#brynstein

AweburnPhoenix's Every Monday

"Two large, thank you," Scully ordered once they reached the end of the line. "Oh, make one decaf," she added. 

Mulder smiled for a second. It would be hard for her to adjust, that was for sure. Probably even more difficult for him. Cranky, no-caffeine, morning Scully was not something he was looking forward to. But they would manage. It was for a good cause."

Post Monday Mulder is certain that the IVF took, not letting Scully's nerves dimmer their hope. Pam's legacy lives on.

@crossedbeams/CrossedBeams's Pink (Ao3)

"Look inside.’

Mulder had forgotten about the bag, and in the minute he’s been holding it has managed to reduce to top to a sweaty, balled-up mess. It takes him thirty seconds to open it and another thirty to process what’s inside. As he fumbles, Scully’s agitation grows. He can feel her gaze boring into him as he reaches into the paper sack and pulls out the contents.

‘Well?!’ Scully’s voice is as crumpled as the paper. ‘What does it say?’

Mulder looks down at the three pregnancy tests in his hands. He’d thought she was going to the doctors on Monday. He’d been dreading it. The last judgement on a last chance.

Scully bangs her way into Mulder's apartment, hyperventilating on his floor and begging him to look at the test results for her.

@frogsmulder/Brynstein's The Day That Never Came (Ao3)

He bursts through the door, and sees Scully on her knees, leaning against the bath. She looks pale, frightfully so, and although she is staring down, he can see the tears streaking down her face. It's obvious she collapsed in that position and his immediate thought is that the cancer has returned. Kneeling down beside her, Mulder cautiously raises her chin with his finger, ready to catch the blood dripping from her nose with his thumb.

But her nose is clean and she looks up at him with shock and wonder in her eyes, a smile poking through like sunshine through cloud cover.

Scully terrifies Mulder by yelling for him from the next room.

@atths–twice‘s (Ao3, Alt. Ao3, FFN) Successful Undertakings

Pacing the room, he waited for her to return, rubbing his hand across his face. Finally, he heard the door open and she walked over to him.

“This is it,” she said quietly and he saw tears in her eyes. “Whatever happens, Mulder, thank you. Thank you for…”

“My contribution?’ he joked, clenching his jaw.

“Yes,” she said seriously, touching his arm. “There is no one else I would have even considered asking.”

“Not even Skinner?” He tried another joke needing to break the heavy seriousness.

“Mulder,” she whispered, shaking her head and wrapping her arms around him, burying into his chest. She sighed as he held her tightly, his eyes closed. “A baby with Skinner would have always been bald."

Mulder and Scully are a bundle of nerves at this their last chance; and are both elated when the nurse tells them the good new.

@sisterspooky1013/SisterSpooky1013/Sister Spooky's Everything

"I love you” he whispered so quietly she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it. She tucked her face back into his chest to conceal a yawn.

“Am I boring you?” He joked, and she chuckled, facing him again while she shook her head.

“I’m just suddenly exhausted” she remarked. How much had her life changed in the past couple hours? It’s was a lot to absorb.

“Wanna take a nap?!” He proposed with the same level of excitement he might normally ask “wanna go to Kentucky?!” Except this time, what he was offering actually sounded good.

Scully is awed at Mulder's reactions each step of their IVF journey: being struck dumb at her request, scooping her up and comforting her when he thinks the IVF has failed, and alternating between tenderness at her "go big or go home" confession and keen interest in their baby's development. She leaves no doubts regarding "them."

@baronessblixen​‘s (Ao3) 

Against the Odds (Ao3)

"It didn’t take, did it?”

Mulder has spent hours trying to come up with the right words for each outcome. He walked through her kitchen as if taking inventory. As if the fact that she owned three sizes of coffee cups meant anything at all, made any kind of difference. The last hour he spent here, on her couch. A familiar spot. The lumps and indentions fitting his body perfectly as if he belonged there. So he stayed. Stayed and let his thoughts run wild. There were only two outcomes. Two. It’s either one or the other; success or failure. Whatever news she carried with her, though, he knew he needed to be prepared. He fell asleep halfway through thinking up his speech for when it didn’t take. He didn’t even get the chance to consider the idea that it might have worked.

Mulder is so overjoyed at the news that he shifts their relationship immediately; and further surprises Scully with a celebratory alien onesie.

Five Minutes

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

He’s been hovering, lately. In a case of worst timing ever, Scully started having morning sickness right after their first tentative step towards a more intimate relationship on New Year’s Eve. When he walked into his bathroom hours later, hair sticking into every direction, his eyes wide as saucers, she could see in his face that he blamed himself for her sitting there on the cold tiles, hunched over his toilet. As if his shy, careful kiss had caused this. Only her Mulder could conclude something as inane as that. But since that night, he’s become a shadow at her side, making sure she’s fine. Most of the time, she is.

The morning sickness has since passed and has been replaced by this giddiness. Scully glances at Mulder again. Perfectly still, like a statue. Not a peep out of him about how he wants to go home, why this is taking so long and isn’t there a way to speed this up? All these questions run through her mind, though. It’s as though this particular trait of his has been transferred to her, along with a good chunk of his genetic material, currently growing a baby inside of her.

Scully can't wait, buying a pregnancy test early; and, as if reading her mind, Mulder drops in just in time to read the results. She ruminates on this new restlessness of hers after The Goldberg Variation, baffled that their normal rates of patience have swapped; but this is all resolved when she finally, finally, spells out what she wants for their relationship. (One of my all-time favorite IVF pieces is Chapter 2. Can't rave about it enough.)

@ghostbustermelanieking/skuls’s

Successful IVF miniseries

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

The Christmas tree is unplugged, dark, and she can see Mulder on his side on the couch bed. She isn’t sure that he’s even awake until she draws close to the edge of the cot, and Mulder immediately turns over. “Scully, hey,” he says, his voice somewhere between sweet and worried. “Are you okay? Is it morning sickness?”

Scully chuckles quietly, sitting down on the bed gingerly, one leg folded under her. “Oh, no, Mulder. That’s still a few weeks away, fortunately.”

“Oh.” He extracts an arm out from under the blanket and reaches up to cup her cheek. “What’s up?”

“Oh...” She is suddenly embarrassed.... “I dunno,” she says quietly. “I guess I just got...”

“Cold?” Mulder tugs the sleeve of her sweatshirt between two fingers. 

She nods gratefully. "Cold."

My all-time favorite IVF success series. Mulder and Scully become a thing the MINUTE that they get their successful news. Slowly, he nudges his way into her apartment, true; but they're an undoubted fixture in each other's life throughout the whole experience. (Part 2 is my all-time favorite IVF fic: it can never be topped, and it was what started my XF fic cataloguing and filing journey. My love for it is boundless; and it is perfection.) [**Note**:I love every. single. line. from Part 2. The best part, to me, was too long to pull out one single quote (the section about holding Matthew and almost getting caught by Bill), so I made do.]

under the star (Ao3)

"Scully, I want this, he says. I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t.

She smiles again, eyes welling up, and buries her head in his shoulder.

AUs where Mulder and Scully might have been happy-- IVF success is one of them. (Love these little vignettes~.)

effywho's Astra Inclinant

He doesn't know what that means. She removes her jacket, and he peers at her, trying to make out her expression as nonchalantly as he manage. Happy, heartbroken? She is indecipherable. Mulder tries to still his bouncing leg and bites his nails into his palms in an effort to keep them to himself, though they want her magnetically.

"Hey?" he whispers. Scully is almost upon him, her blue eyes are swimming with tears. He touches her cheek softly, afraid to break this spell, afraid to know. "Is it...is it bad news?" Scully blinks, and a fat tear falls down her face that has inexplicably broken into a dizzying smile. She clutches his biceps, hanging onto him as though she might fall. "No," she chokes out the word.

The breath is knocked swiftly from his lungs, he gapes at her in shock. "No?"

Mulder is speechless with delight at the IVF success; and follows it up with an "I love you." Scully, of course, takes the reigns.

amorfati3215/Amorfati32’s (FFN)

AU headcanons: the IVF works (Alt. link, alt. link)

"Aha, you said “he!” You know it’s a boy!”

“I have no idea Mulder, it’s too early to tell. We can findout the sex next time if we want to.”

Mulder likes the sound of “we”. They’re not a couple, but they’re already embracing co-parenting. He has no idea how it’s going to work when the baby’s born but they have six months to figure it out."

Mulder is overjoyed when Scully tells him their successful news; and, all told, they have a conversation about everything at least in the first trimester. Bill even cools down enough to let them be happy.

Donna’s (Gossamer, mulderscreek) 

Per Manum Interruptus (Site)

He thought he had this whole thing thought out. He'd certainly told himself he had. He hadn't just agreed to something like this blind . . . had he?

They hadn't discussed anything in reality. No logistics at all.

"I know I'm babbling, Mulder. There're just so many things going through my mind."

He was able to nod at that.

The IVF is successful... and Mulder immediately panics. His inner near-hysteria coupled with Scully's serene happiness is a beautiful conversation. Their relationship is a whirlwind before the baby is born... but it all melts away in a washed-up dream (or doesn't if you skip the ending.) The humor in this is spectacular.

Destiny (Site)

He started to speak when they both heard Katy scream.

He was on his feet and racing for her before Scully had time to process the sound. Katy had gotten herself caught behind the toy basket and didn't have the concept of backing out firmly in her head. Her tears dried magically in his arms.

He turned to look at Scully, still a little shaky. "Am I good to her?"

AU-- Mulder is shot into a future where he and Scully married, the IVF worked, and they have a daughter. He spends the day acclimating, falling in love with this life, and shaking up his own life to help achieve that future.

@blackcoffeeandteardrops's (Ao3) An AU where the IVF works?

"I like it better than the dandelion. I don’t want something too yellow,” she muses. “Which do you like?”

“The green is good,” he says, resting a hand at the small of her back.. She ropes an arm around his waist and it nearly makes him jump, but he quickly settles into it. There’s an invigorated feeling about being close to her, an energy brought forward by the new physical closeness of their relationship, that makes him nearly giddy, “It’s good for a girl or a boy, you know.”

“We don’t need to find out,” she replies, shaking her head, knowing he was trying to goad her into telling him her suspicions.

This fic covers a little of everything: elation at their success, nervousness while getting ready to tell Maggie, tense anticipation at the "next step" talk, banter over wall swatch colors, and a rewarding little ten-finger-and-toed baby at the end.

@sigritandtheelves/DarlaBlack's Unnamed

He didn’t come with her because they weren’t… well, they weren’t doing this kind of thing together yet. They were Figuring Things Out, and he’d touched her belly several times (still mostly flat but for bloating, though she let herself pretend it was the swell of life already) and he’d kissed just the corner of her mouth, and his eyes had looked so needy. But. He was buying no “Proud Dad” sweatshirts, nor was he asking her for daily updates or buying onesies. Watching, though. He was always watching her.

And he did seem proud. He’d have come if she’d asked.

Scully breaks the successful IVF news to Maggie, who immediately reads between the lines.

@sixhours/6hoursgirl's (FFN)

A Boy and His Fox (FFN)

He squints, tilts his head again. “What I don’t get is how you can look at twenty photos of genuine paranormal phenomena and dub them fakes, then present me with a picture that looks like it was taken by a drunk with a broken camera and claim it’s a baby.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Chronic morning sickness isn’t proof enough?”

“I’m just saying, how do we know this isn’t an elaborate hoax perpetuated by government officials who don’t want the public to know the truth?”

“The truth about what?” she asks, folding her arms over her chest in mock skepticism.

“The scam that is the medical ultrasound industry. Seriously, Scully,” he says, gesturing to the photo. “I saw something like this during a Rorschach test once."

Mulder is a detached but interested party to Scully's successful IVF journey; and is even swept in as Maggie's replacement when it's go-time. [Sidenote: This is a slow, slooooooow burn into an actual relationship. (I love to pause just after the baby is born; but I reread fics patchily.)]

Lucidity (FFN)

"Kids?” he asks, pressing his eyes shut against the inevitable answer.

She softens, stroking the baby’s cheek with the back of her fingers as he coos and wiggles against her. “Emma and Will.”

Good names, he thinks, fixating on the ring around his finger. He slips it off, passing it from one hand to the other.

“You’re saying you don’t remember anything. Not even our children.”

“It’s like I’ve stepped into another life.”

She makes a disapproving sound in the back of her throat. The expression on her face reminds him of a much younger version of his partner—one who stood in the rain and laughed at his theories, who followed him as he chased lights in the sky.

AU-- Post Triangle? Mulder is stressing out over Scully's IVF request; but bigger problems come his way when he dreams himself into an alternate universe as a family man: baby son, suspicious older daughter, disbelieving wife, and doting boss-father-in-law in tow.

TeaGirl42's Born to Be My Baby

"We want you to understand that if it were anyone else, I mean if you were anyone else we wouldn't even be having this conversation," Mulder said cryptically.

"Well no..." Skinner replied dryly. "If I were anyone else we wouldn't be..."

Scully rolled her eyes and smiled at their boss patiently, "We're asking you to keep this confidential…for now at least."

"Is this…?" Skinner started to say and looked cautiously around the room signalling to the possibility that someone could be listening in.

"No, nothing like that," Scully assured. "This is all available to anyone who has access to my medical records…this isn't business, this is personal."

The IVF works; and Mulder and Scully are launched into a soft famfic: admitting their love, telling Skinner (because), first dates at planetariums, having a daughter, getting married, and all the et cetera's of a happier life.

FatCat's Eggnog

Scully is tired and sore from all the work of labor, but nothing is bothering her too much. I once again have feeling in my fingers on my left hand. I am drowsy, happy, and ready to join my family in sleep when I hear Scully muttering.

"What? Scully? What did you say?"

" ... didn't get any."

"What, Baby? What didn't you get?"

"Eggnog. I still didn't get any Eggnog. What's a New Year's Eve without eggnog?" she mumbles.

Mulder and Scully are stuck in a stickup at the end of her third trimester; but it gives them time to ruminate on their glaring lack of communication. Both decide that Scully tearing her brothers to bits in Mulder's defense (and dropping the "love" word) is enough to, at least, open the conversation. Their relationship is thwarted, however, just as it begins-- but in a good way.

WildwingSuz/Suzanne Feld's Fruition (Ao3)

"Mulder…” I half-whimpered, not sure who I was angrier with more, the annoyingly cheerful doctor or the man who’d done this to me. So I had asked my partner to be the father, but that was beside the point at the moment....

I gathered my flagging strength as much as I could, feeling Mulder tense behind me. “This is it, Kate, one good push and it’s over,” Dr. Towhees said in that all-too-cheerful voice. “Let’s get this over with; you’re almost done.”

I swore I would strangle him when this was over.

Post Millennium Mulder and Scully have to go into hiding after their IVF is successful; but both don't care as long as they're together with their son. In non-communicative fashion, they only say these things after he's born, of course.

For him, they were dark, always. And they always featured the women in his life. Samantha, being pulled through the window by unknown forces. Scully, being pulled from him by various nefarious people; Duane Barry,

It was never a dramatic occurrence. There were never screams. They never sat bolt upright. Just a tensing of the body, a sharp gasp melting into shallow puffs.

And then there would be an arm reaching out for the phone, speed-dial one being pressed, shaky breaths puffing down the line in sync with the dial tone. A cracked murmur of a name and a whispered ‘I’m on my way.’

He made it in forty minutes, and if she weren’t pacing her living room waiting for his headlights down her street she would have scolded him for his blatant disregard of speed laws.

Instead, her arms were around him and her face was buried in his chest, tears wetting his heather t-shirt.

‘You were bleeding. You died. You were bleeding.’

Fists clench and unclench, he rubs her back, kisses the top of her head and shuffles them inside the door to give them privacy from neighbours prying at three in the morning.

And then she pulled away, checked him over with shaky hands, examined head and chest and arms.

‘I’m alive. I’m okay. I’m here.’

‘You died. I held you and you died.’

He nodded, because what else could he do, and he pulled her into him, rested a cheek atop her crown and held her tight because he’d been there too. He’d dreamt her death more times than he could count on his fingers and toes. He’d felt her blood slick his fingers as the metallic tang filled his nostrils. He’d pulled her shirt up to discover gaping wounds and a fading pulse.

He pressed kisses to her forehead, to her cheeks, held her tight and guided her to her bedroom, flicked one of her lamps on and dried her face with a tissue from the box permanently by her bedside.

She didn’t need to ask. They both knew. He’d shuck off his jeans with one hand, having not bothered with a belt when he’d dragged them on before he’d left home, his other hand clasped firmly in both of her own as he kicked off his shoes and toed off his socks. She dragged him to her, reeled him in and pulled him down to her when his knees hit the edge of her mattress.

He melted down to her, curling around her like a weighted blanket, anchoring her to reality.

‘Don’t leave me?’

‘Never. I’m not going anywhere.’

Tagging @today-in-fic