themselves in waves that spill off one another, threatening to subsume her.

He pulls away and she looks back up at him. His eyes are wide and full of the same relief that she had felt moments ago. “Looks like we’re both okay,” he smiles, letting his hand linger at her elbow, but not stepping back out of her personal space. She nods and places her hand briefly on his chest, meaning to tap him gently in acknowledgement, but she doesn’t pull her hand away. It rests on the curve of his pectoral, and she feels the gallop of his heart beneath his skin.

Before she can meet his gaze completely, fully intent on backing away and out the door, Mulder’s lips come down on hers and he’s crushing her to him so tightly she almost can’t breathe. Scully nearly squeals and grabs the back of his neck with her other hand, gasping into the ferocious kiss. Mulder moves them toward the wall with the energy of a freight train, awkwardly stumbling them both into the cold metal frame of a storage shelf. He’s nearly dragging her, and her body responds by hooking a leg up onto his hip as his arm comes underneath her ass.

When they’re pressed against the shelf, Mulder tilts his head as if he’s just beginning to get down to business, and she opens her mouth to answer the prodding of his tongue. Both her legs are wrapped around his waist now and her hands are in his hair, as if she could pull his entire smugly handsome head into her mouth.

She wants him. Badly. Like she has never wanted anyone in her life until this moment. His mouth leaves hers and moves toward the tender flesh beneath her ear. She’s glad for a moment to breathe, but already misses his kiss.

“Oh god!” she squeaks when his tongue flicks along her pulse.

“Mmmmm,” is all he responds, his hands now working over the curve of her ass and up along her back.

If they hadn’t just examined each other, she would swear they were possessed by something virulent burrowing into both their brains. They’re a tangle of arms and roving hands and the heat in the room has edged up a few degrees and Scully feels her brain shut down when

BANG BANG BANG

Hodge and DeSilva’s urgent voices cut through the fog as they pound on the heavy door. “Agent Mulder! Doctor Scully! Are you okay? Let us in!!”

[fandom-imagines-stories]

Saving Grace S2 E2: Nowhere to Hide

S2 E2

Fox Mulder x Reader

Words: 2496

Summary: The reader  and Alex’s investigation is interrupted by a familiar face. Something about this case isn’t right and the reader and Scully both know it. 

Notes: Making my timeline is a little difficult, but I believe I’m using the years from the character Wiki pages so nobody come after me for inaccuracies haha. The timeline for this series is extensive. Also, sorry this is late, I honestly forgot yesterday was Monday. 

More Mulder Imagines: HERE

-

The map glared back at him with mocking lines and smeared red ink. Three shiny pins blinked and shined under the fluorescent light. Around him, the clutter of files and records and photos had turned his office into the den of a mad man. Well, at least more than it already was. 

“Three missing scientists… one corrupt research institution…” He slammed his hand down on a blurry security photo with the subject just barely caught in the frame. “And Krycek.”

His musing turned to rambling, as they often did, and he paced around his office, trying to make it all connect. Somehow, he knew. If he followed the trail of Zimtech trying to clean up its mess, he would find you. 

The door opened and his phone started to ring. Scully entered, her expression unreadable. She stared at the report in her hand with an intense perplexion. Before she could share her information, however, Mulder quickly answered his phone. 

“Mulder.” His greeting held that desperate hope that only Scully recognized. As if every time he answered the phone, he expected it to be you. And, like each call in the past three months, she watched his demeanor fall. This time, however, whoever was on the other line piqued his interest. Mulder shot across his office, phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear, and jammed a new pin into the map on the wall. 

“What is it?” Scully asked. He put a hand up and listened to the voice. 

“And you’re sure the name is Greenwich?” He inhaled sharply. Scully just continued to watch in confusion. Mulder’s intense focus was something she’d grown used to, but this was different. He seemed almost hopeful. 

He slammed the phone down on the receiver and looked at her with wide eyes. The fax machine beeped. Scully remembered the report in her hand. 

“Mulder, there’s something I think you should-”

“Greenwich, Scully,” He exclaimed. “I’ve been having the Lone Gunman keep tabs on all of the missing person reports that connect back to Zimtech.” Mulder took the paper from the fax machine and pinned it next to the map. “Dr. Albert Greenwich- one of the lead scientists at Zimtech was reported missing by his wife under the alias of Marc Plum.” 

He pointed at the side by side picture of Dr. Greenwich and the missing persons report for Plum. The same man- though Plum looked significantly more disheveled than the doctor in the Zimtech uniform- looked back at her. The connection to his excitement was still unclear. 

“We’ve been tracking missing Zimtech employees for months,” she said, “what’s different about him?”

He started pacing again.’ “When we started investigating Zimtech, Y/N had an informant form the research department. She never told me much about him other than the name he gave her- Mr. Green.”

Scully nodded, understanding now. “And you think if you find her informant…”

“I find my wife.” 

There was a long pause. Scully wanted to believe he was right, but the case in her hand kept coming back to her mind. She handed him the paper. 

“Dr. Mira Lagosi was also one of the head researchers in Zimtech’s zoology department. She specialized in DNA and altering the genetic makeup of mammals.” 

Mulder glanced over the paper with confusion. “What does this have to do with finding Y/N?”  

Scully handed him another page. “Dr. Lagosi’s body was found in her apartment this morning. She appears to have been mauled to death. Due to the state of her body, the coroner is having difficulty with some of the details, but he put the time of death around three days ago.” She cleared her throat. “Apparently, there was a gas leak in the building so no one was there to notice the smell.” 

Mulder looked over the case for a moment, but handed it back to her. 

“Greenwich has been missing for only 36 hours, making him the more recent case. Y/N will be there.” 

“I don’t think we can just toss this aside,” Scully said. “This is the first time we have a body to examine.”

“Which tells me that it probably wasn’t Zimtech.” He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “My best bet is to keep following the trail Y/N is leaving for me.” 

“How do you know Y/N is the one leaving it?” She asked. “The only person you’ve connected anything to is Krycek.”

“She’s with him,” he said. His shoulders slumped slightly. “I know it.” 

Scully hated seeing him like this. Desperate. Defeated. But something in her told her this case was the one. 

“We can’t ignore this case,” she sighed. 

Mulder nodded. “Then I’ll go to Nevada alone.”

“Mulder-”

“I’ll look into the Greenwich case while you find out what happened to Dr. Frankenstein.” His tone was final.

Scully didn’t see any other option. She tucked the file into her bag and started towards the door. 

“I’ll call you if I find anything,” she said. She turned back towards him. “Be careful, Mulder.”

He simply looked away, staring at the pins in the map. 

-

It didn’t make any sense. You’d tracked Lagosi’s every move since she’d become Professor Maggie King at the local college. Alex and you canvassed the whole damn town, playing the happy couple on vacation, and nothing was turning up. Three days was too long to stay in one place. If you don't find her soon… well you certainly weren’t looking forward to that phone call from Zimmer.

You waited in the car, listening to some crappy talk show while Alex stood at the payphone. He never told you who his informants were, but whoever it was certainly pissed him off. You absent-mindedly observed the world around you. People out on morning jogs, older couples grabbing breakfast at a diner, a young boy tossing out newspapers. 

One paper landed close enough to the car that you could see the headline. Your heart leaped into your throat and you scrambled out of the car. 

“What the hell?” You muttered. 

“I thought I told you to-” Alex whined, but you thrust the paper at him before he could finish. 

Police Investigate Death on 42nd Street.

“At least it explains why we haven’t found her,” you said. “Looks like something got to her first.” 

“That isn’t possible.” He read the article in disbelief. “We would have heard about it. Zimtech would have heard about it.”

“Unless they set us up.” You said through gritted teeth. There was no way your lack of information was an accident.

Alex threw the paper to the ground. “Well, Mrs. Carter, looks like our job just got a little more complicated.”

You sneered. “Stop calling me that.” 

-

Blood stained altex fell into the trash. Scully turned off the light about the table and removed her goggles. The autopsy- of what was left of the body- revealed what she’d expected. Dr. Lagos was essentially ripped apart. Cause of death was blood loss, but several of her organs had also been removed. They appeared to have been clawed out of her chest cavity. By what, she had yet to determine. It almost seemed feline. 

She finished gathering her things and made a mental note to call Mr. Y/L/N to check on Grace. She’d also need to call Mulder and tell him what she’d discovered so far and see if he’d found anything about Greenwich. The thought of calling Y/N entered her mind before she could stop it. 

This was easier when you were here. 

Dana shut the door and started down the hallway of the coroner’s office. Facts floated around in her mind, attempting to cling together to form theories. Nothing stuck. How could a predator like a cougar or lion have gotten into Lagosi’s locked apartment? Sure, the window was open, but she lived on the seventh floor. No such creature could have climbed the fire escape like that. Not unnoticed anyway. Mulder would probably suggest some kind of werewolf. She almost wished he was here to distract her with his crazy theories. 

She’d need to go back to the crime scene to see if the local authorities had missed something. Plus, the drive across town would give her a little time to think. All of this meant something. It just didn’t make sense yet. 

She didn’t know that someone had gotten there first. 

“What the hell happened?” You grimaced at the gruesome scene before you. While the body was gone and investigators had already gone through everything, the blood stains on nearly every surface painted a clear enough picture. 

Alex stepped over a shattered lamp. “That’s what we’re here to figure out. Time to break out all of that Academy training. You used to be Violent Crimes, right?” His tone made it sound more like a jab than genuine interest. 

You ignored him. He seemed to think now was a good time to push you. 

“Yeah…” He mused. “That’s how you met Mulder. The weirdo genius kid from BSU.”

You gritted your teeth. “How do you know that?”

He chuckled. “When are you going to get it through your head? I know everything.” He smirked at you, satisfied that he’d hit a nerve. 

“Less talking. More looking.” You snapped. You had to fight to keep the memories from flooding your head. They were too painful now. But he knew that. 

“I can see I’ve struck a nerve, Carter.” He still said the name with a smugness that made you want to punch him. Thankfully, he stopped there. 

Christmas lights framed the doorway of the building. Scully noted the lack of police cars. Shouldn’t there be a team watching the crime scene? Her phone rang before she could finish the thought. 

“Hello?”

“Scully, it’s me.” Mullder’s disappointed voice greeted. “I think you were right. There's no sign of Greenwich or what happened to him. No sign of Y/N.” She could hear him kick over something, probably a chair. 

She took a deep breath. “I was about to call you. I think something seriously strange is going on here, Mulder.” She hit the elevator button, still observing the odd quietness around her. 

“I’ll take the first flight to North Carolina.”

Dana sighed. Until she had any evidence that Y/N could be involved, there was no need to get his hopes up. Reaching the floor, she walked towards Dr. Lagossi’s apartment.

If Alex had still been making his snide remarks, you wouldn’t have heard the footsteps outside, accompanied by a voice that shot panic through your chest. You grabbed Alex by the lapel and shoved him into the closet. Unfortunately, the small space only fit one. 

“What the hell?” He objected. 

“I’ll handle this.” You slammed the door just as the front door opened. 

“No. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Go home and spend it with your daughter.”

You could almost hear his voice on the other line. Scully closed the door behind her and looked up. She froze, eyes locking with yours. 

“Mulder… I’ll call you back.” 

-

1992

You sat at your desk. Mulder sat at one of the tables looking through slides. You had a mountain of memos and taxes to go through before Blevins started breathing down your neck. A knock pulled you out of your work, but Mulder didn’t lose his focus.

“Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI’s most unwanted,” he said. 

You rolled your eyes. “Fox.” 

He looked at you the same way he always did when you called him by his first name. Annoyed, but affectionate all the same. 

A woman you didn’t recognize entered tentatively. She had red hair, bright eyes, and curious air about her. Your desk was closer, so she approached you first. 

“You must be Agent Y/L/N,” she said. She held out her hand to you with a kind smile. “Dana Scully. I’ve been assigned to work with you and Agent Mulder.”

“Isn’t it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded?” Mulder had turned around, his usual cynicism thick in his tone. 

“Ignore him.” You stood, taking a little more effort with the weight of your eight-months pregnant belly. “If it were up to him, I’d be working as soon as I could stand after labor.”

“You make me sound so insensitive,” He said in mock offense. “I’m actually very interested to see what Blevins is concocting by sending Dr. Scully to us.” He stood, crossing his arms and leaving back on the table. “So, who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?” 

“Actually I’m looking forward to working with you.” She turned back to you. “Both of you, once Agent Y/L/N gets back, of course.”

“Please,” You smiled, “call me Y/N. Unlike my partner, I’m not into the whole last name only thing.”

“Alright, Y/N.” From the look of her polite, yet intrigued smile, you could tell you were going to like her. “I’ve heard a lot about the two of you.”

“And I was under the impression you were sent to spy on us.” Fox snarked. 

Mulder proceeded to be Mulder, but Scully didn’t seem deterred. Yes, you were definitely going to like her.

-

You just stood there, frozen by her stare. Her expression morphed from shock to disbelief to confusion and back. 

“Dana-” You started. She cut you off with a hug. 

“I thought I’d never see you again.�� She said. You could feel the tears welling in your eyes and hugged her back. For that short, perfect moment, it felt like you had a part of your life back. But then you remembered why you were here and who was with you. You pushed away. 

“Dana, you can’t be here.”

“What?” She exclaimed. “Y/N, we’ve been looking for you for months. What are you doing here? Where have you been? What’s going on?”

“You have to leave. They probably already know you’re here. When they find out you saw me-”

“What are they making you do? Are you the one that’s been killing those people?” She stepped back. 

“It’s…” You took a deep breath. “Complicated.” You put your hands on her shoulders. “I need you to go home. Keep yourself safe. Keep them safe.”

She shrugged your hands off. “Do you have any idea what this has done to him? He’s driving himself insane trying to find you. He goes home to a daughter who doesn’t understand why her mother isn’t coming home and he has to try and be both parents.”

“I’m doing this to keep them safe,” you cried. 

She shook her head. “It’s time for you to go home. Y/N, please. We can-”

A flash and a thud stopped her. Scully fell to the floor. You rushed to help her, pulling her into her arms. Alex stood over her, having hit her with the butt of his gun. 

“What the hell?” You exclaimed. He looked at you furiously. 

“Nowhere to hide now.” 

-

General Tag: @rae-gar-targaryen; @takemepedropascal; @childhood-imagination;  @mylovegoesto; @yellowbadgergirl; @itmejado; @suckmyapplejacks; @kendahl0216; @yellowbubblewrap

Mulder: @posiemax; @muldersufo; @springholland

[snickerl]

Of Miracle Births and Other Wonders

tagging @today-in-fic

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

The lady behind the reception desk sends Mulder and the two kids up to the fourth floor of the hospital. They find another reception area with another helpful nurse. She tells them a doctor will be with them very soon to give them an update on Scully's condition. The few minutes they have to wait tears every nerve in Mulder's body, putting his patience to a hard test. Then, to his great relief, a good-looking woman in her late thirties approaches them. "Hello Mr. Scully, my name is Dr. Hanson, I am taking care of your wife," she says, holding her hand out to shake his.

"Uh, nice to meet you, Doctor, but my name is Mulder. These are our children, Emily and William," Mulder says, nudging them both in front of him. "How is Scully? I mean, my wife? How is she?"

"Hello everybody," the doctor says good-naturedly. "Your wife is perfectly fine, Mr. Mulder. She is doing great with her breathing technique. Her cervix is at 5 centimeters, so we still have some way to go. The baby is in good shape, she is in good shape, so we believe we will have a smooth delivery in a couple of hours. Are you all coming to the delivery room?"

William is aghast, his eyes saucer-wide. "What? Ew, no way! Gross!" He shakes his head vehemently. "Never ever!"

Mulder looks at his daughter. "Em?"

Emily thinks for a moment but quickly decides against it. The thought of seeing her mother in pain, even if it was for a good cause, makes her uncomfortable. "I'd rather stay with Will. We don't want him sitting here all by himself," she says.

"I don't need a sitter," William snaps, "I'm not a baby."

"But you definitely behave like one," Emily fires back. "Now shut up and be nice so dad can look after mom and doesn't have to worry about us at each other's throats out here."

"Alright," Doctor Hanson says. "The waiting area is over there. There are magazines and a vending machine. If you need anything, ask the nurse at reception. Follow me, Mr. Scully...I mean Mr. Mulder, sorry...your wife will be happy to see you." She leads the way to the delivery room. Mulder presses a kiss on Emily's hair and waves at William who has already plummeted into a chair. "Okay, kids. See you later then," he says and hurries to follow the doctor.

"Say hello to mom from us," Emily shouts after him, "and good luck!" She looks after her father who disappears through a swinging door marked Deliveries, then trots toward the waiting area to join her brother. She places herself in a chair next to him, looks around, gets up again to leaf through a pile of magazines on one of the tables, finds nothing of interest, goes back to her chair, and lets herself fall onto it with a sigh.

"You could've gone with dad, if you wanted," William tells her without looking up from his phone.

"Nah, I'm good."

Both sit in silence for a while. William is totally absorbed in a game on his smartphone, Emily pulls a history book and some pencils out of her backpack and starts reading, writing notes on the pages in different colors here and there. William shakes his head when he sees her doing that. "That's so old school, sis."

"Well, it's good for me. This way, the information stays longer in my brain than when I read it on a screen. You may call it old school, bro, I call it efficient mnemonics."

"Whatever," he sighs, his eyes back on the screen.

"Hey, what you said in the car, that mom doesn't care about us anymore, what did you mean by that?"

"I meant what I said, whatever the baby needs comes first, and we will play second fiddle. Or maybe even third. But I don't care. If things get unbearable, I will ask to go to boarding school. They can play house with the new baby then and I won't be there to bother anyone with my presence."

"You're being ridiculous, Will. Mom and dad will never let you go to boarding school, and I can't believe it will be anything like you just said."

William only shrugs. The narrative in his head has solidified like concrete, and he can't imagine a worse place to be right now. The best he can do is immerse himself in this online game and forget about what is happening at the other side of the door his father vanished through. After some hours of playing (thank God he brought his charger) and a short nap with his head leaned back against the wall, his stomach grumbles. "Are you also hungry, Em?"

"Well, I could have a snack. How long have we been waiting?"

"We came here at 10:45 am, now it's almost 6," William tells her, looking at the big clock on the wall of the waiting area.

"Wow, seven hours already. Poor mom. I wonder why dad hasn't given us an update."

"Do you think something is going wrong and he doesn't want to tell us?" William says, his voice trembling a bit.

"I don't think so."

"It's not so unlikely at mom's age."

"And how do you know?"

"I read stuff."

"You read stuff. Where?" Emily has problems picturing her brother behind a pregnancy textbook.

"On the internet, where else? If you google 'late motherhood' you get thousands of hits. And they all tell you women should have babies in their twenties and thirties, not their fifties. There is a reason for that. Nature doesn't want you to have a baby when you're old."

"Mom's not old."

"For having babies she is. She should be a grandmother rather than giving birth."

"Well, if she was a grandmother, I would already have a baby," Emily points out pensively, then adds a determined, "no thanks!"

"I just can't believe they let this happen."

"Let what happen?"

"Getting mom pregnant. Why? How?"

"Well, I can tell you how..."

"Ew, don't!" William imitates a gagging sound. "But why?"

"I guess it just happened."

"There are ways to prevent getting pregnant, I hope you are aware of that, unlike our parents apparently. I don't want to be an uncle on top of this any time soon. How could they have been so dumb? I don't get it. For all the times mom lectured us about condoms and safe sex, she didn't follow her own words." He shakes his head showing his disapproval and lack of understanding quite clearly. "I will never have sex, that's for sure."

Emily gives a slight chuckle. At fourteen, her brother most certainly doesn't have any idea of the joy of it. When he gets older and starts fancying girls, he might rethink his attitude, but something else is hitting her the longer their conversation goes. "You've given this a lot of thought, haven't you?"

"Well, what else was I to do? It has been the main topic in our house for the longest time. I guess, sometimes they even forgot I was still living there."

"Bullshit."

William is done explaining his thoughts. His sister obviously isn't getting the point either, just like his parents. "Now are we getting something to eat, or what?"

"You hangry?" Emily asks with a smirk and he is glad she has taken the bait and they changed the topic.

"After seven hours of wasting my time in this stuffy waiting room, I think I am allowed to have a bite to eat. Do you have change for the machine?" The boy is inwardly fuming at his father for once again neglecting him by not giving him money for food.

Big sister overtakes Em again, "I am definitely getting us something more nutritious. There has to be a cafeteria somewhere with sandwiches and a drink with less sugar than what I see in that machine." The idea of having to deal with a cranky brother on a sugar-high isn't very appealing. She gets up from the chair, her mind set on improving her brother's mood with a tasty snack. Plus, the hunt for food will give her something to do instead of mulling over what her mother is enduring at this very moment in the delivery room. "Text me, if you hear something," she tells her brother before she leaves him alone.

He tries to distract himself with the game again, but his thoughts keep going back to six months ago when his world turned upside down. The situation was surreal. His parents had prepared one of their usual Sunday family dinners, Emily had come to join, and with the dessert they served them the news of the pregnancy. His sister's piercing shriek of surprised joy hurt his eardrums and he almost choked on the pie he had in his mouth. His mother annoyed him with science book citations about the finer points of late motherhood and male ongoing virility that made him want to cover his ears entirely and yell 'too much information' at her. The worst was his dad though. The puppy eyes with which he was looking at his mom and the silly petting of her still flat stomach caused a severe tickling in William's throat. To this very day, he hadn't gotten past the shock. He shakes his head to make the unpleasant memories disappear.

And then, of course, what had to happen happens: Emily is gone for about fifteen minutes when Mulder appears in the waiting area with an ear-to-ear smile on his face. "Waiting time is over, the baby's here! It's a girl! A healthy, beautiful little girl," he announces, his voice full of pride and also relief. He looks around, surprised to find William alone. "Where is your sister?"

"Getting us a snack. Is mom alright?"

"She is. She did great. I am so amazed by that woman." Mulder's whole face lights up. "She sent me to get you guys. When will Em be back?"

"I don't know. She's been gone for about 20 minutes now, it shouldn't take her much longer. I mean only if she hasn't met a cute guy she needed to get into a conversation with." William rolls his eyes so hard he sees the back of his head, his voice high-pitched on 'cute guy'.

Mulder is still so high on adrenaline that he doesn't chime in, although he too has been annoyed more than once by his daughter's tardiness, and the reason has often enough been a 'cute guy'. "Okay, gotta go back to Scully, I don't want to leave her and the baby alone for too long," he says. He points toward a long gray hallway with several doors on each side. "We're in room 302 over there on the right. As soon as Em gets back, come and join us. Mom is waiting for you guys."

"But dad," William laments in vain, his father is already around the corner. "Great," he mumbles to himself. First, they drag him out here and make him wait endless hours in an uncomfortable chair only to be here when the baby is born, and now that it is born, they don't have a problem with him standing around for God knows how long until his tardy sister is back. Typical. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, types in 'get here asap', his fingers flying over the screen, and slams the send button.

Impatience gets the better of him soon. There is no more sitting in the chair and playing online games for him now, he is pacing the waiting area, glad that nobody else is there to see him in this state. If Emily isn't back soon, he'll explode, he thinks, but it takes another 20 minutes until he sees her leisurely strolling down the hallway. He sighs in relief when she finally stands in front of him, a cardboard tray in one hand filled with two drinks and something to eat he can't quite figure out, and some flowers wrapped in paper in the other. "It's about time!" he lets her know.

"Sorry," Emily says quite relaxed, "I was just standing in line to pay for the food when I got your text. This hospital complex is huge and a bit confusing to be honest. I'm not sure I took the shortest way on my way back. Healthy muffins, iced tea, and something for your sweet tooth," she says with a grin, holding the tray out to William. "What happened?"

"What happened? What do you think happened? The baby's here, of course, and mom wants to see us!"

Emily gives a girly shriek that hurts William's ears once again. "Yay! Great! You could've been a bit more specific in your text rather than simply summoning me back here. I thought you were just craving the food."

"Yeah, well, there was food right in front of our noses." William points to the vending machine, unable to keep his outstretched index finger steady. "But you had to go on a hunting trip for some salad leaves and made me stand around here alone wondering."

"Where are they?"

"In room 302. They are waiting for us. It's this way." William nods in the direction Mulder showed him.

"Okay, let's go then."

Side by side, Emily and William take long strides toward the room they were told. "Boy or girl?" Emily asks on the way.

"Girl."

"Yay again! Ah, that's wonderful. I have a little sister," she chants.

William isn't sharing an ounce of his sister's enthusiasm. If he had been given a choice, he would have passed on this experience as a whole, but now that they are standing in front of room 302, by opening that door what he has tried to deny will become real. If only his mom is alright, he will accept all that comes with it: sleepless nights because of the baby crying, smelly diapers, more Thai takeout, and an annoying younger sister on top of an annoying older one. If only his mom is alright. Emily knocks and he hears his mother's voice say "Come in!" It sounds weak, he thinks, and his heartbeat accelerates. When he follows his sister into the room, he braces himself for the worst.

[slippinmickeys]

A Sequel: Amazon Archeologist/Scientist AU, Part 2:

You can read on AO3 here.

1. “How does it feel to have cured cancer?” asked Kathy Lee. Scully couldn’t take her eyes off the rim of the host’s wine glass; it was smeared with lipstick, and the wine contained therein had legs, running down the bell curve of the glass in thin amber stripes.

It was oddly, surreally quiet on the unnaturally blazing stage -- multiple cameras pointing at them, a team of professionals sitting in dead silence in the dark spread out below.

“I only wish I’d done it sooner,” Scully said, going off script a bit. “I think of the people that died while we were still searching, still researching, while the studies were being checked and… I just wish I’d found it sooner.”

The host’s face softened, and she reached forward and put her hand over Scully’s on the arm of the chair where it was resting. She gave it a squeeze and Hoda took over, “Up next, the group BTS is going to sing us their latest single!”

There was a dull bell that rang off to Scully’s right and the stage manager stepped forward, headphones clomped over his ears, his mic slung low around his jaw.

“We’re clear!” he called, “Sixty seconds!”

The show would be cutting to a co-host standing at a stage set-up outside 30 Rockefeller Center. Scully reached up to unhook the mic attached to her lapel, and a trio of sound technicians descended on her. In ten seconds, she was relieved of all equipment, and she was left swaying in the funnel of the Fresnels on the too bright stage.

“You did great,” she heard from her left, and the show’s host winked at her, and retook her hand, leading her to the dim cool just off stage.

She found Mulder standing before her once her eyes adjusted, just outside the reach of the stage lights, looking nervous and out of place, his hands clasped behind his back. He was wearing a turtleneck and a suit coat, looking every inch the tenured professor.

“And who’s this?” Kathie Lee asked, looking at Mulder brightly.

Scully shook herself, trying to remember her manners. It wasn’t always easy, having spent so much time in the field.

“Uh, this is Mulder,” she said, “Dr. Fox Mulder. My, um… my fiancé.”

The television host smiled warmly at Mulder and clasped his hand.

“I’ve heard the story of your meeting,” Kathie Lee said, “It’s a real pleasure.”

“I’m a big Giants fan,” Mulder said, giving her hand a firm shake, “the pleasure’s all mine.”

The host winked at him and then stalked off, and Scully exhaled, falling a little into Mulder’s side.

“I’m glad that’s over,” she said.

“The price you pay for changing the course of human history,” Mulder mumbled, squeezing her into his side and kissing her hairline. He led her off the soundstage and into a waiting limo.

2. It had been a whirlwind since the Nobel Prize Award ceremony in Stockholm. It was cold in Sweden in December — especially to a person who’d spent years in the humid jungles off the beaten paths of the world, and she and Mulder both felt out of place and perpetually in the clasp of a bone-clutching chill.

“I just want to be back in the field,” she’d whisper to him, and he would kiss her hand. With the prize money, they could buy a house, start a family — but they both would rather be in a jungle somewhere, sweating into the other’s skin on a too-narrow cot, in a too-hot clime. There was no science when they were in the cradle of the other’s hips, there was just each other. Sex made life more simple. Sex made life more fun. But sex didn’t cure cancer. Pleurotus Mulderatus did that, and the world wanted to hear about it.

3.She had a free ticket. Any university, any assignment.

“I feel pressure,” she told him, her nose pressed into his ear. “What do you do after you’ve cured cancer?” she asked, earnestly, “there’s nowhere to go but down.”

He’d taken her to Rhode Island, to his family’s cottage in Quonochontaug, creaky and drafty and smelling of mildew and old pine. No one had visited in decades and everything needed to be cleaned and aired out.

They kayaked and frolicked in the waves, drank coffee in adirondack chairs and listened to the pinched squawks of hovering sea birds. They’d find a place in the dune grass, down low where the wind wouldn’t catch them. They’d soak up the sun and then go into the cottage and make love between the knotty pine walls, their moans absorbed by the thick shag carpet laced with the grit of sand, faded drunkards path quilts nailed to the walls.

“Down is a state of mind,” Mulder would murmur into her ear, “Up is fighting gravity. You have nowhere to be but here. You have no one to impress but me.”

He would catch her lips with his own and they would sink into each other gratefully.

4.Mulder was burning pancakes in the kitchen when there was a dull knock on the screen door.

Scully was laughing at Mulder’s culinary ineptitudes when she turned toward the sound, her laugh fading when a well-done-up woman appeared on the stoop, holding her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun’s glare, trying to see into the murky depths of the house.

“Are you press?” Scully asked through the screen door glumly, her mood taking a nose dive.

“I’m Samantha,” the woman said, and it took Scully a full five seconds for her synapses to fire, to figure out the identity of the visitor.

“Oh my god,” Scully said, swinging the door open to admit the polished woman waiting on the other side. The door itself was swollen with humidity and didn’t shut all the way -- it caught like there was a second latch. “Come in, come in!”

Samantha had a full head of thick hair just like her brother, but it was curled and tawny, streaks of not-quite-blonde highlights running from the roots. She was wearing Lily Pulitzer pastels, and would have looked at home in a sun hat or on the pages of Coastal Living.

“You must be Dana,” she breathed, smiling widely. Scully nodded and looked around self-consciously. “God, this place hasn’t changed in thirty years,” Samantha finished, shaking her head ruefully. “Where’s Fox?”

“Kitchen,” Scully said, inclining her head toward the cooking space, though she knew Samantha knew right where to go.

“You’re using the cast iron?” Samantha said boldly and apropos of nothing, stepping into the sunny kitchen, “God, I hope you seasoned that thing.”

Mulder’s face brightened at seeing his sister, and he turned to her fully, enveloping her in a hug, a greasy spatula in one hand, held out so as not to soil her clothes.

“Like you can cook,” he drawled, turning back to the smoking pan.

“I know enough to hire a caterer,” she said, plunking down in an olive green vinyl kitchen chair, looking at ease but totally out of place in the dated decor of the cottage. “So. Who do I have to fuck to get a mimosa around here?”

“Me,” said a voice from the entryway. The screen door slammed ineffectually shut and Scully’s own sister Melissa stood awkwardly in the slant of sun showing through it, holding several plastic bags laden with glass bottles and juices, a hopeful, nervous smile on her face.

“Missy?!” Scully squeaked, and Mulder looked to the door, his face chagrined and pleased as Scully launched herself at her sister, wrapping herself in the earthy patchouli smell of the woman, the plastic bags clunking to the floor at their feet.

XxXxXxXxXxX

“I got ordained online,” Melissa said, drinking a Bellini from a yellow smiley-face mug, her feet tucked under her on a rough-hewn dining chair. “It’s perfectly legal.”

“But it’s--” Scully started, then abandoned her argument. She looked to Mulder desperately, who smiled and plunked a cup of hot coffee in front of her.

“It was only an idea,” he said, squeezing her hand and sliding an ancient sugar dish in front of her. The crinkles around his eyes had hardened in the ocean-reflected sun, lending him an air of easy humor she hadn’t witnessed much of in the jungle.

“Don’t you need two witnesses?” she asked, realizing how lame it sounded the second the words were out of her mouth.

Samantha leaned over and grabbed her hand, squeezing her fingers in such a way that made her feel bolstered and secure. “Not in Rhode Island,” Mulder’s sister told her, looking her square in the eye.

“We don’t have to do it,” Mulder said, still standing at her side, “but I thought…”

She felt overwhelmed with emotion, thinking of her father, who hadn’t lived long enough to witness her greatest achievement, which would have saved his life.

“Mom sent her wedding dress,” Melissa said, holding up a garment bag -- it was a yellowed ivory in the kitchen sun, the zipper up its middle aged and brittle.

XxXxXxXxXxX

They exchanged vows on the beach in front of the old cottage in a whipping Atlantic wind. Gulls hovered overhead and the sun was as bright as a brass doorknob, the air clearer than glass.

Samantha had read a poem by an amateur poet named Tim Pratt called Scientific Romance (Mulder having confessed to her later that night that it only seemed right to have had a reading replete with scientific notation for a wedding between two people such as themselves). Melissa had read words as old as the institution of marriage itself and they exchanged simple rings and had eyes only for each other. Scully handed her bouquet -- a small posy of wild swamp azalea and yellow flag that Melissa had picked the hour before -- to her new sister in law as she strode up the peeling wooden steps of the house. Mulder had insisted upon carrying her over the threshold and Melissa and Samantha had stood back thoughtfully, and were now sitting closely on the beach, heads bent together, talking in hushed tones.

Scully didn’t know quite what to do with herself, dressed in old lace in the heavy salt air, her left ring finger feeling as heavy and pendulous as an old bell. Mulder wrapped his arms around her from behind and told her they never had to leave.

“Nobel Laureates live in Rhode Island, too, you know,” he whispered into the hair behind her ear.

“Mmm,” she said happily, watching her sister and his dig their feet in the gritty sand.

He kissed the skin where her shoulder met her neck. “Life can be as simple as the state motto.”

“Which is?” she asked.

“Hope.”

5. She stood above the riverbank, the grass a trampled, muddy squelch. A monkey called from overhead, a high primate shriek that echoed through the canopy. Its compatriots soon joined in, the welcoming committee announcing the rare arrival of a visitor.

He sat in the back of the approaching hollowed-out canoe, his knees practically to his neck, the lanky bones of him jutting out at all angles. He wore jeans and chambray, all wrong for the climate, but the blue set off the dark mink of his hair, and his eyes -- as green as the river upon which his boat perched -- caught hers from twenty yards away -- they held her gaze as the craft glided to shore, and he leapt off with the galumphing grace of a power forward.

“Dr. Scully I presume,” he said, finding his balance on the slippery shore and reaching a hand forward. She clasped it gratefully, then brought it to her belly, which was protruding out like a carved fertility statue, a life-sized goddess, gravid and full. “I thank God, doctor, that I have been permitted to see you,” he finished, and they embraced on the shores of the jungle river, perspiring and damp and finally, finally feeling at home.

[baronessblixen]

Hi ! I have recently discovered your page and i love your fanfictions. You always get the characters right :) I have a prompt for you: Mulder and Scully can't stop hugging each other

Hi! Thank you so much for this sweet message. Apologies that it took me a few days to write this ficlet. I hope you like it! It’s hurt/comfort set in “Fresh Bones” (yes, you read that right). Thank you to the rewatch chat for inspiring this fic.

Tagging @today-in-fic

“Scully, I’m fine,” he says with half a smile, borrowing her own words. In the last few minutes, ever since they’ve been back at the hotel, Scully has checked his vitals, his pulse, his stomach, and his head. Twice. He’s winced a few times here and there when she touched a tender spot, but her diagnosis concurs with his assessment. He is, as far as she can tell, fine.

“Show me your hand,” Mulder says softly, using her lack of attention to his advantage. She recoils from his touch and retreats like a shy, wounded animal, almost stumbling over her own feet. Mulder grabs her arm – the other one – to keep her on her feet. She gasps, staring at him with an open mouth. The phantom taste of the blood returns, spills from her tongue and lips, but when she touches them, there’s nothing there.

“Hey,” he says, drawing her close to him. “Are you fine, Scully, really?” His eyes are as insistent as his words. She licks her lips, tries to forget the pictures from the car, her voodoo vision. Not real, she chants in her mind. Not real. This is real, her and Mulder in a staring contest trying to convince each other that they’re fine.

“I’m-,” but just like there’s no blood, there are no words either. There’s only the heavy feeling in her stomach. The what if. What if she’d not reached out and grabbed the charm? What if Mulder had been killed by the same voodoo? What if…

“Hey, it’s okay.” Mulder’s arms wrap around her and she lets him hold her. She doesn’t break down, not this time. She revels in his warmth, in the strength of his arms, and the steady heartbeat against her cheek. Her own arms go around him, clasp securely around his back. They stand in the middle of her hotel room, clinging to each other like lost children in the night. Scully closes her eyes and tightens her grip. So does Mulder. They mirror each other, a perfect circle with no beginning and no end.

“Stay here, please.” Her request, partly whispered in fear, partly made out of despair, is murmured into the warm cotton of his shirt.

“I can hold you all night.” His reply is a whisper in her hair, barely there. She squeezes his side, letting him know it’s what she wants. What she needs tonight. When they let go of each other, their bodies are reluctant to part. She shivers as if she were cold, her body’s reaction to losing Mulder’s heat. 

They look at each other, communicating without words. Mulder is the one to break eye contact. He takes her hand and leads her over to the small bed. There are so many reasons why they shouldn’t do this, why she should remind him that she’s fine after all, that she can deal with it on her own. Like she’s done last time, the time before that, and the time before that, too. Her hand itches and she holds up her palm to look at it, inspecting it as if it were a piece of evidence.

“Show me,” Mulder pleads, and her eyes land on his. He must have been watching her.

“It’s fine, Mulder. It really is.” He takes her hand anyway and examines it closely. She feels his breath against her skin everywhere.

“Looks good to me.”

“Thank you, Dr. Mulder.” He lifts his head but doesn’t let go of her hand. His thumb is gently stroking her palm, though she is not sure he is even aware of doing it.

“We’re flying home tomorrow,” he says and she nods. “We should really get some rest.” She nods again. “Come on.” He tugs on her hand and she follows him. She toes off her shoes, and so does Mulder. They’re watching each other, daring the other to go further and further until there’s nowhere left to go. There’s no modesty as she undresses to her underwear. She dons her pajamas and only then lifts her head. Mulder is standing there, uncertainty written on his face.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she admits, playing with a button on her pajama. It’s been loose for a while and she hasn’t found the time to mend it. One of these days it will fall off, leaving another part of herself bared. “About what I saw and what happened. I’m fine.”

“But I’m-,” he trails off. He’s not fine. That’s what he was going to say. It’s written in the way his fists are clenched, in the way he worries his bottom lip. Without a word, Scully slips into bed. There’s been no promise; he could leave her alone, pretend none of this happened. It wouldn’t be the first time. She regulates her breathing and then there he is, right behind her. His breath against her skin.

“Can I just hug you again?” he asks with his hand on her hips, not yet moving closer. She doesn’t correct him, doesn’t remind him that what they’re doing is not a hug, is not the same. She doesn’t correct him because she doesn’t want to. What she wants is this.

“Yes,” she answers finally, and he draws her closer until her back is pressed against his front. He’s holding her and maybe he’s right after all. Maybe this is just another hug. They’ve never shared a bed, have never been this intimate. And she’s never felt so protected. She knows, without question or doubt, that he’ll hold her all night, not letting go of her for one second. It’s enough to close her eyes without fear.

[aloysiavirgata]

In The Gale

Title: In The Gale

Author: Aloysia Virgata

Rating: PG

Category: MSR

Author's Notes: For @perplexistan, who asked and helped me make it better. This is shortly after settling into the Unremarkable House. I tried making sense of their legal status, but it’s simply impossible and I gave up.

Our heroes quote from Melville, Shakespeare, Sagan, Baudrillard, and (Emily) Dickens.

***

Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place And what is actual is actual only for one time And only for one place I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessed face And renounce the voice Because I cannot hope to turn again Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us And pray that I may forget These matters that with myself I too much discuss Too much explain Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is done, not to be done again May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

***

She recites The Raven to herself on the drive in, lists all the state capitals in alphabetical order, and goes through the periodic table. Her body fizzes like a shaken soda, tiny anxious bubbles rising through her blood. They’ve done so much for this, called in so many favors. Mulder put his book on hold for a month, quizzing her with dog-eared notecards. 

“Immediate treatment of myocardial infarction,” he’d call, and she’d say “MONA TASS.”

She feels a pang for the simplicity of the other life, the hiding one, where she just had to ring up cigarettes and herbal Viagra at gas stations.

***

She’s the new girl at the cafeteria table, awkward and alone. Mulder had prepared her a lunch like it’s the first day of school, and she stares at it, wishing for an appetite.

From the corner of her eye she sees two colleagues - an MRI tech and an obstetrician, she thinks - talking softly and glancing over. Scully thinks she hears “FBI,” and she looks up and smiles, uncertain.

They blink at her, look away.

***

Ybarra comes around the corner, gliding in his cassock like a disapproving ghost. “Dr. Scully,” he says, in his pinched voice.

She smiles thinly. “Father Ybarra.”

“Nurse Mossing was looking for the chart for Mrs. Sullivan. Imagine my surprise when I found it in Room 314 instead of Room 413. That’s a potential HIPAA violation, Dr. Scully. That’s a federal law.”

Scully curls her hand so that her nails dig into her skin. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “Father Ybarra, please forg-”

He holds up his palm. “It won’t happen again,” he says, and glides onward.

Scully closes her eyes and leans against the wall. She breathes through her nose until the ringing in her ears stops.

***

She wants to collapse into his arms and cry when she gets home, but that would be giving in. It would be letting them down.

“How’d it go?” he asks. He’s wearing basketball shorts and a Knicks shirt, a five o’clock shadow.

She smiles brightly. “It was good. Learning curve, but good. I think Father Ybarra might be a tough nut to crack, is all.”

Mulder rubs his cowlicked hair. “Put your feet up, Scully, since you won’t wear sensible shoes.”

She does, and accepts the glass of wine he holds out. “Thanks. I’ll sleep well tonight, anyway. There are miles of hallways.”

He sits next to her on the couch. “I wrote a few pages,” he says. “I deleted a bunch, but I think there was a multi-paragraph net gain.”

“I’m glad you’re able to stop focusing on my stuff now,” she says. “Both back in the saddle.”

“Go team.”

She clinks her glass against his. She drinks her wine too fast.

***

Ybarra had come in during her rounds that morning and startled her into knocking a metal bedpan onto the floor. Scully thinks the reverberations of that sound will follow her to the grave.

She’s now in the chapel, tucked into a back pew. She’s been staring at the small altar, at the stained glass windows flanking the crucifix. The Blessed Virgin smiles beatifically down at her, a wretched sinner.

Scully laces her fingers on the back of the pew in front of her and bows her head against them. “Please,” she whispers. “Please.”

***

Mulder wakes her with tea and eggs. “You haven’t been eating,” he says, brow furrowed. 

She rubs her eyes, yawning. “What?”

He sits next to her on the bed, sets the plate and mug on her night table. “You just push your food around your plate, you hardly talk when you get home. What’s going on, Scully?”

She sits up, looking at his worried face. He’s sun-browned and tousled, beautiful, with a mouth that still makes her weak in the knees. “Nothing. It’s just a lot to jump back into.”

“I’m sure it is. And I still want to help you with it.” He pulls the flash cards from his pocket, touches her wrist with his other hand. “Let’s see - causes of upper zone pulmonary fibrosis?”

She looks at the ceiling, back at him. “I don’t need help.”

Mulder blinks, stung. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. You just don’t need to hover over me. You have your own things to work on. Work on your book, patch up your henhouse. ” Her voice sounds snappish to her own ears.

His changeable eyes, now mossy green, darken. He chews his bottom lip, nodding slowly. “I thought you were one of my ‘things.’ Sorry to bother you.” He rises, walks downstairs.

“Mulder,” she whispers.

The tea goes down fine. Scully tries to eat the eggs but feels bile rise in her throat. She flushes them down the toilet instead of leaving them behind, because that is love.

***

She arrives at the nurses’ station on the second floor with three dozen donuts and two cardboard boxes of coffee. She deposits them on the desk. “Good morning, Annabel,” she says.

“Anneliese,” the woman says.

Scully nods, walks away.

*** 

He slides his hand up her pajama top, tracing circles on her ribs, sliding his fingers around to her breasts. He kisses the back of her neck. “Scully,” he whispers, his breath warm and ticklish in her ear.

She wants to pretend to wake up, to turn towards him and lose herself in his body. She wants to tell him everything, to be held and loved and petted and reassured. She wants him to remind her that she once stared down Congress, that some backwater priest and his prickly staff should be a joke to her. She wants them to laugh together at these silly, petty people.

But she can’t, she can’t disappoint him. He’s been so proud of her.

Scully stays still, breathes evenly until his hands move away and she’s alone again.

***

Her car rattles over the driveway, through shimmering waves of heat that rise from the crisping grass. It is the kind of late July afternoon where the sun is a hazy white ball in the west, and clouds of gnats are a permanent feature of the landscape. 

Scully parks, avoiding a puddle in which a peacock is standing. Mulder has recently become enamored of yard fowl. She narrows her eyes at it while opening the car door. 

“Good boy, Kevin,” she calls to it, wary.

Scully picks her way over the gravel in her thin heels. The peacock mews an alarm as she approaches, but doesn’t charge. She lets herself inside, shuts the heat and sun and wildlife outside. The house smells of coffee and microwave popcorn.

She walks into Mulder’s office and finds him hunched at his desk, typing. “Hey,” she says, and drops a kiss on his head. There’s a sketch of Baphomet taped to his monitor, her worn flash cards atop a tome about Raëlism.

He turns in his chair. He puts his arms around her hips. “Hey.” 

“Kevin behaved himself,” she offers.

“You two will be friends yet, you’ll see.”

She peers at the computer. “You get a lot done today?”

Mulder shrugs. “Eh, a bit. Waiting on a few emails, and I had to run that tubing to drain the sump down into the woods. Ate up most of the afternoon.”

Scully shakes her head in admiration. “I don’t know how you manage all the multitasking.”

“Well, the book helps me avoid the house, and the house helps me avoid the book. It’s a perfect system. That Ybarra guy still riding your ass?”

She chews her lip. “No,” she lies. “I think we’re okay now.”

“Good,” he says. “I’d hate to have to beat up a priest.”

***

Scully gazes at herself in the empty locker room. She looks thin and tired, and her hair is frizzing up, even pulled back like this. All her makeup has sweated off except for smudged crescents of mascara. Her bra is the color of a Band-Aid, her underwear white and sensible. Between the two is the hard white rose of her gunshot scar, like a second navel, an artifact of a second birth. It is numb when she touches it, indifferent. There are no stretch marks from William, a tale missing from the anthology of her skin. She unhooks her bra, lets it slide down to the damp floor. Scully turns to observe her body in profile. The scar is gone this way, the tattoo hidden as well, and she smooths her hands along her ribs. Her breasts seem out of place to her when they are unbound, frivolous somehow. Vestigial. 

She looks away.

***

The hospital is labyrinthine, having been constructed of various additions when funds allowed. There are dead ends, pointless staircases, and a mysterious storage closet filled with old televisions. She makes little maps on notepaper. 

“So where did you work before this?” an orthopedic surgeon asks her.

A diner in Wyoming. 

“I was out West for a while,” she says.

***

A week in, and Mulder has made a cake to celebrate. A bouquet of Kevin’s shed tail feathers ornaments the table.

An offering, Mulder calls it, tickling her chin with one.

A week down, she thinks, and blows out the candle. She wonders when she’ll stop counting the time.

***

Shy, he gives her a chapter to read. It’s good, and she tells him so. It’s very good. She hears his voice in her head when she reads it, his passion. She loves the esoterica tucked into his gyri and sulci.

“Your prose was never this clear in your reports,” she remarks. 

“Hey if you can’t blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”

Scully laughs. “You want to read a few medical reports?”

He looks at her, suddenly serious. “Yeah,” he says. “I would. It would be nice to hear about your day for once.”

She wonders if love is the weapon that lets them wound so casually.

***

“You’re late,” Ybarra says softly. 

She doesn’t explain that she’d somehow ended up at the TV closet again, that the room numbering system in this hospital had been designed by nihilists, that the nursing student had Dermabonded her glove to a patient’s forehead.

She lowers her eyes like she did at Catholic school. She promises to do better.

***

“What’s going on?” Mulder asks her for what feels like the hundredth time. “Talk to me, Scully.”

She presses her hands to her face for a moment, drops them to her sides. “Nothing,” she says again, frustrating them both. “I’m tired. It’s a hard schedule.”

He places a throw pillow on his lap and pats it. “Come here,” he says. “Please.”

She acquiesces, curling on her side with her back to him. He runs his fingers through her hair, traces the Fibonacci spirals of her ear. She wants to relax, to melt into his touch. She indulges in a Mulderesque conspiracy theory that the hospital microdoses the water with tetanus toxin to keep everyone rigid and tense.

Scully gazes at the windows, at the hard white light of summer streaming in. The curtains are blue with an arabesque pattern, and they looked very chic in the store. She wonders now if they seem desperate in this odd little house. She thinks of Meg March, dressed up in borrowed finery at the Moffats’ ball.

***

Scully clomps up the steps to the porch and kicks her rain boots off next to the umbrella stand. It contains four umbrellas and a gnarled hickory limb that Mulder claims is going to be polished into a fine walking stick one of these days. She goes into the house and is dismayed to find it stale and stifling and dark. Dust motes waft in Brownian motion through shafts of sunlight, undirected by fans or air conditioning. 

“Mulder,” she calls, and there is silence.

She twists her hair into a bun as she pads upstairs, old wood satiny under her bare feet. She pushes open the bedroom door, and the air is hot and still. 

“Mulder?” She needs his help with her zipper, but there is no reply.

She wrestles herself out of her silk sheath, sticky and irritating, and lets it puddle on the floor. Her bra follows. She feels guilty, as Mulder has turned out to be a surprisingly diligent housekeeper. His office is filled with perilous stacks of home improvement books and arcane journals about lake monsters, the walls papered with clippings and blurry photographs, but he seems able to quarantine his own entropy.

She is trying to do the same.

Scully pulls on soft cotton pajama shorts, a gray tank top imbued with the compressive powers of Lycra. She uses lotion to rub away the mascara beneath her eyes. She goes downstairs and out the back door, shielding her eyes against the piercing sunlight. A mosquito whines at her ear and she pinches it out of the air.

“Still got those reflexes, kid,” Mulder says from somewhere off to her left. 

She turns and sees him crouched next to the hulking green block of the transformer. “All the lights are off, and the house feels like a rainforest. I take it you’ve had an eventful day?”

He sighs. “Not really. Well, not the event I was hoping for, which is the power coming back on. There was a pretty heavy thunderstorm around one and that’s when the electricity blew.”

She sits on the bottom step, knees drawn up. She likes to watch him working, a side of him they’re both still learning about. There was never much call for home maintenance at Hegal Place, or living out of cash-only motels. “You call the power company?”

He huffs. “Yeah, they told me they had no reported outages and the power should be fine. I explained that I was trying to report an outage and that it definitely was not fine and she promised someone would be here between tomorrow and eventually.”

Scully smiles. “And that’s why you’re out here toying with death?”

“Not much else to do, really. Can’t write with the power out.” Mulder sits back on his heels and shrugs. “You, uh, have a good day?”

She hadn’t. “Yep. Starting to feel like part of the team.”

“Good. You need to get your career standards as high as your standards for men,” he says, getting to his feet.

“Oh, well, that’s an obviously unattainable bar.”

“Obviously.” He sits next to her on the step. “You wear that to work? You know I think bras are a tool of the patriarchy and you shouldn’t bother, but I’m just surprised Our Lady of Perpetual Shame takes such a liberal view.”

She laughs a little. “I figured as long as I tossed a lab coat over it, I’d look like a real doctor. It worked when I was a kid.”

“Hey, that’s what I did with my badge half the time. Listen, Scully. The house is pretty tropical. You want to bunk up in a hotel until they get the power sorted out?”

Scully thinks about the convenience it would afford. Maids and room service and maybe a pool, depending. But she is tired of hotels, even nice ones. She is tired of polite signs that remind her that the pillows and towels and hairdryers aren’t hers, the tiny toiletries an indicator of her temporary status. She is tired of living out of suitcases and dressers that made her clothes smell strange, tired of running from her own life.  She wants to be home.

“Nah,” she says. “We’ll manage.”

Mulder looks surprised, but doesn’t question it. “I’ll call Lowe’s about getting a generator delivered tomorrow. We ought to have one anyway out here.”

She’d always had a vague idea that Mulder had money - it was the only explanation for his complete disinterest in it. But when they’d come back, when they’d talked to his lawyers, she'd been staggered. The Vineyard house alone explained his casual international jaunts. They can have things now, endless things, and there is something frantic in her that wants to spend the money. Bingeing chocolate bunnies after Lent.

Mulder peels his shirt off, wadding it into a limp ball. He tosses it so that it hooks over the doorknob. “Still got it,” he says. He preens.

“Does the NBA realize the tremendous talent they’re missing out on?” she asks. “Do they even know that, at this very moment, a six foot tall middle aged white man is out here flinging his clothing a distance of several feet?”

He snuggles up to her, wrapping his sweaty arms around her shoulders. 

“Ugh,” she says, and pushes at him. “Mulder, you’re disgusting and it’s a thousand degrees out here.”  

“Hoping that cold, cold heart of yours might cool me off.” She sniffs disdainfully, and he releases her. “Scully, how do you feel about bees?”

“We have a history, bees and I,” she observes, tapping the back of her neck.

Mulder curls his hand over the scar, kneads the muscles there. “Well, these wouldn’t be fancy bees.”

“Hmmm,” she says. “I’m not inherently opposed. Why do you want bees, Mulder?”

He shrugs. “I’m getting older, and I’ve got to consider funeral plans. The last one didn’t really go as expected, so I thought maybe I’d mellify myself this time.”

She nods. “Makes sense. I mean, of course, there’s no actual proof that mellification actually occurred, but that’s never stopped you.”

“I also like honey,” he adds. “And bees are good for the planet.”

“Honey often contains botulism spores,” she remarks. “Botulinum toxin is the most lethal toxin known, and it’s estimated that as little as 40 grams of it would be enough to kill everyone on earth.” She doesn’t say you shouldn’t give it to babies, that she sweetened her smoothies with dates and maple syrup so that -

“Well, nobody better piss off my bee army and me,” he says darkly. 

“Everybody eventually pisses you off. Mulder, is that old tent in the shed still? We could sleep in that tonight.”

He shakes his head. “Heavy mildew and dry rot, so I threw it out. We could sleep out here if you want, though. We’ve got that big air mattress.”

“Let’s do that,” she says. “We can put it on the porch. Tell you what - you get stuff together, and I’ll even make dinner.” Scully doesn’t like cooking, but she wants to create order, to complete a finite task. She can be domesticated again, like a lost house cat finally returned to a hearth.

“We having eggs or peanut butter?” he asks, smirky.

“I’d hate to spoil the surprise,” she snips, and goes back into their sauna of a house. 

In the kitchen, she stands in front of the open fridge, letting the delicious leftover cold soak into her skin. She’ll deal with the spoiled food later. Eggs had, actually, been her plan but it’s just too hot. The stove doesn’t work, and she doesn’t have the fortitude to turn the grill on. She finds some leftover shrimp pasta that Mulder has made, some vegetables, and assembles it all into a passable salad.

There, she thinks, pleased. I’d pay twelve bucks for that somewhere. She uses her foot to scratch a mosquito bite on her calf.

Her skin is clammy, hair stringy and damp from sweat. Maybe they should just go to a hotel after all. Perhaps she should stop ascribing symbolism to every damn thing and enjoy herself once in a while. But she thinks of packing, of driving, of unpacking and somehow it’s all too much and her eyes start to fill and her sinuses sting.

Scully pinches her wrist until it passes, feeling weak and hating the weakness in herself. It’s the heat, it’s the exhaustion, it’s the heavy mental load. She considers going outside for a dip in the pond, but suspects the water will be unpleasantly warm. Instead, she drags herself back upstairs for a cold shower.

She sits on the edge of the bed, weary, and stares at a framed picture of a sea turtle on the far wall. If she lets her eyes drift out of focus, it looks like it’s swimming. She tips her head back for a better angle, watches it float across her vision. It slips away then, into the black of the deep waters.

***

She startles awake when he touches her shoulder, gasps.

“Jesus,” Mulder says, and sits next to her. “Bad dream?”

Scully sits up, dazed. “What? No, was I asleep?”

“You’ve been out cold for over an hour, but I wanted to make sure you got some food. Water at least, it’s too hot up here.”

She blinks, confused. “I don’t remember,” she says. Peering to her right reveals night outside.

Mulder holds a hand out and she grasps it, letting him pull her to her feet. She wavers and he steadies her, arm about her shoulders. 

“I just need some water,” she says, defensive.

He guides her down the stairs and out the front door onto the porch. The air outside is substantially cooler, a light breeze kissing her face. She settles into a chair, stares deep into the felty dark. She still can’t remember falling asleep. 

Mulder hands her a water bottle from the little table and she rolls it between her palms, the plastic crinkling. “Hey, I thought you were setting up the air mattress out here,” she says.

“No air flow behind the wall,” he replies. “Drink that up like a good girl and I’ll show you what we’ve got.”

Scully obeys and feels better. The water tastes stale, but it’s cool and wet. “Maybe you should have my job,” she says, looking up. “Caring for live people is so much work.”

“Everybody eventually pisses me off,” he reminds her. “Come on, Doc.”

She follows him down the steps and around the side of the house. Their property is vast and feral, pocked with mole burrows and rabbit nests. The floodlights are out with the power, and the house is nearly swallowed up by the vast night. Scully glances up at the Milky Way, at the waxing moon, and marvels again at the sky they have out here. We are star stuff, she thinks.

“Moonstruck?” Mulder asks.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars.”

“As long as you can tell a hawk from a handsaw,” he says, and tugs her along.

She follows him to the back of the house and then stops, smiling. Mulder has hammered some old two-by-fours into a frame, draped the structure in white bedsheets. Inside, the air mattress is piled with sofa pillows. Outside, camping lanterns, candles, and two strands of solar lights make it into a kind of fairy circle.

“Mulder,” she says, delighted. “This is ridiculous.”

“Indian Guide saves the day,” he says.

“Your architecture badge is definitely more impressive than your fire badge,” she says, walking over to the little tent. He’s brought her salad inside, and there is a cooler packed with ice and water bottles. Cans of bug spray sit at the flap. She crawls inside, suddenly ravenous. 

Mulder joins her on the mattress, which bounces in response. “Remember my water bed?”

She laughs, piling food on a plate for each of them. “What a swinging bachelor you were.”

She remembers the water bed fondly, the leather couch and the fish and the postage-stamp bathroom in his apartment. It shouldn’t hurt still, but it does. She knew herself there, her place on the map. She eats her salad, wistful for Chinese food and beer at that battered coffee table.

“Scully,” he says.

“What?”

“Scully.”

“Just middle-aged nostalgia, I suppose,” she murmurs.

He reaches out to take her hand. “You’re scarcely middle aged.”

She smiles, squeezes his fingers. “If you go by life experience, we’re both about two hundred years old.”

“Like those Galapagos tortoises. But you need to tell me what’s going on at work. You won’t disappoint me.”

It can be very disagreeable to live with a profiler.

Scully drops his hand. She bites at the fleshy part of her thumb. This is real, she thinks. This place. It is not down in any map; true places never are. She can only deflect for so long, and her armor is rusting away. “I’m afraid,” she whispers, then chances a look at his face.

His eyes are soft, searching. “Why?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know, I don’t…” Her sinuses sting again and she presses her palms hard into her eyes. “Please.”

Mulder’s hand on her back, in endless, gentle figure eights. He pulls the elastic from her hair and lets it tumble down to her shoulders. He shifts so that her back is to him, his long legs on either side of her body.

“Mulder, what -”

“Shhhh,” he says, and gathers the hair at the crown of her head. “It’s not a real sleepover if you don’t get your hair French braided.”

Scully blinks. “Since when do you know how to braid hair?”

“Little sister, absent parents. Now stop moving and talk.”

She keeps her head very steady, thinking of her own sister’s deft fingers when their mother was too busy for anything but ponytails. Mulder tugs at another little section of hair. Scully thinks she might be okay if she isn’t looking at him, if she can’t read herself in his eyes.

Moth shadows dance across the white sheet wall, drawn to the flickering candles outside. It fascinates her that they never figure out that fire burns.  “I don’t know how to do this,” she says, and her voice is thick.

“To talk, or to be still?” he says in his Oxford psychologist voice.

She isn’t sure of what she means either. “Yes,” she says, with a hiccupy laugh. “Both.”

“Me too,” he says, slipping his thumb through the strands behind her ear. “I don’t know how to do this.”

She swallows hard. “I just...I’ve always had something to consume me. I had the FBI, we traveled all the time, and then we were running and I thought it was hard but it was so easy to just survive. There were no decisions. I didn’t care about, I don’t know...plates.”

He pauses in his work. “Plates?”

Scully chews at a hangnail, frustrated. “Just things, the things you buy for a house. Long term things. I did with William and then…” she trails off, her chest tight. “I feel like I’m playing a game sometimes, like improv theater. Fox and Dana Build A Home.”

“Fox and Dana?” he repeats. “Surely not.”

“Well, we’re hardly Mulder and Scully anymore, are we?” Her stomach clenches and that’s it, she sees. That’s the fear.

He finishes the braid and fastens the elastic at the end of it. “Of course we are,” he says. “We are who we are.”

She turns to him then, the whispering anxiety back with a roar. “And who is that, Mulder? I was plain old Dana Scully until I met you. And we had this life, this strange and wonderful and terrible life where I was Scully because I was your partner and now that’s over. It’s all nothing.” She’s crying openly now, quietly, and it feels cleansing.

“You’re still my partner,” he says, and his eyes are shining too.

She wipes her nose with a paper napkin. “Am I? At what? I go to work and see patients but I forgot there’s no closure with the living. People get sick and get better and get sick again. It doesn’t end. And this house, the power is always going to go out and the chickens will always be hungry and -“  she stops, feeling hysterical.

“You don’t have to work,” he says softly. “The settlement from the FBI, my inheritance…”

She shakes her head. “You know I have to work.” 

He sighs, rubs her knee. “I know you do. But it doesn’t have to be this. It doesn’t have to drain you.”

He’s right, of course he’s right, but he’s also so terribly wrong that she wonders if he knows her at all. She has to be a doctor for her father, for William. For him. She has to see something through. Scully smooths her hand over the back of her head, feeling the even ridges of the braid. Mulder is so competent with everything he does, so easy with himself. He’ll get his damned bees and become some kind of honey magnate in no time.

“People at the hospital, they ask me what I did before. And I don’t know how to answer. How can I possibly answer that question? I just say I was with the government, but that isn’t really the answer, is it?”

Mulder shrugs. He’s never felt the need to explain himself to people. “It’s true.”

Scully stretches out on her stomach across the mattress, chin on the pillows, watching the moths again. They tumble like acrobats, untethered in the thick air. “There’s this number called Graham’s number, used in Ramsey Theory, which is, well, nevermind. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, it was in the Guinness Book for being the largest specific number used in a proof at the time. And Mulder, this number is so big that writing out all the digits would exceed the bounds of the known universe.”

“Nobody likes a math nerd, Scully.”

She rolls onto her back to glare at him. “Yes they do, they give them Nobel prizes. Anyway. A whole new notation system, Knuth Notation, had to be developed to express these massive numbers. Graham’s Number, Tree(3), et cetera. And I feel like that at times. That there’s this endless amount of vital, inexpressible information inside of me that is so essential but that I have no way to share.”

She blinks a few times, spent by this unburdening.

Mulder stretches out next to her, propped on his side. “You can express it to me,” he says, massaging her temple with his thumb.

Scully closes her eyes. “I feel like a ghost sometimes. How do you do it, Mulder? How do you just keep moving forward without getting lost?”

He sighs. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but you have a tendency to compile people into perfect specimens, then measure yourself against that imaginary standard. It’s the precession of simulacra.”

She looks at him, indignant, then realizes he could be right. “Well,” she says. “It’s possible. But Mulder, is that such a bad thing, to want to hold myself to the highest goals?”

He tugs her onto her side so that she’s facing him, nearly nose to nose. Her lips feel tingly. “Yes,” he says, stroking her hair. “When the goal isn’t attainable. And when it puts everyone else on pedestals where we’re ill equipped to balance. And when it puts you in a constant state of frustration and anxiety. No one is perfect. Not even you.”

“I don’t want to be perfect,” she lies. “And I don’t need you to be either.” That part is true, at least.

He laughs in reply. “Apropos of being Galapagos tortoises, Charles Darwin once said ‘I am very poorly today, and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.’”

“He rode the tortoises,” Scully says, calming. “I can’t defend his methodology.”

“See? You’re better than Charles Darwin.” He kisses her forehead.

“Well,” she says. “Well.”

“Scully, look. You’re not alone here, feeling at sea. I went to the feed store and some guy picked a fight, shoved me pretty hard with his shoulder. And this reflexive part of my brain wanted to grab my badge, stick it in his face, and put him against the wall for assaulting a federal agent. But I ignored it and bought the chicken feed and just headed out. And I felt like, is this who I am now? Some pushover with yard birds and home improvement books?”

“You made a little fast and loose with your authority sometimes,” she says, thinking of Roche. She curves her palm against his cheek, thumbs the fine ridge of his zygomatic bone.

He bumps her nose with his. “You broke into a secret morgue.”

“You made me.” She sniffles, laughs a little. “The good old days.”

“These can be the good days too,” he says. “They can, if we work at it.” He traces her mouth with his finger.

“Okay,” she says. Hope stirs in her, a thing with feathers. “Partners?”

“Partners.”

He kisses her, in their small tent, in their ring of light.