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oohnotvery · 1 month

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Edges of the Night (Chapter 4)

“Drive, Scully, drive!” Mulder yells, and his fingers dig harder into the meat of her thigh. She chances a quick glance down at his unwelcome touch.

“Drive where?” she demands, glancing around the two-lane highway. “We’re in the middle of the desert!”

“We’ve gotta outpace them,” Mulder insists, his head whipping back and forth between the windows.

She shoots him a wild look. Her little Intrigue is decently fast, but she doubts its ability to win this car chase. He tears his gaze away from the back window and yanks out the atlas.

“What’s the last town we passed through?” he asks hurriedly.

She racks her brain. “I think I saw a sign for Summit recently,” she guesses, chewing her lip. She isn’t at all certain about that information.

Mulder is silent as he flips through the pages of the atlas and she taps her fingers anxiously on the steering wheel. Her foot is pressed low on the gas but the black sedans behind her are keeping pace easily.

“This is good,” Mulder murmurs.

“What?”

“We’re about to approach a turnoff,” he mutters, half to himself. “It’ll lead us into a national forest.”

“And that’s good because . . . ?” A bead of sweat slides down her spine and she punches on the car’s air conditioning.

“We can lose them on the back roads,” he says confidently, his eyes not leaving the map.

She glances in the rearview mirror. She’s been trying to maintain a mile’s distance between herself and the other cars, but the two sedans are creeping closer and closer. She sinks her foot even lower on the gas and her car reaches a speed even she’s uncomfortable with.

Mulder glances up at her. “If we can get off the main road, we may be able to lose them in the canyon.”

She chews her lip. It’s not the worst idea, but it’s not a dead ringer either. Still, she doesn’t see what other choice they have. It’s either make an unexpected move and throw them off, or keep driving until they catch up or she runs out of gas.

“Tell me where to turn off,” she instructs, keeping her voice calm. She flicks her eyes to Mulder. “Do you have your weapon?”

He shakes his head. “They took everything from me when they caught me in the airport. You?”

She frowns. “I haven’t used a gun in months.”

“Oh yeah? You’ve never needed one at the hospital, Doctor Scully?” he ribs.

She shoots him a questioning look. How does he know she took a job at a hospital? Once she announced her refusal to be transferred to Quantico and her intention to quit the FBI altogether, she made a point not to speak to Mulder again. After she stormed out of their impromptu meeting with Skinner, she disappeared to her apartment and didn’t emerge until she had worked up a plan to save her dignity, career, and sanity—change cities, change careers, forget about Fox Mulder. She even instructed her mother not to speak to him or give him clues as to her plans or whereabouts. Not that he ever bothered trying to get in touch with her.

“You’ve been keeping tabs on me?” she asks in bewilderment. She assumed he had totally written her off.

He shrugs. “It’s easy enough to find that kind of information these days.”

She snorts. “So you asked the Gunmen.”

He doesn’t respond, which is enough of an answer for her. Before she can lecture him about her right to privacy, a smattering of gunfire hits her back bumper.

“Move, Scully, move!” Mulder shouts. She curses. Her little car is doing well enough but it isn’t outrunning the sedans either.

“I’m going as fast as I can on this road—” she protests. There’s a sharp bang at the back of the car followed by the breaking of glass, and she screams.

They’ve lost the rear window entirely. Mulder ducks as another volley of gunshots rings out and she crouches as low as she can in the seat while maintaining control over the wheel. It’s been a while since she’s been subjected to active fire like this, and her hands are shaking, causing the car to jolt back and forth on the road.

“Steady, Scully,” Mulder warns as they approach a tight curve. “We’re looking for Jackson’s Gap Road.”

“Jackson’s Gap,” she repeats to herself as she takes the car around a bend, refusing to slow even as they skid across the asphalt.

“There!” Mulder shouts, pointing to a side road half-hidden by the sharp rise of a red-orange cliffside.

“There?” she cries in disbelief. The side road is less than a quarter mile away. If she takes the turn at full speed, they’re likely to collide with the surrounding cliff walls. She pulls her foot off the gas to slow the vehicle’s momentum but Mulder shakes his head.

“Go, go, go!”

“We can’t take the turn that fast, we’ll crash!” she shrieks.

“Go, Scully!”

Her eyes flash to his and he nods encouragingly. She holds her breath and lowers her foot onto the pedal. The little car picks up speed, and as she approaches the turnoff, she maintains pressure on the gas. Only when she is a few yards away does she slam on the brakes and yank the car to the right. Mulder yelps as the change in momentum flings him into the console and she bears down on the gas pedal as her car rights itself. They fly off down the road, tires squealing and the nauseating smell of burnt rubber permeating the air.

Righting himself, Mulder jumps up into his seat and glances out the shattered back window. Scully hears the screech of tires behind her followed by an ear-piercing crash. The sedans must have been less successful at taking the sharp turn. Mulder pumps his fist exuberantly.

“You got ‘em, Scully!” he cheers with a boyish whoop, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the road. It’s twisty and curvy and treacherous and she concentrates on not flying into the rocky walls on either side of them.

“Did we lose them?” she asks breathlessly.

“For now,” he confirms, falling back into his seat. He grabs the atlas again, studying it closely. “We’ll want to make it harder for them though. Get off this road, do some zig-zagging through this canyon to truly lose them.”

She nods in agreement, trying to ignore the trembling in her hands. She doesn’t want Mulder to see that the car chase rattled her. This type of excitement used to be her bread and butter, for God’s sake. She turns her focus towards weaving the car through the narrow canyon walls. For the next hour, she follows Mulder’s convoluted directions until he has managed to get them well and truly lost in the Utah wilderness.

“I think we’re near Bryce Canyon,” Mulder mumbles as he stares down at the map.

Scully lifts a brow. She’s familiar enough with the state of Utah to know that they’ve gone way off track from their original destination. “That’s a lot further south than we should be.”

He nods. “It looks like we’ll need to dip down into Arizona and then head through New Mexico before making our way north to Colorado.”

“That should throw them off our trail,” she agrees, but something niggles at the back of her mind.

Abruptly, she pulls the car over to the side of the road and throws it into park. Mulder glances at her.

“You need a break?” he asks. His eyes are bright with an exhilaration that is as familiar to her as the back of her hand. For a moment, they’re right back in a shitty rented Ford Taurus cruising the flyover states together, chasing a fantastic lead or making a daring escape.

She shakes her head and pins him with her eyes. “Mulder, how did those cars know where to find us? Do you think they’re onto us?”

His enthusiasm dissipates and he rakes a hand through his hair, wincing when he grazes his bandaged hairline. “I considered that. I think we need to check in with Skinner, make sure the safe house hasn’t been compromised.”

She dips her eyes at the mention of her former boss. Her last memories of him—turning in her resignation, avoiding eye contact, refusing to engage in conversation, declining to accept his apology for taking Mulder’s side—are painful and humiliating. She would rather not think of Skinner at all.

As if reading her mind, Mulder shifts gears. “Let’s try to find a gas station with a pay phone,” he suggests. “I’ll see if I can get a hold of him. I owe him a check-in anyway.”

She nods tightly, then readjusts her seat, stretches her cramped fingers, and takes a deep breath. And they get back on the road.

Scully’s eyes dart furiously back and forth across the street. She feels far too exposed here. The gas station sits right on the Arizona-Utah border, and while she doubts their pursuers have followed them this far south, she can’t help but feel that every car that passes is slowing down to get a good look at them.

Mulder has hunkered deep into the plexiglass walls of a pay phone and Scully instinctively presses close to him as she keeps watch. Before he places the call, they spend a few minutes debating the wisdom of ringing Skinner. It’s possible someone could be tracing the Assistant Director’s calls, although Mulder has no immediate reason to suspect so.

“We’ve got to check in with him before we get to the safe house,” Mulder insists. “He may tell us to abort the mission.”

“Or,” Scully lobs back, “we could choose to abort the mission on our own and forget calling Skinner altogether. Judging by the fact that they found us in Utah, I’m starting to suspect they know we’re headed for Colorado.” She pauses, her mind whirring with a thousand possibilities. She fixes Mulder with a careful look. “Skinner’s the only one who knows about the safe house, right?”

Mulder regards her suspiciously. “Are you suggesting Skinner gave us away?”

She closes her eyes briefly. Most of the time, she is very firmly left-brain. Logically, she knows that she can trust Skinner—and Mulder—with her safety. But another part of her, the part that remembers and has internalized the pain of their betrayal, finds it wildly difficult to blindly trust the two men who hurt her so badly.

She opens her eyes. “I don’t know what to think anymore,” she admits honestly, ignoring the wounded look in Mulder’s eyes. He doesn’t get to look wounded.

They decide to call Skinner. She can hear the sound of shock in her former boss’s voice when he answers.

“Dammit, Mulder,” Skinner curses. “I’d almost given up on you.”

“I’ve got Scully with me too,” Mulder adds.

On the other end of the line, there’s a long pause followed by a tight, whispered okay. In any other set of circumstances, Scully might have found it in herself to be baffled or even hurt by Skinner’s lackluster reaction to hearing she’s safe. But instead, all she feels is a swirl of anger and bitterness. After all, Skinner is the one who agreed to boot her from the X-Files.

“Any news, boss?” Mulder asks, his tone far too casual for Scully’s liking. This is serious, dammit.

“None yet.”

“We need to know if the safe house is compromised,” Mulder says quickly, getting down to business. “We were almost run off the road today by two black sedans. Have no idea how they found us. We managed to lose them just south of—”

“Agent Mulder,” Skinner interrupts sharply, and Scully presses closer to Mulder, straining to hear the conversation. Skinner’s voice sounds impossibly tight and controlled, almost as if he’s hiding something.

Mulder turns and glances at her, then covers the receiver with his hand.

“He’s not alone,” he mouths, almost perfectly reading the direction of her thoughts.

“Uh,” Skinner says, “you mentioned the safe house.”

Mulder pauses. “I did. Did anyone overhear you talking about it?” he probes carefully.

There’s an excruciatingly long pause. “I can’t say.”

Mulder shoots Scully a meaningful look. Something’s wrong. He’s about to abruptly end the call when Skinner speaks again. This time, the boss’s voice is rushed and harried.

“The house is compromised, do not go to Colorado,” Skinner whispers. “I repeat, do not—”

There’s a violent shout on the other end of the line and Scully grips Mulder’s arm anxiously.

“Remember what we discussed, Mulder!” Skinner yells, his voice much more distant, as if he’s been yanked away from the phone. There’s another horrible shout and then the line goes dead.

Slowly, Mulder drops the phone into its cradle and then thunks his head against the booth’s dirty plexiglass walls before turning to stare at her. “That’s not good.”

She draws in a ragged breath, her eyes darting up to meet his. “I hope he’s alright,” she says sincerely. Her head spins with the impossibility of their situation: unable to reach their promised safe house; unable to safely contact Skinner.

“If the safe house is out,” she muses thoughtfully, running her tongue across her bottom lip, “we don’t have many other options. Motels, possibly, but I only have about $70 cash. That will get us a few nights, maybe. And sleeping in the car isn’t an answer, not with the back window gone.”

Scully continues to mull over their options, but it quickly becomes clear that Mulder isn’t even listening. He drags his hands across his face then plants his hands on his hips, his wide arms crowding her out of the booth. Suddenly hyper-aware of the lack of space between them, she steps back a few feet. Mulder’s gaze turns unfocused and hazy—the familiar look of a brilliant mind considering his options.

“Mulder,” Scully prods after a few moments. When he doesn’t immediately react, she tugs on his sleeve. His eyes refocus on her and she is struck by the agitation in his gaze. “Mulder, what did Skinner mean? What did you discuss?”

He sucks in his cheeks and blows out a steadying breath. “Option two,” he says tightly.

“Which is?”

“Frohike.”

She blinks. “Frohike?”

“Give me a minute,” he says distractedly, and she watches as his expression once again goes hazy as he turns inward. With single-minded purpose, Mulder jogs over to the car, yanks the door open, and peels open the atlas.

As she watches, her stomach growls loudly, demanding to be heard over the flurry of her thoughts. With a resigned sigh, she turns towards the gas station.

“Alright,” she calls out to Mulder, steadying herself by straightening her spine, “I guess I’ll take a break while you decide whether or not you trust me enough to share the next piece of this constantly-unraveling mystery of yours.” He doesn’t even bother looking up. “I’ll get some food, gather some supplies. What do you want to eat?” He’s still staring determinedly at the map. “Mulder? Mulder!”

He glances up apologetically. “Uh, whatever you want, Scully.”

“Whatever you want,” she mouths irritably. All she wants is to get out of the damn car, to get away from this nightmarish road trip, to put distance between herself and Mulder, to sleep in a real bed very far away from him.

But she seems to have broken through to him slightly, because he’s now looking at her. He lifts a hand to scratch at his bandages and winces. She sighs.

“Stop doing that,” she chides. “I need to clean and rebandage your wound again. Once that’s done, we can figure out our next steps.”

He holds her gaze and she squirms under the scrutiny, wondering whether he’s thinking the same thing as her. A few years ago, the thought of spending days, weeks, or even months living off the grid with Mulder wouldn’t have been such a terrifying prospect. In fact, she might have even welcomed it, the two of them against the world. But the Mulder standing in front of her now betrayed her in a devastatingly hurtful way. He’s not a partner, not a friend. He’s a stranger.

She breaks his gaze and walks into the gas station.

Scully finally decides to take Mulder up on his offer to drive. A stale gas station sandwich and a cup of hardly potable coffee—along with the long road they have ahead—have made her stomach queasy. She’s stretching out her calf muscles by the car when Mulder approaches, slipping into the driver’s side.

She glances at him expectantly and he nods, a slight smile lifting to his lips. “It’s good to have friends in low places, Scully.”

She narrows her eyes in question.

“The Gunmen have hooked us up. If we can get to Kalispell, Montana, we have a safe place to stay.”

Her eyes widen. “Montana?” She blinks. “So you called Frohike? On that phone? Was that a good idea?”

Mulder nods heartily. “I made it quick, less than a minute. Plus, if they traced our call to Skinner, they already know we’re here, so it’s not doing us any worse.”

She purses her lips irritably. “So, what’s the verdict?”

“A friend of a friend of Frohike owns a cabin up there,” he explains. “It’s right on the outskirts of Glacier National Park. All we have to do is show up, no questions asked. Door’s unlocked, show yourselves in. They’re putting us up for free.”

She blows out a long breath, considering it. “And Skinner put you up to this?”

He shrugs. “Actually, Skinner doesn’t know the details, which is for the better. Before I left, he and I made a few arrangements, just in case. The first plan was to get you to one of two different safe houses—either the one in Colorado or another in Port Angeles, Washington. The second option was pulling from other resources. Namely, the Gunmen.”

“Why don’t we just go to Washington?” she asks.

He shakes his head vigorously. “That won’t be safe either, Scully. If Skinner’s phone is being tapped or if someone’s keeping close tabs on him, they’ll know about the other safe house.”

She bites her lip, unable to disagree. “And you really think Montana is safe?”

His eyes shift to stare out the window. “I think it’s safer than Colorado.”

“And you trust Frohike on this? You trust this—this friend of a friend?”

His eyes flit back to hers and his gaze turns serious. “Do you have a better idea?”

She scowls.

“Scully,” he says, dipping his head to meet her eyes, “we know we can trust the Gunmen. Frohike knows you’re with me. Maybe he’d fuck with me, but he wouldn’t play around when it comes to you or your safety.” He pauses, his eyes searing into hers. “And neither would I. And if we don’t do this, what are our other choices? Spend all our cash on a few nights at a shitty motel, then camp out in your busted-up car until we get the all-clear? It could be weeks before we hear that you’re safe.”

“I’d rather do that than trust a stranger—”

“Frohike isn’t a stranger.”

“You know what I mean—”

“It’s our only option!”

She bites her lip and avoids his gaze. She wants to sink into the earth or jump off a canyon. She wants to fall asleep and never wake up, or drink too much alcohol and spend the next few weeks in a mindless brain fog. What she doesn’t want to do is be stuck with Mulder in her damaged car for another dozen hours, only then to be confined to a stranger’s home for weeks on end, the two of them forced into an allyship that she is loath to occupy.

Mulder reaches for her hand. “I know you have no interest in trusting me again, Scully, not after what I did to you.”

She yanks her hand away. “Stop that, Mulder.”

His eyebrows crease plaintively. “But the only thing that matters to me in this whole goddamn world is you—your safety.”

Her cheeks blaze and she tries to push away the feelings his words evoke. Reassurance. Comfort. Care. “We could go to an ATM,” she suggests. “Take out enough money for two weeks at a motel.”

He gives her a dubious look. “We can’t do anything traceable, Scully, you know that.”

She sighs and rubs her hands over her tired eyes. She does know that, but it was worth a shot. She feels his hand resettle over the console, near enough that his pinky grazes her shoulder.

“I know you have no reason to trust me and every reason to doubt me,” he says, his voice quietly anguished, “but if you ever believed in anything, believe that all I want is to protect you. Please. Trust me.”

Trust me. She stares down at her hands for a few minutes, twisting the diamond around her ring finger. She closes her eyes and tries to sink down into the core of herself, tries to locate her emotions and intuition and listen to what they’re saying to her. She wants desperately to tap into the anger she feels towards him, wants to run wild with the hurt she feels. She wants to say something that wounds him deeply. I hate you. I don’t trust you or any of your crazy ideas or crazy friends.

But with her eyes closed, she can smell him more noticeably and—despite the fact that he likely hasn’t showered in days—his warm, woodsy scent is evocative of too many positive emotions. She has years’ worth of profoundly beautiful memories with him and her ties to him are too inexplicably intimate, that being in his presence alone—his smell, touch, warmth, the sound of his breathing—is enough to override any anger she feels. She wishes she could hate him. She wishes she didn’t trust him.

She opens her eyes and finds him regarding her uneasily. She wets her lips. “The thing is, Mulder,” she says solemnly, “I do trust you. I’m not the one who lost the faith. I never lost trust in you.” She gestures at their surroundings. “And haven’t I made that clear, by following you to the middle of nowhere on an insane expedition, with very little information to go on? The only thing I’ve had to go on is my trust in you, Mulder.” She pauses, working through her emotions. “If you think we’ll be safe in Montana, I’ll follow you to Montana.”

A deep, agonizing shame clouds his expression, and in that moment, she knows her words have done more damage than anything else she could have said. I don’t trust you anymore, Mulder, wouldn’t have hurt him nearly as much as affirming her still-firm belief in him. You were the one that broke us, she has told him loud and clear. Not me.

“I didn’t mean any of it, Scully,” he says desperately. “There’s so much more to it than that—”

She holds up a hand. “Save it, Mulder.” The last thing she wants to do is have this conversation.

“Please—”

“No,” she says firmly, shaking her head. “This,” she gestures between them, “is hard enough for me right now. So can we please just get through the next few days without having to rehash everything?”

“I know you don’t want to talk about it, but can we please just—”

“I said no,” she insists, fixing him with a steely gaze. Heat rises through her chest and cheeks as she watches him work his jaw back and forth. She will not let him win this round. “I don’t want to hear your explanation or excuses. I have a life I’m very interested in getting back to.” She holds up her ring just to spite him. “A life, might I remind you, that you shoved me into.”

He balks, aggravation settling on his features. “Jesus, Scully, I never told you to go and get married—”

“Shut up, Mulder!” She doesn’t bother correcting him. Married, engaged. To-may-to, to-mah-to. “Look. You and I have been forced into a situation that will require us to be in close quarters for at least a few more days, if not weeks. I know that you don’t have much respect for me, based on what you did, but can you respect me enough to refrain from discussing what happened? I’ve worked very hard to put it behind me. You don’t get to show up in my life and demand that I reexamine it.”

He clenches his jaw testily and she can tell he’s fighting back words. After a long minute, he finally nods. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is. Drive, Mulder.”

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

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slippinmickeys · 1 year

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Three Part Harmony (11/?)

A day ago, she was certain that she and Mulder were approaching midnight on the Doomsday clock, one second away from being caught, one wrong turn from disaster. A day ago, she was certain they hadn’t had much time left, that they were a bullet’s strafe away from dying together like Bonnie and Clyde — a last stand-off with the devil. A day ago, they’d had nothing to live for but each other.

Scully took a long look at their son before ducking back into the bathroom with her wet towel. She hung it up neatly and turned, placing both hands on the small pedestal sink, breathing deeply and trying to calm frayed nerves. William’s gift was an astounding one, but she wasn’t sure what it did for them. They were still on the run with a baby to take care of, pursued by who-even-knew, and now they had no choice but to keep going, to keep pushing, to stay alive and safe.

As she looked at her reflection in the mirror, her gaze stayed momentarily on the skin between her eyes – was there even now a tiny cancerous cell growing and dividing, looking to spread its unfixable damaged DNA to the other healthy cells in her body? She inhaled sharply. She couldn’t think about that, now. There was nothing she could do about it, and so she had to put it out of her mind.

Her eyes moved instead to the dark locks of her shapeless, ropey hair; frizzy from cheap dye, the ends a mess. Her gaze moved lower to her too-sharp cheekbones, her coat-hanger shoulders. God, she looked like a consumptive Victorian. What must Mulder think of her?

“Lisa?” His soft voice came from just out in the hallway, and she gave herself one more look before turning off the light and emerging to find him standing there. “Rhonda offered to make breakfast. I wasn’t sure what you wanted?”

XxXxXxXxXxX

William was wearing more scrambled eggs than he’d eaten, but he seemed pretty gleeful about it, so Mulder wasn’t about to complain. The floor, on the other hand…

“Geez,” he said, looking at the area under the high chair where William was sitting, “I’ve seen cleaner crime scenes.” In that moment, Mulder almost froze, afraid he’d maybe said too much.

“These are the days I miss Rascal,” Rhonda said, breezing past his comment.

“Rascal?” Scully asked, after giving Mulder a look, peering up from buttering her toast. Mulder was thrilled to see her eating.

“Rascal was a snuffly old hound dog that I inherited along with this place from my uncle. Uncle Bobby trained him so if you dropped food inside the house, all you had to do was yell ‘housekeeping!’ and Rascal would come tear-assing around the corner and hoover up just about any spill. Except broccoli. That dog did not care for broccoli.”

At this, William made a raspberry sound, and every one chuckled from where they sat.

“I think William might agree,” Mulder said, rising to clear his plate and get started on cleaning up William’s mess.

Rhonda took a dainty sip of coffee and watched him with curious eyes.

“Are you a police officer, Steve?” she asked innocently.

Mulder glanced at Scully, who seemed to be assessing the situation, debating with herself about how much they should tell Rhonda.

“I was,” Mulder finally answered, not offering up any more information.

Rhonda seemed unphased. “How about you, darlin’?” she asked Scully, who finished chewing slowly before answering.

“I’m a medical doctor,” she said simply.

Rhonda clapped her hands together. “Oh! Was it ER love?”

“Was it…?” Mulder asked, stymied.

“ER love,” Rhonda explained. “You know, he brings in a GSW, and you fall in love over a gurney.” Rhonda swiveled her eyes to Mulder, bringing a hand to her mouth. “Or were you the one who was shot?” she went on breathlessly, then took a moment, calming herself. “I’m sorry. I’m a romance aficionado. You name the trope, I’ve read four. Was it ER love? Am I close?”

Scully couldn’t help a small smile. “There have been many gurneys,” she said quietly.

“Couple gunshot wounds, too,” said Mulder, trying to hold Scully’s eye.

“So how did you meet?” Rhonda asked. “What’s your story?”

XxXxXxXxXxX

On the outside, Rhonda was playing it cool, but inside…

It had all happened innocently enough. She’d been on her way back to the cabin, having successfully shipped off the package the younger couple had given to her to mail. She was elated that she’d been able to be of some assistance and had switched on the radio, the soft rock station she usually listened to in the middle of the Kenny Loggins - Stevie Nicks duet Whenever I Call You ‘Friend .’ She immediately turned up the volume and began singing along, a feeling of excited satisfaction flowing through her. When the next song came on and it was more dull and lifeless – something like the Carpenters but with less verve – she switched the station, hoping to ride her high.

The next channel up on the dial – there weren’t many that came in this far up in the mountains – was news radio, and she was just reaching for the seek knob when something clicked, and she began to tune into what the broadcaster was saying.

“-- the baby, William Van de Kamp, an eleven month old boy with blue eyes and sandy-auburn hair, is thought to have been kidnapped by his biological parents, who are now on the run, after murdering the boy’s adoptive parents in cold blood. The child’s mother, Dana Scully, is five foot two inches tall with red hair and blue eyes. She’s thought to be traveling with Fox Mulder, a man currently on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. The couple is considered armed and extremely dangerous. Anyone with information is encouraged to keep their distance and call the FBI’s nation-wide tip line at 800-555-7834 .”

Rhonda leaned forward and switched off the radio with a quick flick of her wrist, her pulse pounding under her skin.

She drove like an automaton, her mind spinning through various scenarios, each one more far fetched than the last. The woman at her house, Lisa, little William’s mother, had dark hair, but her bright roots had begun showing, and Rhonda knew from roots. And the man, Steve, obviously devoted to his wife and baby, had a darkness about him that Rhonda hadn’t yet been able to place. They had been nervous, and scared.

Had Rhonda unwittingly helped people who had just kidnapped a child and brutally murdered two innocents? She flashed on her parents for a moment, thinking of their lifeless eyes dully reflecting the burning cross in their yard.

No. No. Rhonda was a better judge of character than that. Wasn’t she?

Without realizing it, she’d turned onto the long, winding driveway that ended at the cabin in which the trio of people awaited her return. She was determined to give them the benefit of the doubt, but she was equally determined to get their story, to find out exactly what was going on so that they could deal with it head-on. Taking a deep, steeling breath, Rhonda psyched herself up and grabbed her purse, slamming the car door and heading for the house.

They were being evasive. She probably wouldn’t blame them, but for the looks Steve and Lisa kept exchanging, each one packing in arguments, discussions, entire conversations into a two-second glance. It was damned off-putting.

She’d offered to make breakfast, had a fridge full of bacon, eggs, and juice, a full loaf of bread, far more food than she could ever eat on her own in the weekend she would be here at the cabin. They’d be doing her a favor, she said, if they could help her eat all this so it wouldn’t go bad.

Seated around the dining table, she’d asked them how they met – yet again – and Lisa had merely said “at work,” and left it at that.

Fair enough, thought Rhoda. There was clearly more to it (her heart still set on a romantic ER meet-cute), but that wasn’t something they were really duty-bound to share. However, she’d asked what their story was, and she did feel entitled to know what it was they were all into here – and she was included in the ‘they,’ now, no two ways about it.

“And your story?” she asked again. “How did y’all end up in my little diner? And what brought you all here?”

Another one of those looks between Steve and Lisa.

“I ask,” Rhonda went on, her heart in her throat, deciding to lay it all out there, come hell or highwater. “Because on my way back here this morning I heard a radio report about two people who kidnapped an itty bitty baby and maybe killed some people to do it, and that don’t sit right with me.”

She expected them to immediately decry the story, or maybe even to laugh, but instead, Lisa turned white, and Rhonda watched as the muscles beneath Steve’s cheek jumped as he clenched his jaw. Her skin prickled. God, she’d taken a risk.

Damn the torpedoes.

“Your names aren’t Steve and Lisa, are they?”

“No,” the woman said. “They’re not.”

The man inhaled as if to say something, but the woman spoke again. “Mulder,” she said, and Rhonda’s heart started pounding even harder, recognizing the name from the radio broadcast. “We need to tell her.” The woman’s eyes flicked to Rhonda and then back to the man called Mulder. “We need to tell her everything.”

Mulder wouldn’t meet either of their gazes. “Do you intend to turn us in?” he asked quietly.

Rhonda wasn’t sure of the right answer here. In reality, she thought that maybe the first thing she should do was head straight to the local Sheriff’s office, but if these people were murderers, there was no reason to think they wouldn’t kill her first.

“Did you really kill that baby’s adoptive parents?” she asked outright.

“No,” the man said, finally turning to look her straight in the eye. “They were already dead.”

XxXxXxXxXxX

By the time they had wrapped up their story, the weather had worsened. Winter had arrived unapologetically, wreathing the valley in snow. William was at the window, watching it fall in fascination.

“I’m sorry, Rhonda. I know it’s a lot to take in,” Scully was saying to Rhonda, who looked like she was expecting a television crew to come around the corner any minute and inform her that she was on Candid Camera.

“That’s,” the other woman started. “Yes.”

How long had the woman suspected them? Mulder wondered. She’d put herself at great risk to quarter and protect them already, and in the end, Scully was right; she deserved to know what she was getting herself into. Whether or not she believed the fantastical story.

Scully was sitting next to Rhonda, a reassuring hand on the woman’s knee. “My name is Dana Scully. Thank you for everything you’ve done for us.”

Rhonda gave Scully a watery smile and looked over at Mulder, who gave her a sheepish grin.

“Mulder,” he introduced himself, holding up a hand in greeting.

Rhonda merely nodded, processing all she’d been told.

A snowy gust of wind made one of the big window frames in front of the cabin creak, and Mulder walked over to where William was sitting and picked him up, turning him back so that he could continue to look at the weather.

“That’s snow, bud,” he said quietly.

“‘No,” repeated William.

Mulder couldn’t help what was probably a goofy grin. The sensation felt odd, foreign.

“So the men that were in the diner,” Rhonda finally said, “they were the ones who-” she took a look at the baby and stopped herself from saying “killed the boy’s parents,” but Mulder heard it all the same.

His face fell. “Yes,” he said, turning towards her. “Or at least they’re all working for the same people.”

“And who is that?”

“A question for the ages,” Mulder said, keeping William in his arms and making his way over to sit in a chair in front of the fire. He expected the baby to want to get down and crawl around on the floor a bit more, but the boy stayed on Mulder’s knee, looking at him curiously. Mulder looked back, studying the child’s emerging features.

“God, those poor people,” Rhonda said.

If they’d lived, Mulder thought, they would have been in for a fight. Not just against the powers that sought William out now for God-knew-what, but from Mulder himself. He had not legally signed away his parental rights when Scully gave William up for adoption. If and when he cleared his name and rejoined society, he’d had plans to fight for the baby. He knew Scully had done what she had to do all those months ago, giving him up, but hadn’t they just proven that William was safest with them?

Walking away from them right after William was born had felt like leaving the atmosphere, the force required to pull away from their gravity a necessarily jet-fueled propulsion. Any lesser thrust would have surely failed. He would not do it again. It was the three of them now, or nothing.

William reached up, running his soft little hand into Mulder’s beard to give it a tug.

“Time for me to get rid of this?” he asked his son.

Rhonda seemed to rouse herself from her fog and sat up straight.

“Mulder, is it?” she asked, and Mulder nodded at her. “Mulder, you’re on your own shaving, but if you’d like a haircut, I did a stint in beauty school.”

Mulder slashed his eyes over to Scully.

“I don’t think the disguise threw them off,” Mulder shrugged.

A moment, and then:

“He’d like a haircut,” Scully said, her gaze never leaving his.

Spray from Rhonda’s bottle of water fell over his shoulder like mist, then the teeth of her comb sunk into his hair and he closed his eyes at the sensation.

He was sitting on a high stool in the middle of the kitchen, a beach towel around his shoulders, secured in the front with a chip clip.

“It must have been hard,” Rhonda said from behind him, her voice soft. “Being away from them.”

It was an odd feeling, being doted on, being cared for, and it made him feel imbalanced. He thought back to those few months right after he’d come back from the dead, how he’d almost immediately then been on the run; how off-kilter that time had felt. Mulder suddenly found he was a father and then just as suddenly was not, and that kind of whiplash could wrench you down to your atoms. His eyelids rose of their own accord, his gaze seeking out Scully, who sat on the floor across the cabin with William on her lap, reading him The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

“Mm,” he hummed, watching them.

“But he was still hungry,” Scully read, her voice a sweet tone that Mulder had rarely heard.

“Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” he said, low and quiet. Scully couldn’t hear them talking, and went on reading the board book, William absolutely riveted.

“Sounds to me like you’ve been making sacrifices for a real long time.”

Mulder didn’t know how to respond to that and didn’t.

“Have you ever had a chance to be a quiet, peaceful family together? Ever?” Rhonda asked, the sound of her scissors shushing through the air.

“We had one night,” he said, thinking back to the Gunmen dropping off gifts – the last time he ever saw them alive. The next morning, he and Scully had made the decision for him to leave.

Rhonda paused what she was doing and put her hand on his shoulder. “I hope you three can find some peace here,” she said.

Mulder closed his eyes again as she restarted her tender ministrations. He hoped so, too.

Night fell early, the Earth turning its back on the sun. Outside the cabin, all was dark and still, the trees at rest under a new blanket of soft, white snow.

The house itself was quiet, at rest, Rhonda having retired when they started filling the mammoth farmhouse kitchen sink, where they gave a delighted, slippery William a warm, sudsy bath.

Earlier in the day, Rhonda had pulled out an old pack-n-play from the back of a closet (“my cousin’s,” she’d said). They’d set it up in the room next to Mulder and Scully’s, and now had William fed, bathed and drowsy, rubbing his cheek softly against the front of Scully’s shirt, dressed in a fuzzy new pair of footed pajamas. Rhonda had pulled a soft old quilt from the back of the couch and it waited for William in his new old bed, looking warm, but smelling a bit fusty. Mulder stood in the doorway as Scully carried the boy to the crib, where she pressed a lingering kiss to his soft, round cheek.

“Night night William,” she said, lowering him to the mattress, where the boy, eyelids drooping, immediately laid down, rolling onto his side to face the other side of the room. Scully stood over the bed, and Mulder knew she found it difficult to move, to leave their son there. He eased his way back into the hallway so that she didn’t feel pressured to leave until she was ready, and made his way to the bathroom.

Mulder smiled in the bathroom mirror, already filing away the memory for future circumspection.

Rhonda had done a halfway decent job on his hair, he thought, looking at himself in the mirror. She’d clipped the longish pelage that curled over the back of his collar and shortened up the back and top, making him look more like himself.

One of the lights above the sink winked off and then back on, and he reached up and ran a hand over the weft of his beard, pulling on the bushy hairs like his son had done earlier in the day. Rhonda had thoughtfully left out the hair clippers, shaving cream, and a light pink women’s razor that only had two blades. It would have to do.

Mulder grabbed the shears first, cutting away what he could of the bulk of his beard, leaving his jaw as patchy as a lawn after the first thaw. He then wet his face and spread on the shaving cream which smelled vaguely of raspberry and chemicals, and was just raising the razor to his face when he heard a quiet shuffle behind him.

He turned to find Scully standing in the bathroom doorway, her face blank and unreadable.

“He out?” he asked quietly, and Scully nodded and moved into the narrow space with him.

“You okay?” he asked as she purled her way around his body like a cat, maneuvering herself in between him and the mirror.

“I’m okay,” she said, and then hoisted herself up to sit on the lip of the vanity.

Wordlessly, she reached up for the razor, which he relinquished to her gentle grasp.

Peering at him as though she were studying a corpse and deciding where to cut, she finally put one finger under his chin and pushed lightly, tipping his head back so that she could get at his neck.

He remembered the last time a woman had shaved him, recalling the acrid scent of smoke that had sat in his nose for days after, the layer of ash that cast itself over everything like a mantle, the hazy, orange California sun. He closed his eyes. Scully’s hands felt nothing like Kristen’s, who had shaved Mulder with seductive intent. Scully’s hands were warm, sure; they moved with a methodical precision.

Mulder opened his eyes when she tilted his head back down, surprised, just for a moment, by her dark hair. And while she began running the razor down his left cheek, he reached into the collar of her shirt and hooked his finger through the gold chain she wore there, pulling the tiny cross out, where he ran his thumb over it, the metal pressing an X of warmth into his skin. He held onto it as she finished, only letting go when she had to lean over to grab a towel from behind him, which she used to gently wipe the remaining foam from his face.

Turning to set down the pink razor on the back of the sink, she was more level with his face and he took the opportunity to move himself closer to her. When she turned back around, their noses were practically touching.

Scully reached up with both hands, fingering his freshly shorn locks.

“She did a good job,” she said quietly, roving her eyes over his face.

“Do I look more like the man you fell in love with?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “You’d need to be in glasses with a slideshow backdrop for me to really see it.”

Mulder smiled and leaned forward to press his lips sweetly to hers. When he pulled back, he leaned his forehead forward, resting it against the heavy weight of her own.

“We have him back, Scully,” he whispered, her breath gently warming the newly tender skin above his lip. “However it happened, and whatever happens next, we have him back.”

Scully levered her arms around his neck and pulled herself tightly to him.

“We have him back,” she said, repeating his refrain in chorus.

#the x-files #fanfic #my fic #msr #wip #family fic #but not fluff

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randomfoggytiger · 10 months

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X-Files Collector's Edition: S9, The Season of Secret Dad (Long Fics)

There will never be enough content to make up for the robbery of canon post S8-- parenthood and readjustment and healing for Mulder and Scully with their son, whether that has a Conspiracy attached to it or not. These fics try to bridge that gap (and shoutout to @welsharcher's coining of the phrase "Season of Secret Dad".)

These might be repeats from other lists; but I wanted to be thorough~.

**Note**: Will ghost edit later~.

Loose chronological order below~

Fics Where Mulder Stays

MissAnnThropic's Not the Same

""Awww..." Lela made the tight sound of womanly adoration, "you have a baby? Do you have a picture of him?"

Mulder flashed her a bright smile a moment, his expression saying as clear as anything 'of course I do, I'm a new father, aren't I?' and he reached into his back pocket and withdrew his wallet....

Tom leaned over to look and Miranda leaned over him to see the picture too.

It was a picture of a very small baby on his back, a stuffed green alien toy in his hand's limp grip as it rested against his belly. Tom smiled at that, despite his earlier attitude toward Fox Mulder and the whole little green men business.""

Colton is floored by how much Fox Mulder has matured.

Tess's (Ao3) The New Truth, A Project 09x00

""Startled, Scully's eyes popped open. She had been enjoying the quiet coziness of the day; tucked into the apartment with the two people she loved most in the world while rain tapped in a steady beat against the windows. She felt Mulder's steady gaze, even as she steadfastly refused to meet it and she knew that the time of living in a world of 'let's pretend' had just come to a crashing end.

"These last few weeks of being a normal little family have been wonderful," Mulder said softly. "But, Scully..." he scooted across the cushions and leaned into her side. "We're not normal people.""

Mulder and Scully have a tough conversation weighing all their options. He's not leaving; but Scully will have to return to the FBI parttime to keep its resources at their fingertips.

Lapsed_Scholar's Season 9 Rewrites and Musings

MASTERFUL fill-in series: Mulder is a stay-at-home dad during the entire events of S9. Love this to death. Below are the reworked episodes:

A Devil's Office

""Monica nodded, and they sat in contemplative silence for a few moments, before Mulder broke it.

“You know, he looks like my sister.”

She looked up—he was looking down at William again. She couldn’t see his expression, but his voice was soft and tender, full of wonder and tinged with nostalgia. Fox Mulder the man was turning out to be a very different entity from Spooky Mulder the legend.

“His eyes are hers—Dana’s, I mean—but... Maybe my mother would have told you that he looks like me, I don’t know; I never saw myself as a baby. But I remember how my sister looked. It was thirty-five years ago, but I still remember looking down at her in amazement when my parents brought her home....”

Mulder looked back down at William, ran his finger along his son’s cheek.""

Mulder is settling into stay-at-home parenthood, overcoming his feelings of uselessness with a very contented baby... and finally giving in to a consultation request from John Doggett.

Dispatches

""Hey, Scully. You’re interrupting a monumental construction project. It’s the tallest tower of blocks yet built by man.”

“Mmhm. And what is William doing while you’re assembling this feat of modern engineering?”

“I’ll have you know this is a joint project. William is...in charge of grabbing the construction material and sticking it in his mouth.""

A dialogue only piece (but it's one of my absolute favorites) featuring a VERY ticked off Scully fuming over a pain-in-her-side bug doctor and a VERY amused Mulder having a blast sympathizing and egging her on.

Semper Fi

""Speaking of... A familiar form flops itself into the chair next to his. He honestly should have expected this.

“Fancy meeting you here, sir.” Fox Mulder has a peculiar way of delivering inane pleasantries. His expression and tone are bland enough to pass scrutiny, but something in his bearing always implies that a lively mind is humming away under the surface.""

Scully rants to Mulder about Kersh purposefully interfering in Reyes and Skinner's attempts to bring Doggett home. He's on the case.

Denial

""She calls home because she needs a break from the existential, or maybe because she needs another opinion on it. She sits in the hospital cafeteria and leans her head against a window.

She asks Mulder for stories of William, and because they are who they are, he innately understands why she’s asking and indulges her thoroughly.""

Mulder understands that Scully is denying her gut; and convinces her to look deeper into Doggett's claims that Reyes isn't dead.

Extreme Probabilities

""The two of them might have made an impressive pair of dashing FBI agents for that Bureau recruiting pamphlet, except they both looked bedraggled. John clearly hadn’t slept in awhile. He had dark circles under red eyes and the look of exhausted intensity that comes from staring at evidence for too long. His suit was wrinkled and rumpled, and there was a coffee stain on his shirt. Mulder had clearly been asleep not too long ago. His hair was sleep-mussed, and he was wearing what he usually wore to bed (an undershirt and lounge pants) coupled with running shoes and a holster. His serious and tense expression made for a marked contrast with the ridiculous outfit.

Reality usually is quite different from the pamphlet.""

Mulder doesn't believe in numerology; but he does gets pulled into this crack case about God and Burt Reynolds anyway.

A Quiet Friday Evening

""The phone rings. Scully frowns.

“That must be the sheriff. Here, Mulder, hold this open and keep the abdominal wall spread.” She hands him the salad tongs before he can ask if maybe he can answer the phone instead. He stares after her in speechless misery.

He is going to buy new kitchen utensils. They are throwing all of these away, and absolutely nothing Scully can say about boiling water or exceedingly high temperatures or using the autoclave at work will convince him otherwise.""

Mulder gets roped into a cat autopsy. Yes, it's gold.

Valor (Discretion)

""You’ve had a lot going on lately, Mulder,” Frohike gestured toward the baby. He also meant to include, of course, the whole abduction-death-and-resurrection ordeal. Most of the people who loved Mulder didn’t want to reference it directly, so, despite how centrally traumatic it was, it predominately remained in alluded subtext. “We didn’t think our problems should add to yours.”

Mulder stared for a moment. He had the audacity to look hurt. “I thought we were friends. If you have problems this serious—especially ones I can help you solve—I want to know about them. After all you’ve done for me—all you’ve done for Scully—how could you not tell me when you needed help?""

A biohazard, TLG running around like chickens, Morris Fletcher... and Mulder insisting his friends call the authorities and act rationally.

Catastrophe

""He didn’t have to wait for long. About five minutes after he had arrived, the doors to the elevator slid open, and Mulder emerged, maneuvering a stroller carefully over the gap between elevator and floor. His eyebrows raised fractionally with surprise when he saw John, but he otherwise kept his composure. John studied him. He was looking better these days, although he still had a slightly uneasy air about him, a man who wasn’t fully confident of his place in the world, not entirely grounded. But he was clearly trying, and he looked more at home in his own skin than John had ever seen him. At this moment, in fact, he appeared steadier than John felt.

“Agent Doggett,” greeted Mulder, quietly, once he had reached the apartment door. John glanced down into the stroller; William was peacefully asleep, his head turned to the side and his mouth moving occasionally in the phantom nursing of sleeping infants.""

Doggett asks Mulder to write a profile on his son's killer, while Scully is there to support her partner after he gets sucked into the brutal randomness of the crime. The rest of the fic winds up to her disappearance while on a case Mulder asked her not work on: postpartum depression, Mulder's feelings of displacement in her life, and unfinished conversations between them. (Unfinished fic.)

Jenna Tooms/misslucyjane’s (Ao3, mulderscreek)

An Acceptable Level of Happiness (Site)

""Sunday afternoon I spread an old sheet on the kitchen floor and tie a dishtowel around Mulder's neck. He sits stiffly in the kitchen chair, his eyes on Malcolm. "Warn me," he says, his hands clenching.

"I know." I run my fingers through his hair, combing it out. I never start cutting right away. First I rub his temples and massage his scalp with my fingertips, trying to soothe him until his eyes close. I rub the base of his neck and his shoulders too, trying to reassure him that nothing's going to hurt him here. He often says he'd know my hands anywhere.

"I'm picking up the scissors now," I say when he's relaxed. He acknowledges this with a grunt, his head tilted forward....

I keep one hand in his hair as I trim it, scraping my nails lightly against his scalp. There is one scar on his head and every time my fingertips pass over it my hands tremble. They cut him open everywhere.""

Mulder and Scully are struggling with their separate PTSDs but willing to stick it out, thick or thin. She processes most of her emotions and draws closer to her partner at the Scully family Christmas; and he gets to meet Charlie and feel like a human again.

ML/ML_is_me’s (Ao3, Gossamer, DW, Invidiosa)

Project:TruthSeekers Alt Season Nine: Home Fires, Part One (Goss)

Project:TruthSeekers Alt Season Nine: Home Fires, Part Two (Goss)

""Mulder had the door open before she got there, holding a squalling William in his arms. He raised his eyebrows at her slightly.

"Sorry," Scully said. "You got my message, didn't you?" She set the groceries down on the kitchen table, pushing aside an array of toys and teething rings to do so. She could see what kind of day her men had.

"Yeah," Mulder said. "I was here, I just couldn't get Limpet Boy to let go so I could answer the phone.""

Mulder is a stay-at-home dad battling the Conspiracy. Scully and their new partner get a call and drop-in from Phoebe, who is relatives with a higher-up in the Syndicate.

155 Words - Thankful

""Not long ago, he discovered that all he cared about had been pared down to a few essentials, and it wasn't hard to leave the rest behind.

Perhaps dying and returning is responsible for such clarity; but he hasn't analyzed it.""

Mulder marvels that Scully tracked him down with a baby in tow.

maybeamandaxffics/maybe_amanda/MaybeAmanda's (LJ)

Chataqalan - 1

Chataqalan - 2 (Goss)

Chataqalan - 3

""Who was that?" Mulder asked.

"Monica."

"Reyes? What's she doing there?"

"No one is quite sure," Scully said, settling herself on the bunk. "Least of all her."

There was a brief pause. "Excuse me?

"She asked if you could call John about her boots."

Another pause, this one a little longer. "I'm supposed to make a booty-call to John Doggett?""

Scully and Reyes team up on an investigation in Mexico: while Scully catches Mulder up on suspicious connections to Russians and Tunguska, Monica meets a possible love interest and starts to notice weird, suspicious activities from some of the other workers.

Under Construction (Goss)

""Then I got the arms. The *pick-me-up* arms. The *you're-my-dad- and-the-toes-of-my-tiny-little-Reeboks-belong-in-your-abs-pick-me-up* arms. I shouldn't hesitate - I shouldn't have to hesitate - but I always do. Anytime Scully noticed, she tried hard to look like she was trying hard not to look pained, but I saw it, anyway. It wasn't that I didn't want to hold William - hold my son. It was just that, every time I reached for him, for an instant I was sure my arms were going to pass right through him and I'd find myself passed out on the cold cement floor of my cell again, clutching my chest and aching for all I'd lost. If the price I had to pay to keep this dream up and running was never really holding it, I was prepared to accept that.

But William wasn't. "Up!" he insisted, so I accommodated.

He was solid. Real. I'm his dad. His toes do belong in my abs.

I kissed his forehead. Why isn't everything this simple?""

Mulder is returned with muddled memories of S8/S9 events, a truckload of PTSD, and a boatload of feeling that he's in everyone's way. Will already loves him; but Maggie hates his guts, and Scully isn't ready yet to smooth over that problem. And, Mulder finds out, everyone had been matchmaking her with Ellen's brother-in-law.

jeri's (MC) Ahonis (MC)

""Oh sure, Mulder could come by the office anytime and visit. Doggett often asked Scully to bring Mulder and William along on lunch breaks, or just have them drop in for a change of pace. But both Scully and Mulder felt it was best if he and the baby stayed clear of the FBI; Kersh may have left the Bureau, but he was still out there, reporting to someone. There was no guarantee that the new Deputy Director wasn't just as dirty as Kersh was.""

Doggett and Reyes work on bustin' a case that has connections to Marita Covarrubias. Mulder is only mentioned by Scully as a stay-at-home dad here and there.

@aloysiavirgata's (Ao3, WBM, Gossamer, LJ, Alt. LJ)

By Falling In and In

LiveJournal 2

LiveJournal 3

LiveJournal 4

LiveJournal 5

""Mulder sprawls across the black leather sofa in what is shortly to be his new home office. "It's so good to see you," he tells it. "We'll never be parted again."

"A boy and his couch. It's like a Norman Rockwell painting," Scully says, setting down a cardboard box on the desk. She picks up a container of fish food and taps a few flakes into the aquarium which is, for now, resting on the desk.

"She's just jealous," Mulder murmurs to the armrest. "She doesn't understand our love.""

These fics focus on Mulder and Scully parenting their magically-abled child in the leadup to an, unfortunately, successful Colonization (though the latter isn't the series' focus.) For my personal reading I skip part one and enjoy the rest of it (because Mulder running off to Mexico still makes me mad); but that's how I read everything, so it's nothing against this series.

A Heart of Star

""Mulder secures the baby into his bouncer seat on the dining room table, passing him a rubber duck to gnaw on. He then spreads his files out across the table, an assortment of highlighters next to him in a cup. He taps his chin with a pencil.

“Your mother says this is the result of clever editing, but I think we have pretty clear evidence of a ghostly apparition. There’s no sign of the film being altered. I mean, look at this. Mama is out of her mind.” Mulder holds a series of stills up for William to peruse.

“Ma,” yells William, reaching for the paper. “Mamamamamama!”

Mulder scowls. “I can’t believe you’re taking her side.""

Mulder's bonding moments with his growin' boy.

Elysium

""This is so cool,” William breathes, gripping the steering wheel.

Scully smiles, promising herself she will be calm even as she half-wishes he were still in a car seat.

“You wanna say the rosary first?” Mulder pipes up from the back seat. “To Our Blessed Lady of Brake Pads?”

“Daaaaaad,” William says. “I am a licensed driver now. I am a master of my craft.""

Scully's bonding moments with her miracle (and Mulder.)

mimicsmusings/mimic117's (Lost and Found)

Chip Off The Old Block 03 - Veracity

Chip Off The Old Block 04

""Hey, Charlie. Taste this."

Charles Scully cast a dubious eye on the bubbling mass of ham, beans and spices in the pot on the stove. He reared his head back, away from the spoon being poked toward his face.

"It smells fine, Mulder. Why don't you taste it yourself?"

The spoon followed his retreat at mouth level.

"I never taste while I'm cooking. How do you think I keep my girlish figure?""

Turns out, Will's magic baby powers are all in the family-- and not Mulder's. Charlie is telekinetic, too; and Maggie knew about it the whole time. (Bill is also here, and annoyed.)

Malibusunset's Terra Firma

""William plopped down onto the kitchen tiles in a seated position and stared after Mulder with a frown on his face. Then he picked up his bottle in one hand, crawled a few feet awkwardly, then sat back down, tilted his head back, and plugged the bottle back in. He sucked voraciously and stared up at Mulder as if to say, "I can't do both, so I'm just gonna hang out here and eat instead."

"Right," said Mulder, bending down to a kneeling position. "How about you concentrate on transporting yourself and the bottle can catch a ride on the tray." William trustingly relinquished the bottle and Mulder placed it on the tray next to the orange juice and continued on. William followed eagerly on all fours. When he got to the stairs that led to the second floor, Mulder stopped and extended his arm down to his son.

"Will, UP," he said, offering his left arm while balancing the tray with his right. William pulled himself up on Mulder's leg, clutching handfuls of his pajama pants. Mulder lifted him like a sack of potatoes and hauled the baby and the tray up the stairs. Cooking breakfast with a baby wasn't for wimps.""

Mulder and Scully patch their lives together as new parents, buying a home, getting engaged, and expecting a second baby. The nuances of parenthood for a driven workaholic Scully and a stay-at-home writer-and-once-out-of-town consultant Mulder weave up and down; and is an entertaining read. (The way I read: Parts 1, 2, the first third of 3-- skipping the plotline-- then Parts 4... onward?) Notable moment: I particularly remember Mulder unable to speak after Scully's pregnancy announcement-- in Part 3-- because I was struck with how strikingly Mulder that is.

dlynn's Scully, NORAD called

""Mulder grabbed one of the pillows beneath his head and swatted Scully. When he reached to get his pillow back, Scully plopped the feathered cushion underneath her arms and glanced between her two men: Mulder, all rumpled and lanky, lying across the faded quilt -- his shirt untucked and sloppy, his jeans stained where Will's hands had wiped worm guts on his father's pants. Mulder's bare feet slid against each other as he rubbed the mosquito bites he'd accumulated last night fishing off the pier with their son. Will, the spitting image of his father, from the way he said, 'Oh, Mom' in the same plaintive voice that Mulder whined 'Sculleee' to the way he spit sunflower seeds with all the finesse of a pro, lay curled on his side, butted up against Mulder's chest. His wet hair stuck up like he'd been hacked with a wild weedwacker. Definitely, a Scully- Mulder.""

A Mulder family moment of bee stings and bedtime stories is interrupted by a call for him to hit the road for necessary Colonization-prevention work. Will knows he'll always be back.

thextruth's Our Next Path

""If someone had told Fox William Mulder that he would marry Dana Katherine Scully and that he would have two children with her. He wouldn’t have believed it, he never saw himself as a normal man, much less as a family man, but that's something that he wouldn’t change for anything in the world, his family is all his happiness, and see Scully give a kiss to that little one who is half her and half him, is always surreal, after all, he is a simple man who loves those little daily moments that fill his whole life.""

This long fic is a series of family fluff-- the type with nothing but cozy family drama, a couple kids, and a twinkling happily-ever-after.

Mulder Left but Scully Joined Him

touchstonea’s

Amor Fati: Destinata (The Fated Love), Act One: Desiderium (The Longing)

Amor Fati: Destinata (The Fated Love), Act Two: Et Perierat et Inventus Est (The Lost and the Found)

Amor Fati: The Fated Love, Act Three: Tres Discendens (The Leaving of the Three)

""From the other side of the connecting door, a complicated sequence of long and short knocks. T…R…U…S…T…N…O…1…pause. Mulder. Or…

Taking a deep breath, Scully raised her fist again, and her knuckles tapped out her own sequence. O…B…F…U…S…C…A…T…E…pause. She turned the lock on the door and stepped back.

Holding her gun at the ready, she listened to the muffled sounds as the door on the far side opening slightly… then a little more. It creaked. She held her position, not sparing a glance at Will behind her on the bed.

Another breathless moment, and she was watching her knob turn, ever so slowly.""

This epic diverges from canon after William was rescued from his kidnapping. Part 1 focuses on Scully's long, conflicted back-and-forth plans with TLG, Skinner, Doggett, and Reyes before she hits the road to reunite with Mulder. Part 2 is her journey and reunion: Mulder's fierce love and devotion, Will's uncanny abilities saving their hides, and reconnection while constantly being tagged and tailed by the Conspiracy. Part 3 kicks it up a notch: Scully insists they address Mulder's abduction PTSD and rescue other Super Soldier victims, barely escaping the Alien Bounty Hunter, and stumbling into Gibson's coalition in the woods with an alien faction. (This author writes spectacular and well-thought out logical connections that weave the misshapen mytharc back together.)

Revely's Unfinished Universe (Goss)

""They have a private evening ritual - nose to nose on the bed they practice telepathic communication.

Scully disappears into the motel bathroom for their soft-shelled display of male bonding, shutting the door behind her with aggravating finality - boys' side, girl's side. Mulder immediately stops casting out brain waves and begins to wonder what she's doing in there. She's awfully quiet. The baby just dozes and tries to nurse Mulder's nose until he manages to work one of his fists into his mouth.""

Does this count? Mulder is returned after Will is born; and Scully drives her son out to him. The three reconnect in gentle fits-and-starts on the long journey back. (LOVE this-- one of the first fics I'd ever read; and still a favorite.)

Gillian Leigh's (MC) Visitor in the Desert (MC)

""You have no other proof?" he asked, seemingly disappointed.

"No," she said, quietly.

"I'm supposed to take the word of a total stranger as the Gospel Truth?" he asked, almost mockingly. "I'm sorry, Rhiannon. But in my line of work, I've learned not to trust people." Rhiannon's eyes filled with tears again, and she looked down at her hands before speaking again.

"If you don't stop Scully from giving William up from adoption, I am an example of what will become of every human being on this planet," she said, calmly. "I may look like a human being on the exterior, but I am thirty- three and one-third percent alien.""

Mulder gets a vision while hiding out in the desert-- a girl from the future warns him against Scully adopting out William. He rushes back, reclaims his family, and drags them all (and friends) to an underground bunker civilization preparing for Colonization-- where he finds not only Scully's brothers, but also Samantha. The girl in his vision keeps appearing to him, and is eventually revealed to his daughter.

Honorable Mentions

@we-mad-guys’s forgetting the future

Skinner, TLG, and the Scullys take turns caring for Will when his parents are forced to work out of town secretly on anti-Colonization measures. (Love this fic; but I already included it in my Dad!Mulder sports fics.)

WordsSpillFromMyOpenVeins_89’s Weekend At Martha’s Vineyard

A vacation at the Vineyard for Mulder, Scully, their son, and his dog (which leads up to a proposal.)

Beduini/beduini's Hurricane Season

Not a favorite, but it fits the bill. Featuring unresolved tensions and PTSD crackling between new parents Mulder and Scully and among the Scully family at large, this fic explodes with mess and tensions every chapter or so, forcing everyone to get along in the midst of a sudden hurricane.

AND~ my previous Dad!Mulder fic lists here--

S9 Mulder Stays or Returns While the Mytharc Barrels On

Fics That Fit My Niche “Dad!Mulder” Likes

MORE Fics That Fit My Niche “Dad!Mulder” Likes

Dad!Mulder, His “Mini Me"s, and Sports

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

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freckleslikestars · 2 years

Text

Five Times Mulder Asked Scully to Marry Him and One Time He Didn’t

does what it says on the tin :)

2016 words, read here on AO3

i. She’s bleeding the first time he asks. Thorns of agony pierce his heart as burgundy red stains her snow-white skin. She bleeds elegantly, holds her composure even as the life drains from her, and he hates her a little bit for it because if she can daintily hold his handkerchief to her nose and murmur quiet placations as she dies in front of him, he has no right to go to pieces. He’d joked just last week about picking out china patterns, but when the words leap from his mouth it’s not that kind of wedding he’s asking for.

She startles, freezes under his gaze, and only the tang of iron on her tongue breaks her from her shock. He sits across from her, eyes pleading, unsure how to explain that he doesn’t want to be shut out of her hospital room when they say ‘family only’ again. It seems he doesn’t have to find the words; she can read him like a book.

‘You’re my emergency contact, Mulder. You’ll always be the first to know,’ she neglects to tell him that she changed her emergency contact and next of kin to him on her medical records two days after she woke from her coma.

He gives a tight smile and a stiff nod. Of course, a much more rational workaround. Much more sensible. They spend the rest of the day in silence, a metallic, bitter taste lingering in each of their mouths.

ii. She’s lost everything. Her health. Her daughter. Her bodily autonomy. She’s in remission, hasn’t had a nose bleed in nearly two months now, but she still feels wraith-like; her skin still a sickly hue under fluorescents, her ribs a protruding xylophone beneath her suits. She’s trying to put on weight but her appetite is still fighting its way back.

A weekend away. Sea air. Peace and quiet. Just what she needs, just what the doctor ordered. No family – no squalling babies to remind her what she can’t have – no Mulder and no aliens. Just the wide, empty ocean and the hole in her heart.

But trouble and the darkness find her like a magnet, and she’s secretly relieved at the sound of Mulder’s voice on the end of the phone, the faux-nonchalant quality of it that reveals just how much he’s missing her.

She doesn’t know who she’s showing off to when she recites all she knows: the friendly local police chief or him. She tells herself it’s the locals, that she doesn’t need his approval or his help, but she blooms when she hears his awestruck voice, can hear the smile in his whisper.

It takes all her restraint not to blush, not to give away just how much she wants him to mean it. But Jack Bonsaint is looking at her expectantly and so she rolls her eyes and wonders briefly if he can sense her disparaging look in the tone of her voice.

iii. They’re drenched in Egyptian cotton, limbs tangled and lethargic. Two bottles of overpriced champagne charged to a bureau card. There’s a silver plate of fresh strawberries on the side table that they’re occasionally reaching over to, sharing bites and licking up trails of sweet juice.

They’re giggly and past tipsy and can’t keep their hands from wandering, not that they need to. There’s no case pressing down on them, and for the rest of the weekend, they’re free of all responsibilities, with nowhere else they’re needed other than right there in bed, in the bath and in the luxuriously large shower. He’s mulling over the idea of taking her to the Griffith Observatory tomorrow evening, but he’s not sure he wants to leave the bliss of her embrace.

She’s soft and pliant in his arms and he cannot fathom ever letting her go, so he does the only thing he can think of doing with three-quarters of a bottle of champagne swimming through his system, ‘marry me, Scully,’ pressed into her collarbone as he licked his way down towards the valley between her breasts.

She hums contentedly and smiles wide, raking her fingers lazily through his messy hair. She tugs him back up to her mouth, chases his tongue and nips at his plush bottom lip. Her eyes are dark and deep, and he might just drown in them if she keeps looking at him like that. She rolls him over and settles atop him, glows as she makes love to him with a wide, dopey grin.

Neither will admit to remembering it in the morning, and the observatory will be toured silently, hand in hand, but his request and her soft moans of ‘yes,’ will echo throughout both their minds.

iv. Ten fingers. Ten toes. Big blue eyes and a button nose. He’s perfect; perfect little ears and the perfect Cupid’s bow. There’s a soft, awestruck quiet that has settled around her apartment, and as out of his depth as he feels holding his son – their son – nothing feels more right than the sturdy weight of him cradled in his arms.

She’s sleeping beside him, her body curved around the mass that’s no longer there, and he can’t help falling even more in love with her. She stirs as if she can sense his thoughts, and for once he doesn’t think about opening an X file on it. Her face crumples when she props herself up on her elbow, wincing slightly at the tenderness, and he gently presses his thumb against the crease in her forebrow until it soothes out. William coos and she peers into the bundles of blankets, capturing one of his little, flailing hands and pressing a kiss to it.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he murmurs quietly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, ‘I want to ask you something, and I don’t want you to feel pressured or anything.’

‘Okay..?’ her voice trembles with hesitancy.

‘I want to do this thing right. I want to be a good dad, and a good partner and...and I want to be a good husband. I want to be there for you and for William, and I understand if that’s not what you want, and I didn’t ever think it would be something I would want. I grew up with my parents in a loveless marriage that ended in a terrible, terrible divorce and I swore I wouldn’t do that, but then I met you and I cannot imagine spending my life with anyone but you. I don’t want you to feel pressured though. It’s up to you, it’s your decision and we can take it at whatever speed you want, I just wanted to get it out there as something to think about and-‘

‘Mulder?’

‘Yeah?’

‘My answer’s yes. I’d like that, very much.’

She reaches up as he bends down, meeting in the middle for a soft, sweet kiss. A knock on the door disrupts them, triggering a wail from William, and Mulder chuckles, pulling away, ‘you know, this is our life now, right?’

‘And I can’t imagine being happier,’ one more pecked kiss and they carefully transfer William into his mother’s arms and Mulder goes to answer the door, opening it to find a note left on the floor in the corridor.

He’s got just under two days to go into hiding. Their eyes are red and raw by the time he ducks out, the watery dawn grey barely filtering through the windows of her apartment, the warmth that usually fills it having cooled.

v. He has a scruffy beard, she has dyed hair, and they haven’t stayed in the same town for more than three weeks in over a year. Different identities cycled through just as frequently. There’s a stupor that’s hung over them, dark clouds concealing a sun that struggles to fill the sky.

They’re in a town somewhere on the border between Arizona and Nevada and she’s waitressing at a diner, picking up every shift she can. They have a duffle of money – Mulder had spent years squirrelling away caches of money across the country, just in case; five hundred dollars here, a thousand there - but it’s dwindling and, whilst Scully’s technically an accomplice, she’s less recognisable with her hair died, and so she’s the one picking up odd jobs when she can.

It’s all too much. They’ve spent nearly a decade with a very specific purpose together and now they’re freefalling, grappling with how to exist in a world without structure and, more importantly, without their son.

They have their moments, though, when the pressure increases to boiling point and they snap. The storm breaks and they explode, sometimes vicious words hurled with painful accuracy, sometimes an angry fuck against the door of their motel room. And in the aftermath, a peace reigns. It lasts maybe a week, maybe two, but there’s a clarity in that peace, a reminder that they’re still in love.

It’s one of these sweet times they find themselves in now, coiled atop scratchy motel sheets whilst the ancient air conditioner wheezes over them. She’s soft and supple, draped over him and running her fingers through the scraggly hair on his chest. ‘I need to get to work.’

His arms wrap tighter around her waist, ‘no. I want you to stay right here.’ She hums, content to stay a moment longer, content to exist in this moment of calm. He kisses the top of her head when she looks at her watch, pouts when she sighs and pushes herself up and off the bed. He watches as she dresses, fastidiously buttoning her blouse, pinning back each flyaway strand of dull, mousy brown hair. She takes her time covering her freckles and the little beauty mark above her lip, anything that could be used to identify her. ‘Scully?’

‘Hm?’ she locks eyes with him in the mirror.

‘Come ‘ere.’

She’s hesitant as she sits on the edge of the bed, careful not to wrinkle anything - some habits die hard, and she’s her father’s daughter: she may not be working in the office anymore, but wrinkles and tardiness are not something she would ever allow. His brow furrows and she runs her thumb over it, ‘what?’

He takes her hand, kisses her thumb and each finger, lingering on the fourth one a moment longer than the rest, ‘would you...’

‘Mulder?’

‘Marry me.’

‘What?’

‘Doesn’t have to be now, but...I don’t want to lose you.’

She shifts, looks away from him. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Mulder.’

‘Just...think about it.’

She’s at the door before he can blink, ‘I’m going to be late for work.’

vi. He’s a free man. Technically, they both are now, but she’s had a modicum of freedom for a while. It’s new to him. So, he meets her at the hospital, just to bring her lunch. He smiles at the stir they’re causing as Dr Scully walks through the halls on the arm of a man.

He takes her to the Bahamas and they spend their days on the beach and in the water, eating mangoes that spill juice down their chins and rowing out into the startlingly blue abyss of ocean. They hike across rocky shorelines and through dense forest. He applies sun cream across her back religiously, but she still burns, and her freckles darken.

It’s their last night on the island, walking barefoot on the sandy shore, the gentle lap of waves around their toes. The moon’s bright, the sky cloudless, and the night feels endless when she stops in her tracks, their linked hands tugging him to a halt too.

She smiles at him, a blinding smile, and pulls him in closer to her, the whisper of her lips across his quiet in the still night. ‘I want to ask you something.’

He’s bemused but nods with a hesitant smile, ‘anything.’

Her mind flashes back on all the times he’s asked, all the times she’s scoffed at him or turned her back on him, and has a sudden need to never let him feel the anxiety that’s bubbling within her ever again. ‘Marry me?’

Tagging @today-in-fic

#my writing #xf fanfic #txf #x files #the x files #msr #five times #small potatoes #chinga #hollywood AD #existence #on the run #post iwtb #dana scully #scully #fox mulder #mulder #they're in love your honor

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swinging-stars-from-satellites · 2 years

Note

HERE IS A PROMPT FOR YOU: scully’s a little sick maybe and mulder tries to be helpful? (maybe he makes her instant ramen bc it’s the only thing he can really make that isnt in the microwave and also hey its got broth? that means it’s nutritious for the sicklies right? :’))

unabashed self-indulgence here because my brain is,,,, slightly rotting shdjdbsj. I fully believe Melissa Scully dragged her little sister out some weekend in mid-1993 to gossip about cute, jerk FBI partners and watch the silly dinosaur movie. you can pry this pointless headcanon from my cold, dead hands.

stop to think if they should

1k words | mid-s2 | tagging @today-in-fic :)

"Mulder, it's me," says Scully's stuffy-nosed voice across the phone line, and Mulder chuckles at how peeved she sounds.

She is the latest casualty to the latest cold bug going around, and had left work early the day before because of it, glaring at him when he called after her to get some rest. He supposes she must be sick of hearing that, after the last few months. First her abduction and subsequent recovery, then the quarantine after their fiasco at Mt. Avalon, then Pfaster. She's back in the field, but it hasn't been an easy time and she's probably going stir-crazy, if not crazy otherwise. She laughs louder now when she laughs, and he can't complain about that, but it's a little desperate, like she's looking for light she can't quite reach.

"Hey," he greets, "How you feeling?"

She sighs. "Achy, congested, and bored out of my mind," she says, then too-quickly adds, "But I'm fine, I promise." Which is when he knows she's not.

He's leaving the office a little late, tosses a bundle of files into the back of his car. "Want me to come over?"

"I said I'm fine, I don't need-"

"I know," he assures her. "But I've heard I'm an entertaining guy, so..."

She hesitates, a silence so thick he can practically hear it over the phone line. "Okay," she eventually says, a little quieter than before. "Sure, if you want to."

"Want me to pick anything up on my way?" He asks, smiling to himself at her acquiescence. "Some food, a movie?"

More hesitation, practically her trademark, and he's already pulling into a supermarket that he knows makes great soup. For someone with a large, obviously caring family, Scully is terrible at allowing others to take care of her. Maybe the old adage about doctors making the worst patients is true, after all. She mumbles a title and he laughs out loud, backtracking when she stammers a quick, embarrassed "nevermind".

"I got it, Scully. Half an hour, tops." He barely shuts his mouth on the casual, instinctive love you that nearly slips out, stunning himself to stillness momentarily.

He does — love her, that is, even if he can't quite pin down what that means. Her abduction proved that; she's quite possibly the most important person in his life and he's still not sure what to do about it. He buys a big container of chicken soup, enough for Scully to have leftovers for the next day, grabs a carton of ice cream — neapolitan, because he doesn't know what kind she likes best — and rents a movie. For now, he can do this for her.

She's curled up in a corner of the couch when he lets himself in, dangling the plastic supermarket bag from one hooked finger. "The party," he says by way of greeting, "Has arrived."

Scully gives half a smile over her shoulder, wrapped in a tassel-ended blanket and draped in an oversized souvenir sweatshirt he'd bought her as an apology in the Anchorage airport, after their disastrous trip to Alaska last year. That, he thinks, feels like something out of a movie. Her nose is red and her freckles are a little hidden by the flush of her cheeks, and she looks a little bit miserable, but miserable is better than genuinely ill.

"I meant to ask," she says, wobbling back and forth on the cool tile of her kitchen floor as he hunts around for bowls and spoons, "Who, exactly, has said you're entertaining?"

Mulder stops his kitchenwide search and fixes her in his gaze for a moment. She's teasing him, yes, but she's also got a hint of genuine curiosity in her bleary blue eyes. "Mostly strangers," he says with a sheepish chuckle. "In bars."

That gets a little bit of a laugh from her, then she coughs raggedly into her elbow and tugs the blanket — which she's holding like a cape, clasped around her shoulders — a little tighter. She points to the drawer where she keeps her silverware, then retreats back to the living room. After presenting her with a bowl — or cup, since it has a handle, but it's too big for him to be sure — of soup, he unveils the last item he brought and watches, maybe a little too pleased, as she flushes even redder.

"I thought you were more of a horror film person," he teases, glancing over his shoulder at her as he fiddles with her VCR. "The Exorcist and all that. Not so much Jurassic Park."

Scully shrugs, embarrassed, and Mulder flashes her a smile so she knows he's just teasing, trying to keep her distracted from her stuffy nose and watery eyes. "Melissa made me go see it with her last year," she offers as an explanation. "Some things are just... fun, I guess."

Mulder is taken off guard by the way she shifts and leans against him when he sits down beside her. Scully has never seemed to be as tactile as he is; she's never rejected his touches, even when his heart gets the better of him and he's probably pushing his luck, but the only time she's openly sought him out was after Pfaster. Now, though, with the television playing and blanket tightly around her, she curls against him almost instinctively.

He can feel the warmth of her slight fever through the fabric of his shirt, can feel her gradually go more and more limp. She's going to fall asleep on him, to the sounds of rain and dinosaurs roaring, and maybe to the sound of his heartbeat, also. He wonders for one fanciful moment if she could hear the way he feels about her through a stethoscope.

Eventually, hesitantly, he slips his arm around her back and draws her closer, her hair frizzing out across his chest. "This okay?" He asks softly against the warm top of her head, and she nods, humming sleepily and sniffling. He thinks she mumbles something about Hollywood science making no sense, and Mulder smiles with his lips still against her hair. If he told her he loves her right now, she might be too out of it from sleep and cold medicine, too preoccupied with what little of the movie she's absorbing as she drifts to sleep, to remember it in the morning. His heart beats a little faster at the thought, and he only says it in his mind. For now, this is enough.

#feeling wildly and flagrantly self-indulgent tonight #Lu writes #txf #the x files #dana scully #fox mulder #mulder and scully #msr #msr fanfic #also shdjfbsjx once again you are the ramen noodles mutual <3

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agent-troi · 1 year

Note

If you wanted to write a Conduit fic, I would read it sooooo fast! ("Don't let your dreams just be dreams. DO IT.") ;)))))))

Lol I've actually been writing it in my head ever since l made that first post and here it is! Ask and ye shall receive🤗

Faith, Hope, and Love

Word count: 926 | Rating: Gen | AO3 link | @today-in-fic

Summary: Mulder looks for answers in Scully's faith; a continuation of the scene at the end of Conduit and a window into Mulder's thoughts.

----------

Contrary to the persona he chose to exhibit, belief did not come easily to Fox Mulder. He had never had much faith in faith; after all, if prayer worked, Samantha would have long since been returned to him. His belief that the truth was out there was not so much a certainty as it was a desperate plea for order in the universe; the heart-wrenching need to know that somewhere, anywhere, there was an answer to the questions that tormented him.

He didn’t know quite what to make of Scully’s worldview. She claimed to put her faith in science and that the answers to life’s mysteries were not to be found in the stars, but rather in books, logic, and reason; and yet she wore that little cross around her neck, almost small enough to miss if you weren’t looking for it, but its presence alone spoke volumes.

He had studied his new partner extensively before she even walked into the office, so he knew she had gone to Catholic school. Of course, the fact that one attended Catholic school didn’t necessarily mean they had faith themselves; it just meant their parents did, and they wanted their children to have the same. Scully’s remarkable achievements in the sciences since leaving home should have been a repudiation of her faith-based upbringing.

And yet, she still wore that damn little cross. There must be some reason, something it gives her that her science doesn’t.

So now here he was, sitting in the pew staring at a worn, faded photograph of Samantha, wondering why a building that was designed to make you feel like you were in the presence of some awesome, benevolent force made him feel so small and alone.

“Mulder?”

Scully’s voice distracted him from wallowing in his misery. He looked up to see his redheaded partner standing at the entrance to his pew. She looked at him curiously. “What are you doing here?”

Mulder shrugged and gestured vaguely at their surroundings. “Trying to understand what you get out of all this.” He frowned. “How did you know I was here?”

“I didn’t.” Scully entered the pew and sat down next to him. “I was thinking about you and Samantha, and I decided to come here and light a candle for her.”

She rested a comforting hand on his shoulder and they sat together in silence for a long moment. They bowed their heads; Scully in heartfelt prayer, Mulder in an earnest yet ultimately fruitless effort to seek solace in a faith that wasn’t his.

At length Scully spoke again. “I don’t know if aliens had anything to do with it, but something happened to your sister. Someone knows what happened to her, and the answer is out there somewhere. We just have to figure out where to look.”

“We?” Mulder snorted. “This isn't your quest, it’s mine. You don’t have to follow me down this rabbit hole.”

“Yes, I do, Mulder.” Scully insisted. “I’m your partner.”

She removed her hand from his shoulder to take his hand in hers and squeeze it gently. “You’re not alone, Mulder. Try to remember that.”

Tears pricked at Mulder’s eyes. “You– you don’t make any sense,” he stammered, as he tried to keep his voice from breaking. “You think I’m crazy, just like everyone else does, but you’re here. With me. Why?”

Scully smiled. “I can’t explain it either. But some things don’t have to be explained. Some things just are.”

“What, like God?”

“Something like that, yes.” Scully regarded him curiously. “I take it God is the one thing you don’t believe in?”

Mulder shrugged. “Let’s just say my life hasn’t given me much reason to believe there is one.” His gaze turned inward. “My family was Jewish although we didn’t practice, but after Samantha disappeared plenty of people in the neighborhood offered to pray for her. At first I spent most of my time making posters with her face on them and hanging them up around the island, but after a while I got desperate enough to join some of those prayers.”

He clenched his knuckles, crinkling the photograph slightly. “They turned out to be even less helpful than the posters. It was all just meaningless platitudes, well-intentioned pleas made to a higher being who probably didn’t even exist, let alone if he was even listening.”

He snorted again, but it came out as a sniffle. “There was nothing I could do, nothing anyone could do, either when it happened or afterwards. I thought the almighty, all-powerful God was supposed to help the helpless?”

Scully shuffled closer to wrap her arms around Mulder’s shoulders and pull him a little closer. “My faith in God hasn’t always been absolute, Mulder. I’ve seen evil, real evil, in the world, and I’ve often wondered how He can allow it to exist. But I have to believe that for all of the evil that’s out there, the good is stronger. You could say… I want to believe.” She chuckled, and Mulder’s lips twitched, although he didn’t smile. “Don’t give up hope, Mulder. The truth is out there, and we’re going to find it. Together.”

Mulder allowed his head to fall against Scully’s shoulder as she spoke, somehow finding more comfort in her words than he had in his meager attempts at prayer.

He and Scully might take drastically different approaches, but ultimately they shared the same goal.

Together, they would find the truth, even if all they had was faith and hope.

I– we– will find you, Samantha, he vowed. I promise.

----------

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

–1 Corinthians 13

#today in fic #x files fanfic #txf s1 #conduit #fox mulder #dana scully

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atths--twice · 2 years

Text

Chapter Seven

I Don’t Know What To Say

Some new information comes to light…

Scully was staring at Mulder who was in turn staring at Peter. Her blood pounded loudly in her ears and she swallowed, her throat very dry.

“What is he talking about?” she said. “Mulder, what-”

Loud muffled shouts from the hallway interrupted their conversation and had everyone looking toward the door.

“I will not calm down!” A woman was yelling. “I will not listen to what you’re saying right now! I have to see him! Let go of me!”

The door burst open and Mulder and Scully jumped up, hands on their weapons. A woman stood in the doorway, Doctor Huron behind her.

“Oh my God! It is you. Oh, Peter!” She ran into the room, stopping at his side and staring at him.

“Gina? What are you doing here?” he asked as he sat up straighter in bed.

“What… what am I doing here?!” she shouted. “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“Ma’am, this is a hospital. You need to lower your voice,” Doctor Huron said sternly and Scully looked at Mulder, her hand moving from her gun.

“Peter… I can’t believe it’s you. I’ve been praying…” She gave a strangled sob and shook her head. “Say something.”

“Hello?” he said with a smile and a small shrug and Gina nearly collapsed, her knees buckling beneath her.

Mulder quickly caught her, giving her his chair. She laid her head on Peter’s chest and cried as he closed his eyes and ran his hand in her hair.

The other three in the room looked at one another awkwardly, not speaking as their attention returned to Peter and Gina.

“I thought… God, I thought I would never see you again,” she cried and Peter sighed, kissing the top of her head.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I never meant for you to worry.”

“Jesus, Peter,” she half sobbed as she raised her head and wiped her eyes. “Where have you been? What happened to you?” She touched his face and he leaned into her touch.

“I don’t know, G. I really don’t know.”

“Oh, Peter! Your treatments!”

“Gina,” he said, his face falling as he shook his head.

“Are…” She turned her head, her eyes wide as she looked from Mulder to Scully seeming to just realize they were there. Her gaze swung to Doctor Huron and she furrowed her brow. “Is he receiving his treatments?”

“Treatments?”

“Yes, his treatments.”

“Ma’am,” the doctor said, raising his eyebrows. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You don’t… don’t know what I mean?” Gina asked, standing to her feet.

“Gina,” Peter said, but she ignored him.

“He’s been missing for a month… he’s missed so much time.” She turned back to look at him with fresh tears on her face. “Peter…”

“Gina… please sit down,” Peter said and she did, sinking into the chair. “I have something I need to say and it’s going to hurt you. If I could avoid it, forever, I would. But you deserve the truth, no matter how much you may hate me after I say it.”

“I would never-” she started to say, but he put a hand up, stopping her from speaking.

“You might, because I hate myself.” He dropped his head and let out a deep sigh. “The center turned me away when I got here. Told me that the cancer was too aggressive and to get my affairs in order instead.”

“What?” Gina said, a hand going to her mouth. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Cancer?” Doctor Huron asked and Scully looked at him, watching him frown.

“Yes,” Peter said, nodding as he looked at Gina. “Stage four lung cancer. Quite a shock as I never smoked and have always been fairly healthy.”

“Peter,” she whispered, taking his hand and holding it to her face.

“You…” Doctor Huron turned and walked from the room, hurrying down the hall. Mulder looked at Scully, raising his eyebrows as she shook her head.

“They said… there was nothing they could do. That the treatments would kill me faster than the disease. That I should plan my goodbyes and make sure things were in order for those I was leaving behind.”

Scully’s stomach dropped as she felt Mulder’s eyes on her, her hand going to her neck almost of its own volition.

Two years she had been clear, the chip beneath her skin doing its job, but it felt like yesterday when she had nearly died. She swallowed and dropped her hand down, meeting Mulder’s eyes briefly before looking back at Peter and Gina.

“You didn’t tell me,” Gina sobbed and Peter shook his head.

“I couldn’t. I knew you’d fly up here and want to be with me.”

“Of course I would, you idiot,” she said and he laughed softly, stroking her face.

“I couldn’t do that to you. To have you watch me die. To see the hope in your eyes diminish. You would have fought to the very end, demanding the doctors do more and fix things.”

“Of course I would, you idiot,” she said again, whispering this time as she started crying softly.

“They said six weeks. I… I couldn’t wrap my head around that and I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. I wanted you there, but I didn’t want you to watch me die.”

Scully looked at Mulder, her heart aching.

She had felt the exact same way. Wanting only him to be with her, but also wanting him as far away as possible. Seeing him watching her get weaker and weaker would have broken her heart, forget the cancer killing her. Knowing how her death would affect him, that would have been her downfall.

Mulder stared at her and she tried to smile, but knew it came out wobbly. She shrugged slightly, attempting to smile again even as she felt tears stinging her eyes. He nodded and sighed, looking down at the floor before shaking his head.

“I was driving, no destination in mind, when I stopped for gas and met Brent. He told me there was a party in a cemetery in town and it felt sadly poetic and I decided to go. I was going to take the night being reckless and stupid and then… call you and tell you everything was fine and they seemed hopeful.” Peter sighed and looked at Gina with tears shining in his eyes. “I couldn’t take that from you, that hope. I… I thought as long as you had it, maybe I would be okay.”

“Peter,” Gina cried, dropping her head to his chest again and sobbing.

He murmured to her and Scully quickly looked down and wiped away the tears on her cheeks. She saw the tips of Mulder’s shoes as he came to stand beside her. Raising her head, she met his eyes and he sighed as his arm gently brushed against hers.

“Six weeks,” Gina cried and Peter hummed. “That gives us only two weeks. Oh, Peter.” She cried harder and Scully drew in a steadying breath.

“I know. I’m so sorry. I should’ve called. Should’ve done so many things differently.”

Scully reached out and found Mulder’s hand, which had already been reaching for hers. She gripped his fingers tightly, her breathing shaky as she closed her eyes. He squeezed back and she bit her lip to keep from crying out.

“Umm…” She heard and opened her eyes as she raised her head. Letting go of Mulder’s hand quickly, she took a step away from him as Doctor Huron stood before them, a file in his hands. “Mister Blake…”

“Please, just Peter,” Peter said. “I’ve heard enough Mister Blake said in a concerned and polite tone, to then hear the worst news imaginable.” He shook his head and then pressed his lips to Gina’s hair. “Whatever you have to tell me, Doc, I already know.”

“I don’t think so,” Doctor Huron said with a smile as he stepped closer to Peter.

“What do you mean?”

“We ran tests when you came in unconsciously and unresponsive. Scans, x-rays, blood work. Not in any of the tests did we find the presence of cancer.”

“What?” Peter, Scully, and Mulder said together.

“It’s the truth. If we had seen it, or known about your history, it would have been one of our top concerns. Especially stage four.”

“What?” Peter said again and now Gina had quieted her tears and raised her head so she could listen.

“Could I see his chart?” Scully asked and Doctor Huron gave it to her as he continued to talk to Peter.

She looked through it and raised her eyebrows as Mulder read over her shoulder.

“Is it true?” he asked softly and she nodded in disbelief. She looked at him, her eyes wide.

“The probability of him having no signs of an aggressive form of cancer…” She shook her head and looked back at Peter.

“I… I don’t know what to say,” he said. “I want to be completely sure. Can… can we run more tests? Oh my God… Gina…” He pulled her to him and they both cried as they hugged and laughed.

Doctor Huron smiled as he watched them and then turned to Mulder and Scully, a perplexed and concerned look on his face.

Glancing down at Peter’s chart once more, she felt a knot beginning to form in her stomach.

How was it possible?

#xf fanfic #the x files #long post sorry i have to do this on my phone #fictober22 #case fic #xffictober2022 #fictober #what is happening #getting interesting #msr #worry and concern

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alexa-crowe · 2 years

Photo

the pain of bittersweet love

“Doubt Comes In,” Hadestown / “The Tesla Effect,” Murdoch Mysteries / S2E6, Fleabag / “Trust No 1,” The X-Files / “Something Beautiful,” Better Call Saul / “Jaime IV,” A Feast for Crows / “The Lame Duck Congress,” The West Wing

Image 1:

ORPHEUS: It’s you…

EURYDICE: It’s me… Orpheus…

ORPHEUS: Eurydice…

Image 2:

William: I’d hoped I’d find you here.

Julia: William, I didn’t think I’d see you under the circumstances.

William: Julia, nothing in this world means more to me than you.

Julia: William, I—

William: And I believed you’d felt the same for me.

Julia: …But I do.

William: Then I simply don’t understand. There must be something you’re not telling me. Why are you leaving? Julia, please. I have to know.

Julia: Very well. […] I—I—I should have told you before now, but I—I was frightened of losing you to something I couldn’t control. And so I decided to assert control myself.

William: By leaving?

Julia: It’s for the best. Isn’t it? Well, this way you can meet a woman who can…give you the life you deserve. …William, please say something.

William: I—I—I don’t know what to say.

Julia: Yes, well, that says it all, doesn’t it?

William: No, I…

Image 3:

Fleabag: It’s God, isn’t it?

Hot Priest: Yeah.

Fleabag: Damn. Damn. You know, the worst thing is…that I fucking love you. … I love you. No, no, don’t. No, let’s just leave that out there, just for a second on its own. I love you.

Hot Priest: It’ll pass. [...] I love you, too.

Image 4:

Scully (V.O.):

One day, you’ll ask me to speak of a truth—of the miracle of your birth. To explain what is unexplained. And if I falter or fail on this day, know there is an answer, my child, a sacred imperishable truth, but one you may never hope to find alone. Chance meeting your perfect other, your perfect opposite—your protector and endangerer. Chance embarking with this other on the greatest of journeys: a search for truths fugitive and imponderable. If one day this chance may befall you, my son, do not fail or falter to seize it. The truths are out there. And if one day you should behold a miracle, as I have in you, you will learn the truth is not found in science, or on some unseen plane, but by looking into your own heart. And in that moment you will be blessed—and stricken. For the truest truths are what hold us together…or keep us painfully, desperately apart.

Image 5:

Jimmy: And he signed it just, “Chuck.” Well, say what you want, the man could write a letter.

Kim: (wiping tears from her eyes) Sorry.

Jimmy: Hey…

Kim: No, I didn’t—I didn’t mean to make it—

Jimmy: No, it’s okay, it’s okay. It’s—it’s a nice letter. Hey.

He reaches out to touch her.

Kim: No, just— …Just—just give me—just give me a minute.

She turns away and walks towards the bedroom. After a beat, he follows her.

Jimmy: Kim…

Image 6:

He glanced about the sept, at the gods. The Mother, full of mercy. The Father, stern in judgment. The Warrior, one hand upon his sword. The Stranger in the shadows, his half-human face concealed beneath a hooded mantle. I thought that I was the Warrior and Cersei was the Maid, but all the time she was the Stranger, hiding her true face from my gaze. “Pray for me, if you like,” he told his cousin. “I’ve forgotten all the words.”

Image 7:

Bartlet: Is this personal?

C.J.: Excuse me?

Bartlet: I hear things. I don’t understand most of it, but I hear it.

C.J.: No, sir, it’s absolutely not personal.

Bartlet: He’s a great reporter, and you’re a great press secretary, and that’s why it wasn’t gonna work as long as the two of you had those jobs.

[...]

C.J.: I know about the job offer.

Danny: …I figured.

C.J.: I’ve known about it for…a couple of days.

Danny: Yeah.

C.J.: You don’t wanna be an editor?

Danny: I’m a White House reporter.

C.J.: I know, I just thought by taking a job outside the press room—

Danny: C.J., I have no problem with a reporter dating a press secretary.

C.J.: …Well… I have a problem, so…

Danny: …Yeah. …Okay. I’ll see you later.

C.J.: Okay

#mine #idk what to tag it as #web weaving #and now i subject you all to my favorite shows!!!#+ the 'a song of ice and fire' book series

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jesscoloway17 · 3 months

Text

the mood changer v2

Fox Mulder, renowned FBI agent and believer in the supernatural, woke up one morning feeling out of sorts. Something was off, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. He rubbed his temples and tried to shake off the strange sensation that lingered in his head.

As he stumbled out of bed, Mulder noticed a peculiar object on his nightstand, a device unlike anything he had ever seen before. Glowing with an otherworldly aura, it beckoned to him. Unable to resist its allure, Mulder reached out and picked it up, instantly feeling a jolt of electricity surge through his body.

Suddenly, his emotions started to fluctuate uncontrollably. His once piercing blue eyes turned yellow, radiating with happiness. But just as quick, they transformed into a deep shade of sadness, a haunting blue that mirrored the depths of his soul. Mulder found himself tossed on an emotional rollercoaster, unable to predict or control the waves of feelings that consumed him.

Across town, Agent Dana Scully, Mulder's ever-skeptical partner, was on her way to meet him for their next case. Little did she know what awaited her. As Scully entered the office, she noticed Mulder hunched over his desk, a mix of emotions playing on his face like a kaleidoscope.

"Mulder, are you alright?" she asked, concern lacing her voice.

Mulder looked up at her, his eyes now a fiery red, a burning anger echoing through his gaze. "No, Scully. Something is happening to me. I can't control it," he said, frustration dripping from his words.

Scully's analytical mind started to race, searching for a logical explanation. "Have you seen a doctor? Maybe it's some kind of medical condition?"

Mulder shook his head, his eyes shifting to a soft shade of pink, filled with a newfound love. "I don't think it's medical, Scully. This feels like something... alien."

Scully raised an eyebrow, a mix of disbelief and curiosity dancing in her eyes. "Alien? Mulder, you can't seriously believe that."

Mulder's eyes turned black, filled with fear that sent chills down Scully's spine. "Scully, I wish I could explain it to you. But this device in my brain, it's manipulating my emotions, turning me into something I'm not."

Scully felt a pang of sympathy, watching her partner struggle with his newfound abilities. "Mulder, we'll figure this out together. We always do."

Days turned into weeks as Mulder's emotional turmoil continued. Scully had witnessed every state, every color that flashed through his eyes. Their dialogues, a mix of confusion and determination, reached new heights of creativity as they raced against time to find a way to remove the alien device.

But amidst the chaos, there were moments of pride, where Mulder's eyes gleamed green with accomplishment. With Scully's unwavering support, they made breakthroughs, unraveling a web of conspiracy that went far beyond their wildest imaginations.

And as Mulder's eyes turned a vibrant lime green, Scully couldn't help but feel a sense of pride herself, proud to stand beside him in their quest for the truth.

Finally, after tireless research and countless near-misses, they discovered a way to remove the device. Mulder lay on an operating table, his eyes shifting between dark pink and yellow, a mix of nostalgia and happiness flooding his thoughts.

Scully, wearing surgical gloves, leaned over Mulder, holding the tools that would free him from his emotional prison. "Ready, Mulder?" she asked, her voice filled with a mix of concern and determination.

Mulder nodded, his eyes turning a calming grey, his confusion giving way to trust. "Do it, Scully. I trust you."

With steady hands and unwavering focus, Scully carefully removed the alien device from Mulder's brain. As it fell into her gloved palm, the colors that had dictated his emotions for so long faded away. A sense of relief washed over them both as Mulder's eyes returned to their normal hazel hue. He looked at Scully, gratitude shimmering in his gaze. "Thank you, Scully. You saved me."

Scully smiled, her eyes shining with a mix of satisfaction and affection. "I always knew we'd find a way, Mulder. We're a team, remember?"

And with that, Mulder and Scully left the chapter of the alien device behind them, knowing that their bond, forged through countless challenges, would always guide them to the truth, no matter how strange or unbelievable it may be.

#the x files #fox mulder #msr fanfic

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alliedbiscuit · 3 years

Text

msr fic / s7 post-closure but pre-all things / wc: 3398

Scully takes Maggie out for a birthday dinner, and you'll never guess who they run into.

************

“So, how are feeling about dessert?” the waiter asks hopefully.

Maggie Scully scoffs. “Oh, no. I couldn’t eat another bite. Maybe just a cup of coffee? Decaf, please.”

“Mom, are you sure? You should get dessert,” Dana Scully prods, stopping herself short before she could let it slip, “It’s your birthday!” The last gift her mother would appreciate is a gaggle of underpaid waiters singing some public-domain-compliant version of a birthday song while the whole restaurant turns its attention toward her. Like mother, like daughter.

Well, the daughter made an exception and found that kind of thing charming exactly once. But at least she got a nice keychain out of it. All her mother would get was humiliation and a chocolate lava cake.

As soon as the waiter leaves to fetch their after dinner coffees, Maggie reveals her true intentions.

“I was thinking we could go to that ice cream parlor down the street. If I’m going to indulge, I think I want a hot fudge sundae. Or maybe we could split a banana split?”

“Or you could get a hot fudge sundae and I could get a banana split, and we could split both,” Scully suggests.

“See, that’s why you work for the FBI.”

“Dessert Conflict Resolution was part of my training at Quantico.”

Both Scullys giggle.

“Does Fox have the same specialty? Or is that what you bring to the team?”

“Mulder’s dessert strategy is just to eat everything and then swim a mile and run five the next day. No, he’s a Takeout Menu Marksman, though. He knows where to order from and what to order so it travels the best and doesn’t get cold and congealed by the time it arrives. Might sound like a trivial skill, but it’s a lifesaver on movie night.”

Maggie continues smiling but cocks her head slightly. Dana realizes why almost instantly.

“You have movie night?”

“It’s not a set thing or anything. We just…if we’re not busy with a case.”

“You just watch movies? As coworkers?”

“As friends.”

“Just friends?”

Dana lets out a long sigh as she stares her mother down. Her mother, maintaining that gentle yet challenging grin. Dana considers her response carefully. She could offer a simple yes because that is the fact of the matter. They are just friends. She could criticize the wording choice. “Just” friends? Why does it have to be “just” friends? As if friendship isn’t somehow enough or isn’t valuable?

She could realize it’s her mother’s birthday and she’s the only other Scully woman left to confide in about matters of the heart, and although she doesn’t want to bring up the New Year’s kiss because she still doesn’t really know what it meant, maybe they both need this little gift of honesty, filled with tempered excitement and promise.

“For now,” Dana Scully finally admits.

Maggie’s grin grows as Scully just shakes her head and manages to keep her slight eye roll from reaching embarrassed teenager level. The waiter does bail her out a bit by choosing that moment to deliver their coffees.

“How is Fox doing? After his mother…” Maggie trails off, but her daughter knows not to expect any more specifics.

“Better? I mean, as well as can be expected. The thing is, right after that, he found out some more about his sister. About what happened to her. It was just so much all at once. I was really worried…”

Maggie reaches across the table to lay a hand on hers.

“But, it was almost like he was ready for it. He finally had some answers. Like it brought him some peace.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“Yeah. He needed that.”

“We all do.”

*************

Maggie is the one to spot him first as they’re heading for the door.

“Is that- is that Fox?” she asks her daughter.

“What? No, he wouldn't…” Dana trails off as she looks straight ahead to where her mother was indicating and confirms that it is indeed Fox Mulder, standing with his hands in his pockets and his eyes trained to the floor as he appears to be waiting near the vestibule for the restrooms.

“Mulder?” Scully questions as she approaches, her voice giving away her confusion and growing concern.

His head darts up in surprise, but a beaming smile of recognition quickly overtakes his face.

“Hey, Scully! Mrs. Scully, it’s so nice to see you!”

“You too, Fox,” Maggie kindly replies, although a quick glance to her daughter confirms her suspicion that Dana is still very confused by his presence.

“Did you…did you need something?” She suddenly feels silly for presuming that he must have come there with urgent news or a case or something, but why else would Fox Mulder be at Petrino’s on a Saturday night? Did his informants trade in clandestine meetings in parking garages for family-style Italian?

“Hmm?” Mulder asks.

“You didn’t come here to find me? I told you I was bringing my mom here for her birthday, didn’t I?” He didn’t look like he had rushed to the restaurant from the office or his apartment as she had originally assumed. He had clearly shaved and combed his hair nicely. He wore an olive green sweater with dark blue jeans and a black wool pea coat rather than his leather jacket. He had definitely made an effort.

“You did, but I thought you were going out tomorrow night on her actual birthday. Happy birthday, by the way, Mrs. Scully.”

“Thank you, Fox. I’m going to have lunch with some ladies from church after mass tomorrow, so I asked Dana if we could do Saturday night instead.”

“Ah. What a weird coincidence then. I can’t believe we didn’t see you at all during dinner.”

We.

Oh God.

Mulder was on a date.

Mulder was on a date in this restaurant on the night he thought Scully wasn’t going to be there. Mulder was on a date right after Scully had confessed to her mother (and herself) that their “just friends” status was in the process of changing. Mulder was on a date right after he’d been through so much pain but seemed to come out lighter and more open and he wanted to share it with someone…who wasn’t Dana Scully.

“So, you’ve already eaten then?” Maggie asks since her daughter appears unable to form a coherent statement at the moment.

“Yeah, we just finished. I’m just waiting for her…” he seems to trail off just to motion towards the restroom rather than say anything indelicate, but then he notices Maggie’s poorly masked look of concern toward Dana, and then he notices Dana’s completely unmasked look of shock.

And then he gets it.

“Oh, no! It’s not…I want you to meet her,” Mulder insists as he grabs a hold of both of Scully’s elbows and then glances anxiously toward the restroom door.

Dana Scully looks like she might be ill.

Thankfully Mulder only stammers a moment longer until the restroom door opens and he finds reprieve when a tall, thin woman appearing to be in her mid-60s walks through the door.

“Aunt Helen,” Mulder calls.

Somehow Scully’s eyes manage to get even wider as some of the color returns to her face.

“Aunt Helen, there are a few people I’d really like you to meet. This is my partner, Dana Scully, and this is her mother, Margaret Scully.”

Aunt Helen smiles widely in recognition, first shaking Maggie’s hand and then Dana’s. “It is such a pleasure to meet you both. I’ve heard such wonderful things.”

She lingers with her hand holding Dana’s while she says this, and the younger Scully is left blushing. She hazards a look at Mulder, but he doesn’t look embarrassed by this revelation. He holds her gaze with nothing but pride.

“This is my aunt, Helen Briggs. She’s my mom’s sister. She’s visiting for the weekend from Charlotte.”

They all kind of marvel over the fact that they were in the same restaurant and what a coincidence and oh, we were seated near the back bar, that must be why we didn’t see you and Scully is just starting to feel her pulse return to normal as Aunt Helen laments not having a chance to talk with the Scullys.

“Well, Dana and I skipped dessert so we could go to The Big Dipper for some ice cream. Would you two like to join us?”

“Oh, that would be lovely. As long as we’re not intruding,” says Aunt Helen.

“Not at all,” Scully assures her. “There is one catch, though.”

“It’s not real ice cream. It’s that Tofutti nonsense, isn’t it?” Mulder groans.

“It better not be,” Maggie insists. “I don’t know how she eats that stuff.”

Scully ignores her mother and her partner’s bad mouthing of her frozen treats as she returns her attention to Aunt Helen.

“I’m afraid if you want to come along, you will have to reveal a few good Young Mulder stories. And by ‘a few,’ I mean as many as you’ve got. And by ‘good,’ I mean the more embarrassing the better.”

“I’ll start thinking now,” Aunt Helen laughs.

“I knew I should’ve picked a different restaurant,” Mulder says regretfully.

***********

They’ve just sat down to a small, round table for four with their ice cream when Mulder stands up to get them all more napkins, and Aunt Helen retrieves a small, rectangular piece of paper from her purse that she then deftly slides to Dana.

“Oh my god!” Scully exclaims with joy.

Staring back at her from the paper is a very young Fox Mulder. She guesses he must be around 8 or 9 in the school photo. His long, sandy brown hair falls just above his eyebrows. He doesn’t have his distinctive nose yet, but his bottom lip is already a little pouty. The real give away is the eyes. He’s grinning for the camera, but his eyes still have that soulfulness, that slight sadness.

She’s surprised. She knows she shouldn’t be. His eyes didn’t suddenly change when Samantha was taken. His eyes were probably always like that.

But she had always assumed that the great tragedy had flipped a switch for Young Fox Mulder. That before that single event, he had certainly been a perfectly happy child. Funny and athletic, popular for sure. But the humor developed as a defense mechanism later in life. And the sports were a great physical release as well as an excuse to be out of the house as much as possible. She didn’t actually know what he was like before, but now that she thought about it, home life was probably never all that great if it eventually led to a father sacrificing one child and leaving the other to always live with the guilt and loss.

It was very possible that Fox Mulder had always been a little boy with a lot on his mind.

In contrast, present day, adult Fox Mulder looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world as he returns with extra napkins, ready to tuck into his chocolate peanut butter ice cream in a waffle cone – that is until he realizes what his friend and partner Dana Scully is looking at.

“Oh come on. I was gone for thirty seconds, and you have the visual aids out.”

Scully continues to beam as Maggie finally gets a glimpse of the photo in her hand.

“Oh, Fox!”

“Okay,” Mulder said exasperatedly. “Does this meet your embarrassment quota?” he asks, looking pointedly at Scully.

“Not even close! This isn’t embarrassing. It’s adorable!”

Mulder rolls his eyes but can’t hide his bashful grin at her comment.

“It’s only fair, Fox. I know you’ve seen family photos of Dana at my house,” Mrs. Scully says, sounding like a mother well practiced in settling disputes between children.

“Just a couple. I do like that high school graduation picture, though. I still don’t know how you kept your cap on with all that hair.”

“That was the style back then. Everybody teased their hair and used a ton of hairspray.”

“I thought it might be a religious thing at Catholic school. The higher the hair, the closer to God,” Mulder teases.

Maggie and Aunt Helen chuckle, though the latter gives him a good-natured swat on the arm in admonishment.

“See, this is what I need, though. I need something from the teen years. That’s peak embarrassment fodder,” Scully says.

“If you ask our colleagues, I think my peak embarrassment fodder would come from about 1991 to present,” Mulder points out.

Aunt Helen just looks slightly regretful. “I’m afraid I don’t have many stories from those years, Dana.”

Mulder makes eye contact with Aunt Helen. “You didn’t miss much,” he insists. She looks like she wants to debate him, but he just places a hand on hers reassuringly, and they seem to make a silent agreement to not argue the point any further.

Mulder had never really mentioned any other family before. She knew his grandparents had all passed before she met him, but she had assumed, just like with everything else, that any other extended family connections had disappeared along with Samantha. That no one would know how to comfort and console The Mulders in a situation like that, with no explanation.

His aunts and uncles must have had questions, probably even had their own theories. Did his mother’s side suspect his father’s involvement, or did his father’s side blame his mother somehow? Did any of them blame…no, she couldn’t go down that route. Besides, did anyone ever suspect horrific things like that before the days of cable news and supermarket tabloids?

The point is, it was a tense situation, so Scully assumed they had all done what wealthy white people in places like Martha’s Vineyard and Boston and Raleigh did with any uncomfortable subject – they avoided it completely.

And that meant avoiding the little boy with a lot on his mind as he became a teenager with even more on his mind.

Scully had accompanied Mulder to a small burial service for his mother in Raleigh a few months ago. It was just the service. No gathering or dinner after, or at least not one that Mulder told her about. The attendees at the service were all pretty spread out, not much mingling. Again, it was another sudden loss shrouded in mystery. They all avoided particulars as much as they could.

Scully didn’t remember seeing Aunt Helen that day, but maybe she was there and just couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Maybe she wasn’t there because she couldn’t bring herself to go and then regretted it. Dana Scully didn’t know, and it didn’t actually matter. The point is that she’s here now. And that’s exactly what Mulder’s look of reassurance and acceptance seems to say.

It seems to help her perk up because she offers playfully, “Oh, what about that summer on Quonochontaug? I think you were 9 or so, and you were collecting leaves for one of your Indian Guide badges.”

“Oh god!”

“I’m hooked already. Not to jump ahead, but please tell me there’s poison ivy involved,” Scully says gleefully.

Aunt Helen’s bark of laughter and Mulder’s exaggerated eye roll are all the confirmation she needs.

“It was heavily involved! But that’s not the worst part. While he was working on his Leaf Collecting badge, he also earned credit towards his Wildlife badge when he came across a skunk in the woods.”

“No!” Scully shouts.

“Ivyed and skunked at the same time,” Mulder admits.

“Oh you poor thing,” Maggie adds sympathetically, but with barely contained laughter.

“He had to jump right from a tomato juice bath for the skunk smell…”

“Which didn’t work!”

“…into an oatmeal bath for the itching.”

“Which worked better, but I still smelled like a Grateful Dead concert.”

Both Scullys are full on giggling at this point.

“Do you remember what Grandpa Ralph said when he walked in and saw you and mom dunking me in a tub of oatmeal?” Mulder asks.

Aunt Helen pitches her voice deeper and amps up her Southern twang, “Why don’t cha dip him in some egg and flour next? We toss him in the frying pan, we got supper! We’re havin’ Fried Fox tonight!”

Now they’re all in hysterics. Even the man who usually hates his given name can’t help but laugh along, especially when it makes his lovely company so happy.

*****************

Scully enters the basement office Monday morning to find Mulder already there, flipping through an open drawer in the filing cabinet.

“Good morning,” she says cheerfully.

He looks up and smiles. “Good morning. Long time no see.”

“How was the rest of your weekend? Did you guys do any sightseeing or anything?”

“No, we just had a late breakfast yesterday before I took her to the airport, but it was good to catch up some more. She told me to thank you again for letting us tag along for ice cream. It was really nice.”

“It was,” Scully agrees.

Mulder appears to be considering something for a moment before he crosses over to the desk and picks up a small envelope.

“She also told me to give this to you,” he says almost bashfully, extending the envelope in Scully’s direction. “She told me I couldn’t look inside, and I didn’t. But I think I know what’s in there, and if I’m right, you don’t have to keep it. You can just leave it here on the desk.”

Well, now she’s intrigued. Scully opens the envelope to find a small handwritten note at the top.

“I thought you might like these. I have plenty more too, if you’d ever like to see them or want any more stories. Please don’t be a stranger.”

Scully lifts up the note to see the remaining contents inside and finds a small stack of photographs, a mixture of more school photos along with a few wallet-sized family portraits and a couple candids taken on the beaches of the Vineyard or Rhode Island, she can’t tell. But she sees the same set of eyes in all of them.

She looks back to read the rest of the note.

“I’m so glad I got to meet you, Dana. Take care!”

Below Aunt Helen’s elegant signature, she has also written her home address and phone number. Scully will have to call and thank her.

“She tried to give some to me,” Mulder explains, “but I didn’t really want…and like I said, you don’t have to…”

“No, I’d like to keep them,” Dana insists.

Mulder lets her statement hang in the air for a moment, but he can’t help but diffuse it.

“You just want more blackmail material.”

“Something like that,” Scully says teasingly, but there’s no bite behind it.

“I knew I should’ve picked a different restaurant.”

She chuckles lightly as she shuffles the photos into a neat stack to place back in the envelope, thinking that this is the point where they get back to work. Mulder stays standing in front of her and appears to be considering something again. Does he have another envelope that he’s afraid to give her?

“You know it was pure luck that we ended up at Petrino’s the same night as you. I actually gave Aunt Helen a few options and let her choose. I was pushing more for that Thai place in Arlington, just off Old Dominion. The one that’s been there forever,” Mulder explains.

“Oh, the one with the secret menu? I’ve still never been there. Can’t say I’m surprised that Aunt Helen wasn’t up for Thai food, though.”

“Yeah. Fair point,” Mulder nods for a moment too long before continuing. “Would you like to go there sometime? Like this Saturday? With me?”

Scully slowly looks up from the envelope to see Mulder’s face because in all matters, other than the divine, Dana Scully needs to see to believe. And the slightly nervous yet gentle grin that she finds allows her to believe it to be true – Fox Mulder has just asked her out on a real date.

“I would like that,” Scully says gently.

“Good. You wanna say 7:30? Or we can always figure out time later,” Mulder states, aiming for practicality to keep him from grinning like a complete idiot. He ends up grinning like a moderate idiot, but he’s okay with that.

“Sounds good.”

Yep, Scully will definitely have to call Aunt Helen and thank her.

#msr fanfic #txf fanfic #msr #mulder and scully #dana scully #maggie scully #fox mulder

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oohnotvery · 4 months

Text

Wherever Is Your Heart (Chapter 11)

PART IV

Mulder

Scully’s finally looking a little less peaky, although it was touch-and-go there for a few days. After the team rescued them from the Sno-Cat, it took several rounds of fluids and antibiotics before either of them was ready to attempt the trip back to D.C.

She sleeps for most of the journey home, her head pressed against the airplane window and her arms curled around her body as if she’s still cold. He drapes his jacket over her shoulders and watches as she sleeps. At many points in their journey across Antarctica, it occurred to him that he’d never get to watch her sleep again. For the hundredth time since waking up in a hospital bed next to Scully, he is thankful to be alive and at her side.

In D.C., Mulder leads a still-drowsy Scully to the arrivals terminal, where he’s been told that Skinner has delivered a fleet of vehicles to meet them and transport them home. He doesn’t think they’ve ever arrived home to this much fanfare. But when they get out into the steamy summer heat, it isn’t Skinner but Agent Meyer who runs towards Scully, his arms flinging around her body and spinning her through the air like she’s some sort of child. Like she hasn’t just gone through hell and back.

Mulder watches suspiciously as Tyler leans her down to kiss her and his stomach churns as Scully’s hand makes its way up to his elbow to squeeze tightly in reciprocation.

He doesn’t know what he expected to happen to him and Scully after their most recent adventure, but watching her kiss another man was certainly not it.

She glances his way as she slides into the passenger seat of Meyer’s car and he gives a half-wave. He doesn’t know how to acknowledge what transpired between them in a sendoff, and he’s a little glad that they don’t have to debrief just yet. But he could definitely do without the blatant PDA.

He spends a few days kicking around his apartment listlessly. He feels like a kid on summer break, with that restless, despondent sort of grief that tends to consume him after the finale of every grand adventure. Except usually, Scully is around to help him through his despondency.

The weekend passes in a blur of laundry, groceries, and basketball, and finally it’s Sunday night. In the morning, he will get to see Scully for the first time in days, and he’s not sure what to expect from her.

Do they just forget the intimacy they shared? Do they ignore the way they kissed and hugged and touched each other in that sleeping bag? Do they erase all the history they created? Do they pretend he never said you are the great, great love of my life?

On Monday morning, he’s forty-five minutes late because halfway to the office, he remembers the little bag of items he left sitting on his coffee table. He strolls into the office as casually as possible and Scully raises her eyes to glance up at him. If he’s honest with himself, he’d say her cheeks darken slightly, but it’s rainy today and the lighting isn’t good enough to truly tell.

“Good morning,” she says quietly, turning her eyes back to her computer.

Without fanfare, he drops the bag of items on top of her keyboard. She jerks back, eyes flitting to his.

“What’s this?” she asks, gazing suspiciously at the bag.

He clears his throat and plops heavily into his seat, spinning around once before answering her. “You left some things on the spaceship. Not only did I save your ass out there, but I got the goods too.”

Her eyes widen and she rips into the bag like a kid at Christmas. First, she pulls out her gold cross necklace and, biting her lip, steals a glance his way. She nods slightly to him in gratitude and he watches nervously as she clips it around her neck. It takes her fingers a few seconds to get it right but when she does, she touches the cross gently at her breast.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, sounding genuinely grateful.

“There’s ah, there’s one more thing,” he replies, reclining in the chair and twiddling his thumbs, trying to seem casual.

She frowns for a minute and then digs back in. Her eyebrows jump to her hairline and then her face all but crumples as she pulls out the ring.

The gaudy emerald one dotted with tiny diamonds. The one she started wearing back in February, around her birthday. The one Agent Meyer gave her. Mulder had almost abandoned it on the spaceship. Almost.

Mulder watches anxiously as Scully fingers the ring with a reverent sort of fondness. She seems more attached to it than to her necklace, which he’s never seen her go without, not for a single day. The ring has only been around for a few months. How is Tyler already that precious to her? Tears gather on her lashes and as they spill over onto her cheeks, he feels his heart break.

“Thank you,” she manages to say, her voice tight and controlled, at complete odds with the wetness on her cheeks.

He sighs heavily and drags his hands over his face.

Well, that’s what happens when you wait too long, he realizes with a sinking feeling in his chest. That’s what happens when you tell someone you love them when they’re dying. It’s just not enough.

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

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spooky-nerd · 3 years

Text

I Wrote an MSR Christmas Fic in September, Sorry

Christmas comes but once a year, or so he’s been told. Which means that he has 364 days (at least) to strategize. And yet, he never quite manages to be able to escape it.

He’s come close a small handful of times. A mere brush with victory followed by crushing defeat. In 1971 he was hospitalized with appendicitis on December 24. Unfortunately, the hospital gave out little teddy bears with santa hats that year to all of the children. In 1994, he tried lying low in his apartment, but Mrs. Sanders from across the hall had dropped off a fruitcake wrapped in red and green paper with a ridiculously frilled bow. The fruitcake had tasted horrible, but then that had been comforting, because he has never had a fruitcake that didn’t taste horrible and would find the very idea to be unsettling to say the least.

Twice he has nearly managed to avoid Christmas altogether. An almost impossible feat, and a coveted one amongst those who bemoan the holiday like he does.

He is not a grinch, as some would suspect, and his heart is not withered and cold. He does not have a propensity for stealing presents from under trees, and he has never once uttered the words “bah, humbug!”. He just does not care for Christmas.

This had come as a shock to Scully during their first year of partnership. She had whisked into the office on December 23rd in a cloud of merriment, smelling like peppermint and humming festively. “So, what are your Christmas plans?” she had asked innocently.

“Well, I’ll probably microwave some popcorn and watch Plan 9 From Outer Space,” he had said in complete seriousness. In spite of his delivery, she had laughed. Probably at the absurdity of it, which likely was obvious to outside observers, he had realized then. And yet, his world-weary soul had lacked the energy to care.

“You’re serious?” She had dropped the smile, and in its place was that frown of disappointment that he was rapidly becoming acquainted with. For some reason, he had felt a bit sheepish.

“Yeah, I’ve just never been one for the holidays.”

“But Mulder, it’s Christmas,” she had said, her incredulity ratcheting up impossibly higher.

“Oh I know, Scully. Trust me, I know. 104.9 started playing Christmas music in October. My building super put up tinsel in all the hallways on November 1st. I’ve been visually assaulted by this holiday on every street corner since the day after Black Friday. I know it’s Christmas. I just don’t really care.” He had shrugged, in case the rant came off a little too harsh. Not that Scully was easily intimidated. He was quickly beginning to learn that too.

She had shrugged, already poised to drop the subject. “Alright. Enjoy your popcorn, then.”

He had smiled. “Thanks, Scully.”

She had paused, turned back to him. He had gotten a whiff of peppermint again, and wondered if it was a new holiday perfume, or just the everyday magic of her. “You know, November 1st is a little early for tinsel.”

Looking back, it is possible that he had begun to fall in love with her then.

* * *

In the four years that Scully has been his partner, he has discovered that she has exactly one flaw: she loves Christmas. The music, the food, the gifts, the decorations, she eats them all up with a little festively-adorned spoon. At his request, she had refrained from stringing lights up in the office, but in exchange, he is forced to accept one Christmas gift from her each year.

Of course, he isn’t a monster, so every year, he buys her a present, too. Usually something quite ridiculous and useless. Their second Christmas together, he had bought her a mug depicting the entire cast of General Hospital. “It made me think of you,” he had said, to which she had raised an eyebrow and smiled, sliding her own present across the desk to him with false demureness. He had given her a suspicious look and ripped into the gift with exaggerated zeal, just to make her laugh. With delight he had pulled out a tie with little green aliens and flying saucers.

“Scully,” he had said, completely smitten. She had smiled and shrugged. He had decided that is was possible he didn’t hate gift exchanges as much as he had previously thought.

* * *

On December 23rd, 1997, he walks into the office and she is not there. It is not a surprise to him, but it is a blow nonetheless. She should be here, bringing him hot chocolate in addition to his morning coffee, placing a gift on his desk wrapped in ribbon so clinquant and overwhelmingly jubilant that it makes his eyes hurt. She should be here, making him dislike the holiday less and less with each passing moment. And if she can’t be here, he should be there with her. He calls Skinner and tells him he is taking a personal day. He does not explain further but he does not need to.

“Okay. Tell her I said Merry Christmas,” Skinner says.

“Thank you, sir. I will.”

* * *

Within an hour, he is at her doorstep with a hazardously overstuffed plastic grocery bag, a six-foot spruce that is growing heavier by the minute, and a gift wrapped in paper that had been sparkly at one time but has now transferred all of its glitter onto his coat.

It takes her a worryingly long time to answer the door. But she does eventually, looking completely drained, a sweater wrapped around her thin frame. She is cold all the time now and she never complains but it has not escaped his notice. She looks exhausted, but it stops his breath how beautiful she is all the same.

She is surprised to see him. Even more shocked by the one-man window display he has become.

“Mulder? What are you doing?” Confusion, but also a smile in her voice that he can see glittering in her eyes, too.

“I thought I’d bring the party to you, Scully.” He is still a little out of breath, but he smiles, and finally she laughs, melodic and joyful. She lets him in.

* * *

With the muted tones of Bing Crosby playing smooth and unobtrusive underneath, he makes them hot chocolate, dons a Santa hat, and gets to work decorating her tree. She sits on the end of her couch nearest him and opens up the little boxes of colorful Christmas ornaments, handing them to him one-by-one with delicate care. He gets tangled more than once in the Christmas lights, each time extricating himself in a flurry of limbs and curses. It’s worth it to hear her laugh. He wants to close his eyes and listen to the sound and pretend everything is okay.

When he is finished, she holds out her hands wordlessly and he helps her stand up. He wraps an arm around her and they lean against one another, admiring the finished tree. He wonders if she knows it means so much more to him than just a nice gesture. Her grip tightens around him in a brief hug.

“Mulder,” she says softly. “I don’t even know what to say. You really didn’t have to do all this.”

They are quiet for a moment. Bing Crosby sings that it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. He finds that he agrees.

“I wanted to, Scully. I wanted to be here. The office doesn’t feel right without you,” he says. “Besides, you would’ve done the same.”

She huffs a small laugh. “You hate Christmas.”

“No I don’t.” She looks up at him and he meets her gaze. “I don’t.”

* * *

Exactly one year later, she is safe and whole and mulling over a file, tapping an absent beat on their desk with her pencil. He bounds into the office, over-laden with a diverse assortment of ridiculous Christmas paraphernalia. He dumps it all on the floor in an unceremonious heap, shakes the snow out of his hair, and tosses her a goofy smile.

“Hey, Scully,” he says, out of breath. “Wanna help me deck the halls?”

When they are finished, the office has never looked more unprofessional. They couldn’t be prouder of themselves. Before she leaves for the night, she gives him his gift and a kiss on the cheek. Also very unprofessional, as is the alarming rate at which his heart is beating. It’s just about the only thing he can think about over the holidays, and that in itself brings clarity.

* * *

Her hand is icy where it settles atop his on the steering wheel. He risks only a brief glance in her direction. ‘It’s really coming down out there,’ he had said obligatorily about thirty minutes earlier, squinting into the critical sliver of light their headlights were slashing through the dark flurries of snow.

“Let’s stop for the night,” she says. He nods and gets off at the next exit without question.

They find a motel down a nearly deserted back road that makes them both touch the concealed weapons at their hips just for comfort. The attendant wordlessly accepts their cash and slides them a key.

“You know what’s messed up?” he says as he flops onto the bed after a cursory inspection for suspicious stains.

“What?” she says, rooting through her bag for their toothbrushes.

“I don’t even know where we are.”

She sighs, a weary sound that he has gotten used to hearing in the months they’ve been on the road. Almost four months now.

“We are somewhere in the southern part of Kentucky. That’s all I know.”

“Scully,” he begins, the word absolutely riddled with guilt.

“Mulder, stop. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.” They’ve had this small scrap of conversation several times. He keeps waiting for her response to change but it never does.

Silence except for her continued rummaging. Then, a triumphant “Aha!”

He peeks out from under the arm slung across his face. “What-“ He stops at the sight of her wearing a santa hat and holding a lumpy package wrapped in newspaper and held together with duct tape. She smiles and inclines her head triumphantly. The hat tilts adorably and the little pompom falls in front of her face. He laughs in spite of everything. In the spirit of the season, she joins him.

“Merry Christmas, Mulder.”

He shakes his head, in awe once again. “I love you.”

* * *

In an unremarkable house, in an unremarkable room, in an unremarkable chair sits a man. He is unremarkable in some ways and remarkable in others. He is holding in his hand a two-inch long replica of a Louisville Slugger that has been made into a keychain. A gas station trinket, unremarkable in some ways and remarkable in others. He turns it over in his hands and cannot help the smile that spreads across his face. It takes him back to a motel on a snowy night in southeastern Kentucky, and he has a mind to stay there awhile.

She walks in at that moment, wearing the most hideous sweater he has ever seen. After a moment of stunned silence he lets out a loud gut laugh. She smiles, spreading her hands in a silent ‘ta-da’. The sweater is red and green, and knit into it are alternating rows of Christmas trees, presents, wreaths, some colorful blobs that inexplicably might be potted ferns, and a pair of kissing reindeer, both of which have antlers.

“You look horrible,” he says, still chuckling. “I love it.”

“I found it at a Goodwill.”

“An ironic name for a store that would sell such an act of violence.”

She laughs. “I’m thinking of adding it to my regular rotation. I could get you one, too, and then we could match.”

“Well, people in town already think we’re crazy. Maybe it’s time to start leaning into it.”

She heads to the kitchen to make the hot chocolate, and he puts his hand in his pocket for the thousandth time that day, touching the small box like he’s afraid it will disappear. While she putters around the kitchen, he stares at the winking lights of their Christmas tree and gathers his thoughts.

Within minutes she is back with two steaming mugs filled much too full, sloshing dangerously. She sips a little out of both of them, burns her tongue, and hands him his. The mugs are hot. She pulls her sleeves up until only the tips of her fingers are peeking out and holds the mug that way. He watches the entire scene, completely enamored.

She throws herself onto the couch with a sigh and it is a Christmas miracle that she does not spill any of the hot chocolate on that horrendously festive sweater. He settles down next to her and sips gingerly from his mug, contemplating the mystery of those reindeer.

“Is it a misunderstanding of deer anatomy or a political statement, do you think?” she says, clearly reading his mind. He makes a mental note to open up an unofficial investigation into how she keeps being able to do that.

“All I know is it’s my favorite thing you’ve ever worn.”

“Aww. Thanks.”

“I am curious about those potted ferns, though.”

“Is that what they are?”

They wait there together, sipping and talking about everything and nothing until the hour whittles down to nil and the clock strikes midnight, Christmas Day. He puts an arm around her shoulders and marvels at the way her head fits so perfectly in the crook of his neck. He presses a kiss onto the top of her head.

“Merry Christmas, Scully.” He whispers it like a treasured secret.

She turns to kiss him. “Merry Christmas,” she whispers back. Then she is up, grabbing his presents. She is eager for him to see one of them, and has been carrying the secret of what it is around with her for weeks. She hands it to him first, and he makes a show of opening it agonizingly slowly. She rolls her eyes and shoves him gently until he picks up the pace.

“Oh wow, Scully,” he says softly when he pulls the tissue paper aside to reveal a vintage restored Polaroid camera. “Thank you. This…wow.” He runs a hand over the glossy surface appreciatively, and then points it at her. “Say cheese.”

Within moments, the photo of her completely unprepared and squinting painfully at the sudden flash develops.

“Ugh,” she giggles.

“I’m keeping it.” He slips it into his pocket before she can snatch it away. His knuckles bump the small box, and he swallows the sudden lump in his throat. “Okay, now it’s your turn.”

He retrieves the gift from under the tree and watches her open it. “Oh, Mulder,” she says, pulling the typewriter out of its box. He’d had to place an anonymous ad in the paper for that one. They had decided at the beginning of their life on the run that they would use only the most basic technology, which meant burner phones and nondigital alternatives. “It’s beautiful.”

It is. It’s an Underwood, glossy white, impeccably maintained. He’d paid a small fortune to a very old man for this one. They had met in a public park. He had paid in cash. The man had brought it in an old shoebox inside a brown paper grocery sack. The whole transaction had felt vaguely illegal. The man had looked at least 100.

“Thank you.” She gives him a hug. She smells like hot chocolate and peppermint. It reminds him of a Christmas many years ago. A conversation about why he didn’t like Christmas. Oh how things have changed.

“Actually, there’s one more thing,” he says when she pulls away. She raises an eyebrow. She hates to be outdone, especially on Christmas. Incredulity turns into disbelief when he pulls out the small box.

“Mulder,” she whispers. Her eyes fill with unshed tears when he gets on his knee in front of her, and if he’s going to make it through this, he cannot look at her.

“Scully, I-“ his voice catches immediately. He clears his throat. “I know that the past few years have been…well there’s no words for it. You are the only thing that has gotten me through. You’ve been there Scully, since the beginning you’ve been there and I- I can’t imagine my life without you. I want so much more for you. You deserve so much more, and I…I wish that I could give you more. But this is all I have to offer, Scully. This is everything I have. I want to grow old with you and, and love you and support you and laugh with you until the end of time. I promise to be faithful. I promise to have your back and to be there for you always.” He takes a shaky breath. “Dana Katherine Scully, will you marry me?”

He looks into her eyes, and he sees everything there. The love and devotion that had started small and fragile and had grown into something ineffably strong. He cannot imagine a life without this woman. Bing Crosby’s voice floats quietly over from the record player, singing about having a merry little Christmas. He wants a life with her, a thousand more little Christmases just like this one, filled to the brim with ridiculous, garish holiday cheer. She takes a deep breath, the words that will determine their future poised on the tip of her tongue.

“Yes. Of course I will.”

- - - - - - - -

Note: Btw, I wasn’t lying about that sweater

#txf fic #msr #the x files fanfic #the x files #Fox Mulder #Dana Scully #txf fanfic #msr fanfic #christmas fic #x files fanfic #mine

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baronessblixen · 2 years

Text

Ficmas Day 22

A month ago @gladlybeyondanyxperience tagged me in this post and I finally wrote the fic! Fluff set after "Millennium". Wc: 1127. Tagging @today-in-fic

How to Spend Your Friday Night in Style

It’s as clear as day that Scully is not expecting him when she opens the door. What clues him in is not her baffled expression or the surprised “Mulder?” that falls from her lips. It’s her outfit.

Oh, he’s seen her in pajamas before. What he’s never seen on her though is the headband. The one he gave her before she left to spend Christmas with her family. The one with the big green alien head right in the middle. Seeing it on her makes his stomach somersault.

“What are you doing here?” Scully asks him. “Is something the matter?”

Everything is the matter. She’s wearing the headband he got her. It started out as a gag gift. He saw it and it made him chuckle. When he touched it, surprised by its softness, he thought about Scully.

He thought about the simple headband he’d seen her wear before together with the green and gooey face mask. The longer he stood there, the more he wanted to get it for her. Just as a silly gift. He never expected her to actually wear it.

“Earth to Mulder,” Scully says with a smile, touching his arm and shaking him out of his stupor.

“I’m just- do you always open the door like this?”

“I wasn’t exactly expecting company. You’ve seen me wear less- and worse.”

“I’ve never seen you wear this particular headwear,” he says, smiling.

“My- oh fuck.” Her hands fly to her head where she tries to hide the little alien head from view. His whole body shakes with suppressed laughter as he watches her squirm. She tries to take it off and he stops her.

“Leave it on,” he says softly, his laughter dying down. “It’s cute.”

“This is embarrassing,” she mumbles. “Can you please come in so my neighbors don’t see me like this?” He walks into her apartment, toeing off his shoes and taking off his coat. Scully slumps down on her couch, hiding her face in her hands.

“Hey, it’s not that bad,” he says, joining her. He rubs her back in soothing circles. “Does that mean you like my gift?”

She groans softly. “You weren’t supposed to see it,” she says, avoiding his gaze.

“Why not? You know, I was wondering…,” he trails off and waits for her to lift her eyes to him. When she does, he smiles at her flushed expression. “I got you this before we… before we did the thing-“

“-the thing, Mulder?”

“The kiss,” he says, still stupefied that they kissed last week, ringing in the new year in style. He’s thought about kissing her again every day since. Thinks about it now. Thought about it before he drove to her apartment. The thought may have influenced his decision to come here in the first place.

He’s no stranger to thinking about kissing Scully; he’s got years of experience. Up until a few days ago, thoughts were all he had. Now he knows what she tastes like and how her lips fit against his. He knows what she looks like when she’s just been kissed. It’s a whole different kind of torture.

“That thing,” Scully says quietly, smiling to herself. “But what does that have to do with the- with the gift you got me?”

“When I gave it to you, we were… I’m just wondering if an alien headband is a good enough gift for your best friend and work partner of seven years who you’ve recently just kissed for the first time.”

“I don’t think there’s an official gift category for that.”

“There should be,” Mulder says. “Can I ask- is today the first time you’re wearing it?” He sees her consider the question and she takes a deep breath before she answers.

“No. The truth is… I’ve been wearing it every day.”

“Every day,” Mulder says, dazed. “You really do love it, don’t you?”

“I do. It’s so soft and unlike my other headband it doesn’t give me a headache.”

“And it’s cute?” Mulder asks, beaming at her.

“Yes, it’s cute,” she admits. “So please stop worrying about what gift is or isn’t appropriate. Now that we’ve got this out of the way, why are you here? You never said.”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that. Come on.” She nudges his shoulder, keeping her hand on him.

“Since we’re being honest… I had no reason. I just wanted to see you. Spend some time with you.” Kiss you again, he thinks, but doesn’t dare say.

“Oh,” she says, surprise in her voice.

“I can leave if you-“

“-No, I don’t want you to leave,” she assures him with a hand on his. He can’t help himself and entwines their fingers. He marvels at how well they fit together. By all means, they shouldn’t. They were never meant to fit together. Yet, here they are.

“I like this,” Scully says and he tears his gaze away from their hands to look into her eyes. “You showing up to spend time together on a Friday night and not to whisk me away on some wild goose chase.”

“You don’t like it when I do that?” He grins.

“Sometimes I like to be home on Friday nights.”

“And wear a cute alien headband that your equally cute partner gave you.” He knows he’s pushing his luck.

“Yes,” she says simply, her smile enigmatic. He’s entranced and fully lost in her. She smells like lemon and toothpaste and looks like all his dreams come true. Silly headband and all. He’s irrevocably and thoroughly in love with her.

“You know what I also like to do on Friday nights?” she asks him with a playfully raised eyebrow.

“I hope you’ll tell me.”

“No, I’ll show you.”

Her hand slips out of his but he has no time to mourn the loss because she clasps his neck, gently tugging him down to her level. There’s so much fervency in her kiss that his knees buckle even though he’s sitting down. His own aching need grows with every passing second and every touch of her tongue against his. They’re so greedy that it takes Mulder a moment to realize where the pressure on his forehead is coming from.

It’s that damn alien head.

“Scully,” he says against her lips, unwilling to let go. “You need to take the headband off.”

“Does it turn you off?” She asks, sucking his bottom lip back into her mouth and making him forget everything around him.

“No, I… god, Scully, that alien head… it’s pressing into my forehead and it- it hurts.” She breaks the kiss, their lips separating with a reluctant plop.

“It- oh.” She tears it off her head and throws it behind her. “Come back here.”

She doesn’t have to tell him twice.

#ficmas2021 #holy wow this was so much fun to write #msr #xf fanfic #my writing #my fic

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silhouetteofacedar · 3 years

Text

Fox Mulder, Closet Romantic Ch. 21: Body Talk

Previous Chapter - AO3 - MSR, rated E

Mulder’s thirty years past kindergarten, but the anticipation he’s feeling in his body is reminiscent of the excitement he felt as a child over bringing his new model airplane to school for show-and-tell. Except the context is very, very different.

He’s got an envelope tucked into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, and he’s highly aware of every crinkle it makes as he strides through the halls, making his way down to the basement.

He’d expected to receive a clean bill of health, so the contents of the envelope weren’t a surprise. Even so… he’s fuckin’ thrilled.

“Morning, Scully,” he says cheerily, waltzing into the office and peeling off his jacket. “Another hot one out there, huh?”

“Mhm,” she responds, already elbow deep in paperwork. She’s always got her nose in some pile of documents, his Scully. God, she’s so cute, it’s unbearable. He thinks of when they first met, how rosy and round her cheeks were. He regrets not having done something earlier; he missed out on kissing her adorable baby face.

He really wants to kiss her now, but they’re at work, and she’s made it abundantly clear that At Work Scully is not open to the physical demonstrations enjoyed by Off Duty Scully. Instead he sidles up beside her, holding out the envelope in front of her.

She takes it, clearly noticing that it’s already been opened. “What’s this?” she asks.

“Just a little something, from me to you,” Mulder replies, going around the desk and plopping into his chair. He clasps his hands behind his head casually, grinning at her as she slides the folded paper out of the envelope.

Scully unfolds the page and scans it, nodding to herself. “Congratulations,” she says, glancing up at him. “This is… welcome news. But you didn’t need to bring me the physical test results, Mulder. Your word is enough.”

“Oh, but I know how much you enjoy solid evidence,” he says with a wink. “So, uh… do you have your results back yet?”

“This is definitely not an office-appropriate conversation,” she warns him, slipping the page back into the envelope.

“Sorry,” he says, lowering his voice. “But…”

“Yes,” she says quietly. “Last week. I’m in the clear.”

He smiles even wider at her. “So, given this new information, what do you suggest we do, Agent Scully?”

She holds the envelope out to him across the desk. “Right now, our jobs.”

He licks his lips, nods. “Of course.”

Ten minutes later, she gets up to put a file in the filing cabinet. As she closes the drawer, she lets out a soft cough.

“Friday,” she says in a low tone. “My place.”

Mulder feels a thrill roll through his stomach. “Now how am I going to get a single thing done around here ’til then?” Mulder asks. “All I can think about is-”

She gives him a warning look.

“-You,” he finishes. “Every moment, Scully.”

Scully gives him a little pout. “I’m sorry, Mulder. That must be very difficult for you. You know what you need?”

“What?”

She picks up a stack of folders out of their in-basket and drops it in front of him on the desk. “A case.”

Mulder doesn’t find them an actual case, but he does manage to annoy Scully with conjecture and conspiracy for two whole days until it’s closing time on Friday night.

This could be the most important romantic encounter of his life, and he wants to make sure he’s adequately prepared. He takes a cold shower when he gets home, scrubbing every inch of his body until his skin tingles. He clips and files his nails, plucks some stray hairs, trims a few scraggly ones down south. He almost shaves his face before deciding to leave it be. He suspects Scully likes a little stubble, after all.

It’s a warm evening, so he throws on a gray t-shirt and jeans and bounds out the door with damp hair and crisp, soap-fresh skin.

As a rule, he doesn’t sing while driving; but today, he’s humming just a little.

He knocks on her door at quarter to seven, bouncing on the balls of his feet, trying to shake out a little anxious energy. This isn’t a prom date, he chides himself. Calm down and be an adult.

The lock is turning and the door is swinging open and there Scully is, looking soft and inviting and dangerous all at once. “Hi,” she says, giving him a little smile.

“Hi,” he says softly, eyes drawn immediately to the low neckline of her simple wrap dress. He snaps his gaze back up to her face again. “Hi, sorry, I’m-”

“A little distracted?” she asks slyly. She opens the door wider. “Come in,” she says, beckoning.

“I, uh, didn’t bring anything,” he says awkwardly, following her into the apartment. “And now that I’m here that feels kinda thoughtless.”

“What would you have brought?” Scully asks.

He shrugs. “Flowers, wine, something that says ‘I want to get laid but I also respect you’,” he says.

“Well, that’s unnecessary,” she says, going into the kitchen and opening her junk drawer. “I already know that.” She pulls out a small stack of takeout menus. “I’m assuming you haven’t had dinner yet?”

I was kind of planning on having you for dinner. “I have not,” he replies.

She hands him the menus. “Pick a place, we can call something in,” she says. She takes a box of matches out of the drawer and walks over to the fireplace.

Mulder glances over the menus, but he’s mostly watching Scully. She seems relaxed and comfortable, lighting a few candles atop the mantlepiece.

“You want a little music?” she asks, blowing out the match.

“Sure,” he replies. “Surprise me.”

“Promise you won’t tease me for this,” she says, flipping through a stack of CDs.

“Any of those restaurants sound appealing?”

“The Italian place sounds good, but I don’t want my garlic breath to put you off,” he admits sheepishly.

She glances over her shoulder at him, giving him a little smile. “That restaurant usually sends a few mints in the bag; and you have a toothbrush here, if it’s that big of a problem.” She puts a CD into the stereo.

“I don’t mind if you don’t,” he says. “You want me to call it in?”

“Sure,” she replies. “You can order me a chopped salad and some of their spinach ravioli. And get garlic bread,” she adds.

When he hangs up the phone, he sees her standing by her stereo, nodding her head in time to the music. The song is slow and sensual, and somehow familiar. He goes to her, places a hand on her lower back. His spot.

“Marvin Gaye?” he guesses.

“Mm, no. Al Green,” she replies.

“Ah,” he says, nodding. “Never took you for a Motown fan, Scully,” Mulder says, pulling her in by the waist. “You always keep me guessing.”

She closes her eyes, sways in his arms. “I save this one for very specific moods,” she admits.

“And what moods are those?” he asks, running a hand up her back.

She opens her eyes. “I’ll show you later,” she whispers.

She’s looking at him with so much heat and adoration, and her lips are so full and soft, he can’t speak; only lean down and kiss her.

They drift together, interlocking shapes moving through space, rearranging patterns of hands and lips.

“We’re going to get interrupted by a delivery guy again,” Scully says against his cheek.

“Mm… kinky,” Mulder whispers, lips brushing her ear. “This is gonna become a pattern for us. Are you an exhibitionist, Scully?”

“Baby steps,” she says, patting his chest as she pulls away. “I need to leave a few mysteries for you to discover later, right?”

They sit cross-legged on the floor next to her coffee table, knees touching companionably as they eat their dinner.

“You know,” Scully says around a bite of garlic bread, “This makes me think we should go on another picnic. Since the weather is more appropriate.”

“What, sitting on the frozen ground at night in February wasn’t your idea of a good time?” Mulder jokes, tangling his fork in linguini.

“I didn’t say that,” Scully points out. “In fact, that was one of my better birthdays in recent years.”

“Really,” Mulder says, surprised. “Why?”

She absently toys with a hole in his sock. “Because… because I’d had a rough year,” she explains, “And you put thought and care into doing something special for me. And it was perfect, in all its perceived imperfections. It made me feel that for once… you were finally paying attention. You saw me.”

“Saw you?” he asks softly, turning his head to look at her.

Her eyes shine into his. “Yes. You were there for me through my cancer, with Emily… you were becoming more attentive. And I felt like you were considering me, caring for me, knowing what I needed. Seeing.”

“I-I think that’s called love, Scully,” he says, chewing pensively. Part of him is surprised this is even happening; them sitting on the floor in her apartment, eating pasta out of styrofoam boxes, talking about their feelings. Hell, he just said the ‘L’ word without breaking a sweat.

“You’re right,” she says, leaning over and resting her head on his shoulder. “It is.”

Supper completed, containers emptied, candles burning down to stubs on the mantle, Scully sitting across his thighs as they kiss slowly. She was right about the mints, it turns out.

“Mulder, I’m a coward,” she sighs, running her fingers down his jaw. “I’ve been in love with you for years and I still haven’t said the words.” She presses a kiss to his lower lip. “Even though I know you reciprocate.”

“Take your time,” he replies, carding his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck. “I already know. And you technically did just say them,” he adds. “Besides, there’s more than one way to have a conversation.” He smoothes a hand over her kneecap, inching a finger beneath the hem of her dress.

“Mulder,” she murmurs into his neck, his name sweet in her mouth. “I’m ready. I want to be with you tonight. Completely.”

He can feel his pulse throbbing beneath her lips. “I… God, Scully, I want you so badly,” he sighs. “I can’t think of any other words. I'm all out.”

She kisses his nose, untangles herself from him to stand. “Come on,” she says softly, holding out a hand. “I think it’s time for a different kind of conversation.”

#oooh gurl they gonna DO IT #fmcr #xfiles #txf fic #msr #fox mulder closet romantic #my fic

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