#xfiles: home again

[randomfoggytiger]

Scully's Speech in HTGSC Proves Mulder Is Her Ouroboros

**Note**: Will come back to edit later.

I pulled out a portion of my next In-Depth analysis because it was an amazing little connection:

This next speech of Scully’s is so incredibly important it’s getting an in-depth analysis of its own, tying together the threads of Scully in relation to Mulder: his stagnation and her frustration with it, as well as her deep understanding of what he really says and what makes him tick. As yet, she tries to bridge that gap in vain.

“I mean, the whole-- Mulder” she calls when he gets too far ahead, signaling Mulder to wait up “--the whole idea of a benevolent entity fits perfectly with what I’m saying: that, I mean, um, that a spirit would materialize or return for no other purpose than to show itself is silly and ridiculous.” (Just as aliens are ridiculous?)  “I mean, what it really shows is how silly and ridiculous we have become believing such things.” (“Mulder, you’re crazy.”) 

Mulder flashes his light at Scully briefly as if to say "well, you’re here, too" before going back to his thorough search of the upstairs hallway. She may be sermonizing a little, but she’s there; and the more she talks her nerves away, the more Scully relaxes into her monologue. She’s found a way to say something important, and she’s using this opportunity as best she can.  

And it’s here where Scully, again, touches on her continual talking points of S6 (“settle down… something approaching a normal life”, “life on this planet”, etc.), harkening back to her itchy feelings in Never Again when she contrasted her zest for growth and forward movement to Mulder’s stagnation and single-minded ways (that circular snake eating his tail to death and decay, post by @suitablyaggrieved here): “I mean, that-that we can ignore all natural laws about the corporeal body, that-that we witness these spirits clad in their own shabby outfits with the… same old haircuts and hairstyles, never aging, never...never in search of more comfortable surroundings. It actually ends up saying more about the living than about the dead.” 

Scully is a creature of comfort; but she and Mulder approach it very differently. She surrounds herself with manicured nails, quality heels, silk pajamas, and spa bath experiences. Mulder buries himself in dust and death, avoiding what Scully celebrates about life by “walking into his sister’s room” every day of his life. 

Scully has been softening her tone during this speech; but when Mulder merely makes a “Mhm” noise to notate he’s somewhat listening, she doubles down in earnest: “I mean, Mulder, it doesn’t take an advanced degree in psychology to understand the, the unconscious yearnings that imaginings satisfy.”  

Crucially (and I can’t understate this enough), Scully lays out what she believes Mulder is trying to tell her here (just as she understood his baseball lesson in The Unnatural) as they both pause in the haunted hallway (it’s always in hallways, isn’t it?): “Y’know, the, the longing for immortality, the hope that there is something beyond this mortal coil-- that, that we might never be long without our loved ones-- I mean these are powerful” she pauses to further soften her voice “powerful desires.”

Mulder pauses his wanderings, showing his attention with stillness rather than any overt reaction.

“I mean,” she says, “they’re the very essence of what makes us human."  

It’s also interesting that Scully is proving how at peace she is (mostly) with the tragedies in her life: her father, sister, and daughter are dead, because she believes in the gift of immortality through life after death (it’s not until Tithonus shows her what a curse that can be, too.) Unfortunately, while she may have laid her ghosts to rest, Mulder has not; and they are still tearing at his mind (as demonstrated before in Demons.)

Mulder nods along, taking in what Scully is saying but not understanding it. Just as he doesn’t get her “what about your family” in Home, her “endless line” in Never Again, her “normal life” in Dreamland I, and her “life on this planet” in The Unnatural. 

Mulder is Scully’s ouroboros, constantly pursuing one path and consuming himself (and her) in his quest. “There are other fathers,” she told Ed Jerse; but what she meant-- or didn’t realize she meant-- was that there will always be her Ahab: relentless in his career while living, only realizing what he’s sacrificed-- love, family, the little things-- once he's dead. “You know, you are Ahab,” Scully said to Mulder in Quagmire; and she was right. (Shoutout to @waiting-for-the-day for her assessment that Scully is self-aware of her own narrative.) He's still on that rock, in the basement, in his childhood memories; and his pursuit of "the truth" leads him perpetually away from it.

[dunhamhairograpy]

Home Again Script: Mulder settles Scully

[iloveurscratchybeard]

I've spent the last week in Vancouver. Every trip here requires a few XF related stops, and watching the sunset at Cate's Park was perfection. I'll share more soon!

[nvrcmplt]

Ship Tags 4.

[casuallycryingoverbooks]

The night she had returned from Philadelphia Scully’s nose bled again.

She wasn’t an idiot.

She knew the signs and resigned herself to booking a doctor’s appointment in the morning. She still, believe it or not, had some friends-turned-acquaintances from her med school days. Among them was Julia Oakes, leading oncologist at Holy Cross Memorial Hospital.

Scully would make arrangements in the morning, go sometime in the next week before work, but for now she laid against her pillow and let the blood pool under her cheek, she’d toss the pillow case in the wash when she got up.

She considered calling someone, expressing her fears, but who would she tell? She couldn’t startle her mother with mere suspicion. Melissa was dead. Charlie was out following in their father’s footsteps and would not be home for several months, as far as she knew. Billy- well. Forget about Bill. And don’t even start about Mulder.

She didn’t think that she would even be able to look at him in the morning. Not out of embarrassment, because Scully wasn’t embarrassed. No. Scully couldn’t face him at the risk of spontaneous combusting from the rage that was coursing under her skin.

And congratulations for making an personal appearance in the Xfiles for the second time. It’s a world’s record.

How dare he. How dare he look at her like he was better than her. Like she was the villain for wanting something and having it go south. Wasn’t that his life story? He wanted to investigate an x-file and ended up getting injured. He wanted to find his sister and only got laughed at.

She was done. Not done with the x-files, she was fairly sure she was about to go down with that particular ship.

No.

She was done with him. She was done trying to be his friend, to help, to be his- something more. It was exhausting and quite frankly he didn’t deserve it and god dammit the blood was leaking in her mouth.

The coppery taste reminded her of rage.

She hated him. She vowed to herself that she would hold onto that rage in the coming months. That she wouldn’t let his akward, soft smile and apologies weaken her resolve,

But as the blood trickled down her neck she disdainfully admitted to herself that it wasn’t likely a promise she would keep.

[agentnatesewell]

I’m here to ask very politely for any little tidbits of info you have about Suri, because I love her a lot. Mentally I’m blowing her a kiss rn 💙

Hello my most wonderful friend! I cherish and adore you very much. Yes! Would love to share some tidbits!

* After college (Rebecca got in rather swiftly with the plagiarism scandal with Bobby and shut it all down and cleared her name), Suri volunteered with UNESCO and ended up working for an NGO based out of Paris … how she ended up in Wayhaven started with her trying to get heritage protection status for her hometown

* Suri wears three-inch heels because Dana Scully wore three-inch heels when she was out on investigations … she can easily run in them. Not so easy in some parts of the forest that she’s always in now

* Speaking of Dana Scully, whenever she’s feeling the loss of her parents (Rebecca’s absence), she curls up and watches the Xfiles, with no lights on. Mulder and Scully she always thought were Rook and Rebecca (little more goofy for Rook, but you know, there’s the whole sister angle, too)

* Her favorite food is wedding cake

(There are a lot more)

* She didn’t grow up religious (though her grandfather is Muslim), but her favorite song she’s ever heard from a religious establishment is Schubert’s “Ave Maria”

* When she and Nate adopt a cute little terrier with more personality than both of them combined, she’ll name them Bishop

* She’s very, very in love with Nate Sewell. Attraction immediately, but fell in love with him during the carnival undercover (the drive home after the mirror scene)

* The NSYNC song Selfish describes how’s she’s feeling about her relationship with Nate after the not-breakup/sounds like a breakup relationship talk at the end of b3

* She knows Wayhaven inside and out, can tell you anything about everything and can walk around blindfolded and not be lost

* Suri doesn’t hate Bobby, she feels sorry for him most of the time, and tolerates/sometimes likes him. He was her first boyfriend. Speaking of exes, one of them, a sweet musician named Farr dedicated an album to her called The Jasmine Room (her middle name is Yasmine)

* She speaks/understands a smattering of languages including English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Italian, and Estonian

* She has an unspoken, semi-obvious crush on Morgan

* Her relationship with Rebecca is not good. At all. She feels as though Rebecca allowed Rook to die a second time by never, ever talking about him. A huge part of her life, hidden

Okay! I could go on but here are a few tidbits! Thank you again!

[mlobsters]

supernatural s4e11 family reunions

DEAN And what am I running from?

SAM From what you told me. Or are we pretending that never happened?

you fucking tell him, sam.

i'm not sure what i know her from really, she's been in a lot of things. could be old old supergirl, or even her uncredited role in a seinfeld episode because those have all been seared into my brain. maybe city slickers!!

seinfeld s3e19 the good samaritan - helen slater as becky gelke (uncredited)

helen slater in city slickers (1991) and supergirl (1984)

and me just realizing in my head city slickers and when harry met sally take place in the same universe because of billy crystal and the dude the with mustache are in both.

the magicians s2e1 knight of crowns - karin konoval as the kitchen witch

AND I'D LIKE TO POINT OUT THAT

i did not watch this season because it was post-the Very Bad Thing involving quentin coldwater, but they in fact DID NOTHING with the candy (kitchen) witch. NOTHING HAPPENED. she had quentin's blood. no nothing. the end. fuck you. *bitterness intensifies* maybe that was their little joke. i've let go a lot of my feelings about sera and how she was involved with the magicians fuck up, it sure seems like a lot of it is on the other showrunner john mcnamara (and honestly realizing how young she was when she started writing on spn had something to do with it, hell she's younger than i am), but she was involved and things like this get my back up all over again. deep breaths.

okay karin konoval has also been in 3 episodes of the xfiles - two iconic ones and one.. i don't remember at all.

the xfiles s3e4 clyde bruckman's final repose / s4e2 home (it was her 😩)

the xfiles s11e3 (2018) plus one

me: that looks like the 13 reasons why kid, but i bet it isn't, i would have noticed when i looked up the rest of the cast. oh. it is.

for something i actually enjoyed (the docudrama about elizabeth holmes, it's really well done),

the dropout (2022) s1e6 iron sisters - dylan minnette as tyler shulz

why are we getting to know this family and their issues. emotional music swelling, what are we doing on a farm, talking about zucchini.

this, i think, was a much better spooky implementation of climbing inside the walls vs that episode with jo.

ok.

now this feels like an actual homage that landed for the x-files home episode. nice little circle getting one of the actors from it too.

doesn't dean already carry enough guilt, did they really need to put 10 years of enjoying torturing souls on top of it. edgelord shit.

sometimes media crosses this line with me where i feel like it's emotional manipulation and i get pissy. like if a show is engineered to make you cry a minimum once an episode (looking at you this is us), it really puts me off and i'll lose interest. in this case, i'm heavily invested in the characters, but the angst despair anxiety etc.. at some point, i get mad about it. walking a fine line right now.

[scullysexual]

Emily lived au and is now an FBI agent lol.

I've had this idea in my head a while now and just got the urge to write it. Perhaps in the future there'll be more to this (since I really should not be starting ANOTHER multi-chapter) but depending on how well this is received, I may or may not write another chapter- idk yet. Anyway the premise is: What if Emily survived, became an FBI agent and began to investigate the X-Files in this year of 2022/23? That's pretty much it.

Also, thank you X-Files archive book for essentially being Mulder/Emily's case files for this fic. I will be depending you on heavily in the future.

This is definitely more Emily as the main character fic and m/s and msr in general is just in the background but m/s will definitely be making their appearances here and there- the xfiles are theirs after all.

Also, idk how the FBI works and I didn't do any research before writing this so I probably got tons wrong. I'm sorry

@today-in-fic

The gravel crunches beneath the wheels, signalling her arrival before she even got to the front door. In front of her, she spies a shift in the blind and the brief appearance of a face before it disappears and the blind shifts back to its original position. She was always so good at showing up unannounced.

Emily exits her rental, not bothering to lock the doors (benefits to living in the middle of nowhere) and climbs up the creaky porch steps. She doesn’t even need to knock. She listens to the familiar sound of a thousand locks be unlocked, a wisp of a smile gracing her lips at the memory of coming home from school in winter and having to wait what felt like hours in the freezing cold just to be let in, with November’s chill in the air she could almost be twelve years old again right now.

Eventually the door is unlocked and open wide, revealing Mulder, her father, in the doorway.

“Welcome home, Special Agent Sim,” he says.

A blush spreads across her cheeks and she turns her head down. The title still sounded brand new, like it should belong to somebody else, not little old ill her.

“I guess I never did thank you for fudging the medical records, did I?”

“They’re irrelevant,” Mulder says. “But I knew they wouldn’t accept you into the academy if they saw them so…” he shrugs the rest of the sentence away. “What brings you all the way here anyway?” He moves out of the way, allowing her entry.

She tries not to let the question sting. It’s just a question after all but since moving to DC finding time to come back to her childhood home just didn’t seem available, even phone calls had come few and far between. She told herself it was fine when Will was still home fulltime, perhaps her presence wasn’t missed as much but once her brother moved away to college she should have made more of an effort.

Stepping through to the living room, Emily sits down on the couch, followed shortly by Mulder.

“I have a question actually,” she says once he’s seated. “Before you left the FBI, did you bring any files home with you?”

A darkened look crosses his face. “What kind of files?”

“Just…files.” Her hands move to her lap, fingers fidgeting with each other. “Old files. Unsolved…cases.”

Mulder sighs. “You mean the X-Files.”

She knows her excited look betrays everything.

“Can I ask why you’re asking about them?”

“Curiosity?” Emily sighs. “I overheard people in work talking about them. There’s a rumour they might assign someone to them and if I could have the background on some past cases, see your methods, then I might be able to snag myself the job.”

Mulder stares at you. “This is the job you want?”

Truthfully, no, but her observation skills had been on point since she was a child. Hiding in shadows where nobody would think to look, Emily would observe and listen to what was being said. How many nights did she creep downstairs and overhear conversations between her parents about the X-Files? Knew how much they meant to Mulder, and to fall into the hands of somebody who didn’t care, files and cases that meant nothing to them, Emily couldn’t bear the thought while she was right there. These files, this department, it was almost like a birth right, she had to be the one to man them.

There was another reason too, a personal one. Her name was in one of those files. EMILY SIM. The little girl who bled toxic green blood, who was poked and prodded at, whose cyst scar sits at the back of her neck, hidden from all eyes. There was so much she didn’t know about herself, so much Mulder and her mother kept secret. These files could hold those answers if she looked hard enough.

She doesn’t say all that to Mulder, however. Not once had she brought any of this up before, perhaps waiting for them to tell her instead. They never did. Instead they fudged medical records and told her to stay safe, do not bleed that green blood.

“It’s only right, isn’t it?” she says. “For me to do it and not let someone who doesn’t care or has a totally different agenda investigate them?”

She watches Mulder think it over. Emily knew in his spare time he still looked into X-Files-esque cases but he was no longer a special agent with unique access, those he knew that had that access where all gone, it was just him and Scully with Mulder trying to do what he could from a computer with a dodgy internet connection. But then there was her- Emily- the key to unlock those doors.

“Follow me,” he says, standing.

She does so, venturing into his office. She lingers near the desk whilst Mulder heads over to the filing cabinet. She spies all his alien paraphernalia that clutters the space and smiles. This room was a museum of Mulder’s life, for all the stories it held, and for that reason it was her favourite room in the house.

On the wall she spies the poster. She wanders over to it. It was the same one that had sat in the basement years ago- Yes, she knew about that basement office of course- and now had found its home here. I want to believe stares back at her and she wonders if he does believe now.

“Here they are,” Mulder says, calling her attention back to him. She walks over to where he stands, one of the drawers open, files filing it completely.

Breath caught, Emily stares down at them. One file and all her questions could be answered. Her stomach twists uncomfortably at the thought. Maybe they kept it a secret for a reason, perhaps she didn’t really want to know.

“Not every file is in here,” he tells her and Emily nods. “Those that are were either saved from the fire or recreated by me or someone else. There’s also a lot of missing evidence or it’s been redacted and maybe there just useless but it’s all I have, all anyone has ever been able to find. Hopefully you can gauge something from them.”

She nods again and Mulder begins taking them out, piling them onto her outstretched hands. They did good, Emily thinks all down at the growing pile. There was more than enough here.

“And another thing.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell your mother you have these. She’ll kill me.”

There’s a smile on his face so she smiles as well.

“She hasn’t killed you yet.”

“True. But she would if she knew I was putting you in any danger.”

Emily frowns at that, memories of Dana making sure she was always safe and careful appear before her. It was like you were fragile, like you could be broken at any second. You didn’t want that anymore and in your own act of rebellion you chose the riskiest job you could think of, ticked field agent on your application, was handed a gun and chased bad guys for a living, one wrong move and out that toxic green blood would spill.

“I’m a big girl now,” she says, no hint of a smile or joke. Mulder looks at you with sadness that sends the guilt right down to her stomach.

She coughs, attempting to lift the dour atmosphere that’s entered the room.

“Where is Mom anyway? Working?”

“Yeah,” says Mulder, surprised at the sudden change in topic. “She’ll be home soon.”

“You should tell her to retire. I’m sure there’s somebody else around who wants to change kid’s lives.”

Mulder shrugs. “I keeps her busy.”

She makes a noise in agreement, clutching the files, ready to go. She got what she came for and even said hello to a parent, more than enough for the next year, if she remembers to ring in the next six months she can pat herself on the back and say well done.

“Emily,” Mulder calls and it stops her in her tracks. “You should stay tonight. You’ve come all this way and Scully would love to see you again.”

She barged back into their lives without so much a word, one thing on her mind, and was about to up and leave again thinking she’d done her bit, the least she could do is eat some dinner and stay for one night.

“Yeah, I will.”

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The red files stare up at her, tempting her to open one, to uncover their secrets. She told herself to wait until she was in the comfort of her own house, but there pull is strong, just a little peak—

“There you are.”

Her hand snatches back from the file quicker than it approached it. Emily spins, coming face to face with her mother in the doorway, and shuffles slightly to shield the files with her body.

“You don’t need to hide them,” Scully says, she eyes the spot where the files lay hidden behind Emily’s body, like she can see straight through her daughter and to the contraband on the bed. “Mulder told me, I knew there was something he wanted to say.”

Emily relaxes, shifting to the side to reveal the files. Sadness passes across Scully’s face at the sight of them.

“Why Emily?”

Emily plops down onto the bed, worrying one of the edges of the files.

“Because it’s the right thing to do. If they’re really reopening them then it should be me who does it.”

Scully enters the room, picking up one of the files.

“Have you opened it yet?”

Emily shakes her head.

“You’re worried you’ll find your name in there?”

“Will I?”

Scully sighs, placing the file back down. “You’re file was lost.”

“In the fire?”

“Long before that. I tried to find it one day and it wasn’t in the cabinet anymore. Mulder doesn’t know what happened to it…Not that you need your file…”

Emily waits. She stopped getting her hopes up that her mother would reveal answers to her long ago. Now she just waits, never hoping, just waiting.

“Do you have a partner?”

No answers from Dana Scully tonight it seems.

“Do I need one?”

Scully nods. “It’s better to. This work can be…lonely. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone to be alone with.”

Emily nods. “I’ll find someone.”

“How long are you staying for?”

“One night,” Emily answers. “I really do need to get back.”

It’s Scully’s turn to nod then.

“You should visit more. It’s quiet here now that William’s gone to college and Mulder could do with the company.”

“Yeah,” Emily answers, an idea striking her. “I think I will visit more.”

“Good. We’ll call you when it’s time for dinner, okay.”

Emily smiles. She really could be twelve years old all over again.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

She watches Scully leave and once out of sight, picks up one of the files. It can’t wait until she gets home. Tonight she’ll read each one of them, as carefully and critically as she can. This department is hers.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Snuggled up in her old childhood bed, the bedside lamp casting the room in an orange glow, the wind howling through the trees outside, the files sit, unmoved, on the bed, a messy pile. Emily picks the first one up at random.

X129202                       08/08/93.

TOOMS, Eugene Victor.

This case Emily knew of already. It was told to her as a bed time story of sorts when she was younger, the image of Tooms stretching his way down a chimney, like some fucked up Santa Claus, would stay with her forever. Some of the earlier cases were told to her as stories but her mother soon put a stop to them when Emily had become the unwelcomed member in her bed at night.

She was about to turn the page, to read the less redacted version of this story when she is submerged into darkness. She’d almost forgotten about this house and it’s power cuts always at the worst time.

An old habit, Emily roots through the top drawer in her bedside table in search of the candles that resided in her. Picking one out, she roots through her jean pockets on the floor for her lighter. In a quick, practiced motion, the candle is lit and placed beside the lamp. It was a poor substitute to the much brighter lamp but what was one to do? Satisfied, Emily picks up the file again, glancing over the front page. A shiver runs through her.

“It’s fine,” she says to herself. “Reading creepy old case files by candlelight. Completely normal.”

She turns the page. With the exception of a couple of names having been redacted, it’s mostly readable. Emily quickly reads through it, an echo of her mother’s voice sounding inside her head as she does so. She turns to the next page, the lifeless, soulless stare of Eugene Victor Tooms’ mugshot stares back at her. Another shiver as she curses poor light and bad 90s camera quality, she quickly passes over to the page next to it- Tooms’ lie detector test, on and on until she reaches the next Tooms’ file, the one that documents his demise. Good, Emily thinks, tossing it aside and picking up the next.

Halfway through reading the Peacock file does something hit the window startling Emily out of reading with a jump. She closes the file with a bit more force than necessary and puts it on the floor with the rest of them. She’ll read the rest in the morning. In daylight. With the sounds of her father pottering away downstairs and not the creaks and bangs of an old farmhouse in the middle of the woods.

[amplifyme]

Hello Again!

Remember me? After six very long years, my muse has decided to come home and I’m working on a new fic. Unfortunately for some of you, she’s balls-deep in her first true love, The X-Files and the adventures of Moose & Squirrel.  I haven’t forgotten and never will stop loving all things SanSan, but I gotta go where the muse drags me. I’ll be tagging all my pretties with #xfiles. Feel free to silence me if you need to. I look forward to hanging out with y’all again!

[vagueforms]

tagged by @zigmentality <3

favorite color: dark green n black

currently reading: nona the ninth (I fell victim to the lesbian necromancer series)

last song: berlin, 1885 by fuzz lightyear

last movie: I don’t even know but I’ve been watching xfiles again since I’m home

sweet/savory/spicy: uhhh sweet idk I’m a big fan of bitter things

currently working on: friendship bracelets ! also I just finished a drawing of the model/actriz dude

[welcome-to-earth-id4]

the visitor rewatch

eps 8 - reunion

oh no this eps will make me sad wont it

craig really into his fake cleaning job

thrOWS THE FBI OUT gOOD 

Not them all actually playing a long with “making a stew” out of the info they got on adam thats so funny

charlie again? i completely forgot she comes back 

wadda hell did vise find another ufo

ay thats me

asshole aka New Guy That Adam Has History With bought himself an ice-cream to appear more trustworthy 

soldiers: * cant get a reading on the invisible ufo in a  force field * vise: * JUST SHOOTS IT * 

adam learning about his son jason ;;; 

kurwa slay and keep being useless

another screen for the collection

HEAL THE DOGGY

nsa finally realizing that vise is dangerous lmao took yall time

did wilcox call larue “NICKI” IMJDLSKFJDSKLJF i mean his name iS NIcholAS SO I GUESS B UT JKDSHFKDSJF

let craig sleep cmon

meanwhile larue doesnt leave home without a car window opening tool thingie

things to add to the visitor wiki once i make it: larues car breaking in skills

WE GOT A KILLER ON THE LOOSE well they finally got a serious job thats what they got

i still cant with van patten having a gun 

the plot of this eps is actually quite nice, but constance dying at the end is just so anticlimactic bcs of the bad acting lmao 

Vise Gets Arrested * always sunny theme starts playing in the bg *

an add for the 100th episode of the XFILES? NICE

those are so funny cuz i still believe the visitor is a txf bootleg 

[randomfoggytiger]

😎

Thanks for dropping in! :DDDDD

The below might seem like I'm gassing you up or being overly sugary and sweet; but I cannot underestimate how much I mean every single word. Your fics were in my first round of xfiles fics ever; and they were cemented into my cracks before I ever got adventurous enough to feed the addiction and read 800+ authors.

This'll be long, so I included a cut.

(**Note**:Editing and proofreading my paragraphs? What is that?)

I begin, again, after 20 minutes of thorough combing

I spent 15-20 minutes grabbing link after link after link because... quite simply, your fics are grafted into my brain because of how many rereads I've done-- I can't separate them from each other, I can't pick favorites, I can't. I had to go by my tip top, cannot-pass-by-without-reading fics:

Whispered Words (Tumblr): Everything about this is perfection. Every time I read someone else's cancer fic, I immediately think of this one (and hunt it down for a reread.) Scully's symptoms, how and when Mulder notices; the blend of sickfic and angst and fluff together, no parts outrivaling the other... it's, again, perfection.

A New Day Has Come: It's such a cornerstone of my earliest cancer fics that this is how I always expect Mulder to react in other fics I read-- it's automatic programming at this point.

Every. Single. IVF fic you've written. I kid you not. To name a few (because it's not fun to just read "I liked it, lol" without some examples):  Name Calling/Archive is the pinnacle post IVF failure: the best, ohmyword. Unnamed post IVF treatment fic and Five Minutes - Chapter 1 are seared into my brain as a part one and two; but if it's a sheer numbers game? Five Minutes - Chapter 2 wins out. It's just... how do you hold a moonbeam in your hand, y'know? How can I describe something that IS me? I refer you to Scully's Memento Mori speech-- she says it more eloquently than I do. ;))))

Every. Single. AU Requiem fic and S8 fic and S9 fic and S11 fam fic. You do loving relationships so well: they talk, they breathe, they exist like real people. I treasure the S8 fics you wrote from my prompts and reread them frequently--though I forgot to label the second and need to find that link hmmmmmm. This is exactly how it appears in my docs: Here's a prompt (if you want): Scully goes into... (tumblr.com) THIS WAS MY PROMPT Ao3 By Your Side Is Where I Belong - Baroness_Blixen - The X-Files [Archive of Our Own] LOVE THIS

And for nonspecific genre fics that I adore and cannot live without:

#58 Mulder to Scully thanks! Ao3 Prompts & Drabbles - Chapter 3 - [Archive of Our Own] Scully gets hit in the head with a baseball bat and you nailed every. single. aspect of this fic and I can't read it enough (going to read it again right after this.)

Since you were looking for an angsty prompt for... (tumblr.com) Ao3 We Will Find Our Way Home - [Archive] Scully and Mulder on the ice and Scully makes Mulder go alone to the Snocat? YES PLEASE.

 I hope your muse comes back. I know she will soon!... Ao3 Things You Forget - Chapter 1  Mulder has amnesia and he and Scully have dinner with her mother and Bill while he remembers-- iconic.

A realization

...I'm staring at 20+ pages of your fic links (and 84 specifically marked ones that have LOVE THIS in bold and caps) and thinking that there is no way I can fit all of this into this ask. XDDDD

I'll close this by thinking of random moments in your fics that twirl around and around in my brain and put them down here:

Mulder waking Scully up by sneezing in her hair in Rain King.

Mulder and Scully crying after her recovery in Redux II.

Scully's annoyance and Mulder's complete stillness in the airport while waiting for their luggage in Five Minutes Chapter 2.

The hilarious way you wrote Mulder and Scully and Krycek and Doggett and Reyes in an Essence AU (Will is born in the car while they drive away from the FBI.)

Scully's head being squeezed like an orange in the baseball bat attack fic, and Mulder's irate panic from afar ("HE HIT HER")

Mulder's tie got stuck in a copier and Scully has to help him out (and Skinner doesn't even want to know.)

Maggie's not a fool when she catches Mulder and Scully a day or two after Chimera.

Scully gasses in the car and Mulder evens the playing field.

Mulder having amnesia after Millennium and only remembering his partnership with Diana (for a couple hours.)

Mulder delicately taking and holding and smiling over his scratchy list of baby names.

Scully feeling woozy in Three Words and Mulder helping her sit down.

Mulder panicking after Lamaze in Alone.

S8 Scully including Mulder in her late night snack and waltz session, as they discuss her neighbor's recently deceased husband.

Mulder swallowing the suddenly-too-sweet cake at Scully's baby shower (AU Essence~)

Mulder swapping places with Reyes in Essence-- it's he and Scully on the road, just like always.

Post Existence Mulder papa bear with little Will.

Revival baby girl being born on Mulder or Scully's birthdays (and the unique ways you changed the details of both versions.)

Mulder and baby Will showing up for Scully's "take your kid to work day" (and him rubbing Will in Colton's face, my word.)

(I'm not kidding when I mean every. single. one. of your IVF and S8 and family fics, so I'm not even going to BEGIN.)

All of your Millennium fics. All. But particularly the one where Scully is woken up by a grumpy Mulder who felt betrayed that she'd left and drove over, despite his injured arm, before calling her and asking for permission.

Mulder sobbing and holding Scully after the other agents tricked him into thinking she'd died in a car accident.

Diana locks Mulder and Scully up in the One Son fort for the night; and Scully's hurt and Mulder's hurt and their reconciliation and re-understanding is one of the fics I turn to when I need to sleep but also need a story to focus on. Makes my brain go wild.

TFWID Mulder having nightmares of his past lives with Scully. Another one of those stories that sets my brain on fire.

Revival Mulder's psychic powers comes back and he tells Scully in the restaurant (part I) and later senses their daughter's heartbeat (part II.)

An ending

And while I could go on and on and on, there's already a lot I put down. XDDDD Maybe I'll make a fic list with my top 85? fics that cannot be passed up-- although, I don't know if Tumblr will allow me that enough word space to fit them all in. Hmmmm.

Anyway, thanks for dropping in! :DDDDD And hope this was a good enough answer~. ;))))

[dunhamhairograpy]

Home Again Script

[soft-thrills]

X-Files fic: Philadelphia

Mulder and Scully drive to Philadelphia after her mother’s death. A missing scene for “Home Again.”

Rated R

With thanks, as ever, to @agoldenpalace

*

i walked the avenue ‘til my legs felt like stone

i heard the voice of friends vanished and gone

at night i could hear the blood in my veins

just as black and whispering as the rain

on the streets of Philadelphia

-Bruce Springsteen, “Streets of Philadelphia”

*

“Mulder, let’s drive to Philadelphia,” she says, gripping at his shirt with the same hand that clutches the mystery her mother has left her. Her fingernails work for traction on the slippery material, and she throws her body up against him, half begging and half demanding. “I need to work.”

“No,” he says. “No, no, no.”

“Yes. Right now.”

“No, I get it, Scully, I do. But not right now.”

She remembers, for a moment, the night his mother died. The night he asked her to cut Teena open. No, she had said, no, no, no. But she couldn’t refuse him anything, not even that, when he was so full of raw need. She would have cut herself open to soothe him.

“Mulder, right now,” she says, picking up her briefcase, putting an end to the conversation. “I need to work right now.”

She walks out of the hospital. She doesn’t look back because she knows he will follow. He'd never refuse her anything either.

*

Mulder drives them to Philadelphia in rainy silence.

She doesn’t care for Pennsylvania. When she was younger, a friend was scoping out big affordable homes in quaint towns and Scully told her not to move there. “Too many X-Files per capita,” she’d joked.

Scully doesn’t really have friends anymore. She doesn’t joke anymore.

For a long time, she looked for meaning in the bad things that had happened to her. She believed that she was meant to learn from them, that they were meant to teach her something. She had searched so hard to give them purpose, to understand, even when she came up empty time and time again.

As the tragedies big and small piled up, she wondered if each one was meant to harden her for the next. Her cancer helped her to know how to cope with her infertility. Mulder's disappearance and three-month stint in a coffin — a vision of her worst nightmare, and most awful of all the possible endings to their story—made it easier for her to survive when he left after William was born. From the loss of Emily, she was a bit more weathered to withstand the loss of William.

She began to believe that she had lost so much, been tested so much, because she was meant to know the truth, meant to help people, meant to save the world with Mulder by her side. That was worth suffering for. But then 2012 ended and the world didn’t. So she convinced herself that she had gone through these trials to bring her to Mulder, to bind them together. But then he shut her out and she left the house and she had nothing: not the X-Files, not a master-plan to save the world, not her partner.

Maybe she was like Job. Maybe she’d done nothing to deserve her misfortunes and she’d ultimately learn little from them, other than that God is cruel and cavalier and what he gives he can take away. Naked we came out of our mothers’ wombs and naked we will depart.

Nothing will come from her own womb and she will never see her own mother again. She will never see her son again. She will never forget her mother’s last words, to somebody else, about the son she gave away.

But Mulder is back; he is holding her hand where it rests in the center console of the car, not far from where he keeps his sunflower seeds.

That is something.

*

She feels tense from the moment the skyline rises into their windshield.

Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love and the city of her grandest mistakes, at least where sex is concerned. The dingy place where she got her tattoo is probably long out of business, gentrified into a coffee shop. The Russian who wielded the needle is probably gone, too.

Ed Jerse is still in prison. She used to get little postcards when he was up for parole, until they lost track of her on the run. But every couple of years some part of her, the dangerously curious part that missed the FBI while she was a doctor, looks him up. Her tattoo is still on her back, catching her eye sometimes as she moves past a mirror.

She’s not sure she regrets sleeping with Ed, even after how it all ended. She knows she doesn’t regret the tattoo. It reminds her to keep moving, even when she’s fucked something up seemingly beyond repair.

As she and Mulder walk through the lobby of a nicer-than-usual hotel, she feels herself moving like a train on a doomed track, ready to collide with someone. Only this time it's not a stranger and that’s really the problem. It’s been years since she was this unsure of what she and Mulder were to each other. She feels not unlike she did when she was in Philadelphia all those years ago, adrift and alone.

Mulder tells the woman at the front desk that he’d called on the way and been told the hotel had vacancy.

“One room, or two?” she hears the woman ask.

It is the city of brotherly love. As complicated as her feelings for Mulder are, Scully is sure of one thing: they are not fraternal.

“One,” she says, a woman who feels like making a mistake, a woman who probably won’t regret this one, either.

*

She doesn’t want to talk, not yet, so she tries not to give him the time.

She stalks behind him as he places their bags on the luggage rack, and when he turns she’s there, pressing her body into him the way she did a few hours ago in the hospital. But she isn’t crying now. She is staring up, on her tip toes even in her heels, ready to kiss him.

“Scully, I—” he begins, but she knows from his face where he’s going.

“Don’t,” she whispers, unable and unwilling to accept rejection, even if it is well meaning. “Please.”

He hesitates. She watches the conflict play across his face as he tries to chart his course: He doesn’t want to refuse her or make her ask for what she needs (though he’s reveled in making her beg before, she remembers with a flush, it would be uncouth of him to do it now). But he is balancing that with the need to be sure he isn’t doing something she will regret tomorrow, something to make her pain worse. She knows because she has been there, stood in his place and wondered the same thing, how to navigate an emotional minefield and walk away unscathed.

So she tries to explain.

“When your mother died, Mulder, that night, when we were together—I didn’t understand it,” she says, shaking her head. “But I do now. I need… I don’t know.”

She shakes her head softly. His hand finds her face, a thumb strokes her cheek. She wills herself not to cry, afraid it will scare him off.

“Tennessee Williams wrote that desire is the opposite of death,” Mulder says.

She should roll her eyes at him for quoting a play, or at the very least point out that the one he is referencing ends pretty badly. She could think of her last misbegotten trip to Philadelphia and wonder if death — the specter of it lodged between her nose and her brain — was what fueled her desire then. But she does not want to think.

“Yes,” she says instead, because he has managed to sum up the feeling thrumming inside her pretty well.

Mulder nods, a little too solemn for her liking but then he puts a hand in the hair at the nape of her neck and he kisses her, offering himself up to be another distraction from her grief, just like the case would be. He’s more to her than that, and her heart makes her brain promise to tell him so. Later.

They have kissed in a hundred hotel rooms, and if she shuts out her grief, his touch in this place feels nostalgic. There were years of this, fucking in nondescript rooms with weird carpets and boring pictures on the walls. Even the grief inside her isn’t unfamiliar in their history of rented-room romance. She remembers the way he’d kissed her softly and sadly that first night on the run in New Mexico; she remembers the way he’d fucked her after their first real discussion about William had devolved into their first real fight about William.

This is somewhere in between, she thinks as his hands move across her body and she responds on autopilot. He is hitting all his marks: hand in her hair tugging just a little, touching her just demandingly enough to make her melt. He is not gentle but there is no anger in it: he is playing the role she needs him to play right now.

She feels stupidly, deliriously, dangerously alive. Her heart pounds. She doesn’t think about her grief for her mother or her endless doubt and aching sorrow about her son. She doesn’t think about why they’ve started fucking again since they returned to the FBI, or why she didn’t return home once they started fucking. She doesn’t think about what it means or what comes next or what it says about her or him.

She thinks about Mulder, a man who wants her and loves her despite the things she has done that have made it so hard for her to love herself. She thinks about how good it feels to be desired, to desire someone — then she stops thinking about it and just feels it. She is unvarnished and undone, splayed open for him in all the ways a person can be.

This, the two of them together like this, is the only time she has ever been able to shut off the rest of her brain. She feels safe, and whole, and at home in this strange hotel where she’s never been and will never be again.

He is her dark wizard that way.

*

Later, they sit on the bed, their legs spread out and their backs against the headboard, and drink bourbon poured from expensive mini bottles over too-small ice cubes in unimpressive hotel glassware.

She is wearing his t-shirt again, the one she wore on the last case, when his eyes had lit up while talking about monsters and, as soon as his rant was done, had raked appreciatively over her bare legs. They had slept together after that case, a happy and easy thing they did while a no-longer-stray dog scratched at the bedroom door.

She thinks, disjointedly, about her mother's coin and how completely you can think you know someone, only to turn over a new mystery about them when you’re out of time to solve it. She thinks about her mother and her brother, the things big and small that kept them apart from one another for so many years.

“I want to come home,” she says, before she really realizes she’s saying it.

As soon as the words are out of her mouth she regrets it — not because they aren’t true, but because of when she’s said them. Despite his propensity to believe anything, he won’t believe her. He’ll chalk it up to emotion and exhaustion the way she had when he’d told her he loved her after he almost died at sea.

She suppresses her urge to apologize for her admission and watches him consider his response.

“I want that, too,” he says evenly. “But I won’t hold you to anything you say right now, Scully.”

It is the right thing to say to a woman whose mother just died, a woman who is momentarily desperate for some semblance of a family. It is careful of him. He is careful with her lately, the way he was when all this — them— first started. A lot of things feel like they did back then, as they work in the basement and chase monsters and live in separate households and quietly sneak away to bed together now and then. She feels ready to close the circle again.

She thinks of the circle at her back. The circle her mother wore around her neck. The circles her mind will travel to try to understand, before she’ll accept that sometimes your parents aren’t exactly who you want them to be — her mother has always been unassailable to her, but she left behind a son, too, for reasons Dana never really agreed with but never questioned. She’ll have questions her mother will never answer. Her own son will have questions she’ll never answer, questions she’ll probably never even know.

The thoughts leave her off-balance, adrift. But Mulder, despite his eyes being turned ever upward, grounds her.

She wants to tell him that, but she’s not sure how. So she settles for making a promise and deciding to keep it.

“You can hold me to it, Mulder.”

[enigmaticxbee]

✖️✖️✖️ 10x04 Home Again

The one where... Scully’s mom dies (and there’s a case with a bandaid nose man art project come to life killing people, whatever)

Best: She never feels more Scully to me in this revival season 10 than when she breaks down in Mulder’s arms over her mom’s death and then looks up at Mulder and frantically tells him I need to work. And the way Mulder looks her… there’s so much history there. I love the bts story that GA was having trouble getting to that emotional place in this scene and asked to have Sheila Larken come to set - she’s been playing Scully’s mom for over 20 years and the emotional resonance of that is why this revival deserves to exist.

Worst: I like the scene in the basement where Scully is thinking about William, about how he came to her, and her responsibility for this person she brought into the world. But that final line of the episode takes the trash metaphor too far. Scully: I want to believe… I need to believe that we didn’t treat him like trash. WTF? It’s so clunky in trying to tie the case and what Scully’s going through together, I hate it.

✔️ Flashlights

❌ Woods/Desert

❌ Slideshow

❌ Autopsy

✔️ Evidence Disappears

❌ Scully Misses It

❌ Mulder Ditch

❌ Sunflower Seeds

❌ Voiceover

✔️ Catch Phrase: Scully (IWTB)

✔️ Scully is a (Medical) Doctor

✔️ Mulder is Spooky

❌ Scuuullllaaaaayy! Muullllderrrr!

✔️ Fox

✔️ Inappropriate Touching (that I am here for)

❌ Casual Scully

❌ Casual Mulder

❌ Trench Coats

❌ Bad Tie Watch

❌ Glasses Watch

✔️ Taking! It! Personally!: Scully

50 States: Pennsylvania x21 & DC x103 (44/50)

Investigate: Together & Apart

Solve Rate: 75%

✔️ Bechdel Test

MSR: 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Goriness: 👽👽👽👽

Creepiness: 👽👽👽

Humor: 👽👽

Rewatch Thoughts:

William check-in: Mrs Scully (to Mulder): My son… is named William, too. This is… oof, it’s a lot. It’s devastating for Scully (and Mulder too I’m sure, although he doesn’t get the chance to really react, he’s being stoic and supportive since Scully’s going through it this episode). I remember being really surprised at how much William stuff we got in the revival, that they didn’t just sweep it all under rug like they have so many other traumatic events they’ve gone through.

Break-up check-in: This episode says to me that Scully may have moved out, but they are still each other’s person. They have over 20 years of history and they are not trying to move on from each other, they’re trying to find a way back, to live with what’s happened to them, and what they’ve done. (Also: love how every other writer has pretty much just ignored the breakup, once again literally nothing would have to change in this episode if they were still together)

This episode was originally slated to be the second episode, which I guess is why we get the pointed FBI IDs out shot - they’re back baybeee. I wonder why they switched up the order, if they thought the audience needed more reminders about the William backstory in Founder’s Mutation first. Emotional arc-wise it would have been strange to go from this to cheerful Scully in Were-Monster.

Mulder remembers all their awful experiences in Philly. Has anything good ever happened to them in PA?

Are we really supposed to believe Scully put Bill in her phone as William Scully Jr? 🧐 Just so we get the name William briefly flashing up on her phone?

What are these weird blurry shots of Scully going down the stairs about? I guess to convey her panicked emotional state but it feels awkward to have just those shots filmed like that.

The elusive Charlie Scully… We learn here that he’s estranged - from their mom and it sounds like from the rest of the family. There’s no indication of why. It’s interesting because in 4x02 Home Scully mentions babysitting her nephew, which must be Charlie’s son because Bill’s first child is born in season 5. So presumably they weren’t estranged at that point, it must have happened later. Unless he’s been estranged from their mom longer (he certainly never showed up to any family events in the series) and maybe Scully lost touch with him when she went on the run.

Scully doesn’t think that her mom’s feelings about life support might have changed after 20 years? Although it is rough that she didn’t talk to Scully about it.

The Downtown scene I’m sure is intentionally an homage to the Wonderful, Wonderful scene in 4x02 Home, and setting violence against an upbeat song is very effective, but not quite as effective as the first time and it feels a little out of place in this episode.

Scully: Back in the day, did… we ever come across the ability to just… wish someone back to life? Mulder: I invented it. When you were in the hospital, like this. Scully: You’re a dark wizard, Mulder. Mulder (laughs): What else is new? This exchange is perfect.

Scully wasn’t in stilettos back in the day though!

Their little smirks as they get out their flashlights… The X of the flashlight beams is an obvious shot but it still works on me.

This isn’t the first time they’ve encountered a murderous trash monster. Does Mulder not remember the trash tulpa from 6x15 Arcadia? Guess he’s learned some things about Tibetan Buddhism since then.

When I first saw this episode Scully calling Mulder Fox in the final scene completely threw me. This is literally the second time in the series, and the first time since the season 1 episode Tooms where he asked her to call him Mulder, that she’s called him Fox. It felt so wrong to me at first, but I’ve come around on it. I can believe that in the 14 years since the series ended, many of which they spent living together as a couple, that that’s something that might change between them. Throughout the series he’s called her Dana in rare, intimate moments. And it highlights how Scully’s trying to connect with him in this moment. But fanfic writers, please use your Foxes judiciously.

Scully: I believe that you will find all of your answers. You will find the answers to the biggest mysteries, and I will be there when you do… But my mysteries… I’ll never have answered. This is so sad, but yeah. Especially if you’re relying on CC to answer those mysteries in any kind of satisfying way.

[agathabridgerton]

I need to work.