Collector's Edition: The Bitter and the Sweet of Immortality
Immortality is mostly tragic for one Dana Scully; but not without its sweet spots.
**Note**: I want to put in a special word for Deadcanon's "X-Tropy"-- just found it, it's incredible. Can't recommend enough.
Loose chronological order below~
@myassbrokethefall's Scully told Mulder (more as a joking aside than anything, of course) what Bruckman said to her and his eyes got big with delight
"Mulder, even IF he meant it literally, which -- "
"Why wouldn't he mean it literally? That thing he said about you ending up in bed with him, it wasn't what you expected but it did HAPPEN, but there's a lot less ambiguity in -- "
"Well, what about what he said about how you die?"
"Well. Uh, he wasn't. He wasn't saying that ABOUT me, he was just using it as an example. I think he was just trying to get me to shut up."
"Uh-huh."
Post-Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose Mulder clings to the immortality theory as years, then decades, roll by.
@leiascully's (Ao3) XeranthemumÂ
She’s intrigued, of course, and hopeful, and terrified. She can imagine outliving her mother, now, but she doesn’t want to. She can imagine outliving Mulder, though it makes her breath come short and her heart thud. She can’t imagine outliving everyone she’s ever known.Â
Scully mulls over the gifted curse of immortality.
Brandon D. Ray's (Gossamer, xffics) Cant Bear to Look (Gossamer)
He stands by my bedside and continues to speak to me in a low, lifeless voice.
He's telling me how sorry he is; he's telling me how miserable he feels about the whole thing; he's telling me how he feels he let me down. But the words are just flowing around me; I can barely hear them.
Because he's gray.
And that means he's going to die.
Tithonus Scully now sees the dying in black-and-white.
Namarie's (LJ, mulderscreek) The Quiet Limit of the World
"Do you remember the car accident a few weeks ago?" She meets his eyes again, and sees his puzzlement. This obviously was not what he was expecting.
"Of course." He opens his mouth to say more, but evidently decides against it.
Scully shifts her attention to her hands in her lap. "I didn't get a chance to mention to you that I'd cut myself when the car hit us. Nothing serious, and there were more important things to do at the time." She cannot make herself look at him now. "But when we got back to work, I went to check on the cut in the bathroom, and - it was gone. I mean completely gone, not just scabbed over. The only thing left was some dried blood on my sleeve."
AU-- Post-Tithonus Scully battles with depression over her fears of immortality (and failed IVF attempts.) Still, all hope is not lost.
Deadcanons's X-Tropy
“Scully?” a familiar voice said, full of gentle awe.
Scully’s eyes snapped open. The TV in the living room was on. Standing in front of it, haloed from behind by the bright light of the screen, was her partner. His soft face and tousled hair brought a familiarity that ached. His features were extreme in the TV’s backlight, but when Scully looked at him she knew instantly how absurd it was to think that she would ever forget him. She would recognize him anywhere: in shadow, in light, in a blade of grass, in a single shaking atom. If some cosmic force in the universe really wanted to make her forget, they would have no choice but to burn her brain out, to smash her body on a rocky cliffside, to throw her into an alien spaceship and suck her memories out on a drip. And even then, when the drugs wore off and she woke up in an unmarked hospital bed, the first thing out of her mouth would be to ask where Mulder was.Â
Scully came towards him, her exhaustion forgotten. “Mulder?”
She was about to fall into his arms. Then she just fell into him, instead. She went right through him.
AU-- This fic covers Scully's life after Mulder's untimely death: on the run from an alien bounty hunter, run-ins with Doggett and bat monsters and Reyes and ghost Mulders and witchy mediums, and the world-- more specifically, her apartment-- returning to normalcy after the meteors.
LieutenantDru's Monday Night: Dream and Dress Myself Like a Charcoal Sketch
Dana woke up from a nightmare about Mulder getting shot. She didn't like those nightmares. They happened a lot, in a variety of settings. Mulder took up enough of her waking hours, he didn't need to take her sleeping ones too. Â
Post-Monday Scully is not comforted by thoughts of immortality.
MargsLover's Make It Through Monday
"Are you suggesting that the entire earth reset... that time itself was altered and repeated- because of me? Because I am... immortal...?"
"Well, when you put it like that..." he says sheepishly.
AU-- Post-Monday Mulder helps Scully rationalize her fears (and more.)
@greekowl87's (Ao3) Fighting the Inevitable (Tumblr)
He coughed. Blood dribbled from the corner of his lip. “Scully, you are hurt.”
“Mulder, let me take care of you!” She snapped.
“Just keep pressure on it. Isn’t that right?” He coughed and blood trickled down his lip. She heard sirens in the distance. The back up they had called for. His eyes were glazed and tried to focus on her face. “Scully, I don’t…”
“What?”
“I don’t want to die.”
AU-- Post-Monday Scully is forced to share her immortality.
@shadequeenscully/IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow's Back in the Day is Now - Chapter 3
The paramedics storm through the door with a stretcher and he grips her hand tightly as she is hoisted up, an oxygen mask placed over her face.Â
“Scully, you have to relax,” he tries to reassure as they lift her into the ambulance. “You’re going to be okay.”
She shakes her head furiously, tears slipping from her eyes as she begs him to see.
Post-Milagro Scully panics over possible immortality.
Singing_Violin's Alive
When I came to, someone was looming over me, and I startled, only to realize, moments later, that it was just my partner.
My partner, who will die one day, and there will be nothing I can do to stop it. "Agent Scully is already in love," Padgett had said. And destined to lose that love forever.
Post-Milagro Scully breaks down.
ML/ML_is_me/ml_griffonnage's (site, Ao3)
Age Cannot Wither and Nor Custom Stale
Once her son knew the truth, Scully stopped trying to hide her unchanging face. They traveled the globe together, looking for answers. They never stayed long enough in a place for Scully's unchanging appearance to become a problem. She'd also learned a thing or two from the Gunmen about hiding her identity, though in the end she always went back to Scully. Always Scully. She wanted to be sure Mulder could find her, no matter what.
But though they found many things, and had many adventures, they never found the one thing they sought, and as far as she knows, no one ever sought them during that time.
When at last her son is gone and she is truly alone in the world, she goes on as best she can.
AU-- Post-Requiem Mulder is returned to Scully's Bellefleur, Oregon hospital hundreds of years later.
vulcanscully's Begin(e)n(d)ings
“I just…” she finishes, truthfully, because however many things she’s hidden from Mulder over the years she never could be openly dishonest with him. “I didn’t want to admit it myself.”
“What do we do?” His voice is that of a child—the believer rendered helpless in disbelief.
She leans over to take his hands. His tremble where hers are still. “We keep living,” she says, and while he takes it as a point of inspiration, of wisdom based on all they have been through together, she knows that it is her only option.
AU-- Post- MSIV Scully cuts out her chip, the source of her immortality, after the X-Files' legacy is created anew.
Only his eyes could answer. “I know. I’m sorry.”
AU-- Scully may be immortal, but she can't stop the clock for her partner.
curiouscuriouscurious's the end of the longest day
“Scully, I know the secret that you intended to keep. You were immortal, weren’t you? Yet somehow, you found a way to… die or maybe death found you — the light, you saw it too.” He drops his head down to look at her hands and plays with her little frail-looking fingers. They are beautiful despite how how much they’ve aged. Scully is beautiful.
AU-- Post-MSIV Mulder passes on, knowing Scully isn't too far behind him.
WildwingSuz/Suzanne Feld's Fallen Leaves (Ao3)
I have been given a second chance.
And if there is a Heaven, as I still believe, I know Mulder’s smiling down on me.
AU-- Forty years after Mulder's death, a lonely Scully finds her son.
leslieknopedanascully's immortal
Just a few feet away, Scully’s granddaughter slept in the hospital bed. Her head was turned away from Scully, her messy hair—the same vibrant red Scully’s once was—covered her face. The memory of her granddaughter’s birth already felt nondescript, too similar to her current situation, too similar to every other birth she had witnessed, to stand as an independent memory. And in time, those congealed memories would fade away at the edges until there was nothing left but a nagging feeling that she couldn’t quite place.
AU-- Scully is there for the birth of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
@naraht/Naraht's (DW) Yet certain am I of the spot
As surely as I have inherited the universe, Mulder has inherited the kingdom of heaven.Â
AU-- Scully puts her lifetimes to good use.
@teethnbone's (Ao3)
One of few remaining photos
"Though Dr. Scully is a noted recluse and her exact whereabouts remain unknown, if she is alive today she remains the oldest living human being on record."Â
AU-- Scully holds one final press conference, then vanishes.
Das Ding
For the billionth time it occurs to her that he is the one who should have been made immortal. It’s easy to imagine: Fox Mulder and his Book of Sand. She can see him hunkered in that 20th century office, flipping page after page and finding each account more amazing then the last. The days waxing and waning with the same fixity of a pendulum’s swing, the seasons ebbing and flowing in a kind of slow, mesmeric torture, and through it all the tall, shambly shape of him behind the desk: dropping slides into the carousel and whistling lonesomely into the face of eternity. He could have lived one billion days on this planet, and still found something fascinating to poke at on his billionth and one...
“What does it feel like”, Amil had asked her once, years ago.
“Like a million year picnic and you’re the only one at the table,” she’d told him and Amil had nodded once and never asked again.
No, Scully thinks. She would never wish this on him.
AU-- Parallel worlds, lifetimes, immortality, and deep-sea mysteries.
@keatingscully's Torn Out Page
Grey hairs, wrinkles, and rocking chairs with the National Enquirer on his lap. "Monkey babies and UFOS," he'd rasp after a sip of tea and a coughing fit. He’d shake his head and gaze beyond the wooden porch railings with the chipped paint and rotten floor boards.
She would just watch him through round glasses, untouched from the harshness of time other than the long strand of grey hair he loved to tease her about as he ran it between trembling fingers. Little did he know that she had dyed it to make him feel better about his mortality.
AU-- Scully loses the memories most dear to her.
@lepus-arcticus's the after
Any semblance of Scully’s mortal vanity had long since dissolved, but there was nothing to be done about it–she would always be beautiful. She wore her copper hair cropped close to her head, and proud, tawny freckles lay spattered across her cheeks. Her eyes were still as blue as a new star.Â
AU-- Post-Colonization Mulder and Scully have achieved their own versions of immortality.
@scully-loves-ruthie's Fictober Day 20
 “Well,” Scully offered between breathes as they came down the sloping side of what was once a lovely single-family home with, oh look at that, lovely rose China. She stepped over it feeling somehow pained at crushing it further. “It looks like our visit to the necromancer really paid off.” She took a long slug of her water jug as Mulder steadied her by the elbow the rest of the way down.
Post-Colonization Mulder and Scully are immortal, together.
Pale The Chicken's Seven More Days
I never realized that the world would look like this. Never. Everything is a hallow shell of brunt meat, children look like the paper dolls they used to play with. Now, us 'leftovers' will play the creators, make up the dolls in prom gowns and wedding dresses, we are the children, they are our toys.
AU-- Post-Colonization Scully survives an illness that rampaged the country, without her partner.
@this-is-surely-tru/yours_truly's Ashes to Ashes
The Word became flesh, and see! The home of God is among mortals. Does she still count? Does an undying wraith have any need for resurrection? Her lungs may still draw breath and her heart may still pump blood, but she’d testify that she knows death as well or better than anyone could.
AU-- Post-Colonization Scully and Biblical allegories as the world crumbles around her.
BONUS
@morewinepls's She was supposed to be immortal
The doctor said it was old age. That she died of natural causes. But he knows better, knows who’s the immortal one.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
âś“ Live Streamingâś“ Interactive Chatâś“ Private Showsâś“ HD Qualityâś“ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
