#scullyphile

35) things you said that made me feel real (Ao3)

"I haven't been sleeping well." He pulls up a chair and sits close to her bed, but not too close. She can see him better now; shadows playing on his face, his eyes alert and curious. But she keeps quiet. Scully can tell he wants her to admit the same. She flushes with horror thinking he might have heard her scream out from her nightmare. The first few nights her mother had stayed with her and after her Melissa. Both, with teary, pitiful eyes had told her about her night terrors. What are those dreams about? Her sister had wanted to know. Scully had not told her. Could not tell anyone.

Post-Firewalker Mulder helps ward off nightmares.

Early season MSR, #30 (Ao3)

“Mulder, you’re not the problem.” Her whisper in this dark, quiet closet could have just as well have been a scream. He is silent after that and Scully is convinced she can hear him think. He is going through their files in his mind, searching for any indication why this is so difficult for her; it takes him a while, longer than she thought it would, and she knows exactly when he gets it. His gasp is audible, sounds painful in her ears, and almost immediately his hand is back on her shoulder.

“Duane Barry.” It’s not a question. “He- when you – when he…” Scully nods, hoping to shut him up.

“I’m so sorry, Scully.” His apology is different this time and his hand leaves her shoulder, lands on her back, and gently starts stroking up and down; Scully is uncertain if he’s even aware of what he’s doing.

Pre-Red Museum Mulder helps his partner cope with Duane Barry flashbacks.

Anything For Her

“Oh hey,” Mulder stumbles over his greeting. He swallows and sits upright on his couch, as if that would make a difference. He turns down the volume of the TV. “How – how are you feeling?” There’s more silence, graver than before. Mulder expects the worst, even if he can’t say what that would be right this moment. His throat is dry and he swallows again.

“Can you… I don’t think I should be alone tonight.” Even now she can’t ask him. But Mulder, after all this time, can’t blame her. He turns off the TV, searches for his shoes.

“I’ll be right there, Scully.”

Cancer arc Mulder makes bread for Scully.

Whispered Words (Ao3)

“Scully? Are you okay?”

How many ‘I’m fine's’ are too much, she wonders as she stares at him, leaning against the wall. She’s breathless, can’t take in enough air. Her stomach revolts against everything and she prays silently like she never has before to please, please not be sick right here, right now.

“Hey.” Mulder is by her side, crouching down to be eye-level with her. She doesn’t want to look at him. She wants to tell him that she’s fine. She wants to be okay.

“I’m- I don’t-,” she breaks up, sobs; she doesn’t want to cry but her tears fall anyway. If she doesn’t say it, if she doesn’t admit she’s sick, then she won’t be, right?

“It’s okay,” Mulder says and touches her arm. “Do you- can you walk on your own? Do you need an ambulance? I’m gonna call-”

“Mulder, no.” She puts her hand on his where it lays on her arm. “I just want to go home. Just… home.”

Cancer arc Scully nearly collapses after too many hours on her feet.

So I'm on the 3rd day of my field work and sharing my room with a colleague.

She keeps telling him that she’s fine of course, and while he believed her at first, wanted so badly to believe, he sees it’s a lie. No amount of make-up can cover up her pale complexion. The exhaustion that follows her around, palpable in every move she makes.

Cancer arc Mulder shares a room with his waning partner.

39 - scully

"Scully!" She hears the breathless desperation in Mulder's voice and the rustling sound his boots make, running through the leaves surrounding them.

"I'm fine," she yells back, hoping he'll slow down. If they both fall and hurt themselves, then how are they going to get out of here? But he doesn't slow down; his pace increases.

"There you are." Mulder comes into view, out of breath, and falls to his knees right in front of her, a tree limb breaking under his weight. The sound reverberates. "What happened? You were gone and then- Scully?"

Scully falls down a hole and twists her ankle.

Fine (Ao3)

She hobbles away from him as best as she can on one foot. He stares at her, dumbfounded.

“You’re not carrying me.” The way she says it leaves no room for negotiation.

“Then how are you planning on getting back?”

“I’ll walk,” she says, hopping on one foot.

“Let me help you, please,” he begs her. “Just… let me make sure you don’t break your other ankle, too.”

“It’s not broken, Mulder.”

“Potato, potahto.” He puts his arm around her waist and lets out a sigh of relief when she doesn’t fight him. “Are you happy now?” He asks her as they hobble along at a snail’s pace.

Scully sprains her ankle.

Some h/c! Late season 6-ish. (Ao3)

She’s on the ground holding her throbbing leg when she sees Mulder rush towards her. He’s a blur as he falls to his knees in front of her, swirling up a bunch of leaves.

“What happened?” he asks, his hand finding hers on her hurt leg.

“I tripped,” she says through gritted teeth.

“Can you get up?”

“Yes,” she says and tries to put weight on her leg. The pain shoots through her whole body, blinding her. “No, I can’t,” she admits sheepishly.

Scully breaks her leg while in cryptid pursuit.

Scully is attacked and Mulder helps her.

After five years on the road with Scully, Mulder knows that motel room walls are paper-thin. So thin in fact that sometimes Mulder imagines watching Scully’s silhouette on the other side of the wall. They’re so thin that Scully can reiterate whatever movie he’s watched to fall asleep the night before. One of the reasons why, at least when they have adjoining rooms, Mulder no longer watches porn movies in his room.Tonight, they’re so thin that Mulder is woken by a gentle thumping noise against the wall. Thump, thump it goes without rhythm, hard, then harder. He rubs his eyes, listens. Thump, thump. Various scenarios run through Mulder’s mind as he gets up; he pays them no attention. Thump, thump.

Mulder intercepts a violent attack on his partner.

Always Partners (Ao3)

She doesn't know if she's happy or sad that Mulder is here at the crime scene too. They weren't working together - again. And he shouldn't be here. She doubts that anyone called him. Even Skinner wouldn't dare. But now he's here. Much to her chagrin, he's not alone. She catches the exact second when Mulder spots her. One moment he's walking and smiling with Diana, the next he’s sprinting toward her, his face a mixture of terror and anger.

“What happened here?” he asks, his voice close to a bark. The paramedic working on Scully jumps back in surprise. But Mulder pays him zero mind.

“What happened to you?” His voice and his expression soften. He only has eyes for her. 

Post-Tithonus Scully is injured on a Kersh assignment.

Hi, do you take prompts for Fictober? ;) (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. 

Mulder pampers Scully after her first IVF round.

The Space Between Words (Ao3)

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when his cell phone lights up, flashing Scully’s name. His head throbbing, he reaches for it and presses the phone to his ear.

“Hi,” he says softly, his tone full of tears and dreamless slumber.

“Hi.” Her voice is barely more than a whisper.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks, trying to get comfortable. He may be used to sleeping on a couch, but he’s not used to sleeping on one that’s designed for someone much shorter.

Post-Per Manum Mulder waits for Scully to let him back in.

Prove It (Ao3)

She should have known he wouldn’t leave her alone once they get back. His hands are on her as soon as she’s out of the car. His concern, while exaggerated, is sweet, and she smiles up at him.

“Now that’s what I like to see,” he mumbles, his own lips curling into a smile. “I’ll get you some painkillers and a glass of water. Do you need anything else?” It doesn’t happen often that Mulder pampers her. Not because he doesn’t want to; she knows he does. Tonight, she decides, she will indulge him.

“Just you,” she says, surprising him.

Post-Theef Mulder cares for his partner.

The whole room is asleep... (Ao3)

The whole room is asleep; there’s no humming from the air conditioning, no ticking clock, no blaring TV set. Only Mulder is awake. The clock reads 10 pm, but his mind says 1 am East Coast time. The three hour time difference between this hotel room in California and home messing with his mind and body. They’re flying home tomorrow; the Peattie case now solved and at rest. Next to him Scully shifts as if reading his thoughts. He half expects her to open her eyes and talk to him about the case, Dr. Wieder or Peattie or really anything at all. But she doesn’t. She’s sleeping on her stomach now, her face turned away from him. 

Post-Theef Mulder writes his feelings on Scully's skin.

Love is Not Blind

“Of course. I, um, need your key.”

“It’s in my coat pocket.” When she makes no move to take it out herself, Mulder reaches into her pocket, feeling around. The action is far too intimate, and his head is too close to hers. She must hear him breathing shallowly. His fingers come into contact with something cool and solid, so he takes it out.

“Found it,” he says stupidly and unlocks the door to her room. “Wait a second,” he says, touching her hip. “I’m just going to turn on the lights.”

“Makes no difference to me.” When he turns to her, he sees the smallest of smiles on her face. But her bottom lip quivers, trying to keep her real emotions at bay.

“Better not risk me falling over, huh? My doctor is currently unavailable.” 

AU-- Theef Scully's eyesight doesn't return immediately.

There Has To Be An End, (Ao3)

“Mulder, we shouldn’t…” but what they shouldn’t, she doesn’t specify and Mulder doesn’t let go. If she wasn’t feeling so dizzy, maybe she’d get up, pretend they’re nothing but professional. The words he said to her last night still ring in her ears: there has to be an end. There is so much more than this. When will they ever not find the other in peril? Is there an end for them? What if he’s right?

Requiem Mulder and Scully decide to leave.

(There’s No) Me Without You, Ao3

“Mulder, I’m going with you.”

“Going- Scully, no. You can’t go away. You just- you just gave birth. William is only a few days old. We talked about this.” His hair stands up in all directions, and her mind is filled with the first time he showered at her place after they’d become intimate. She’d rubbed his hair dry with the towel because his arm was still sore after his New Year’s Eve attack. They’d laughed and kissed, feeling carefree for once in their lives. That is what she wants back. That is what she’s prepared to fight for.

“I can, Mulder,” she says, handing him a sleeping William and walking back into the living room.

Post-Existence Scully insists she and William run with Mulder.

@scullygazer's From Now… Until Forever

Mulder held Scully’s hand tightly (but avoided grabbing it too tightly as not to scare her again) as he walked her to the car.

Post-Irresistible Mulder supports Scully.

@agent-troi's Security Questions (Ao3)

“You know what I think? I think you’re just embarrassed that you failed to recognize it wasn’t my voice and you’re exaggerating her abilities to save face.”

Mulder shook his head emphatically. “No, Scully, it was an exact replica, and if there’s anyone– or anything– else out there that can impersonate either of us that well, we need to develop a system.”

“A system?” Scully raised an eyebrow. “Like a secret password or something?”

Post-Die Hand Die Verletz Mulder decides he and Scully need code words (which comes in handy with shape shifters.)

@writingwell's

Holding Me (xffic)

Mulder caught her as she fell back, the gun slipping from her limp fingers.

Panic seared into him, fresh with the blood soakign through his shirt and slicking his hands. He figured they had ten minutes until someone realized that they were not dead, and that their hit man was not coming back out.

Scully is shot while she and Mulder are caught on a stakeout.

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

What did he have at the FBI anyway?

Ashes.

Nothing but -

Her body quaked.

He sat very stilly, very quietly, silently holding his breath.

She was seeing the detruction again, behind her closed eyes, watching the fire of nothing burn them alive.

She shivered and he held her tighter, closer, needing to comfort her too, needing to give back what she had wordlessly given.

Post-The End Mulder and Scully weather together.

Don't Quit

He ran back after hanging up, falling on all fours at her side.

"They'll be here soon, Scully. Just hang on."

Her head lolled to see him, but he wasn't even sure she was focusing too well. Her neck arched as she struggled for air and her hands scratched at the dirty hall floor. Mulder grabbed one of her hands and held her cheek with his other. She made a little sobbing noise that shattered his soul and he pushed closer to her.

FTF Scully slowly loses consciousness.

Vatic Room

"All your clothes were still on the bed and wrinkled in the suitcase--"

"Oh. I was too tired to try," she lied and turned away from him.

"That's not like you. Are you sure you're okay?" he asked. His voice was soft and hesitant; he didn't seem to know what he could say or do without threatening the tenuous connection they had established on New Year's.

Pre-Orison Scully misses the warning signs.

Noyade

"You can wear your pajamas, Scully."

He pulled her arms into the sleeves of her black coat, then tugged it over her shoulders, pulling the lapels together snugly and smiling at her. His body was radiating heat at her and she leaned in unconsciously, closing her eyes.

Post-Orison Mulder comforts his blank, injured partner.

Midnight

She likes to be touched, because she likes to know she is alive.

Mulder waits for Scully to call him after a particularly rough case.

Told You So

The motel room was lit by soft candles they'd found in the drawers, suggesting that blackouts happened often.

Scully was standing by the door, pacing as she looked over their notes on the case, glancing intermitently at him for reassurance.

His black eye was still slightly swollen, but the dazed look no longer glazed his features, and he had managed to work a bit on his profile.

For a fleeting moment, she was oddly proud that Detective Bonne had only managed one punch before Mulder flattened him.

Mulder and Scully trade turns defending each other from the local force (and an ambush of racists.)

Found

The man who comes to the door looks even worse than the woman who rises to meet him. His hands shake as they take mine, his eyes thanking me before moving to see her.

"Scully," he says, strangled.

Scully is found, bloody, on the road.

Through Time I, Through Time II, Through Time III, Through Time IV, ThroughTime VI, and Through Time VI Two

He crept forward, suddenly shy and siddled up to the bed, peering at the bundle she held. Caddy titled it so he could see and leaned toward him.

"You've got a boy, Malcolm," she whispered.

There were tears in his eyes as he bent forward and kissed his son's new pink flesh. ...

Caddy smiled and caught her breath. "Shall we name him Dryw?"

Malcolm made a face; his name meant wise fox in Gaelic and he hated it, after being constantly teased when he was a wee child.

"Nay," he said. "How about Keefe?" The name was a sign of favor for a son, meaning love, promise and good looks.

AU-- Mulder and Scully's reincarnated lives.

EllieL's

The River

I feel Mulder's arm behind the back, lifting me to the cot. It makes the pain worse. Leave me alone.

His hands are shaking. I feel his hands moving around my stomach. That must be where I was shot.

AU-- Mulder and Scully are trapped with Albert Hosteen during a prison riot.

Walls

She could hear him rattling pots, perhaps searching for the kettle, or perhaps just trying in his own blatant way to remind her of where he was.

Post-Orison Mulder gives Scully his support.

@incidental-ao3's Febuwhump 2023: The Truth is Out There (And the Fic is In Here) - Chapter 5

“It’s barely a flesh wound, Mulder,” she corrected as he nudged the door open with his foot and leaned inward as if to say, after you. “I’m really fine.”

“You were still technically shot,” he insisted, closing the door behind him and beginning the process of disentangling himself from her many belongings.

Mulder hovers after Scully's been shot.

@tatooedlaura-blog's

Our Moments

He made his way to her door to find her curled on the bed, small lump under thick covers. Stealing to the other side, he carefully lay down, sliding under the quilt in silence. If she wanted to, she could hit him later for arriving in her bed unannounced.

He would love it if she had the strength to hit him hard enough for it to make an impact.

Then again, she’d hit him before and it never made an impact.

AU-- Cancer arc Mulder and Scully draw closer during her illness.

Luck and Stubborness 

He moved his forehead to hers, knowing she’d recognize the gesture if not the voice, “Scully, please, I need you to look at me right now; I need to know you’re back with me; I need to know that you’re alright.”

Her eyelids fluttered, opened once, caught sight of him, closed again, “it’s not my blood.”

Whispers couldn’t cut it right now with all the chaos surrounding them, “what?”

Voice an octave higher, “it’s not my blood.”

One mystery solved, he moved on to another, “you’re already bruising up. Did he hit you?”

Single nod.

Mulder cares for his shell-shocked partner after she survives a bank robbery.

@slippinmickeys's

Unnamed (Ao3)

He would have crumpled then and there if her nose hadn’t started to bleed. Instead he felt something in him ignite.

AU-- Samantha Mulder was Roche's last victim.

87 Shades of Black

I sit here, shell-shocked by not only what I've just seen, but by the fact that some of the things I've put my trust in over the years were all bunk. I'm such a hypocrite.

I can see why Scully was so upset now. *Is* so upset.

But she should know by now that I wouldn't be here now if I'd chosen the X-Files instead of her. She should have known that anyway, but then, Scully is a little more insecure than she lets on.

I can't understand why she's still acting as if at any moment I'll leave her to fend for herself, and the child that's growing inside her.

And then it hits me.

She doesn't know that *I* know about the baby. And she thinks that because of what Diana said, that I won't want it. That I won't want her, and that I'll hate her for it.

We shall have to remedy that.

AU-- Mulder is forced to give up the X-Files or lose his captured (and pregnant) partner forever. Of course, walking away is never truly black-and-white.

Only Say Goodnight (Ao3)

He wouldn’t remember it later – carrying his new little family through the dusty empty streets. What he would remember, with a harsh pang of anguish and regret, was the crew telling him he couldn’t fit with Scully and the baby in the back, that if he wanted to ride with them at all it would have to be in the cockpit, in the seat he’d ridden in on.

The whole ride, he’d craned his head like a meerkat, trying to see her, see the baby, but she was strapped in behind his seat and his headset kept knocking into it, getting skewed and knocked off, the sound of the engine roaring into his ears.

Existence Mulder arrives to shepherd his family to safety.

Three Part Harmony (Ao3) 

The fist around her heart seemed to squeeze tighter. “Don’t do this, Mulder. Don’t make my baby out to be-“

On her words, Mulder punched the table below him hard enough to cause the silverware on it to jump, and her jaw snapped shut. His face was thunderous, and she watched as he took a steadying breath.

“Do not,” he started, barely able to keep his anger in check. “Start with the ‘my baby’ again, Scully. I played that game before he was born, but I refuse to play it again. That boy is just as much my child as he is yours, and I will not let you or anyone else diminish that ever again.” He took another breath. “I’m not attempting to establish patria potestas here, but if we can’t agree, out loud, that he is different from other kids, we don’t have any hope of protecting him.” 

AU-- Post-S9 Mulder and Scully stumble across their son in time to save him from Consortium agents, hitting the road in a desperate attempt to stay one step ahead.

North of Zero (Ao3) and More North of Zero (Ao3)

It had been ninety minutes since William had been sick and they had made decent time though the boy was clearly miserable. The both of them smelled like horse and fear-sweat, maybe vomit, and his son’s head would occasionally bump back into his shoulder, each time resting there for a little bit longer. 

“It’s okay to sleep on me, Will,” he said into the boy’s ear, “your mom does it all the time.”

Seconds later his heavy head thunked back onto Mulder’s shoulder and stayed there, the boy relaxing against his chest. 

Post-Colonization Mulder and Scully reunite with their son, forcing them to evade capture by alien and earth-bound pursuers.

The Mesas of Deuteronilus Mensae, Ao3

“A couple more inches and you’re there, Mulder,” she said, watching the winch’s cable closely. 

“Copy,” came Mulder’s voice. 

“Okay,” Scully said a moment later, putting her hand on the cable to better gauge its tautness. “I think we’re there. I’m going to back away from the anchor in case it snaps.”

“Twenty feet to your four o’clock,” Mulder instructed her. She knew he was keeping a careful eye on her so that she didn’t find a quicksand pool herself. 

“Copy.”

AU-- Mulder and Scully, astronauts, are tangled up in a sabotaged Mars mission.

@wtfmulder's What We Do in the Trees

She awoke in a dark room, the blinds drawn tight against the sun outside, her mouth dry and evil-tasting. Her headache was gone, but her thoughts were impossible to catch as they swirled around her. They were dreamlike, hallucinogenic.

“Scully?” Mulder’s voice.

She blinked and tried to bring the room into focus. It was moving too fast. The bed dipped down beside her and she automatically rolled inward, like she weighed too little to offer up resistance.

“Hey, Scully.” His hand on her scalp. Warm and heavy. He petted her, breath hitching when her nails found his thigh and dug in. “You told me to bring you back here and fell asleep. Are you feeling okay?”

She wasn’t.

While cancer arc Scully's condition worsens, she and Mulder solved a case steeped in the extremities of loss, grief, and superstition.

@melforbes's

seaglass blue

“Would you mind making me some tea?” she asks, making him flinch with surprise at the sound of her voice. With her tone low, her speech dry, she sounds drained, too tired even to sleep. “There’s chamomile in the cabinets.”

So he nods and stands, looking back at her as he leaves the bedroom, seeing the curve of her body in bed, the way she sinks into the mattress. Though he’s always seen her as small, as little shoes alongside his, as skirts he could hardly fit a single leg of his in, she’s never been so frail to him, so fragmented. At first, he could deny it all, but now, she looks as if she’s dying. 

AU-- Late-S4 Mulder takes his dying bride to the sea.

sunday, 3am

“It’s okay,” he whispered, the bag of ice in his hand hovering before her, his brain buzzing in the overtired way he used to feel accustomed to. If his circadian rhythms were reliable, then he and his body estimated that three in the morning, maybe half past, had come and gone. A long time ago, she’d told him that keeping lights on from the nighttime hours of ten-to-ten harmed the brain’s ability to produce melatonin, but he figured that light would be the least of their worries tonight.

Pre-IWTB Mulder cares for his battered partner.

in sickness

for hours, he knew she couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop coughing long enough to let herself fall asleep. at one in the morning, he propped her up with some extra pillows, let her curl up next to him as she cringed against each cough. he rubbed her sore back, could tell that her chest hurt already, was glad she called in sick.

Post-IWTB Mulder whisks a very ill Scully to the hospital.

a past fill

he tried giving her soup, a plan that didn’t work because she wouldn’t eat it. he tried giving her advil, heard no end about how fever reducers only end up making fevers last longer. he tried massaging her shoulders, an action that only left her more irritable and achy. when he recommended tamiflu, she scoffed and insisted that that stuff’s controversial, that it’s a placebo. now, he has tea for her, but she doesn’t want the tea either. though she’s been sick around him plenty of times, it’s been years since either of them last had the flu, so his run-of-the-mill fever cures won’t work. if he knew what she needed in order to feel better, he would go to the ends of the world to get it for her, has done that once before already, but for now, he hasn’t a clue as to what will help.

Revival Mulder cares for his sick Scully.

shawntaw's Flight

They were about fifteen minutes into the flight when Sheila heard it.

"I'm sorry if I embarrassed you, Scully."

There was a moment of silence during which Sheila held her breath, waiting for Mulder's benefit.

"I know, Mulder. But you have to stop hovering. Its over, just let me go on with my life."

Post-Redux II agents observe Mulder and Scully's yearning, distanced relationship.

XP1's

Still Waters

She thanked him with a slow blink, and kept going.

“Listen.” she continued. “She is my child. But you were right. You were right.” Her eyes were hard as she looked at him. “She is not my daughter. This was not meant to be. We are strangers to each other, brought together by circumstance.”

His hands tensed on her bicep and he couldn’t make sounds. His mouth worked, open, confused, unbelieving. He brought his head down to her brow and his heat and his anger met her cool understanding.

"No", he said softly, kissing her forehead. “No” he mouthed wetly, angry, and he thread a hand through her hair, tilted up her mouth.

“Yes.” she said softly, and he had trouble breathing. She was working hard to stay calm, and to help calm him down. 

Mulder proposes the only solution he can think of to save Emily's life.

Fire

The stress and the adrenaline that had lent her their strength dissolved from her now, leaving her aching and shakey. He felt her body begin to give in to gravity, and he carefully, if awkwardly, half carried her to the ground.

She hissed as her back arched on the cold tile and she coughed deep and phlegmatic, rolling onto her side.

 “Up.” She commanded as she struggled to sit. ‘Sit the patient up, Mulder,’ she’d once taught him as they both worked together to keep a victim alive. ‘Airway straight, airway clear’ she’d instructed, showing him how.

He remembered the lesson and sat with his chest to her back, pulling her to him between his legs, holding her tight.

Mulder cares for his weathered partner after she saves a child from a burning building.

This Is Nothing - Chapter 2

A tooth passes by him unnoticed,lost in a memory, of her body on his, and her hands led by her hips. As the little kind crumbles Mulder remembers that warm summer night, as she choked up on the bat and swung for the fences. Someone is screaming in pain but all that he hears are the words that he’d said: In life, as in baseball, if you aim to connect, then make sure you follow through.

This, through Mulder's perspective.

@scullyphile's Unnamed

The art museum was crowded with children. If only they had known the sheer number of field trips that would be there that day, perhaps they would have gone somewhere else to spend the afternoon. But, alas, they were already committed to the outing. It seemed they were perpetually behind one of the groups of middle school children that was milling about.

Mulder and Scully's date to the museum doesn't go as planned.

@welsharcher's Safe

“Go to sleep.” He whispered in her ear, memorizing the way she felt in his arms as he tucked her close, “I’ll keep you safe.”

Post-Orison Mulder comforts Scully.

@ghostbustermelanieking/skuls’s

oregon forest

 Skinner finds them. They’re somewhere in the desert, and they’re still together. They’re shivering. Scully’s teeth are chattering. Mulder is wrapped around her, his face in her neck, his fingernails digging into her back desperately. She’s gripping him just as hard, and she squints as someone shines a light into her eyes. She’s frightened all over again until she hears Skinner’s panicked voice: “Scully? Mulder?”

AU-- Requiem Mulder and Scully are abducted together.

cold desert nights

He stays by her side in the hospital, watches them stitch up the wound. Sits by her bed and holds her hand tightly. He tells them about the baby in a quivering, uncertain voice, and they assure him that they will do an ultrasound as soon as Scully wakes up. They ask if he’s the father and he says yes without thinking. It feels like a lie. They ask more questions—how far along she is, when her last ultrasound was—and he cannot answer those. It isn’t until they leave that he remembers what Doggett said before: that he was only gone a month. That he remembers that Scully was sick in Oregon, feeling nauseous, collapsing on the forest floor. He holds her knuckles to his lips and hopes that the worst has not come out of this all.

AU-- Mulder is returned during the events of Roadrunners.

bearing north (Ao3)

“Scully,” he whispers, eyes full of fear as he kneels beside her, his fingers brushing her cheek. “You all right?” he asks softly, tucks some loose hair behind her ear, brushes his fingers over the bruise along her jaw where the suspect punched her. She nods, dizzy, quivering on the cold concrete, reaches up to cover her hand with his.

Mulder grips her hands to help her to her feet. She wobbles, his arms around her keeping her from toppling back over. She’s tense in his awkward embrace, still not quite out of the panic mode that came from when she was jumped inside the house, but she presses a hand to his chest for traction, breathing shakily.

“He’s still at large,” she reminds him.

“The cops out front will stop him,” Mulder says comfortingly.

Revival Mulder cares for his partner after she takes an unexpected dive.

Spooky2u2's Only Death Would Stop Me

"Being pregnant reeks havoc on the body. It's understandable that the last few weeks have taken their toll on you. You've been under a lot of stress. Why don't I take you down the hall for a check up just to be safe."

"That's not necessary. Really," she protested.

"It's no trouble." Doctor Garrett unthinkingly took hold of Scully's upper arm to guide her out the door. No sooner had he moved his hand to her lower arm than he felt a *hard* blow to his back before his face met with the cold floor. Caught off guard, the struggle he offered against his attacker had little effect. Before he knew what was happening, he was being pummeled into the floor. He could hear the woman shouting something but he couldn't tell what. Two orderlies came rushing in after what seemed like an eternity and managed just barely to tear his assailant off of him. It was only then that he got a look at who had so savagely ambushed him....

Fox Mulder.

AU-- Post-Requiem Mulder is returned, seemingly unresponsive... until Scully and his doctor come to (mild) conflict.

Violetta_Valery's The bittersweetness of pie

He’s pacing the entrance, looking for a place to sit where he can watch her from afar without disturbing, but his eyes never leave her truly, and before he can even sit in the chosen booth at the very end of corridor, there’s no more numbness, and no more shock: Mulder’s all unfiltered rage when he sees her getting up and having her butt slapped by the smirking man with whom she is.

“HEY! KNOCK IT OFF!”

He doesn’t even know how, but when he notices, he’s standing by their booth with his hands grabbing the man by the collar. He’s pulled him up and is practically foaming.

“Don’t you dare touch her!”

Post-IWTB Mulder runs into Scully again while out looking for pie.

AUs

Sukie Tawdry's The Way Things Are (1) and The Way Things Are (2)

When they separated, finally, Scully took a good look at Mulder.

What she saw shocked her, and she understood why Paula had been so concerned about him. His face was all angles, his jaw a sharp, painful edge. His hair had become overgrown, casting shadows where it hung over his eyes. It was the pain and desperation in those eyes that took her breath away.

"When was the last time you slept, Mulder?"

He offered a wry smile and shrugged his shoulders. "Doesn't matter. Nothing matters now that you're safe." Hunger radiated from his eyes, and he seemed unable to look away. His hands never left her, touching her arms, her face, her hair. Even a discreet knock on the door failed to distract Mulder.

AU-- After post-Miracle Man Scully and Mulder accidentally make a baby, the two dance around his distance, her disappearance, and their slow-burn relationship. (Yes, I'm breaking the rule by including this fic; but it's littered with protective Mulder, so.)

Deadcanons's X-Tropy

After the twins were born, the attic had been Scully’s bedroom. She had insisted on it, even against the Candaces’ argument that it made more sense for her to sleep next to the nursery. That had made sense, but back then Scully was focused on ensuring that Tamika could be the mother—the whole point of all their efforts in the first place. Scully saw herself as backup, someone who was there for emergencies, and thus the attic struck her as more than generous. She did not realize that Tamika and Bradley had already accepted her as a member of the family.

            At some point in mid-2040 she had eventually moved into a proper bedroom. After that they closed the attic stairs and, as far as Scully was aware, no one had gone up there since. The only exception was when Scully had retrieved her gun to rescue Doggett—and at the time, the attic had appeared unchanged. It was only by following the vision of Mulder that she’d had occasion to go up here again.  

            All the missing furniture had been assembled on the far wall of the attic, so that it was the first thing someone saw when they reached the top of the stairs. To the average eye the layout was extremely unusual, but to Scully its meaning was clear. The coffee table from the living room had been placed between two chairs, a wood panel from the corner of the attic propped up in front of it to give the impression of a panelled desk. A chair from the kitchen table was in front of the “desk,” facing it, and the loveseat from the living room was behind it, as if it were an office chair. One of the bookshelves—still full of books—had been pushed into the corner behind the desk, where one might expect to see a filing cabinet in an office. But the real kicker was on the wall behind all of this. There hung one of the posters from Abel’s room, a glossy print of three cartoonish UFOs floating above a city with the caption JUST HANGIN’ OUT.

            The last one had been bigger.   

AU-- An immortal Scully slips in and out of a normal life-- falling into a new family and saving them (and her old basement friends) from vengeful bats and alien bounty hunters and summoning cults-- while Mulder's spirit attempts to make contact.

prufrockslove's Hiraeth

"Duana," he said, and secured her hand. "I said your name with my breeches on, so take note. Duana, listen to me. I know King John. I did not expect you to be with child by him, but you have taken me as I am. I intend to do the same. You are that anchor. I have found where I want to be and I intend to stay. I intend for you to stay."

Her face was still flushed and wet as she looked at him. "William, the King-"

"You are my wife, not the King's. By harvest, you will have a child. Perhaps, it will be born early. That happens in Wales and people pay no mind. If you agree, I will claim the child as mine and dare any man to say otherwise. The King will never know. He never knew with Dafydd."

She stared at him, her mouth open. He looked back at her steadily. He was rash, he knew, but he meant every word. He would die before he lost her.

To borrow prufrock's description: Aber, North Wales, 1215. In a world of dangerous men, she was a dangerous woman to love.

BONUS

Previously listed fics (that you can search via author tags) off the top of my head:

JenAndrews's "Skyland Mountain"

DiscordantWords's "Somewhere North of Fiji"

GingerAlchemy's "Static Codes" (VIII)

cecilysass's "The Boy on the Beach"

baronessblixen's "Five Minutes"

nowwhateinstein's "Seeking Warmth"

ElizabethJaneway1158's "The Fall, X-Files Style"

prufrocklove's "Malebolge"

Lapsed_Scholar's "Variations"

Karen Rasch's "By the Wind Grieved"

Thanks for reading~

candy hearts When was the last time she had even celebrated Valentine’s Day with someone else? Jack, perhaps. Yes—he had told him not to do anything too extravagant since they were going away for their birthdays (which were the same day, a cosmic disaster she had heard on one case somewhere with Mulder). There was a candlelight dinner that ended with him dropping her off early to go chase down a lead.

Her eyes widened and she thought of Mulder and his capacity for… ditching. I need a new type.

Mulder surprises Scully with candies at work.

@mulderwearingglasses's (Ao3) Stupid Cupid (Ao3) Her face was barren, having washed off her work makeup before she crashed in front of the TV. Her freckles were on high alert.

Come as you are! Everyone had! And everyone had just happened to leave the opera, or what?

Scully could see Mulder watching her.

His eyes followed hers as the wheels in her head spun.

Skinner calls in his agents on Valentine's Day; and Scully struggles with the knowledge that she'd forgotten the holiday and that she suspicions Mulder had a date.

@somanycandles/FootlessData507's The Disappearance of Bruce Speta Scully studied the photo Mulder had handed her. A woman in her late 30s, chubby cheeked with short, curly, dark hair. Although she had prominent laugh lines, her expression in the photo itself was neutral. Probably from a driver’s license or passport, judging from the white background.

“Is she an alien or a werewolf?” Scully asked. She set the photo back on Mulder’s desk, where it joined three file folders, an issue of The Lone Gunman, and a tabloid asserting Elvis was currently living in Florida and had some quick and easy weight-loss tips to share.

Mulder grinned. “The woman in the photo—Tina Walters-Speta—is more interesting than any mundane extra-terrestrial or lycanthrope. She holds the dubious distinction of expecting a crummier upcoming Valentine’s Day than yours truly.”

Mulder and Scully's ghost case spirals into alternate dimensions.

@scullyphile's (Ao3) Will You Be My...? (Ao3) Thick socks muffled her footsteps as she padded to Mulder’s room, wanting his warm company. Her room had a couch, but his had an easy chair, which he had drug to in front of the television. Scully lingered in the doorway until he looked up, eyes a little morose. “What day is it, Scully?”

Sensing his mood, Scully edged forward until she was less than a foot away. He liked her close, she had figured out. “February 15.”

He nodded and leaned back with a sigh. “Another one gone.”

Mulder mourns another fleeting Valentine's Day.

muldersboyishenthousiasm's

Prompt: you should enjoy it. Mulder had suddenly stopped talking when he saw her disappearing behind her desk and heard the Emergency Ties Drawer slide open. He watched with wide open hazel eyes and she stared at him with it dangling in her hands.

Scully invites her partner to dinner with Maggie.

@msrafterglow/msrafterdark's A Playful Ruse “Good evening, you two,” a thin, knobby man with a prominent Adam’s apple and a cluster of tightly wound brown curls steps up to their booth, “Happy Valentine’s Day, can I get anything started for you?”

Their eyes meet, two sets a little wider when they come to a realization at the same time.

It’s Valentine’s Day.

They’d both completely forgotten.

S7 Mulder and Scully are fake dating... and then....

For the Valentines Day prompt! 10! ‘You’re sure you’re okay?’

He nodded and began shuffling through the numerous sheets lying atop his desk. He moved a file and a dozen little red heart-shaped cards fell on the floor. Scully’s eyebrows went up and he clumsily hurried to pick them up and tried to hide them from her but she was too fast and got to the last one before him. She examined the card with attention and smelled it.

‘Is it from one of your secret admirers, Mulder?’ she teased.

Scully pranks Mulder.

Invisigoth's Heart Burn (Gossamer) "Scully?" she heard behind her, felt the air shift as he stepped closer. "I'm sorry I dragged you out there. You could have stayed with the Deputy and gone over the evidence again."

She didn't answer for a long moment, wrapping her arms around her waist and staring at a couple walking, hand in hand. She touched her ear to her shoulder and discovered she couldn't feel it.

"Someone has to watch your back," she murmured, quiet enough that he had to bend to hear her. His nose touched her hairline and she felt a tentative hand cover her own on her waist. "We caught him before he could kill again. That's what matters."

Valentine's Day is both bitter and sweet.

melforbes's in the woods according to the true locals, this is off-season, and they’re in a portion of the state that’s been owned by a specific family for years; the lake water, apparently, is safe to drink though she made sure mulder boiled it anyway. nonetheless, it’s just them and the neighboring cabin’s occupants out here for the weekend, the nearest paved road being thirty miles away, the closest gas station probably thirty-five. 

Post-Millennium Scully is shocked her partner wants to celebrate Valentine's Day.

@writingwell/RocketMan's (xffics) Blooming He smiled again, that Cheshire-cat smile that made her just a bit nervous.

"Why?" she blurted out, feeling sleepy and confused.

He wanted to laugh but he just leaned back instead. "Today's Valentine's Day, Scully, and I'm a free man."

Post-Closure Scully wakes to a rose on her bed.

OKayVal's Ramp 01 - The Right Angle "Mulder, I want to know what's in that box."

"You'll find out tomorrow night."

Mulder surprises his partner for Valentine's Day.

@o6666666's Five in One “There was some reason I thought we should be late today,” he shakes his head, as though thinking. “But I can’t remember it for the life of me.”

She swats him, giggling. When he grins it is in the bashful way that shows his front teeth. Then his eyes on her go hazy and soft, like to be lying there under him is a gift of unprecedented sentiment even still, after two months of precedent. Two whole months. Perhaps it is.

He cooks her an omelet with peppers and onions and no shirt on. Real eggs. It is cold, but later they have her favorite wicked lunch of hot dogs on the mall, and he buys her a single rose—some Valentine’s relic that should have been peddled to a tourist, if there were any tourists in February. It droops in her fist and she tucks it into one of his buttonholes like a boutonnière.

Mulder is making up for Scully's past birthdays.

Donna's Spa Time "I, what's going to happen?"

"Your friend scheduled a full day. First you'll have a mud bath and steam, then a massage and facial, and your hair will be styled as well as a manicure and a pedicure."

Again her mouth fell open.

A Valentine's Day to put all others to shame (or so we're promised.)

@skuls-s's Scully didn't leave the next morning after All Things (Ao3) She tidies up his room first, just a little, to keep up images. Puts the dirty clothes in the hamper she bought for him a few months ago (the sticky note she put on it said Happy Valentine’s Day), picks up the lamp from where they knocked it over, straightens the comforter over top of him.

Post-all things Scully has unfinished business.

Christina Shuy's

Wishes, Roses, and Valentines 01, and Wishes, Roses, and Valentines 02 - More Wishes, More Roses, and Wishes, Roses, and Valentines 03 - A Rose By Any Other Name..., and Wishes, Roses, and Valentines 04 - The Year of the Rose, and Wishes, Roses, and Valentines 05 - Every Rose has its Thorns, and Wishes, Roses, and Valentines 06, and Wishes, Roses, and Valentines 07 - Time to Heal, and Wishes, Roses, and Valentines 08 - Sanctuary "Scully? What say we don't go out to dinner this year for Valentine's Day but take maybe the week off or something, and get away from it all. Just you and me. Now that I finally have closure on at least one subject."

Nine years of Valentine's Day.

@thespookyintrovert/PiecesOfScully's The Patron Saint of Healing The walk to her SUV is short, and she nearly misses the items sitting propped against her windshield and windshield wiper. A small, plain black box and a single red rose.

Post-IWTB Scully misses her partner. (Not quite Valentine's Day themed, but it sort of squeaks by.)

@frangipanidownunder's (Ao3) Symphony of the Golden Years Her skin warmed as she opened the back door and drank in the aromas of living. The house felt so much more like a home now, filled with the paraphernalia of family. Stacked on the counters, table and windowsill were baby bottles, a Peter Rabbit bowl and spoon set smeared with the remains of pumpkin and rice puree, two coffee mugs bearing the slogan The FBI’s Most Unwanted under a photo of the pair of them circa 1994, which Skinner thought was a hilarious wedding present, Bonsai trees in various stages of training, two of Mulder’s watches which he claimed lost nine minutes the last he went Squatchin in that ridiculous suit but also bore the telltale bubbles of water submersion, a pair of binoculars, newspaper clippings and a Valentine’s card that had been mysteriously left on the steps to the house and read ‘You are still my touchstone’ but elicited a denial from Mulder that would have made the head of the Bureau proud. He had steadfastly refused to allow her to recycle it, claiming it was evidence…of what, other than his silver fox sappiness, she didn’t quite know.

Post-Revival Scully battles between morbid reflections and happiness with Mulder and her daughter.

CONCLUSION

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