#all-these-ghosts

Making Progress

“No, Diana. That was all you.” Mulder’s voice picks up, is louder now over the fake laughter on the screen. “No, I did not. Not once.” If only Scully could hear Diana’s side of the conversation. Mulder is quiet, appears to listen. He sighs once, runs his hand over his face.

“Scully is my partner, Diana.” Scully stands up straight, takes her lower lip between her teeth, worrying it. She should not be here, should not be listening in on this private conversation. But why can’t she leave?

Arcadia Scully overhears Mulder's phone call.

In Sickness And in Health (Ao3)

The waitress wanders off, leaving Mulder and Scully alone with their thoughts and their silence. He starts playing with the salt and pepper shakers, his hands unable to stay still. Scully wishes she had something to say. Anything. She watches and waits for the waitress and their food. Her stomach is in knots. She knows it’s not just because she hasn’t eaten anything in a while. It’s because of whatever is happening between her and Mulder. She wants things to go back to normal, but she still flinches when he touches her. The way he treated their first case back still leaves a sour taste in her mouth. The way he treated her, as his wife, even more so.

Maybe they should have sent Diana with him.

Post-Arcadia Scully and Mulder draw back together when she's hit with a nasty case of food poisoning.

@queeenpersephone/light_loves_the_dark's

wishbone

If Diana’s a liar, then Scully will be the only person to hold him without hurting him. And as much as he loves her, the idea that only one person has ever loved him without ulterior motives is almost unbearable. Is he that hopeless? Is he that unloveable? 

He’s ready to bark at Diana to give them a minute when Scully catches him by the wrist, and the fact that she’s still willing to touch him makes him hate everything a little less. He wants to touch her too: everywhere. To climb over her and into her and block out the past few months in the solace of her body. For now, he settles for turning back to her without a second thought to Diana, watching as she breathes in and out before speaking. “If you love me,” she says carefully, her voice breaking on love, “prove it.”

One Son Scully refuses to join Mulder and Diana.

in this metallic silence

“It has been six years,” Scully says quietly, like she is empty. Like she has lost a fight that he didn’t even know they were having. Lost a war while he has been on a different battlefield altogether. “If I am still just assigned to you, I should go.”

Post-One Son Mulder's trust in Diana is finally torn away after Scully is injured in the field.

Erin M. Blair's

Never Me

Does he trust me?

Sometimes, I wonder.

One Son Scully is fed up with the lies and deceit.

Mistaken Moments

"Are you going to quit?" asked Mulder.

"Is that what you think I should do?" inquired Scully. Her eyes flashed with anger at Mulder. "Sometimes I don't think you really trust me. You have droned on and on about how not to trust other people but then you placed your trust with Diana Fowley. And I wonder why." Mulder and Scully were both in the elevator towards the basement office. As Scully watched the floors go by, she turned towards Mulder, "I wonder why you trust her."

Post-One Son Skinner has to facilitate a vacation for his emotionally bruised agents.

@minuete-blog's Done

“No. We’re done. I’m done.” She looked at him slightly wide-eyed, stunned at her remark seeing the mirrored expression on Mulder’s face. Did she genuinely feel that way?

One Son Scully reaches her limit.

@contrivedcoincidences6/Spooky66/geektime66's Things you said #10 (Ao3)

He sees her there, still in her car but she doesn’t see him. Scully’s face is in her hands and her shoulders are shaking. The need to run and comfort her overwhelms him. He can count on one hand the times that he’s seen her cry.

Before he can second-guess himself he knocks on her window, startling her.

One Son Mulder promises to verify Diana's trustworthiness.

Diadem's

Scene 15 - Winner Takes All

Some little part of you must know that I love you. I never told you, it wasn't really necessary. But I'll be there when you fall, Mulder, and as always I'll be right beside you to pick you up again.

One Son Scully doesn't know what Mulder sees in Diana.

Maybe and Movement With Time

id he ever find me useful? Were my theories, my versions of events ever taken seriously, or was I simply around for amusement value? Did he ever find me attractive, as a woman, rather than a gun-toting authority figure? I thought he did. Maybe he didn't.

Post-One Son Scully navigates her complicated feelings with distance, looking for evidence of Mulder's loyalty and devotion.

Dianora's Impasse

The ride back from the Air Force hangar passed in tension-laden silence, none of the passengers in the car ready to discuss what they had seen, or the carnage they had witnessed. Despite her inner turmoil, Scully half-dozed for much of the ride, the physical and mental exhaustion of the past 24 hours finally catching up with her. She was looking forward to a long hot bath and then a good night's sleep, but when Skinner pulled up in front of Scully's apartment building, Mulder got out of the car too.

"What are you doing?" she asked, slamming the car door shut.

"I'm going in with you, so we can talk."

One Son Mulder stubbornly clings to Diana's friendship, forcing Scully to prod the limits of his loyalty.

Vehemently's Rainbow Sign

Agent Spender matched his white dress shirt, the arterial red a startling speckle on skin and cloth alike. Mulder noticed the gauze padding that blood was gluing to the man's ribcage. Scully, who had worked hard to forget her rotation in emergency medicine, saw instead the face upturned, nostrils gaping and half-open eyes revealing only the whites.

They stood together like that, in the hallway, while the elevator took on its passengers and began to close. Before the doors had closed all the way, the paramedics began shouting to each other. There was just a glimpse to be had of a man climbing astraddle the gurney before the doors were shut and all they saw were their own dull reflections.

Post-One Son Mulder pieces together the breadth of Diana Fowley's duplicity.

@is-on-its-way/Ophelia_is_a_nun's In the name of the Father, the Skeptic and the Son (Ao3)

He did have to talk to Scully. The stooges had been a little bit right. He had been a jerk at their place. But not because Scully might have been wrong, because he had so much else on his mind that seemed so dire at the time. Preventing an invasion of colonist aliens for one. That when she’d made it clear she didn’t trust his judgement, it had been the last straw for his patience.  But he’d been dismissive and mean in a way he’d never been with her. He’d hurt her, and he was terrified she would leave him for good. He needed to try to make this right. 

Mulder, Scully, and the aftermath of One Son.

JLB's Car Ride

We haven't spoken for the last ten minutes, but I will not be the one to break the silence. I refuse to give in first even though I know that this entire situation is strange and I should make allowances. I'm driving Skinner's car, which he graciously offered to us since he had to stick around and oversee the official investigation. Part of me wishes I that I had insisted on staying, that I had just let Mulder take the car and go by himself. I could have caught a ride with someone else later. But then I would have been avoiding the inevitable, not confronting this head on. Not like I'm actually confronting anything now, but at least we're sitting in the same car, even if it is in complete silence.

But I refuse to speak first. I will not do it. For a variety of reasons. Yes, I'm still angry with him.

One Son Scully and Mulder are goaded into tears and confessions.

@all-these-ghosts/all_these_ghosts's what happened in the scene at the Lone Gunmen between Mulder and Scully in Two Fathers/One Son?

“I went to her apartment,” he says. For a moment his eyes lose focus, and she goes very, very still. “After what you said at the Gunmen’s. I went to see if I could find any evidence that she…that she’s what you say.”

She can’t keep the hope out of her voice. “Did you?”

“No.” And the hope evaporates. “But while I was there, the Smoking Man stopped by.”

Her eyes flash up to his. “At her apartment?”

“He said he was looking for his son,” Mulder says, “but I don’t—I don’t know anymore. Diana didn’t seem surprised by any of it. Not the fact that he was there, not the fact that the world as we know it was about to end.”

There are so many things she wants to ask him, but she stays quiet, waiting for him to go on.

Post-One Son Mulder and Scully are reinstated.

Vesalius's The Estrangement of Shared Purpose

At the sound of her voice, Mulder stopped and looked up. Scully solemnly held his gaze for a moment, and then spoke again.

"And if we..." she paused briefly, placing emphasis on the "we", "are going to look for answers, we need to talk."

Mulder stiffened, blinked slowly, and said quietly: "About?"

"About our ability to continue working together."

"Are you saying you want to quit?"

"No. I'm saying I have concerns about our ability to work together effectively as partners."

AU-- Post-One Son Scully's frustration forces Mulder to open up about his past.

Brandon D. Ray's There But By the Grace of God

Diana. How could I have been so wrong about her? How could I have failed to see the signs? Especially when my own partner, the one I have come to trust as no other, my one in five billion, kept trying to get through to me, kept rubbing my nose in the unpleasant facts that I didn't want to see, didn't want to hear, didn't want to know. How could I have been so blind?

Scully... I'm so sorry.

Post-One Son Mulder's contemplation.

Shoshana's Breathing Room

Mulder glanced through the peephole, saw Scully, and threw open the deadbolt. The knock had sounded familiar but he'd been nervous all day since young Spender's blood was found in their basement office. He was less concerned about Diana's whereabouts, not wanting to dwell on her betrayal.

He didn't want to think about his ex-partner and sometime friend because he didn't want to face Scully.

Post-One Son Mulder and Scully have an honest conversation about his guilt.

Jennifer Brady's Laughing Out Loud

"That's it? I sign this, and we're back?" I ask, running my fingers over Mulder's jittery scrawl.

He smiles a bit and nods. "That's it,"

I quickly grab a pen and try to unwrinkle the paper. Mulder's right behind me, I can feel his breath. All of a sudden, I am struck with a realization. If this is going to happen, it's going to be on my terms.

AU-- Post-One Son Scully seizes an opportunity to forge her own conditions.

@agent-troi, @tofuttim, and baronessblixen's Eden

Mulder’s arms wrapped around her completely, like he was afraid she would escape.

“What are you doing, Mulder?” she whispered.

“I…” his voice was tight, unsteady. “I need you to be still for a moment, to let your guard down and hear me. Can you do that?”

“Okay…” Scully said cautiously, realizing the warmth and pressure of his wrapped arms instantly brought her comfort.

“I’m sorry.”

AU-- Post-One Son Scully is furious over the events of the past few days (if not years.)

@alienbaby-babymama's 12 Days of Ficmas (Ao3)

 He didn’t want to believe it.

“You told me you loved me.” Diana barely hears his muffled statement but she’s prepared with her retort.

“I told you a lot of things I didn’t mean.”

Post-One Son Mulder has to know.

amorfati3215's

I watched AmorFati and actually had a dream about it last night.

When he’d walked into the office earlier that morning he’d hoped for an easy day; he had a headache brewing, no doubt a result of little sleep the previous night, and for once he just wanted to go eight hours without arguing with Scully.

Post-One Son Scully is not letting the matter go.

Prompt: Post ONE SON.

So instead she enquiredabout vacations further afield, and ten minutes later found herself booked on abreak to St Lucia in the Caribbean. Sun, sea, relaxation, not to mentioncopious amounts of rum and somewhere Mulder wouldn’t think to look - it wasjust what she needed. 

But now she was back, and as Scully walked into the Bureau building, she felt a ball of anxiety in the pit of her stomach as she prepared to face her partner once again.

AU-- Post-One Son Scully finds herself replaced by Diana.

@foxmulders's daniel waterson just knocks on scully’s door, hoping to rekindle things

In all the years she’d known him, Daniel had never ended a lecture a minute early or a second late. Which is to say: The man had an uncanny sense of timing.

AU-- Post-One Son Daniel Waterston shows up on Scully's doorstep.

@gaycrouton's Up Close and Personal

"What part of 'I want to be alone' was confusing, Mulder?" she asked, venom lacing her tone. She took a few steps forward to confront him but was shocked at the damage her room had taken in such a short amount of time.

"Trouble in paradise?" an unexpected voice teased from behind her.

Scully jumped forward and whipped around, immediately making eye contact with the last person she expected to see: Alex Krycek.

Post-One Son Scully and Mulder's distance is broken by a particularly cruel manipulation on Krycek's part.

@cecilysass's One Hand Tied (Ao3)

Scully doesn’t see the point of this kind of charade. Surely she understands that the gig is up. Surely she doesn't think anyone is fooled by this friendly, reasonable persona she puts on. Surely she doesn't think Mulder is softening towards her. Is she actually attempting to win him back?

There's abruptly a bitter taste in Scully's mouth behind the gag. She hopes that’s a ludicrous idea. But Mulder has not been entirely predictable where Diana is concerned.

AU-- Post-One Son Diana Fowley preys on Scully's growing distrust, ferreting Mulder away under the guise of lovestruck abandonment.

@actual-changeling's

the definition of insanity

They will try again tomorrow, and maybe it will be different, maybe they will mend and heal, maybe she will slide her fingers between his and squeeze.

Maybe they will find the truth tomorrow.

Post-One Son Scully is struggling to forgive.

agent_starbuck's What You Don't Know

“Scully…” he breathes, her name rolling thickly off his tongue, and her belly flutters at the way he says it. She hates that he can do that. Even when she’s furious at him. She settles a palm against her stomach, willing the sensation to go away. It never does.

Before she realizes it, he’s made his way to the living room, planting himself on the coffee table across from her.

“I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have second guessed you or your intentions. I don’t expect you to forgive me. But at least let me try to make amends.”

His confession is a breath of fresh air to her weary soul. It is definitely a start. But she needs more than his cool, practiced and calculated words.

Post-One Son Scully takes a personal day.

@lotsoforangesoutside's Mulder’s Chickadee (Ao3)

“Was she your partner like… I was?” Scully never beat around the bushes, he knew.

“Are you asking me…” His voice trailed off.

“The Boys called her your chickadee.” She spat. “Though I certainly don’t want to ever be reduced to Mulder’s Chickadee, yet… How personal was she to you, Mulder?”

He wondered if he should get up and put some clothes on. This is Scully, his heart reminded him, Scully will never hurt you.

His brain chose this exact moment to pipe up about him being shot in the shoulder.

Post-One Son Scully confronts Mulder over what TLG had said.

Defnotmeyo's Unnamed

Mulder will forever remember that from the last meeting in Kersh’s office, Jeffrey proved himself the bigger man.  

Dribble.  Bonk.  Mulder rebounds the ball.  The thunk of his dribble echoes in his maniac mind.  

There are more apologies to be made.  Considering Diana’s body was not among the remains of El Rico.  

“Thou-thought they could sleep with the enemy.”  A statement. A gaze.  A skeptical eyebrow.  And a billion apologies swallowed in Kersh’s office.

Post-One Son Mulder dribbles the ball as he processes.

Lynn Saunders's Unbreakable (Gossamer)

"Don't think, Scully. Don't talk. Just listen," he says in his rushed, single-minded manner, all in one breath. He has wandered through the grimy streets, through the storm raging outside, to stand here looming in her doorway, dangerous in his black leather jacket. His hair is slicked back, dripping rainwater down his collar.

"I don't know where things started going wrong or why we've been acting this way when we're together... but I'm not leaving until we fix it."

Post-One Son Scully brings to mind Melissa's courage.

@wtfmulder's Sharp Turn Blues

Scully looked surprised by his entrance which made him feel worse. It was her intention, then, to brush it all off, let it fester, only to add it to a checklist she could later refer to when she eventually came to her senses and left, like she’d threatened just days before. She sat on the floor with her knees tucked in, a microwaved meal going cold on the coffee table . Something dramatic and mind-numbing played on the TV.

“Mulder?” She asked, making no move to get up. She was tired, so, so tired, he could see it on her face. He imagined what it must have looked like before he’d burst in, the listless shoveling of bland food into a sullen mouth, a half hour flipping through channels only to land on something she didn’t even like.

Post-One Son Mulder confesses his feelings.

@sigritandtheelves/DarlaBlack's Hurt's Hopeful Plunder

She sat down again on the couch, farther from him this time. She stared at her fingers, which were folded in her lap. “Do you want to be with her?” Scully asked, her voice so low he could hardly hear.

He thought for a moment. Part of him did, maybe–the part that hated himself and thought he deserved whatever misery Diana had to offer up. But that part had always been prone lies and terrible self-destruction. What his heart wanted was right here, glowing in a rumpled bathrobe and bare feet, but bruised by his miserable tendencies. “No,” he said.

“Do you love her?” Impossibly, quieter. Still, she didn’t look at him.

Post-One Son Mulder's apology spills into more.

thenonexisting's life is just a game. - Chapter 1  

“You smell good, Mrs Petrie,” he rumbled.

Just like that, the veneer shattered.

“Stop.”

Hands thrown up, she pulled entirely away from him and hopped off the counter. Stumbling dizzily towards the sink, she ran the water and splashed her face. Wake up, Dana.

AU-- Arcadia Mulder and Scully have a short and painful post-One Son discussion.

Anne Haynes's Friendly, Whole, and First Day Back

Her dark eyes were sympathetic. "I heard other things, too."

"Spender's resignation?" It wasn't what she meant, and he knew it, but he wasn't going to talk to her about Scully.

"Seems he's cleared out of town." She gave a little shrug, uninterested. "But that's not really what I was talking about--"

"We're just settling in. First day back." He changed the subject with a faint air of desperation. The cafeteria seemed close and small. He looked across the table at Diana and felt something dark and mean curl in his gut. Suspicion, something he'd fought against when Scully tried to bring her own doubts to his attention.

Post-One Son Scully and Mulder struggle back in their partnership, wanting to vent and understand and find their own answers.

EPurSeMouve's Dinner

She raises her eyebrows, confused. He thinks it's confusion, at any rate. He is just starting to realize that there is so much about her he doesn't understand...

"It's been a while, Diana. Three weeks. And I've been doing a lot of thinking, trying to figure out a lot of what happened... It still doesn't make a lot of sense. But I can't help wondering about what role you had in all of this."

Post-One Son Mulder realizes the old Diana is gone.

yukla's like a lonely house 

Scully’s hardly listening anymore. Grab dinner, he said. 

As if they’re stopping at one of the endlessly sticky dinners on the side of the road after a long day of investigation with nothing to show for it, tossing change over the counter in exchange for the country’s gummiest cheeseburgers. As if they’re doing overtime on a weekend and pulling cold, smushed sandwiches out of their bags to wolf down before returning to their paperwork. As if she hadn’t been waiting on this moment for ages now, as if she hadn’t summoned all the courage in her body preparing herself for this night, hoping that he would feel the same. She’d assumed he did.

Scully nods sharply to herself, feels her stupid, lonely, dangly earring bounce off her jaw with the movement. That strange hot feeling, high in her face now, creeps into the space behind her eyes, and with sudden clarity, she recognizes it as humiliation. 

Post-One Son Scully believes Mulder no longer has romantic intentions.

Vivian's Amends

"Scully, I'm sorry."

"Mulder, this is not your fault."

"I mean for, well, for all of it." He ran an agitated hand through his hair. He took a few more steps, and stood still, his back facing her. She could practically see him struggling for words.

Despite the unremitting pain in her wrist, Scully felt the tension she'd been carrying for the past weeks slowly begin to slip away. Glancing outside, she noticed the gloom was beginning to dissipate. "It looks like it's letting up a bit," she noted. His shoulders dropped a notch, and his stiff posture eased.

Post-One Son Scully realizes Mulder is trying to show he cares, in his own way.

@leiascully's Endeavors Too Short of Desires 

There are days lately that they just prickle at each other until the air is so charged he isn't sure one of them won't take a swing. He gets smug and she gets arch and he wants to remind her of Scully-that-was with the bad suits and the naivete, but the quips dry up when he looks at Scully-that-is, who might just shoot him to shut him up, her eyebrow cocking almost audibly as a pistol. It was easier when they were upstairs, Moose and Squirrel against the Badinovs. Now they've won and they're back in their weird seclusion, and he spends all day trying not to think about things. Diana and Spender and the enormous scar on Scully's stomach and a normal life and that's just for starters. Scully nags at him: he should be thinking of his knees, his cholesterol, his prostate, his geriatric future chasing phantoms, and he almost blushes under her cool stare as she dissects him and gets irritable about that.

Post-One Son Mulder ruminates on Scully's innumerable losses and the endless road pitching them perpetually forward.

@settle-down-frohike's Desert Woman

He mourns not meeting her first, before anyone. He can’t help wanting to assume the best in anyone who’s ever even pretended to understand him, but he wishes he could, for both their sakes. 

Post-One Son Mulder, Scully, and TLG at a birthday party.

OnlyFoxMulder's Sunshine in the Rain

Indignant at first, it took a long drive and a greasy burger from his favorite hole in the wall to see the light. Then, he called Scully. It was late, definitely after midnight, and he found her awake and willing to finally conquer the growing space between them. In the end, it worked. After that night, the air felt lighter; they allowed themselves to joke with each other again, even flirt a little bit when the mood struck them. He was delighted to have her back, the giddiness he felt every morning returned. She was smiling again, albeit less than she did before Diana, but she flashed him many of her cute tight-lipped smiles that made his insides turn over. 

Post-Milagro Mulder mulls over his and Scully's post-One Son reconciliation after Padgett's attack.

fxckthishit 's You're It

Her breath hitched as his voice twisted something painfully within her. Foregoing the feeling, though, Scully stiffened her spine and crossed her arms. “What’s there to talk about?” She got her coat, “I’m not abandoning you, Mulder, if you are worried about that. I don’t know about you, but my priority has always been my work and the X-files.” She started heading out the room before turning around at the doorway, regarding Mulder with a look. “We’re partners, Mulder. I still got your back. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the scene,” she turned around and walked away, leaving Mulder dazed with only the receding sound of her heels, the cacophony of his muddled thoughts and an eerily familiar scent.

AU-- Post Amor Fati Diana Fowley is alive and squirming her way back into Mulder's life, forcing Scully to erect inner walls for the sake of the partnership.

Shoshana's Recovery 01, Recovery 02, Recovery 03, and Recovery 04

From my conversations with Scully and the journal entries I've made it through so far, we were both going to deny that moment ever occurred for the sake of our partnership. The indignity of having the X-Files ripped out from under us, the embarrassment of scut work like background checks and fertilizer investigations must have suppressed my libido in a big way.

Most likely, and from what I read between my own lines, I lost my nerve, waiting for her to give me some sign, show me how she felt. I wasn't willing to take the risk and lose her forever, not after she chose to stay with me, X-Files or not. She remained my partner, my best friend all last year. And I'm so very grateful for that. But something must have happened last February that shook her up, made her extraordinarily sensitive to the mere mention of Diana's name.

AU-- S7 Mulder wakes from an injury with amnesia; and, via Scully and his journal, slowly catches up on the past year's events.

BONUS

Flywoman's The Blessed One Bites the Bullet

"Here it is," he said triumphantly. "Diana Fowley, Special Agent with the VCS from September 1985 through October 1987. Seems she was suspended from duty following a joint panel investigation into certain unauthorized extra-governmental employment opportunities."

"Drugs?" Scully asked. "Weapons? Embezzling Bureau funds?"

Frohike consulted his sheet. "Apparently she played a starring role in a soft core porn film with some nobody called David Doo-chuhvnee."

Crack-- Post-One Son Scully ends up siding with Diana Fowley.

Ryo Sen's Revanche

Pulling the antenna up with her teeth, Scully punched the Send button and answered, "Scully." She felt supremely stupid with a phone to each ear.

"Who are you talking to?" Mulder's familiar voice demanded. "Your phone's been busy for hours."

Scully paused, unsure how much she wanted to confide in her partner. Deciding to share as little as possible, she asked, "What's the problem, Mulder?"

AU-- Post-One Son Scully's nightmares begin to unravel her abduction memories.

@writingwell/RocketMan/Darkstryder's Refuge of Lies

Mulder kept too much from her. If some police department somewhere found something about Emily or the other fetuses, she wasn't confident that Mulder would tell her.

And now, she'd been e-mailed this article about an unknown virus, her contacts were reporting some suspicious stuff, and large quantities of medical supplies were being moved across the globe, through holding companies and warehouses that had no real board of directors.

The worst news of all. . .three microbiologists had disappeared, two pre-natal doctors had been lost at sea, and thirteen virologists were either reported missing or presumed dead.

She was going to be sick. This couldn't be happening all over again.

Post-One Son Scully and Mulder are caught up in the Consortium and Rebel war.

@mldrgrl's Looking Back: Nine Moments That Changed Things

“Sorry,” Scully said, jumping in surprise and then fumbling with the keys.

Mulder put his hand on her wrist and she held her breath.  “You could tell me we’re going to Florida,” he said, “and I’d say my overnight bag is in the trunk. You could tell me we’re going to Switzerland, and I’d say, good thing my passport is in the glove compartment. Scully, you could tell me we’re going to McDonalds and I’d say I love French fries.” 

It was quiet for the next few moments and Mulder ran his thumb over the side of Scully’s wrist.  She sniffed lightly and then inclined her head towards him, but cast her eyes down to his knees.

“You know I don’t like McDonalds,” she said.

Mulder smiled at her and her lips curled slightly as well. “You could also just tell me you’re taking me home,” he said.

“And what would you say to that?”

“I’d say, maybe you’d like to come up for awhile. Unless there’s somewhere else you need to be.”

Mulder and Scully's personal journey from Alpha to Millennium.

Thanks for reading~

seiche (Tumblr)

“Say you believe it, too. Say there’s going to be an after. Say we’re going to live.” 

Her mouth winced. She couldn’t look at him anymore and didn’t, tucking her chin. “I can’t.” 

“Why?” He sounded raw. Scully felt herself to be unknowable and cruel. The waiting room feeling. “After all you’ve done, after all we’ve been through, why can’t you believe we’re going to win this?” 

“Because I don't know what happens next,” she told him, “if it isn't the worst thing.” 

AU-- Mulder and Scully didn't change their partnership (yet), despite impending Colonization.

@seepunkrun/Punk Maneuverability/Punk/runpunkrun's Opsis (Gossamer)

He'd picked the wrong day to be lonely and had definitely picked the wrong way in which to show it. If he wanted something from her, comfort or companionship, he would have to ask. She wasn't going to play games with him.

He'd balked at the door, but when his hesitation didn't result in apology, she'd pushed him the rest of the way out and thrown the dead bolt, glad to be rid of him. Finally turning the lights on, she'd walked into the bathroom and crouched by the toilet to throw up what seemed to be a city's worth of ashes.

Colonization Scully's transformation after the world is set on fire.

contradiction_to_nature's XF Writing Challenge:  Clothes

She finally nips the bag with her index and middle fingers, gingerly drawing it out.  Her careful wrapping job has done nothing to protect the delicate weave from absorbing the ever-present dust in the air.  She has given up on ever having clean hair again, her face always coated with a smothering sheen of sweat and airborne grime.  Pulverized concrete, unearthed trees, ashes.  So many dead, gone.

Scully mournfully studies her torn, bloodied suit.

@lotsoforangesoutside's Wednesday 100s (Tumblr)

In another universe, they got married during a lockdown, a complete lockdown, three months after colonization.

Colonization, quarantine, and regulations.

soundingsea's (DW) in the lonely cool before dawn

Scully shakes her head. "Mulder, nobody's heard from Southern California in over a year; there are blockades starting at Vegas. Ever since the Hoover Dam went, it's been considered a loss. Not much agriculture with no water."

"Doesn't look like water's going to be a problem here," Mulder replies, eyes turned upward.

Scully breathes in the smell of oncoming rain. 

Colonization hits, and hits hard.

@writingwell/RocketMan/Darkstryder's (xffics) Live Free

Desperate to make them quiet, Mulder raised his voice to be heard above them.

"Do you want to hear a story?"

Some heads turned to see him; one of the older ones next to Scully started quieting the kids in the back; it seemed a good distraction.

Post-Colonization Mulder and Scully hold onto hope while huddled with a small, underground group.

Seema/SeemaG's ([email protected], LJ) Stronger than Death

...I'd been there when they'd forced her mouth open, poured the black oil down her throat, and then thrown her into the cell. I'd held her in my arms as she'd trembled and squirmed against the madness slowly taking her over, and then I had her brought to the infirmary. A shot of precious morphine later, I'd tied her limbs down to the table; she stopped struggling and I'd leaned over, closed her eyes with the palm of my hand. Nine hours later, Susan died and I held her earrings in my hand.

"Scully."

"We can risk it," I told Mulder. "We have a choice to make."

"I can't run."

"I know that." I took a deep breath. "But do we stay?"

Post-Colonization Mulder and Scully, prisoners, hatch a plot to escape.

@spooky-nerd/spooky_nerd's Beyond the Setting Sun: a Post-Colonization drabble (Tumblr)

“Scully, if the sky crumbled and fell on top of our heads tomorrow, you would find a way to rationalize it,” Mulder had told her once, with equal parts awe and irritation in his voice. If only she had known at the time how prophetic those words would turn out to be.

They had been on a case when it had happened. She still remembers the shrill, earth-shaking scream of the crafts as they had broken through the dark and split the peaceful night apart. She had woken with a dread like no other. The back of her neck thrummed. They were here.

Post-Colonization Mulder and Scully are separated when her chip begins to control her.

Jenna Tooms/misslucyjane’s (mulderscreek) "...missing..."

Things she misses.

She misses her apartment, her mother, Mulder's fish tank, William's morning noises. She misses Frohike's leers and Langly's t-shirts. She misses wearing a badge and being an authority figure. She misses doing good, being good, feeling good.

She misses Skinner's gruff voice and Monica's wide smile and Doggett's soft drawl. She misses her baby. She misses her friends.

She misses her hair.

Post-Colonization Scully counts her losses.

pokeitlikejello's

The Drabble Files - Chapter 14

He made her a promise and God, she was so scared. Why did they have to split up? Was it his idea? Hers? She couldn’t remember. Not after all the concussions.

Post-Colonization Scully waits for Mulder's whistle.

@leiascully's (Ao3)

X-Files OctoberFicFest Day 30: Dazzle

The end of the world is dazzling. The sun is too bright. It glares off the sand of the beach. The shoreline is higher than it used to be, but the waves have pushed the sand up where there used to be beachgrass or even lawns. The shore has been reshaped, just like everything else. The waves ripple around the ruins of expensive houses. Once upon a time, they lived fairy tales here.

Post-Colonization Mulder and Scully did what they could.

One word prompt: beach

The loose linen is nothing like the suits she used to wear, before. Before the downfall of the organization she'd trusted, before the invasion of her body by the alien virus.

Post-Colonization Marita feels the cumulative weight of her life.

Sarah Segretti/sarah_segretti's Operation Clean House (Ao3)

He’s been attached to Special Ops. He’s one of only two people on this planet who have been inside one of Their ships and lived to tell the tale.

She’s the other. But she doesn’t remember the details.

He’s never quite forgiven her for that, she thinks, although he knows – and she knows he knows – that it’s not her fault. She wishes she could remember. She doesn’t want to be separated from him on this night.

Post-Colonization Mulder has to go on a mission alone.

Branwell's Won and Lost

They nicknamed the third assault force Operation Pest Control. The regular army sent in a thousand men at each site. They traveled in tanks or helicopters, and included units with powerful explosives. Missiles couldn't be used effectively against foes who had dug themselves in deep during the Stone Age.

The enemy died by the dozens. The soldiers died by the thousands within minutes of reaching shifting zones around the ships.

DOD HQ organized Tiger Teams that included specialists in tactical nuclear weapons. The President's family arrived at the bunker in West Virginia, where they were forced to stay in total ignorance and confusion.

Post-Colonization Mulder and Scully: indestructible.

AUs

EmScully's Not Alone

 Scully struggled to pull the door closed and stepped gingerly down the porch towards the outhouse. The small building groaned around her and she moved quickly, already chilled and missing the warmth of her little stove. When she stepped out of the outhouse she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, she did a double take and froze. The dead carcass of the alien next to her porch was being torn into by a very much live version, blocking the way of her front door. 

AU-- S7 Scully is abducted instead of Mulder; and both are aided by their son from the future to find each other in a world turned upside-down (and infested with monsters.)

@scullyphile's The Lure of the Paranormal (Tumblr)

“What’s going on? I thought we were having a good Sunday morning. Puns, flirting, fishing, sunshine. What’s wrong?” She asked. When he met her eyes, she knew. “It’s about William.”

Post S9 Mulder and Scully use fish puns to hide the pain.

cthene's In the Watchfires of a Hundred Circling Camps

Frothing and wheezing on his back, the kid claws at Mulder’s face with his nails. His black eyes bulge like quivering pearls of tapioca. He’s afraid. 

Mulder freezes. A silent scream lashes across his mind, confirming what he already knew, and his grip fails. Someone’s son or grandson is still in there.

“Mulder!” Scully yells at him.

The trachea uncrushes itself and the kid sucks the air, already lunging upward again. 

Mulder watches himself grab his skull and brain him against the floor. With vicious force he wasn’t capable of two seconds ago, he hammers the kid’s head over and over again into the tile until the tile cracks. He feels his own hands cleaving open the base of the skull, a plate of metalicized bone falling away like a shard of eggshell to let the sticky albumen run out. Mulder’s fingers plunge into the wet brainpan, closing around the slippery stem and yanking it out as the body beneath him seizes and dies. 

AU-- Post S9 Mulder is turned: a new creature in a new world, in search of his and Scully (and their son's) place in it.

@poeticsandaliens/aster_risk's OctoberFicFest Day 30 - Rental Car

William loves these days, ripping down an empty road to the next empty town in the next empty state, searching for the next unclaimed rental car. It’s only desolate once they get there. When you’re the only humans left on the planet, civilization is a thousand times more desolate, and nature is a thousand times more beautiful. 

AU-- Mulder, Scully, and their son live life on the road.

@pinebluffvariants/@flukemen's (Ao3) Baseball

“Let me tell you a story. I wasn’t always a total idiot - no, don’t deny it, I’ve heard you talk to people - anyway, my story. It was about twenty years ago. We’d already known each other for almost ten years but for various reasons, nothing had happened between us. Actually let me take that back. So much had happened between us, just not what we both wanted. I knew it, it was so obvious, but we were scared.”

“Scared.”

AU-- Mulder retells The Unnatural date night to William as a bedtime story.

stellar_dust/stellar_dust's The City and the Stars (Combined) (Ao3)

No one would have believed in the last years of the twentieth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.

How fitting, then, that it was, finally, a woman with a microscope who discovered the key to their destruction.

AU-- Mulder, Scully, their son, Skinner, Doggett, and Monica sneak into town... then everything devolves into chaos.

Blackwood's (site) Restless Vespers (site)

The sofa creaks as she rises. He feels her standing behind him, knowing what she will say before she says it. "We did all that we could. You did more than anyone could have asked."

"Did I?"

She lays a hand on his sleeve, but he isn't ready for absolution. "Of course you did," she says so gently it feels like a caress. "You're Will's father. You negotiated with the Rebels when no one else could and," she pauses. "I never would have survived without you."

"You would have gone on, Scully. It's who you are."

"Breathing isn't the same thing as living."

"It's Life."

AU-- Post-Colonization Mulder and Scully have a chat.

@danascullysjournal/Paper_hearts_and_homemade_arts's Chrysalis

Dana Scully bandaged them both the best she could, but her training was of flesh and bone, stitches and scar tissue, medication to stave off the searing pain.  Grossly unqualified for the patient before her, she prayed silently for a breakthrough.  Anything to help a man whose soul was eclipsed.  

The date for colonization had come.  And gone. 

And now… the man in her bed was not the same. 

Post-2012 Scully talks her partner through his grief.

@all-these-ghosts/all_these_ghosts's radio nowhere - Chapter 30

When he gets to the plateau at the summit, there is nothing left but dirt and ash and blackened, jagged shards of metal. Every tree and shrub and blade of grass has been leveled. Below him the mountainside is charred from the flames that rained down after the explosion. The late afternoon sky is dark and tinged red.

AU-- Revival Mulder Is stumbling around the ruins looking for his son.

afg's (mulderscreek) Mendocino (mulderscreek)

Skinner had once told him over a bottle of Scotch, how surprised he'd been that Mulder had not killed himself and confessed to him drunkenly, that he and the rest of the group had had him on a sort of unofficial suicide watch for months after Scully had been killed.... In truth it had been touch and go. Many a long night, he had sat with his gun in his hand trying hard to think of a reason to stay. He'd failed her on that last day, the least he could do, he thought, was to tough it out until the end. He couldn't light candles or recite a 'Hail Mary' but he could stay alive. It was his penance.

AU-- Post-Colonization Mulder lives just a bit longer than Scully.

Pale The Chicken Slayer's "Seven More Days" (xphilefic)

The flu hit, distroying cities and states. I'm not sure if the whole world got it, but it's a safe bet. America is dead, almost time for the funereal, when we lay the past into the ground. Mulder died, one of it's earliest victims. The sky scorched with a pale black horizon, like a mystery or a dream. The world seems like a novel, ripped from the pages and brought into our small lives, the authors don't realize how their works will affect us. And ruin us.

Post-Colonization Scully roams the world, immortal.

@scully-loves-ruthie's Prompt: There's only us

Mulder hiked his pack higher up his back, it took a couple weeks, but he and Scully soon learned there was no one to fight for supplies, and worse yet no one to save.  An unholy trip to Maggie’s followed by an understated mourning at Skinner and Monica’s.  It didn’t take much after that to understand there would be no finding, no saving, no banding together to ride out the apocalypse, a ramshackle collection of misfits suited for an FX series.

Post-Colonization, there are only two people left alive.

Oracle (The Other Side) At Sunset (Gossamer)

"William, we don't have to stay another year," she says. "Your dad visits me sometimes, at night. He doesn't speak, but he sits beside me. We talk without sound."

"Mom -"

"I know you don't believe me, William, but I see him. I see them all. Sometimes, under the red moon, I walk to the top of the cliffs and I see them. They look up at me from the desert, expectantly. Waiting for us to join them."

AU-- Scully and William are the only survivors.

@lepusarcticus's the after

“Happy turning day,” she smiled, setting a mug on the side table. He caught a whiff of the contents. Rich. Heady. Intoxicating.

“Don’t know why you still keep track of these things. It’s been centuries,” he mumbled, playing at sleepiness.

AU-- Immortality and vampirism.

BONUS

If you're curious to read more Colonization content, I'd recommend the Colonization HQ, as well as @lilydalexf's and @dashakay's recs (here and here, respectively.)

Thanks for reading