#defnotmeyo

shawntaw's Typing Scully frowned. As she approached wakefulness, she gasped and scrambled upright and away, falling off the bed with a thump as she did.

Aghast, she rose to her knees and looked into her bed. It was Mulder alright. Surprisingly, her antics had not awoken him. He lay so peacefully, his arm still outstretched from where it had been around her.

Post-Born Again Scully learns more about Mulder's night terrors.

@leiascully's (Ao3)

Adrift (Ao3) But her bed cradled him and his eyes were closing. He caught his breath in panic, a sob catching in his throat. She put a cool washcloth on his forehead.

There was nobody like Scully.

He wanted to tell her.

But the body, the body, the red blood and the white sheet. The air was smeared with color.

Anasazi Mulder feels safe with Scully.

Mulder just looks at Scully and genuinely say 'you're soooo pretty' “I won’t forget that you’re beautiful,” he says, after a moment. He’s looking at her like his eyes can’t quite focus. He reaches out and touches her arm. It seems to reassure him that she is where he perceives her to be.

Scully dissects diction with her loopy partner.

@o6666666's AU where...  and Is... is it cruel to request more... He’s freezing cold.

He wants to be next to her, on her couch, under a blanket so badly he shakes with it; it brings tears to his eyes; he wants to feel warm; he just wants to rest his head on her shoulder; he just wants to rest.

By the time he reaches Quantico, he wishes he didn’t drive there himself, what with his blurry vision, his migrainous head.

AU-- Mulder has cancer instead.

@fbismostunwanted1158's What if during Demons, Scully had gotten in the bath with Mulder to warm him up? “Mulder, let’s—“

“Mm...c-can you ju-st ho-ld me, Sc-cully?” Tone so innocent. Raw. Void of anything but need and honesty.

AU-- Demons Mulder can't warm up.

spookycc's Vixen's Valhalla She tried to swallow, and her throat hurt, but other than that, there was no pain. Trying to remember what had happened, trying to ascertain where she was, she glanced over to her right, and befell a sight that brought a very weak smile to her paled features. At the end of her right arm, obscuring her hand, was a very tousled, sleeping Mulder's head.

Scully takes a bullet for Mulder.

@i-gaze-at-scully/i_gaze_at_scully's Sarcasm 113 By the time she closes the door behind them, she only has a hand on his forearm, and he’s very intently, very deliberately lifting her fingers off one by one. He examines each of them with wide eyes, searching her crop circle fingerprints for some sort of clue, before dropping them off his arm.

Scully tries to manage a partner strung out on pain meds.

ofmulder's Just a Cold "A dog???" He seemed overly excited for some reason beyond her comprehension, "Where?"

"There, Mulder." Scully pointed at the silhouette of the dog who'd stopped right in front of the car and was now staring at the car.

"You see, Scully?" Mulder began with a very serious voice, one she knew as his 'lecturer voice', "The forest isn't the only place where ancient Fauna and Flora reside..."

Scully is frustrated then amused.

baronessblixen's

44 Msr please! “I thought you might not be home.” Scully was prepared to be angry with him; it’s late and he is, albeit unknowingly, crashing her solitary movie night. But all her complaints fly out the door when she sees his pale complexion, his glassy eyes. 

“Mulder, what is the matter? Are you sick?” 

Mulder turns up with an injured wrist (on pain meds.)

When It Rains “Not drunk,” he repeats. “I wasn’t feeling well,” he says. “I just- there were pills in the medicine cabinet. I took them. The first didn’t do anything, so I took something else.” Her alarm bells are ringing.

“What did you take?” she asks and he just shrugs.

“I thought it was Tylenol. Wait. I think the other was Benadryl. My throat was so itchy.”

“Mulder, you don’t have any allergies.”

Post-Triangle Mulder winds up at Scully’s doorstep.

something set during Per Manum (Ao3) “Mulder,” she says, suppressing a giggle, “I’m not made of glass.”

But she’s wrong there, he thinks, as he keeps his arms around, leading her inside her apartment by taking tiny steps as if he’d just learned to walk. In many ways, he feels like he has. There’s precious cargo between them. Right now, at this very moment, her egg and his sperm are getting to know each other, deciding whether or not there’s a future for them. Mulder, always the believer, hopes there is.

After their IVF procedure, Mulder vows to pamper his partner for the weekend.

Berries “Is he drunk?” Bill mutters into Scully’s ear.

“No,” Scully tells him and wonders if she’s maybe said it too quickly, “he hurt himself on a case and they gave him too many painkillers."

"You expect me to believe that?” It does sound stupid, she realizes. 

S6 Scully brings her loopy partner to the family Christmas.

Cow-incidences He closes his eyes, only to pop them open again after a few minutes. It could be wishful thinking, but she thinks they look clearer already; the dark clouds moving away, making way for his brilliant mind to shine through.

“Will you stay?” he asks, his voice deep and gravelly.

“Of course I’ll stay,” she assures him, taking his hand in hers. “I’ll be here when you wake up again.”

Mulder has yet another accident involving a cow.

Healing Powers “I can feel my nose,” he explains. “Is that normal? Scully, do you feel your nose?”

“You can have another dose of med before bed, Mulder.”

“Your nose, Scully,” he says, touching his finger to her nose, booping it softly. “You have a cute nose. Do you feel it?”

Mulder wants a kiss to heal faster.

A New Beginning (Ao3) “In how much pain are you?”

“Right now? None. I’m looking at you.” Any other time, she might have rolled her eyes or call him crazy, but he’s so serious, so earnest.

“You still need to take them, though, all right?” He nods at her.

“Doing everything you say, Dr. Scully.”

“Since when?”

“Since last night.”

Post-Millennium Scully and Mulder and the new year.

Chilly Nights (Ao3) He knocks as quietly as he can and waits. There’s no noise on the other side of the door. Fear starts niggling at him. What if Scully is not well and she’s all on her own? He knocks again, this time more forcefully.

“Mulder?” There she is. The love of his life in a winter coat and a comforter that almost dwarfs her.

“I was worried,” he says. “I texted you and then you didn’t open the door.”

“It’s 2 a.m.,” she says with a yawn.

Revival Mulder and Scully bundle up in her cold motel room.

Lea Nicci's (LJ) West of Sunrise - Part 1/2 and West of Sunrise - Part 2/2 (Gossamer) "I was worried about you," she said, gently, trying her hardest not to sound accusing. "Are you okay?"

He laughed dryly. "I'd say `okay' is a relative term." With a grimace, he rolled over and reached for a bottle sitting on the table next to the abandoned plate. He handed it to her with a glum expression. "But the FBI shrink thinks I could use a round of this."

AU-- S5 Scully realizes her partner is severely depressed.

35-leukothea's Tell Me “Sit up and drink all of that,” she instructs, trying to be gentle but still firm, and holds out the medicine for him. He takes it, swallows it dry, then downs half the glass in one go. Then he takes out the straw and bites on it.

“The water, Mulder,” she reminds him.

He finishes the rest of it, then lies back on the bed and pulls her down with him. She inhales sharply, surprised, but does not move away. His hand curls around her bicep like he wants to make sure she’s still real, and Scully thinks he doesn’t realize how much he anchors her to reality by doing so.

Post-The End Scully is there for her partner.

@msrafterglow/msrafterdark's 92 :) But something is different now. Ever since he breathed those frightening, precious three words into the shell of her ear three nights ago, something has broken open in her, become raw and new and vulnerable. They haven’t slept together yet, but he knows it’s going to be any day now, if the open longing he keeps seeing on her face is any indication.

Post-Triangle Mulder notices some changes.

@is-on-its-way/Ophelia_is_a_nun's Sea Mystery (Ao3) She picked her head up and rubbed her face. He wouldn’t have said it if he hadn’t been drugged. And thats all that mattered.

Post-Triangle Mulder and Scully navigate his loopy confession.

@sunflowerseedsandscience/sunflowerseedsandscience‘s Someday Your Child May Cry: Chapter 9 In the hallway outside of Mulder’s hospital room, Scully leans up against the wall, covering her eyes with a shaking hand. Skinner and the Gunmen have, thankfully, already gone down to the hospital lobby to wait for her, and are not here to witness her mini-breakdown following Mulder’s unexpected confession.

He’s drugged, she reminds herself firmly. He has no idea what he’s saying. The best thing you can do for both of you is to go downstairs, go back to the hotel, let him sleep and sober up, and not speak of this again unless he brings it up first.

And yet, her feet are carrying her back into his hospital room.

AU-- IVF arc Mulder and Scully stumble their way to success.

@sunlightscully's north to the future (Beautitudes) He cradles his hand and shakes, almost imperceptibly. She can feel it through his clothes, could feel it from across the room when she first walked in.

He’s alive, she thinks, alive, alive, alive, and can think of nothing else.

Later, in private, he clutches at her with his good hand. She can feel him shaking now across the expanse of his mattress. “Thank you,” he’d said when she offered to drive him home, and she’d wanted to say it back a thousand times, ten thousand times, because earlier she’d had time to think about what her life would be like without him and it had been difficult to imagine.

Now he trembles. You’re alive, she thinks to him. It will be okay because you are alive.

The FBI duo support each other through tragedies.

@cassiopeia462/Cassiopeia12727's One Bed. one Night. There was a moment in which they were just gazing at each other, her body frozen mid-movement, not quite lying and not quite sitting, with his hand still firmly, but gently, around her wrist. Scully's heart was beating more rapidly again, not knowing where this was going. The night had been humming with the sound of crickets and racket from the AC unit, but it suddenly seemed as if everything had fallen silent.

Scully helps Mulder fall asleep... and is surprised he doesn't want her to go.

@thatfragilecapricorn30's (Ao3) laughing gas (Ao3) A wave of affection swept through Scully. She looked down at Mulder, who seemed ready to fall asleep, and squeezed his hand. Even though his eyes were mostly closed, he still smiled and squeezed her hand back. Oh boy, was Scully in trouble now. She had been in love with him for some time now but seeing him act so sweet and happy towards her was making all her buried feelings rush to the surface in an overwhelming swarm of emotion.

Mulder has a dental procedure.

@laurencem's (Ao3) besotted (Ao3) “Maybe. Maybe I’ve been thinking about taking you out the right way for a while. Maybe I don’t know why I’ve waited so long.”

Clatter on the roof - a sudden downpour. She startles upward, pulse racing, and his arm tightens around her, pulling her back to earth.

A loopy Mulder (and Scully) makes dinner reservations.

@starwalker42's (Ao3) "can you hear me?" In the real image of me, my body relaxes, and I sway towards her – she reaches for me – that’s it, Mulder, it’s me, it’s okay – and then the door opens.

Biogenesis Mulder focuses on Scully during his torment.

Sarah Segretti's (Ao3) A Less Certain World (Ao3) When I finally open my eyes again, the apartment is dark. Soft lips press just above my left ear. "You're doing better, Mulder," Scully whispers, her mouth forming a small smile against my cropped hair. "That one only lasted about half an hour."

A few cracks about length and stamina and endurance cross my raw and bleeding mind, but I'm too exhausted to organize them into a sentence. "Stop keeping score, Scully. I've already done the lab rat thing."

"Sorry." She kisses me again and sits up. I know her. She'll still keep track, but she'll keep the results to herself. There's a lot she's still keeping to herself - to protect me, I think, the way I used to protect her from things I thought she didn't need to know.

AU-- Amor Fati Mulder was able to be cured... at a cost.

Defnotmeyo's What does the frog say? “Sounds like my vacuum cleaner.”

“Like you’d know what a vacuum sounds like.”

He grins loopily at her and she’s torn under the tide in affection for him. His stupid tie and his stupid yellow pajama pants and his stupid hair cut.

Signs and Wonders Mulder is shocked at bullfrogs.

Andrea's In Amor, Vis Vires Most of the time Scully seemed so remote; keeping her feelings closely guarded. But earlier, during the shave, for a split second I thought I'd finally seen how she felt about me. I could have been mistaken. I was probably only seeing her concern for my health, but it felt like something deeper.

Post-En Ami TLG and Scully spirit an injured Mulder away to England where she doctors him back to health. Their mission: to uncover yet another Consortium plot. His mission: to prove his feelings for Scully.

@singeart/singeart's For What Ails You “I came over today to make you feel better, " he chided, making her laugh.

Scully calls in sick, Mulder drops by later, and both discuss their sisters.

@sagan-starstuff/sagan_starstuff's And how did that work out? “I swore I labelled that takeout.” “You did. A week ago. And how did that work out for you?”

Mulder is sick, and Scully is there.

A. Kelley Nolan's Have a Nice Trip "Mulder, look at me," she says quietly. I do, of course, because she's Scully and I'd do anything for her. And there she is, looking at me. I feel a little misty myself, just like that geeky kid in the lab. Scully looks deep into my eyes. Oh, hey, baby. I'm right here. She frowns a little.

"Agent Scully?" Skinner prompts. "He'd better be having a stroke."

Mulder's colorblindness causes a minor problem.

xraelynn/Rachel Noble‘s Breathing Room "Stay...with me, Scully," he says.

Scully's smile is genuine and a little sad. "Always, Mulder," she says softly. She rubs his fingers with hers as his breathing begins to even out, some of the wheezing sounds gone from it.

Scully's eyes are somehow apologetic as she turns to me.

Brand X Mulder doesn’t want his partner to leave.

RivkaT - MustangSally‘s Syadiloh 3 : Y2K (Ao3) Mulder sniffled and turned to go into the bathroom. I heard banging noises as he raided the cabinets, but I knew how Mulder usually dealt with sickness and I wasn't going to brave the lion's den unless he was in actual danger of bleeding out on the floor.

When he came back, his lips were red and sticky with syrup, but he was coherent enough to drive us over to Zippy's for the party.

AU-- Mulder helps deliver their child while high on drugs.

@touchstoneaf's (Ao3) Amor Fati: Destinata (The Fated Love) Act Two and Amor Fati: The Fated Love” Act III “I was there,” she murmured into his shoulder.  /I’ll always be here./  He could accept it now.  She was finally able to press her arms about him in the night.  Feel the strong bones beneath unblemished flesh; amazed that he was even alive for her to hold after an ordeal that had indeed taken him from her for so long that she had lost all hope.  She shuddered and cinched her arms tighter; felt his ribs shift beneath the silky envelope of his skin.  They creaked in protest, but he did not move, and she spoke like one driven.  “I was there hurting for you, holding you against the nightmares, even when you couldn't ask me to be there.  I was with you every night until you came back to me.” 

AU-- S9 Scully, who left home with William (Act One), is at last reunited with her partner. They dodge danger, attempt to dismantle the Conspiracy, and carefully discuss their respective trauma.

MaybeAmanda/maybe_amanda's (LJ, xffics) Under Construction (xffic) "It's okay," she said, without missing a beat. "I'm glad you called." We rolled past the playground on the corner, the best- in-district red brick grade school next to the ball field, and splashed our way through the pothole on Drury Lane that the town was supposed to have fixed by now. A jet of only slightly filthy water shot up and spread-eagled itself against the window beside me and I didn't flinch. Go me.

I looked down at my hands. The knuckles on my right hand were raw and bloody. I hadn't hit anyone, but Scully and I had been discussing renovations before I went out for my run, so in my own misguided way I might have tried to take out a wall. "I took my meds." My voice was small and scared and at that moment, suited me perfectly. I hated it.

AU-- A recovering post-NIHT Mulder must sort between his faulty memories and upended existence: a medicated family man uncertain where he fits.

@monikafilefan's (Ao3) Pre-IWTB at the unremarkable house Scully scoffs, and his cheek suddenly feels bereft without her thumb arcing across it. “You’re high, Mulder.” 

“High on my love for you,” he coos.

Pre-IWTB Mulder injures himself at the Unremarkable House.

@atths--twice's (Ao3, FFN) I’ve Got You “Mulder, we’re not going to talk about this when you’re doped up on painkillers.” 

“I think you would make a lovely bride,” he said, licking his lips. Rolling his eyes to look at her, it took him a second to focus on her face. “Hi. When did you get here?” 

“Mulder,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. 

Post-IWTB Scully is alerted after Mulder injures himself.

@sisterspooky1013/SisterSpooky1013/Sister Spooky‘s The Things We Lost “Mulder, you’re overreacting. I’m sure you’re fine. You’re not going to miss anything.” Normally she’d be annoyed at his catastrophizing and dramatics, but he seems so genuinely afraid that she can’t be mad at him. “Let’s think back through the morning and when you started feeling unwell. What did you do today?”

He closes his eyes to aid in his memory recall. 

“I got up and went for a run. Took a shower. Made coffee. Smacked your ass when you were getting things out of the fridge to make breakfast.” He cracks an eye to catch her smirk, then closes it again. “Sat on the couch. Took my blood pressure medication and brought you your vitamin. Ate breakfast. That’s when I started feeling sick.”

Post-MSIV Mulder flashes over the failures of his past, afraid he'll miss his family's future.

CONCLUSION

Thanks for reading~

@scenes-in-between/@scullywolf's (Ao3) Never Again Telling Mulder would make it real. And she wasn’t ready for that, not yet.

Post-Leonard Betts Scully's fear drives her to Philadelphia.

Chibiness87's Transient Following a suspect into a tattoo parlour dressed as she is may appear a little unwise, but she is intrigued despite herself. The design of the ouroboros calls to her; a direct contrast to what she claimed in the office the previous day about life. Here the snake is constantly reborn, life continues on forevermore, a constant loop.

A symbol of infinity.

Of permanence.

She likes it immediately.

Never Again Scully wonders if she has cancer.

Clementinewoolysocks369's The Problem - Chapter 1 Maybe she just wants to take a normal risk for once. Maybe she just wants to reassure herself she’s alive. It’s a side effect of being one of the few people her age who has had the privilege of seeing her own gravestone. “Dana Scully. Loving daughter and friend.” Her life summed up in a few words.

Post-Leonard Betts Scully feels disconnected from life.

@bakedbakermom/lonegunga1's Ouroboros (Ao3) It was the first place Mulder ever really touched her, on that first case in his dark Oregon motel room with rain sheeting down outside, as Scully stood trembling in the candlelight and the tiny flame flickered in the warm cloud of his breath. She had trusted him enough, even then, to bare her body, and he in turn trusted her enough to bare his soul.

It is still the place he touches her the most, the place she has come to think of as “his.” 

Never Again Scully inks her rebellion.

@illaisland/manos_de_piedra's Pierce (Ao3) Viper's fang injecting slick scarlet.

She gasps, flinching. 

Never Again Scully soaks in her sensations.

MystPhile's

Never-Ever--Again This is a moment of truth. Another, and so soon after the last. My life is crowded with them these days. I stand outside our office, ready to enter for the first time since returning from Philadelphia.

All the delicious heat I'd felt when I was close to Ed Jerse was, it seems, a mere precursor to his nearly incinerating me, then toasting his own arm.

Never Again Scully ruminates on her avenging anger.

After For the tenth time, she wondered what they were doing here. It wasn't as if blood was allegedly pouring from human flesh, and she doubted that Skinner had assigned the case. Where was the *crime*? Had Mulder brought her to Philadelphia to watch her squirm? Had he chosen this bogus- looking religious case purely to poke fun at her faith? Was he really that cruel, and were they that far gone? She tried to shake off the depression this thought spread over her like a pall.

Pre-Never Again Mulder and Scully fell into bed, never talked about it, and are now grappling with her Philadelphia weekend-- in resentful silence, on a case.

@syntax6's (Gossamer, FFN, omniscribe) 20 - Chapter 4 Snow is falling again when he picks her up from the hospital. Tiny little flakes drift from the silent sky, illuminated briefly by the yellow street lamps before settling softly on the cold white world around them. Scully shivers insider her coat as she waits for him to open the locked car. Snow catches on her black shoulders and dull, burnished hair, and he barely recognizes her. The red seems muted to him now in the wake of all those pictures - her body and Jerse's, catalogued as evidence.

Never Again Scully, injured, asks for help.

defnotmeyo's It's My

And it’s the with who that driving you particularly crazy, right?  Because you kind of think that maybe if Ed Jerse wasn’t completely off his rocker, he might be a little bit better than you.  He was certainly more stable, outwardly, despite the failed marriage. He was certainly suaver, getting her to open up to him.  He was certainly at least as good looking as you, a little more ripped, a little bulkier.

That goads you, doesn’t it?

Never Again Mulder can't finish his sentence.

@mldrgrl's (Ao3) Seeing Red “Get out, Mulder,” she mumbles, trying not to move her lips too much. Blood seeps into her mouth anyway and she grimaces at the coppery tang on her tongue.

“Keep your head back,” he answers, as though he didn’t hear her. He turns the faucet on and turns to the paper towel dispenser.

“I said get out!” she says again, and the force of her voice causes the blood on her lips to splatter on the sink and mirror.

Mulder freezes with a paper towel fluttering in his hand. 

Post-Never Again Scully has a nosebleed (in front of her partner.)

@thursdayinspace's (Ao3) fic: five times Mulder doesn't ask Scully out on a date (and one time he does) (Ao3) She’s right to be mad at him. He deserves it. He’s mad at himself. He doesn’t know if he’s ever been angrier.

Amongst other opportunities thoroughly fumbled, Mulder misses a glaring one during Never Again.

@incidental-ao3/incidental's

Febuwhump 2023: The Truth is Out There (And the Fic is In Here) - Chapter 8 But eventually, the yawn came, unbidden, and he reached for the remote.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said hurriedly. He had already flipped it off.

“Nah, you need your beauty sleep,” he joked. He turned his lamp off, but she hesitated.

“Uh, Mulder, can I… can I confide something in you?” she asked, setting her book aside. He propped himself up on his elbow, brow crinkled.

Post-Never Again Scully is plagued by night terrors.

Nothing Else Matters “You… are all that I care about, Scully. All. Nothing else matters without you.”

“Oh,” was all she could manage to say in response. It was disarming, how quickly the energy between them had changed.

AU-- Post-Never Again Mulder and Scully yell out their anger (and finally, finally communicate.)

Diana Alexander's The Vain Shadow of the Past He walked over to Scully's desk, and she looked up at him as he spoke softly. "I'm sorry, Scully."

Post-Never Again Mulder reflects on their complicated relationship.

@frogsmulder/Brynstein's Love Me Tender The shadow of Phoebe Green was his ghost. He had collected others since, they always seemed to follow him, stitched to his heel. But Phoebe had been his first. In every sense of the word. When they had been together she had completely and utterly shattered him. In a way that was both exhilarating and terrifying, but now it was just terrifying. Or so he tried to tell himself.

Post-Never Again Scully realizes Mulder is afraid.

@jessahmewren's (Ao3) Mulder & Scully, #15 Scully watched he scenery slide by in green/blue flashes. They’d been driving for ages. Her tattoo itched, but she couldn’t discreetly scratch it without Mulder noticing, and it was still a sore spot for him.

Ed Jerse was a sore spot for him.

Post-Never Again Scully is ready for a fight.

@suitablyaggrieved/ScullyLovesQueequeg's #4 Come Here, Let Me Fix It For You “Thank you,” She said that lowly, as if forbidden, and that’s when Mulder noticed it. Her cross was not on her neck.

“Scully, what happened to your necklace?” He asked.

“It broke. After all these years, and you wearing it some, it finally broke."

Post-Never Again Mulder does his best to fix things (literally.)

@just-a-donut-who-reads/just_a_donut_who_reads's Unnamed Pacing done, she stands on her toes, arms above her head, stretching her shoulders and mid-section and twists at the waist, allowing the tension to seep out of her body. The action makes her cropped sweatshirt ride up, and from the corner of her eye, she can see Mulder's eyes following its hemline. Suddenly, he looks away, and his hands tighten almost imperceptibly on the cushion he's holding. Scully lowers her arms and turns to him.

"What?" She asks, examining her abdomen. He shakes his head but she continues, lifting up the back of the sweatshirt and twisting to look at her back. 

Oh.

Post-Never Again Mulder glimpses his partner's tattoo.

@scullysexual/PostApocolypticAlien's

30 Ways To Say "I Love You" (1/30)/How It Was Before. - Chapter 1 You return from the little café down the road and venture over to her area.

“It was two sugars, right?” you ask.

Startled, she glances up at you and the coffee cup in your hand.

Post-Never Again Mulder apologizes.

A Ghost Inbetween It's a tiny dab of red. You could of easily missed it, would of if you were anyone but yourself yet, either way, you wouldn't miss anything when it relates to her, especially recently. Recently something had been very off with her if the last case was anything to go by.

Post-Never Again Mulder sees blood on Scully's shirt.

Michelle Kiefer's The Bar Scene - Race the Wind When she raised her eyes, Mulder's smug look had been replaced with concern and perhaps a little guilt.

Post-Never Again Scully and Mulder aggravate each other on their next case.

@aloysiavirgata's Snow Carefully Everywhere Descending (LJ) Mulder eyes her sidelong; her height requires her to shimmy to the edge of the tall stool and hop down in an undignified fashion. He watches her stride through the room - linoleum the color of old computers, of old bones - and resents the pairs of eyes that follow her dark, trim figure. They have no idea about her, he thinks. They can’t possibly begin to imagine her, the complexity of the brain cloistered behind that bruised and lovely face. They cannot fathom the things her sea-deep eyes have watched unfold.

Post-Never Again Mulder and Scully, prickly still, begin to slowly open up.

@h0ldthiscat's (Ao3) 7 (things you said while we were driving)  She shoves the sunshade back up and clears her throat. “Can we go?”

He notices for the first time that her eyes are wet, that her chin is quivering despite her best attempts to control it. Remorse and guilt wash over him as he remembers an offhand comment from earlier in the week that explains her makeup, her nicer-than-usual suit, the set of her jaw."

Post-Never Again Mulder realizes Scully feels used.

AUs

@seepunkrun/Punk/runpunkrun's (site, Gossamer) Across a Desk (Ao3) She waited to see what he would do. It occurred to her that he wasn't going to say anything on his own. She had to decide if it would be worth it to flush him out of his hole.

Foxhole.

Something in her appreciated how much that remark could hurt him. She held that power inside of her: She could hurt Mulder.

AU-- Post-Never Again Scully's tattoo can talk.

@writingwell/RocketMan's (site) I Hurt "Scully, did you hear me?"

I shake my head no. I hurt, I hurt, I hurt, I hurt

"Scully, would you like to have dinner with me tonight?" he asks.

AU-- Post-Never Again Scully, still saddened from the Tunguska-Terma fiasco, is shocked by Mulder's question.

Brandon D. Ray's (Gossamer, xffics) No Place Like Home (Gossamer) "Tell you what, Scully," her partner said as the chuckles finally died down. "You ever decide you DO want a tattoo, give me a holler and we'll go get one together, okay? We need to spend more time social time together relaxing, anyway -- the stress is getting to both of us."

AU-- Never Again was all a dream.

@swinging-stars-from-satellites/bravest_person_in_Wonderland's even more of exactly the same (Ao3) It might hurt too much to acknowledge that she walked away from her best friend of four years over a stupid fight, a pointless desk and the point of a needle dripping ink into her skin. A part of her misses him, the part that wakes up panicking and praying she won't find blood on her pillowcase, but another part is still angry.

He has no claim on her. She has no claim on him. That makes her sad.

AU-- Post-Never Again Scully leaves without a goodbye... and calls again after her diagnosis.

BONUS

@kateyes224's Mulder’s real panic face. Whatever you do, do not think about how Mulder had answered Scully’s phone call early that morning with one of his usual pithy Mulderisms, eager to regain a tenuous balance with her after she had reduced him to ashes and unfinished sentences in the wake of the Ed Jerse case.  Don’t think about how Mulder’s face fell as the words “Can you meet me at the oncology ward?” slowly floated into his ears, his smile fading, as it took his brain several long moments to play catch-up before the words actually made sense.

Post-Never Again Mulder is given bad news.

Meredith's Backhand Her life was his as much as his was hers. And she was waiting to tell him until after she was dead.

Two and a half days of nonstop searching and five hours in a variety of uncomfortable chairs had brought him to his knees. He had been moving so fast for so long that the reality of the situation hadn't sunk in; his brain had been processing the facts nonstop since Scully's call back in D.C., but his heart hadn't been able to keep up.

Memento Mori Mulder understands Scully's Philadelphia excursion.

@cecilysass's We’re Not Here To Get Involved in Personal Problems - Chapter 6 “Blood-related sexual activity!” Scully finds herself getting belatedly frightened and angry. “Mulder, did HIV/AIDS cross your mind?”

“I guess I probably forgot to review the pamphlets that night. Hey, maybe you can tell me for the future, Dr. Scully, how safe are kinky contaminated tattoo needles?”

Scully notes by the bright quality in his eyes that he is a little angry, too, and she questions if Mulder’s fear monster theory is right after all. 

Post-X-Cops Mulder and Scully walk the neighborhood, eat mangoes, and delicately discuss past trysts.

@leiascully's tattoo He grazed the snake on her back with one fingertip. She could hear the question in his quiet.

Hearts now open to each other, Mulder and Scully discuss her tattoo.

CONCLUSION

Thanks for reading~