How to Eat Pleasant Holiday Meals With Co-Workers - Chapter 1 (Ao3)

“It’s really best to get real cranberries from the Cape and make your own from scratch,” Mulder says, in a pained tone. “You add some grated orange, some cinnamon, some cloves. Next year, I’ll show you how it’s properly done.”

“Oh, will you?” she says, raising an eyebrow. 

“Probably not,” he corrects quickly. He forgot for a moment that she will probably be on to bigger and better things in the Bureau by then. “Next year, you’ll be back in the arms of the Scully family, counting blessings.”

Season 1 Mulder changes his Thanksgiving plans-- he had none-- to spend the day with Scully-- who now has none after her and Ethan Minette's breakup. Things are... nice, if complicated.

How to Eat Pleasant Holiday Meals With Co-Workers - Chapter 2 (Ao3)

Mulder has drawn a little lackluster pencil drawing of a turkey on a folded piece of paper, which he places at the center of the table. “See? A centerpiece,” he says. “Makes it more festive.”

“I had no idea you were an artist, Mulder,” she says, with a deadpan version of the enthusiasm one gives to a small child.

“Inspiration hits and I have to go where it leads, Scully.”

They grimly peel back the plastic on their trays. “I feel like I owe last year’s cranberry sauce an apology,” Mulder says sadly. “Because whatever this is, it doesn’t even deserve the name ‘cranberry.’”

Post Firewalker Scully spends another Thanksgiving with her partner-- under different, isolated circumstances, of course.

How to Eat Pleasant Holiday Meals With Co-Workers - Chapter 3 (Ao3)

“Scully?” Mulder, ahead of her, stops to peer back. He is wearing his black leather jacket, the bowl of cranberries in his hands. He frowns in consternation. “What’s wrong?”

She spins. Runs full throttle for the bathroom, the sour taste already coming up in the back of her throat. She collapses over her toilet and promptly pukes her guts out.

It's Thanksgiving... or it would have been, if Scully hadn't gotten the flu-- a flu which reminds both of the lingering, unspoken conversation they need to have.

How to Eat Pleasant Holiday Meals With Co-Workers - Chapter 4 (Ao3)

“Mulder.” His voice sounds broken, like an old man’s.

It’s Lionel speaking. Lionel of Lionel and Reyna, who live in the farm house adjacent to their property. Lionel and Reyna, their nearest neighbors. Lionel and Reyna, his nearest neighbors.

Lionel seems to be asking him to dinner tomorrow. Turkey, stuffing, cranberries, pumpkin pie.

Post breakup Mulder reflects: is there dignity in sadness?

Oblivious (Ao3)

“Can I ask you a personal question, Scully?”

“About what?” Her sideways look was suspicious.

“I have a theory about you,” Mulder ventured. “Call it a profiler’s hunch.”

“What comes out of your mouth next could not possibly be complimentary.”

Post War of the Coprophages Mulder tries to convince his partner that not only was Bambi interested in her, but that many others have been inspired with mouth-frothing intentions.

Orpheus, Not Eurydice

So they leave the store with a container of oats and some bratwurst in buns, as well as a bag of potato chips and two root beers. Scully comments that it’s as though they purchased dinner for a pair of hungry 10-year olds, and Mulder just nods vigorously and bites into his bratwurst, obviously relieved that adult Scully is nowhere to be seen tonight.

There are carved stairs set in the side of the short sandstone bluff that leads to the river. There is a narrow park on the bank, almost entirely empty of people. There is a weathered gray picnic table, the color of bone, where they settle in to eat their juvenile dinner. 

The little town hews to the curve of the slow-moving river, which now sits before them, dark green, flat and wide. They are quiet as they eat, even Mulder. All around them the world is verdant, still. The sun has started to sink below the tree line on the opposite riverbed, conferring upon the sky a marigold glow. 

Season 5 Mulder and Scully take a moment to sit, feed the ducks, and listen to the local church choir-- to simply absorb.

Unobserved

It really looks like she has been inside the building, which Mulder ... just can’t make sense out of.

Because she wasn’t back at Gibson’s room this afternoon -- or the psych facility at all. He would have seen her. He was there.

With an unpleasant jolt, he remembers that in fact she had called him, just about that time. She … asked him to go to the office. She said she was on her way already, that she preferred to talk to him there. There she had shown him the proof they needed, what they needed to bring to Skinner the next day.

Mulder lets his hands run slowly down the sides of his face, something falling precipitously in the pit of his stomach.

It is unavoidable: Scully had not told the truth. And Scully always told him the truth. Which raises the unsettling question: what reason would she have to lie to him today? He doesn’t like any of the answers that come to mind.

Post The End Mulder is stunned to find security footage of his partner despondent and nearly in tears.

The Kaleidoscope (Ao3)

Scully turns to Ryan. “We should probably be going, right?”

“Our reservation’s not until seven,” Ryan points out. “I was thinking we could go get a drink at a bar around here. Maybe Fox could come with us?”

Mulder can’t understand this invitation at all; he has been pretty rude, or at least awkward. But Ryan is all fluid friendliness, effortless affability, and Mulder recognizes the type: the socially generous popular kid. After all, he has nothing to lose by extending a welcome to Mulder. He perceives zero threat. He already has everything, doesn’t he? A whole evening ahead with Scully. A whole night. Morning.

Season 6 Mulder sits glumly at his desk, trying to figure out where he fits in the complex and continually confounding life of one Dana Scully. One wrong move and he might end up in the wrong ending.

The Boy on the Beach (Ao3)

“She’s not in here, Mom!” shouted Melissa. “That’s weird … I thought she was. She must have gone outside.”

Scully swallowed, breathing fast, feeling hot tears pooling in her eyes. Whatever was happening, that certainly seemed like her big sister outside that door. Very young. Very alive.

There was the sound of a child’s aggrieved sigh. And then clomping, heavy footsteps leaving the room. Scully could hear Melissa complaining as she went back down the stairs. “She can’t sneak off and not help with the potatoes at all,” Melissa called. “That was supposed to be Dana’s job. And what about the boys, Mom? Bill hasn’t done one single thing to help! Do I have to do everything?”

Her voice grew more distant—and was answered, somewhere, faintly, by her mother’s voice, high and young.

Inside the dim closet, Scully didn’t move for a moment, trying to process.

Post Amor Fati-- A sweeping, intense fic that unspools rapidly from present-day miscommunication to lost-in-time, but-perhaps-just-in-time epic. Scully, lost in the 70s; Mulder trying to trace and intercept her progress through would-be impossible polaroids; and a little Mulder and Samantha, clinging to an FBI savior as their only hope.

We’re Not Here To Get Involved in Personal Problems

In fact, Scully has seen many episodes of Cops, a life achievement of which she is not particularly proud. Her brother Bill is the real connoisseur. He has been known to sing along with the theme song and howl in laughter when suspects scream at one another. Bill loves for his sister to watch with him, since he assumes she especially can appreciate law enforcement as entertainment, but Scully herself never really gets it. She questions the officers’ heavy-handed tactics. She is uneasy that the show has a mean sense of humor about the poor and addicted. She wonders why they never, ever show anyone doing any paperwork. But she hasn’t always found it easy to get along with her brother, and she does love his raucous laugh, so she tolerates this sibling bonding activity.

She can’t imagine how it ever would have involved Mulder, though.

“You and I watched it together in the hospital,” Mulder reminds her, shoving both hands in his pockets as they walk. He kicks at something on the ground. “When you were sick -- the chemo. It’s possible that you were a little out of it.”

“Ah,” Scully nods. Her time in the hospital is a blur of surreal, half-remembered daytime TV.

Post X-Cops Mulder and Scully take a fruitful walk around the neighborhood (season of secret sex who?)

Negotiation (Ao3)

“I just don’t want an arrangement,” he repeats meaningfully. “I don’t want a negotiation.”

“I get it,” she says shortly, jerking her hand out from under his.

“No,” he says. “No, you don’t.” He takes a deep breath. “It’s not that I don’t want … what you suggest. I’ve thought about it. A lot. Maybe too much.”

Scully’s mouth twitches at the corners as she apparently absorbs this. “Okay,” she responds. A pause. “Then why not?”

Mulder rubs his temples aggressively.

“I don’t think I could do it without … all of it. I mean, that’s not strictly true. I could do it. I’m only human. But I think it would end … really badly.”

Mulder and Scully, stakeouts and a little miscommunication-- what's not to love?

Gingersnap (Ao3)

“I could help you,” he says.

At that she raises her eyes. There is a look of unmistakable hope there. It surprises him, even dazes him a little. He’d expected her to reject his suggestion out of hand.

“Is that something you’re capable of doing?” she says tentatively. “Baking cookies?”

“No,” he admits. “At least there’s no precedent for it.”

“Sounds useful.” Her eyes are still cautiously on him.

Scully's unsuccessful baking attempts are further thwarted by Mulder's eager, hands-on attitude.

The Gentle Art of Dream Interpretation (Gossamer)

In Mulder's dream, he was a French Jew from Alsace, and he wore a shabby brown coat before a panel of great men.

Angry, standing before the Great Sanhedrin in Paris, he was trying not to shout, but could feel the steady rise of his pitch as he lodged his formal complaint to the Jewish leaders:

"You bend and stretch the halakha as best fits your pocketbook," he was telling them. His hands were shaking. He was speaking French.

Mulder has a complicated dream, which leads to more straightforward revelations in a motel pool in the late-early hours of the morning.

False Front (Ao3)

“Aren’t you the same person who once told me ‘the truth is out there, but so are lies?’” Mulder pushes. “Where’s that Dana Scully?”

She walks to the window and stands in front of it, still hugging herself and looking out into the afternoon light. From Mulder’s vantage point she looks only like a silhouette, an outline of herself.

“I get it,” she says after a heavy beat. “I see what you’re saying.”

Now there’s a melancholy timbre in her voice, a sound of defeat. He hears it rarely, for all of their struggles, and he doesn’t like it.

An astonishingly "lifelike", vivid look at Mulder, Scully, and TLG's conflicted feelings after En Ami's road trip.

Pause (Ao3)

 “Your mom is already here. I called her this morning—I thought it better be me that broke the news. It’s kind of a shock. She’s eager to see you. Are you ready to talk to her?”

Scully nods, her forehead creased. She crosses her arms over her chest defensively.

He regards her. “You’re nervous.”

“Of course,” Scully replies pointedly, her voice lowered. “I want her to believe it’s me. It will hurt if she doesn’t.”

Her eyes land on his face in time to see the shadow move over his features, and she regrets saying it. She doesn’t understand the full story yet, why he is so convinced she is dead. But she can hear the raw suffering in his voice as he talks to her mom. Whatever he has been through, maybe she should tread more carefully.

AU-- Pre-Requiem Scully wakes in an abandoned car with no memory of how she got there... and no memory, she learns, of the years that have passed since her and Mulder's almost kiss, Millennium's successful followup, and the blissful months that followed.

Ice Water - Chapter 3

“Gamma," he says, his voice a tiny whisper. He is feeling shy.

“Look,” Maggie says cheerfully to him, as they walk into Dana’s kitchen. “It’s your Aunt Dana, Matty. You’ll see she looks a little bit like your daddy. At least I always thought so.”

Dana has her back to them, pouring water in the coffeemaker, dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans. Strange she hasn’t made coffee already, thinks Maggie. Strange she isn’t dressed for work.

When she turns around, Maggie has to stop herself from gasping audibly.

Post Without Maggie brings over little Matthew... and notices something is most definitely not right with her daughter.

Opposition And Synthesis

It had been a particularly trying day.

And all because that morning, she had woken up obsessed with the philosophy of Hegel.

Hegel's dialectic. An old concept from college, from her philosophy and German classes. Every important idea in history is a thesis, and is naturally paired with its antithesis. Eventually they subsume one another, combine into something new. That is the synthesis.

Two wrongs, in essence, making a right.

Post This Is Not Happening Scully is continually struck by the holes Mulder left in her life.

All the Dead Mulders (Ao3)

Or maybe he just wants to touch his mom’s gravestone. And Samantha’s. A really selfish whim for him to indulge on week two of being newly undead, not to mention a risky one. He doesn’t even have a valid driver’s license anymore. An overzealous North Carolina traffic cop could really upset the apple cart.

But all that completely, cosmically just doesn’t matter. Mulder knows emotional numbness. He has had experience with several gradients of it before, dating back to early adolescence. But this? This takes the cake. This lack of feeling is a whole new level.

He sees all of the very good reasons not to steal Scully’s car and drive to North Carolina that morning—he understands them perfectly and could articulate them if someone asked—but they’re so far away from him that he can’t touch them, much less feel them.

He’s looking at them from miles above, like he never came back from orbit at all.

Post Three Words Mulder steals Scully's car and drives out to face his experiences head-on-- or, more accurately, to confront the looming shadow of his death.

Shine On (Ao3)

The pizza that Fox Mulder ordered isn’t from a pizza place Jackson has ever heard of, like Domino’s or Pizza Hut, but it’s really good anyway. Or at least it tastes good to someone who hasn’t eaten all day. Jackson eats the first piece really quickly, then he grabs for a second without thinking, forgetting his manners. When he realizes what he’s done, he hesitates.

“Go for it,” the older man says, his eyes darting sharply back and forth between the pizza and Jackson’s face. “Eat as much as you want.”

Fox Mulder has been acting much more intense ever since Jackson told him about the red-headed lady.

What would happen if Jackson had fallen into Mulder and Scully's life earlier? What would happen if he needed them because he was framed for murder, but was afraid to open up to them fully? What would happen if that reconnection was fraught with hope, and angst, and even literal pain? (And what would happen if a formerly abandoned mytharc thread wove its way back into their lives?)

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!