The Nursery Files' Challenges, Updates, and Your Fic Submissions
@mulderscreek
This is The Nursery File's Tumblr. Here you'll find our latest genre lists' update announcements and our (mostly) deadline-free X-Files challenges. You are also encouraged to post your fics, both those that are challenge reponses *and* those that are not but contain any child character ages 0-19, or a pregnant character, or an adult William|Emily Sim|Luke Doggett too, and they'll also be archived at The Nursery Files.
Your challenge is to write a story set the August that fell between when Scully graduated from high school and started college.
Show us how she feels as she's about to embark on this new phase of life: is she excited? nervous? a little of both as she thinks about making new friends while also leaving family and friends (and maybe a significant other?) behind? is her younger brother Charlie happy for her or kind of jealous?
Please tag @mulderscreek when you post your story, submit your story or the link to it to [email protected], post here on our submissions Tumblr, or send me a message with a link to your fic on Tumblr to reblog.
An X-Files family about to leave the beach after a fun day. But first, they must get sand off everyone's feet.
Please tag @mulderscreek when you post your scene on your own tumblr, post here on our submissions Tumblr, or send me a message with a link to your fic on Tumblr to reblog.
Let's start off this year's challenge's on a (eventually?) happy, hopeful foot. Your challenge, and you are free to begin your story as early in time as you like after William, is to have Scully and Mulder be the recipient of three domestic miracles in the same year, any year as long as it's prior to William's 18th birthday. They can happen in any order you like, but all within a 12 month period.
Emily is found alive and becomes part of M&S's lives, regardless of whether you choose to have her live with them, given that if your story takes place as late when William is 17 she'd be 24
You have Mulder protest the validity of William's adoption given he signed nothing to give up his rights, or William's adoptive parents give him back, or something happens to the Van De Kamps. Have the end result is M&S get their son back
Scully and Mulder have or adopt at least one baby
Please tag @mulderscreek when you post your story, submit your story or the link to it to [email protected], post here on our submissions Tumblr, or send me a message with a link to your fic on Tumblr to reblog.
An X-Files character enjoying the simple pleasure of splashing a friend or sibling in a wading pool, back when they were children.
Please tag @mulderscreek when you post your scene on your own tumblr, post here on our submissions Tumblr, or send me a message with a link to your fic on Tumblr to reblog.
Try your best to not think about Fox Mulder, Violent Crimes' Golden-Boy-Gone-Astray, spooky and cool and with a reputation of swimming in his red Speedo at the FBI pool, went in to work, on a weekend, to make a slideshow for his new partner.
Try your best to not think about Fox Mulder asking his buddies the Lone Gunmen to find out everything they could about his new partner. Try your best to not think about the three of them debating over pizza and soda pop on whether Dana Scully is a spy with a sweet, innocent face that makes her look like she’s in high school. Try your best to not think about Mulder’s three friends with a running bet on how quickly she would request a transfer, how quickly this woman would ruin Mulder, and how quickly Mulder would fall head-over-heels in love with her.
The bets ended up with a pool in the thousands, which they used to buy gifts for Baby William.
There was a bet on baby names, too. They all lost.
“So is it William Mulder?” The one with the ponytail wondered aloud.
“More likely it’s William Scully?” The one in the suit suspected.
“Would that make him William Scully the Third?” The one in the leather vest piped up, frowning, because he had unfortunately met the Junior of that name-holder and hated the idea that his buddy’s kid would have the same moniker as the nosy Navy big brother.
“Nope,” the one without glasses answered, “The Third only kicks in when the father is the Junior.”
“So, is William gonna be a Mulder or a Scully?” Blondie inquired.
Silence took over. No one thought to ask. Or, rather, none of them had the courage to ask. After all, Agent Scully could get a little scary at times. Just look at how she’s got Mulder all whipped.
“Maybe it’s just William, like Prince, or Elvis.”
The three of them looked at one another, speechless.
The oldest (and self-proclaimed the wisest) finally remarked, “Mulder would like that.”
The betting continued.
.
Try your best to not think about Mulder returning the dainty cross necklace back to Scully, the first thing he did when they both woke up and had their first real meal. He was not really permitted to get out of his bed but he did anyway. Try your best to not think about Mulder presenting his partner, the love of his life, the person he literally went to the end of the world to retrieve back, with a grin that’s brighter than the sunshine reflected on the snow, with the soft gold chain and the fine, tiny cross resting in the middle of his palm.
Try your best to not think of his eyes, soft and brimming with love and affection and pride and joy; pride that he had done the impossible, joy that she’s right there in front of him, frostbitten and otherworldly and beautiful.
Scully leaned forward and bowed her head, her neck white and smooth and deliciously exposed. With slightly trembling hands, Mulder fastened the cross necklace on her. He was grateful, for it was mere chance that he had spotted the shining piece of jewelry among her discarded pantsuit.
Mulder was so proud of himself, for safekeeping her necklace and bringing it back to her. He wondered if he would ever outdo himself.
.
Try your best to not dwell in the thought of Melissa Scully teasing her little sister about a guy named Fox, try your best to not wonder about the times where Ellen asked Dana about your cute partner, and try your damnedest best to not imagine Dana Scully blushing, denying there’s a remote possibility that anything would happen or could happen between her and her new partner, the workaholic who needed a new definition of having a life, who needed her to bail his ass out of jail, who’s a little crazy and never played by the rules and couldn’t play nice with others and certainly came from money and went to bloody Oxford with an ex-girlfriend that’s made up of nothing but legs, the man who told her things likes trust no one and I want to trust you.
Yeah. It’s better if you don’t think about it.
And don’t think about all the times when Dana wished she could tell Missy, yeah, you were right.
.
Do yourself a favor to not think about normal. The kind of normal like letting your partner sleep on your shoulder during a stakeout and not teasing her about sleeping on the job but teasing her about drooling on you. The kind of normal like holding your partner’s hand and kissing her forehead and cheeks in hospital rooms, giving zero damns who’s there to see. Mother, brother, Skinner, and Byers. Zero damns. Do not think about the kind of normal of mouthing I love you into the camera before playing Russian roulette against a madman with a known expiration date.
Forget the normal that is walking hand-in-hand when you’re dressed in a rental tux and your partner’s more gorgeous than a movie star, with cute little hairpins and even more adorable giggles, (giggles!) having a night out on the town with someone else’s credit card. Her small hand inside yours as if it belonged there. It does belong there.
.
Give yourself a break from thinking about the kind of normal that is knowing your partner’s way of taking her coffee, how she prefers real cream cheese but swears by soy frozen novelties, and how she likes unbuttered popcorn with her movies so she could throw them at you as you dole out incessant movie commentaries next to her ear, annoying her and amusing her and delighting her with your good-humored charms only she could find endearing.
Easy clean up, she says in regard to the unbuttered popcorn stuck between the cushions, because she likes your old, worn couch as much as you do. Scully has a kind heart for worn-out, broken things, and her caretaker nature will fix you up with love and she never pities. She spends more time in your apartment, more than her own, because she likes you and thinks that you’re normal in a good way, and you love, love, love, love her. Your Scully.
.
It can’t be good to think about Mulder reaching for Scully. His hand covering hers, something he had learned from her when he was shot in the thigh after the Boggs case from way back. Mulder learned to show care in that way, because Scully was always generous with affection. A simple pat, a sideways hug, even when he fucked up, especially when he’d fucked up. Whether it was kicking a suspect in the face or checking out a prison inmate who controlled his dreams (was that what really happened?)
It took practice, lots of practices. Mulder practiced running his thumb over her knuckles, practiced not letting go of her hand when Skinner came into the room, too angry to notice the glare in Scully’s eyes for upsetting the patient.
Sir, you need to lower your voice. Agent Mulder is recovering and as his doctor ...
Mulder practiced channeling his strength and courage and faith back and forth, with the link of their hands like a copper conductor.
He practiced lacing his fingers with hers. He got used to the feel of Scully’s tiny hand, precious like a titmouse, delicate and lovely and his to hold and to cherish. He tried to get used to the idea that her hands belonged to her as much as to him. And Mulder had spent more time than he cared to admit that he wanted to cover Scully’s lips, her eyelids, her cheeks, with kisses.
He wanted to cover her heart with his, and make a shelter for her heart to stay in his. It’s only fair that she gets to have what he has, from her.
Not the desk though. That, they’ll have to share.
.
You’re advised to not think about Mulder’s knowledge of lullabies. He actually knows several, mostly in English, two or three in Yiddish (there’s one he couldn’t be sure if it was just an extended chorus in a slightly different tune), and one in French because he had learned it at school.
He doesn’t think he has a good singing voice and has always found it an indulgence to hear Scully sing, so he will let her take care of the lullaby needs.
You’re advised to do nothing with the knowledge that the first time Mulder sang—or mostly, hummed—lullabies was for Emily. He wasn’t sure if the songs were meant to calm him or her.
He sang her Christmas songs, that night, when he ran out of lullabies to hum. He was grateful to have known the weight of a three-year-old, that he could always remember this weight on his shoulder, along with a blinding, dying hope in his chest. How he bargained, again, and prayed for another miracle, as though he were certain that he had used up all his allowed miracles only two months before.
When Mulder lights a candle at church, it is always for Emily.
.
You are not to think about that.
.
Also, stay away from thinking about Mulder’s bucket list, though the term hadn’t yet been coined when he thought of it. It was a list of things he wanted to do before he died. He wanted to take Scully to Wisconsin for ribs despite her treatment made her nauseous at the smell of meat (no, don’t think about it.) He wanted to sleep with Scully in his arms, with his chest as a pillow, his torso as a giant teddy bear until she perished (no, don’t think about it.) He wanted to take Scully to New Mexico and show her where he regained his life, wishing and hoping and praying maybe she could, too (no, don’t think about it.) He wanted to kiss Scully every day, every hour, every single time they were alone (no, don’t think about it.) He wanted to break Scully out of the hospital room and do everything to make her dreams come true (no, don’t think about it.) He wanted to take Scully to the zoo again, and let her feed freshly cut grass to the giraffes (no, don’t think about it.) He wanted to take Scully dancing, with a DJ or a diva or a jukebox in a darkened room and a disco ball hung from the ceiling (no, don’t think about it.) He wanted to take Scully to the County Fair in Texas where they could poke fun at the cowboys (he sided with the Indians, of course) and feed her funnel cakes doused in powder sugar and embedding in memory of a Scully with sugar on the tip of her nose (no, don’t think about it.) He wanted to win Scully the biggest teddy bear at the Shooting Gallery even though she’s the better shot between the two of them and she would opt for the stuffed red fox instead (no, don’t think about it.)
.
Stay away from these thoughts.
.
Rather, it might be good to think about how Mulder sometimes forgets to breathe when he kisses Scully. She laughs every time, pushes him away softly, her smirk louder than his undying love for her.
Breathe, Mulder, breathe. She coos. You got it.
Scully wonders how can a man, one who’s as brilliant as her Mulder, can be rendered to an utter idiot that can’t breathe and kiss at the same time. She thought Mulder must have been some kind of sex machine in high school.
Yeah right. He blows a puff of air at this speculation, this warped fantasy that he was sexy in his youth. He was the geek who stayed with demanding and manipulating girls because he couldn’t believe anyone would love such a screwed-up like him.
I’m a little out of practice, he says after he gets his breathing back to normal, ready to go again.
You say that like you’ve not kissed anyone since Inspector Green came to town. (Which she knows isn't true.)
I haven’t!
Mulder insisted.
Scully scoffs, Lair.
She giggles and he joins her.
They don’t talk about the boys Scully kissed. Scully might be the jealous one (not really) but Mulder's the one whose brain shut off when she told him that she kissed A.D. Skinner for getting her his whereabouts during his Bermuda adventure.
.
Don’t spend your time thinking about Dana Scully doing domestic things like shopping at the mall. Don’t think about her glances staying over anything with a fox on it (it's too obvious so she can never have it around the house without blushing at the sight of it in company). She visits the shops she’s gone to with her sister, where the shop owners wear the same kind of crystal pendant as Missy and gold rings on their fingers and call her Mel’s little sister. She’s gotten several gifts for Mulder from these shops over the years, where he would beam up at her like Christmas had come early. Scully wonders if the alien stuff and the UFO stuff and the space stuff will ever get old and God knows everyone with half a mind associates him with that. Even Skinner once made a comment about Mulder’s alien lamp and UFO mugs, which Mulder just shrugged it off like it was nothing (it was nothing).
Later, she includes things like baseball and, years later, model rockets, when it comes to gift-giving for Mulder.
And please don’t think about how Mulder always lights up like a Christmas tree whenever Scully gives him a gift.
.
You may think about Mulder getting things for Scully with the preamble of a very late birthday present or an extremely early Christmas gift. Besides the watch, the keychain, the bath oils, and an early edition of Moby Dick (over and done with, he supposed), Mulder loves getting Scully gifts.
When he gets sunflower seeds at the 7-Eleven, he’ll always get her some peanut M&Ms.
They say the yellow ones are the best, he offers.
Nonsense.
What’s your favorite?
They all taste the same, Mulder.
Good to know.
He gets her to feed him M&Ms while he drives. She asks him why he can eat sunflower seeds just fine but can’t do the same with M&Ms.
They’re your M&Ms, Scully.
He wins and she feeds him colorful tiny spheres of peanut-chocolate goodness, one at a time, and tries her best to not let him kiss, suck, lick her fingers in the process.
He likes how modest she is. Even though the line between personal and professional has long been erased between them, which happened roughly around the time she called him Fox for the first time.
.
Don’t waste your time thinking about Mulder kicking himself for that stupid line.
I even made my parents call me Mulder.
If it’s an iced tea in that bag...could be love.
Do not waste your time thinking of the ugly reality which is that everyone calls Mulder Fox. Even Skinner calls him Fox. Fox Fox Fox Fox Fox. Fox!
Don’t waste your time thinking about Fox trying—oh, how he tries—to get her to call him Fox, but Scully is nothing if not stubborn (she stubbornly insists that she’s determined. Stubborn!)
Old habits die hard. Maybe they never die at all, but Fox has died before, so he isn’t fretting about that.
He kills that habit by responding to every single one of Scully’s Mulder with an automatic Fox.
It turns out that Fox didn’t need to have a little sister to practice being the annoying, button-pushing big brother.
And it turns out that Scully has patience. A lot of it. (Stubbornness?)
And it turns out that Scully really likes to call his name, in bed.
And it turns out that Fox hates having to say his own name in bed.
And in the end, Scully does not oppose calling him Fox, and Fox hates his first name a tiny little more.
.
Oh, and Fox never needed the iced tea to know it is love.
.
Avoid at all cost to think about Mulder liking Scully with her hair in a ponytail. Sure, it makes her look about twelve, but there’s her neck, with freckles. (Freckles!)
When Scully grows soft with age and tiny fine lines appear around her eyes, she keeps her hair in a high and messy ponytail. Mulder takes it as a sign to stand behind her, with arms around her waist, and peppers kisses on her neck, the back of her ears, below her hairline, and the top of her head.
.
Try your best to not think about Mulder liking a ponytail on Dana Scully. How many of her looks, with her ponytail up and like a chicken butt (she says), mark so many outstanding memories. That very first night, their first case in Bellefleur, Oregon. Mulder has long forgotten that he had showed up at her hotel room with a backward baseball cap on his head, but that Scully in a ponytail lives in his head.
And that time in the Arctic, how her ponytail makes it possible for him to examine her neck for parasites from outer space.
And how she answers the door, relaxed and at home, novel bookmarked on the couch and gigantic cordless phone in hand, offering and heating up leftovers for him like the best friend she is. The bestest.
Ponytail Scully doing autopsy (Could you point that flash away from me, please?)
Ponytail Scully leaning against him, afraid of the growing mites and dying light and the sun too slow to rise. Ponytail Scully teaching at Quantico, Ponytail Scully who looks like she’s 12, like she’s 14, like she’s 21, like who will one day be the Director of the FBI.
Do not waste your time thinking about how Mulder believes with all his heart that his Dana Scully will one day be the Director of the FBI.
Similarly, waste no time to think about how Dana Scully wants to be Agent Mulder’s partner. In their little basement with no AC but a tiny, tiny window. With one desk (to share) and too many alien mugs and a poster proclaiming I Want to Believe. And being the FBI’s most unwanted together.
Don’t waste your time. Just don’t.
.
Do not think about Scully hiding her feet, sans socks, under Mulder’s thigh while they watched What About Bob? or Fried Green Tomatoes. Do not think about how rare it is for them to watch an entire movie without ending up making out like hormone-crazed teenagers. Do not think about how Mulder is like a heater but he will gladly wrap himself up in a blanket and cocoon Scully in the dead of winter. Do not think about how Mulder’s idea of a romantic date is an evening of stargazing on the roof. Do not think about how Mulder is the Romantic because he believes in the reincarnation of all things and is dead set on being with Scully in every lifetime in the future.
Every universe. Every life. Every time.
.
That would simply take up too much time, thinking about that.
.
If you do want to think, you can think about Mulder saying to people, This is Agent Scully, my wife.
.
You can think about Mulder being a cat daddy in addition to a dog daddy and human daddy. You can think about Mulder learning to teach the family cat how to shake hands and roll over and meow on command because our cat is special, he insists, and think of how he cries for Daggoo when the pup’s too old to go on. You can think about Mulder getting his first puppy at age 61, a reddish furball with ears too big and paws so large and a love so great that Mulder can’t even—
.
fathom.
.
You can also think about Fox Mulder with little love handles and silver hair that makes him look more and more like Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace. It’s a good thing he doesn’t care for hats. Mulder never understands why Scully doesn’t look as old as he does; after all, they are only 2 years, 4 months, and 10 days apart. He isn’t sure why she doesn’t get to look her age, to look like Martha Wilson to his Mister Wilson.
It’s not fair, he complains, all pouty lips and puppy-dog eyes.
Scully kisses him on the nose, which is looking entirely too big now that he’s grown much older. She still believes that he was sexy in high school. Hell, he’s sexy now.
Mulder has high blood pressure so Scully watches his diet like she’s a zookeeper and he’s an endangered animal. His blood sugar level was wacky for a while so Scully cut refined sugar and Mulder went through withdrawal like an addict for a week, moping and moaning and stealing cookies from the goodie jar for the grandkids.
They compromise on him agreeing to her almost-vegetarian diet. Scully feeds him slices of apple as if he’s a horse, and Mulder chews, crassly to make her laugh, and kisses her with pouty lips, his big nose getting in the way.
The scar tissues fade on their body and blend in with the rest, but the joint pains and the arthritis force them to move to a warmer climate. Yet with global warming these days, it’s hard to predict anyways. Mulder knows Scully’s body as if it is his own, every curve and dip and nearly every freckle.
Mulder’s age spots alarm her. Clearly Scully’s mind is used to store more important things.
She tells him that in her defense, and Mulder pouts, again.
You’re the most important thing in my life, Scully.
Their grandbabies groan at them for being icky and in love; Mulder swears that Spooky the Mutt rolls his eyes at his humans.
Mulder doesn’t care. He’s stopped caring since 1997? 1995? 1994?
1994. Yeah, that sounds about right.
Nowadays, instead of stars and clouds, Scully gazes at his age spots, and kisses them like they are the most darling thing.
And Mulder gazes at his Agent Scully. Unabashedly. Admittedly. Continuously.
.
If you can, please think about Fox Mulder, with that boyish glint in his eyes, walking and sitting and plainly existing hand-in-hand with his partner of four, five, almost six decades, because Scully will never die and he had made a promise back in ‘97 that he would not die until she does. And if anything, he is as Stubborn as she is. Stubborn with a capital S.
Even William says so, and all the little ones agree.
Scully looks at her husband incredulously, waiting for him to elaborate.
“The Case of the Star-Crossed Lovers at 1501 Larkspur Lane is a Christmas story, not a Halloween story.”
Scully lets out a heavy breath. This man—why did she marry and have two kids with him?
“The Case of the Star-Crossed...”
“How do you like the name of that case, sugarplum?”
“I think it’s too long.”
Mulder is now being his own Watson and writing up The Misadventure of George Hale—well, his pseudonym is still up for debate, and Scully prays it won’t be something silly and not original enough, like Marty or F. Luder or George Kaplan. It’s a good thing that he’s still in the planning stages, which is just him brainstorming the name of their old cases.
“Anyways, ‘The Case of the Star-Crossed Lovers at 1501 Larkspur Lane’ is not for Halloween.” He insists, “It’s for Christmas.”
Scully tries hard not to roll her eyes.
“And now that you’ve gone to tell the story to the kids, what am I going to tell them for Christmas?”
“Mulder, there are plenty of other stories you can share for Christmas.”
He scoffs as if they have not been spending Christmases together for, oh, 42 years.
“Plus, you tell it differently than how I tell it, so I’m sure the kids would love listening to your version in two months.”
“You bet!” He smiles jubilantly at his wife. “You know, in my version, you wanted to come out with me that day. You admitted it to me that night, I remember.”
“Mmm, is that the only thing you, um, remember about that night?”
He smirks, not falling for her well-designed trap to change the topic of conversation at hand. “I did take your keys, but you wanted to be there with me. And it was indeed the last Christmas I felt…lonely.”
Scully smiles at him, feeling happy about the memory and at his words.
“You know,” she snuggles closer to him, “telling the kids that story, I think… I get it now.”
Mulder snuggles closer to her as well; he enjoys having Scully close, no matter how old he is.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, that by tricking me into going to that haunted house with you, it’s one stone, two birds for you. If we lived, I would admit that we saw things—”
“Apparitions.”
“Yes, I would admit that we saw apparitions. And if we died… we’d... be dead together.”
Mulder gives her a weird glance.
“That was a crazy night, wasn’t it?”
She asks him, closing her eyes. It wasn’t easy to convince herself about apparitions being real, but the hallucination they experienced was nearly on par with those giant mushrooms up in Brown Mountain, North Carolina, which Mulder will probably name “The Case of the Star-Crossed Lovers at Brown Mountain, North Carolina.”
“You were throwing marriage proposals at me like, once a month.” Scully says it lightly. “I should have known.”
Mulder dips his head to kiss her mouth.
“But, I get it now. How you... just wanted me to be with you.”
“Hey Scully,” he says softly, his thumb stroking her arm. The wood crackled in the fireplace, and there are still faint sounds of little trick-or-treaters chatting and yelling about, teenage hooligans laughing around, dogs barking in the far distance.
“Dana, you know, I’m still looking?”
“For ghosts?”
“No. For a way to be with you for eternity.”
Scully opens her eyes and looks at the man who stole her car keys all those years ago, the man who witnessed strange and stranger things with her, the man with whom she indeed almost became star-crossed lovers over the decades. She wants to tell him that, despite its time and the theme, ‘The Case of the Star-Crossed Lovers at 1501 Larkspur Lane’ is really a Valentine’s story, but she reaches up to kiss him on the mouth, like at the end of a fairy tale.
==============================================
I vow to nourish your solidity and freedom in myself
so I can offer solidity and freedom to countless others,
now and forever.
-- Thich Nhat Hanh, “Looking for Each Other”
==============================================
500.
(MUSIC: “THE ANSWER IS YES” — GLEN HANSARD, MARKÉTA IRGLOVÁ, AND THE SWELL SEASON)
A long time ago, a long, long time ago, Fox Mulder thought he could die.
And he wouldn’t have minded. It was, of course, years after Samantha, after Samantha had been taken and didn’t seem like she would be returned home by the police, or be discovered by some amazingly kind and good people, or reappear again just as mysteriously as how she was taken.
It was around the time that Mulder realized—and accepted—the fate that he would have to be the one who goes to look for Sam and finds her and brings her home. His ultimate quest.
It gave him some motivation to keep going, to keep breathing, to keep learning and studying and growing. He did that for Samantha, he did all that for Samantha, because he did not want to disappoint his little sister. Mulder did not want to have her look at him with disgust and annoyance and tell him to go away. He wanted to be the big brother she loved and adored and wanted to play basketball with even when she was bad at it and wanted to waltz with as classical music played on the radio, despite that he might have detested it.
He could not fathom to become an adult like his father or mother, lost and full of discontent, forgetting how to love back. He wanted to be the harbor for Samantha when she comes home.
Without this reason, he would just perish. Fox Mulder would let his brain rot. He would let his body go. He could see what would happen if he just ate cereal and candy all day, every day. He could see what would really happen if he skipped meals altogether, if he forwent sleep. He could see what would happen if he hung with the wrong crowds and dropped out and just died.
He wouldn’t have minded it, no, he wouldn’t have minded it at all. Death. If not for Sam, he would just let go.
Mulder didn’t know and didn’t want to believe that everyone felt this way. He wanted to believe that no one knew the purpose of their own suffering, as he clearly didn’t understand why he had suffered.
The loneliness. The ridicule. The sneers and the disrespect.
People left him and he left people. It was fair. When people his age were settling down, finding nice girls to marry and having children and climbing the career ladder, he just kept looking.
.
Then he found her. A friend. Dana Scully.
He didn’t know what a friend was. But he knew Scully was it. Someone who he liked to spend time with and tell stories to. Someone who he cared for and, in turn, cared for him. Someone who listened, really listened. Who made up for all the times he was ignored, all the times he was overlooked and laughed at. Scully was a friend, the best one he had.
He gave Sam up for her.
What else was he going to do? Mulder felt torn, disappointed. He never did grow into the man he wanted to become, the heroic son and the idolized big brother. The beloved member of his broken family.
That’s fine, he thought. He’ll make his own little family, with his best friend, his favorite person in the whole damn universe. His one-in-five-billion. His one-in-fifty-billion—if there were multiple universes, there would only be one of her.
He agreed to be the father of her child before he knew what her mouth tasted like. He stepped foot on the snowy continent as if it was the last trip he’d take in this life, he would die trying to bring her back.
Can’t leave her now.
Sometimes he wondered if Scully ever had the chance to leave him. After all, she never could say no to him.
.
Mulder made a point that he has to stay alive for Scully. No matter how bad things get, no matter where his life ends up. No matter how depressed, and alone.
She would come back. She was his. She was always his.
And in the end she forgives and forgets their failures and tries again. With their boy who’s no longer a boy and a wonderful baby girl with ten fingers and ten toes and a mouth of a cupid’s bow.
Mulder watches as Scully's hair grows into a different color around the temples. Their son marries his best friend as if it were a family tradition. Their daughter grows up never knowing the darkness her parents knew.
Grandchildren and pets.
Mulder discovers he’s both a dog person and a cat person. And he becomes the proud owner of a backyard full of sunflower children. All his. This is what his life has become. No aliens, no Bigfoot, no government conspiracies.
Just Scully, Scully, Scully. Scully.
It hits him one day that he wants to outlive Scully. He can’t bear her heart breaking over his death, again. He will keep healthy and not die. He will eat his veggies and do his exercise. He hesitates when his children invite him to go camping because he still remembers all those not-so-nice trips to the forest, even though they happened 40, 50, 60 years ago.
The beast woman of New Jersey would have great-grandchildren by now. The owner of those growing red eyes would be over 550 years old now. And whatever happened to those growing mites that swarmed? How many mutants are living among us, now?
One day he realizes that Scully would surely live forever. Clyde was right, of course he was, and Scully will never die. She had looked away and walked away with only a bullet wound on her stomach, a fading scar above her belly button. And he had come back from the dead. For her.
Mulder thinks of his teenage years, so full of angst and anger and sadness. He is glad that he did not die, when he had gone to bed hoping tomorrow never comes and woke up feeling like he lacked the energy to even crawl out of bed. It gets better, and better, and suddenly there’s Scully.
The purposes of his suffering. He had to live through all that to be strong enough for her.
He will need to live forever. He will. They’ll become their own X-File. By keeping a low profile, no one will ever find out.
how can you say that is the end
when it’s just that you don’t see
like the first moon of the month
it will show itself again
in time, in time, you will see
that we are still one and the same
and
when a body of water sits under the moon
we’ll find the moon reflected
recalling that we too are, like mirrors,
and you can be found in me
and so could countless other versions of you
so, no end, no end,
there are just changes
but the essence stays
in me in you and in the water
as long as you have faith you can see
as long as you have love you can see
as long as you have the will—
so here, let us meet again
don’t fear, my dear
While on a case without Mulder, Scully making a risky rescue during her second pregnancy (both post-series or post-Existence/post-The Truth AU are acceptable) and is no more than minorly injured. Mulder still gets upset that she put herself and the baby at risk for someone else's sake, and she shoots back it was in some ways easier when she was pregnant with William because she didn’t have to worry about his ideas about what she should and shouldn’t do.
What's the fall out of that remark?
Please tag @mulderscreek when you post your story, submit your story or the link to it to [email protected], post here on our submissions Tumblr, or send me a message with a link to your fic on Tumblr to reblog.
Your challenge is to write a futurefic, set some time after February 23, 2031, which is when Scully will be old enough to collect full social security benefits. Your story should focus on how she and Mulder spend their retirement, in addition to ways they accidentally or purposely embarrass their teenage child…they won't get bored and investigate local mysteries, we're sure ::grins:: Who are we kidding, let's see them snooping.
Please tag @mulderscreek when you post your story, submit your story or the link to it to [email protected], post here on our submissions Tumblr, or send me a message with a link to your fic on Tumblr to reblog.
An X-Files character enjoying the simple pleasure of splashing a friend or sibling in a wading pool, back when they were children.
Please tag @mulderscreek when you post your scene on your own tumblr, post here on our submissions Tumblr, or send me a message with a link to your fic on Tumblr to reblog.
(MUSIC: “THIS IS THE WORLD (I MADE IT FOR YOU)” — MAGADALENA BAY )
He insists, always insists, that little green men are gray. This is because he is colorblind.
Scully’s never pointed it out to him, because doing so means that she admits they exist, and she doesn’t want to, even though she almost gave birth to one when she was 34 years old.
After all you’ve seen, Scully...
Mulder doesn’t finish his sentence. He only says that now, because she knows and he knows what he wants to say. Who the hell were we fighting against if they don’t exist? He’s asked her that once. It was not the only time she used her kisses to end a conversation.
He doesn’t need to win every conversation if he’s already won the prize, Mulder tells himself as he makes out with the said prize on the couch until someone, probably one of their kids, tells them to go to their room because they have company.
Scully never points out to him that some aliens could be green because Mulder’s certainly never seen all of them. Who is to say that they are all gray? Heck, Mulder would still think they are gray even if they were red!
She doesn’t pick on him for his color blindness. Good thing I never dreamed of being a pilot, he once confesses under a blanket of stars, early in their relationship. Crushed my soul when I realized that I couldn’t be an astronaut, though.
She feels a particular tenderness, one that she only feels when it comes to Mulder, and kisses him until they are making out in their backyard on the freaking-royal-purple-cape-blanket he got, the junior, as he affectionately calls it, since they lost the initial one he got for them.
How could it be junior? She asks him, feeling giddy to indulge in his silliness.
Well, it’s the second royal purple one, so it’s Royal Purple Junior. Nice color, right? He replies while wiggling his hips playfully.
Mulder has no idea that she dislikes that royal purple color so much that she accidentally washed it with bleach three times, so it’s more of a pinkish color now. Thanks to his colorblindness, he can’t tell anyway.
A few months after her solo weekend getaway to Maine—this was way, waaaay back, in 1997, when she still took vacations without him—Mulder complains about the lack of colors in his wardrobe so Scully would go shopping with him. He gives her enough eyebrow pumps and boyish grins that she had to say yes.
At the mall, he drags Scully to the food court right away and buys her stuff that she would otherwise never eat, like a hot dog on a stick and those pretzel bites with cinnamon sugar on top. It’s the least I can do, Scully, and he forgets that he hates the mall.
The next time they go, she makes sure that they do the clothes shopping first and everything else later.
They always spend too much time at the pet shop, and when Mulder leaves the store, he has already named all the puppies and the kittens that he’s played with (of course, the names are all crazy, like Mister Barcode or Momus). Scully has a hard time believing this is the same man who screamed get off my leg you little gray monster to her little Queequeg only a few years ago.
If we ever get one, we’ll adopt from the shelter, he says to her too earnestly, and she doesn’t know they would be adopting a dog together (the first one they got, though not adopted but brought home from a neighbor, was named Tashtego, after the hunter/harpooner in Moby Dick, after Mulder had compiled a list of over 30 names within the hour, as it was the deal that he would get to name all their furbabies, and he still picked a name she would have picked herself.)
His color blindness never bothers her, even if this means he has no idea what color her hair is..
His babies need vision correction but they can tell colors right. You can be an astronaut! He says to both his children. Neither of them wants to go to space, though.
When his kid becomes a teenager and dyes her hair as an act of rebellion—a classic Dana Scully move, to be honest—Mulder has no problem with it because he can’t tell that she has dyed it green. Nice hair, Cricket, he says sincerely, and frustrates the hell out of his daughter.
Cricket’s mad at me because, apparently, she doesn’t want me to compliment her new hairdo, Mulder says to his wife while turning on his puppy-dog eyes to full blast. So, Scully kisses him, and the conversation never gets anywhere.
2032+
497.
(MUSIC: “FAVORS” — BRB)
She has a mole at the root of her right thigh. She’s had it since birth, and at seven or eight years old, Missy said to her, “If we ever lose you and find you again but can’t be sure if it’s you, that mole would be the way for us to know for sure.”
She wonders what her sister had been exposed to at 12 years old to have thought of that. She knows it was Missy’s way to make her not detest the mark so much, but it didn’t work too well until the day she just forgot about it altogether.
People do forget things as they get older and older. Birthmarks that bothered her in childhood. Rocks she brought on a field trip and kept in her treasure box, rocks colored like pink lemonade, like the spring day sky, like that god-awful Snuggie blanket Mulder got the winter they became lovers.
Scully does not have memory like her husband. She often wonders about the capacity of Mulder’s memory like she wonders about the special abilities of her children. Those are areas where her science truly fails her.
Mulder is busy, focused, and not in a place to have a conversation when she asks him about the mole.
“Fox, Fooox.”
Mulder grunts to indicate his halfhearted complaint of not having successfully driven her speechless with his tongue. Resting his chin on her, he coos. “Yes, my love?”
“Close your eyes.”
He complies with a smirky, crooked grin, and licks his lips like a happy cat; his head waits, but his hands are slowly roaming up and down her legs.
“On my thigh there is a mole. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
With a puff of air, he smiles with pleased enthusiasm, as if he has been called on by the teacher to answer a question only he would get correct.
“Of course.” His hand moves to the destination, and his thumb presses on the mole. “It’s right here.”
“Hm.” She pauses, “when was the first time you noticed it?”
Scully recalls how, as a teenager, she always worried that people would see the dark brown speck when she was wearing a swimming suit. It made her want to wear swimming trunks, but girls didn’t wear swimming trunks in those days, and little Dana detested the skirted suits even more.
She never once considered that normal people wouldn’t look so attentively at anyone’s crotch that way.
Mulder looks at her with hooded eyes. “The first time I saw you naked.”
She is still nodding at his words when he adds, “In Antarctica.”
“Antarctica!” Scully squirms backward, causing Mulder’s head to drop sharply. “No!”
“Yessss.” Sitting up, Mulder says gleefully. “I had to look. So I could at least die a happy man.”
“You did not.”
“I did.” He grins, half leeringly like a wolf and half charmingly like a boy. “Well, maybe you don’t realize it, but every time I get a chance to look, I’d look at it for a second. It’s… comforting.”
Scully makes a small, embarrassed whimper with her throat.
“It’s my north star,” He moves near her and kisses it softly, sending a shiver down her spine. “You know the north star is actually small and not the brightest, but it is always constant, so it guides sailors to go where they want to go.”
“It’s not small.” She corrects, "It just looks small because it’s so far away.”
“Right. You’re the scientist.”
“Why would you need a guide...”
Mulder chuckles and moves up to mold his naked body to hers. He kisses her chin, the dip under her lower lip, the two corners of her mouth, and the tip of her nose. “If I see the north star, I know I’m at a good place, good enough to still be kissing you everywhere. No matter how crazy my theories are, or what I’ve done to annoy you, if I’m able to see it, life’s pretty good still.”
“Our life is good.”
“Yeah. After fighting air drones with a baseball bat," he punctuates his words with kisses, "and living through multiple alien colonization attempts… and a retirement party of my brother-in-law… and seeing my daughter going to her first dance… and making podcasts on Bigfoot and mermaids… and sleeping with my incredibly hot wife every night… This old man has no complaint.”
“You’re an experienced man, Mulder," Scully coos.
“No, Scully. I’m an old man. Pretty soon someone will be calling me grandpa and… Great-Unkie Moldy.” He puts out his lower lip for a pouty look, complete with the puppy-dog eyes, and is consoled with a kiss. Mulder shifts to one side and roughly nibbles down her jawline. “Now, can I go back to finish what I’ve been thinking about since 8am this morning?”
With heat creeping up her cheek, Scully closes her eyes and hides her face in Mulder’s body. She nods, hands sliding across his shoulders and back.
“Scully,” his voice comes from down below, purposefully deep and sexy. “Knowing that there are only the two of us having ever studied this Polaris of yours drives me to a new level of insanity.”
Mulder’s skillful fingers dance on the plane of her body, and with his tongue joining in the party, she forgets entirely about birthmarks and rocks and Snuggie blankets and scientific incapabilities.
498.
(MUSIC: “SAD MACHINE” — PORTER ROBINSON)
The two of them sit lazily on the porch in the warm autumn afternoon, drinking pineapple sodas with salt-rimmed glasses. Mum and Dad are out with the dogs, Kuiper’s in school, and they—they are just chilling on a Friday in September.
William sometimes thinks of the past. The near past like bathing their dogs with Mum, or seeing a baseball game with Dad, or the not-so-distant past of riding his Triumph with a tiny but super vital USB in his breast pocket, making a delivery to rewrite all the hubs after alien technology had messed with it, which subsequently led to every single electronic device under the range of Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to stop working—things like the air fryer, the cars, the respirator. Times like wearing a face mask, goggles, and gloves is more important than wearing a motorcycle helmet. Times like picking up his friend from the monastery and staring at her one lonely backpack of belongings, with hair too short to be called a pixie cut, and their friendship on the road to rebirth. Times like lifting your little sister up in the air and realizing that losing two years of not seeing her grow up is nothing you want to experience ever again.
Or, William thinks of the even further past, like that time in high school, when his parents showed up as chaperons for the biology class field trip, how Mum wowed all the boys with her smarts and gave all the girls aspirations to become something greater by simply pointing out two mistakes in the information on the wall of the Science Center. Or how Dad asked—well, more like convinced—the poor docent about possibilities involving shapeshifters and mutants, which equally wowed all the girls with how goofy the opposite gender can really be even in their fifties, and successfully gave all the boys hope that being silly and insane can still land you a beautiful and intelligent wife.
Or, a more, more distant past, of his old, old life, with Ma and Pop. When he first got his vision. When he first felt the connections. When he went home on the last day of the fifth grade with a paper mâché whippet he made for art class, which looked identical to their late family dog, and the way ma looked at him, with awe and a little fear.
He glances at Millie and wonders what she is thinking. Smiling, because he knows he could easily read her mind, but what’s the fun in that?
“Remember...” He begins, but without a clear idea of what he is about to say, “Remember when we sat at the library during lunch period, looking at baby names for me and my sister?”
“Yes, and we broke Dad’s heart to not officially naming you William Imogen.”
Imogen. William briefly considered the revenge he took in the past that felt like a previous life, and bitterness filled his heart to think about the meaning behind the moniker; was his father thinking of innocence or beloved child?
Or was Dad thinking of imagine, and imagined all the possibilities his child could become?
“And we theorized how that Imogen painting by Carmichael probably reminded him of Mum, leaving him with a desire to give me, his son, a girl’s name as a middle name.”
He gives her a small smile, his mind’s eye seeing the fair skin of Imogen’s hand in contrast to the golden hilt. “What else do you remember?”
“Um...” Millie presses her lips together. “We debated which of their dead friends you should be named after. And went on to make fun of all the ways their names could be used as the butt of a joke.”
“John, Dick, Hickey.”
“Maybe Melvin is making a comeback.”
“William Melvin Mulder makes me sound like a writer in 1852.”
“Like Albert is any better.” Millie teases.
“What, honeydew, you don’t like my middle name? Why didn’t you say so?” William leans over to grab his beloved’s hand.
She shakes her head no.
“I like the story of the Navajo man who helped your parents and provided so much support for them. He possessed... wholesome qualities. He was kind and loyal, intelligent and spiritual. He helped two people just because they needed help.”
She picks up her fizzy and takes a sip. “I think you picked well.”
“Isn’t that what people do? When they name a child, they try to think of ways to honor someone who’s made a difference in their life?”
Millie disagrees. “I think most Chinese people pay someone to name their children for them, like a fortune-teller, so they would have a smooth life. What a load of mumble-jumble. And that’s like, 20% of the world’s population.”
William brings her hand to his lips and kisses it.
“It feels like we are getting old now, doesn’t it?”
“You’ve been on this planet for over three decades, donut boy.” Millie says slowly. “But when Dad was this age, he hadn’t met Mum yet.”
“You’re right.”
“People back in the day have a good 15 child-bearing years, and they go on having 4, 5, 6 children. Nowadays people are lucky to have one.”
“I don’t want many.” He blurs out. “Though I do wish there would be more people with... my parents’ qualities. And yours, too. I want more people like that in the world. I want more Scully-Mulders running the world.”
“Running the world?” She teases.
“Well, running in the world.”
“I think there are; I think there will be more and more people coming to be.” She plays with the melting ice cubes in her glass.
“Um… Mill, do you know something I don’t?”
William panics all of a sudden. For a while his parents kept joking about having another kid when Cricket was 14; he’s never truly gotten all their inside jokes and he was fine with that. But it has to be science fiction if his parents are having children in their 70s. Now, could he be...
Or, worse, could his sister, who’s still in junior high?
“Scamoo!” Millie pats his face, laughing. “I think that... Anyone who believes the kind of love your parents shared still exists in the world is a Scully-Mulder. Anyone who is determined for the well-being of others at all costs is a Scully-Mulder. Anyone who wants to believe and is not willing to give up—that they have the faith to keep looking—is a Scully-Mulder. Anyone who loves a friend and can… give up the life they’ve built to save that friend... is a Scully-Mulder. Anyone who has met a total opposite but is willing to keep communicating, to always want to hear the other side, to stand by and... fall with… They are all Scully-Mulders. I’m a Scully-Mulder even without being your Scully-Mulder.”
William does not know what to say for a moment. It’s funny how his parents are household names for saving the world. For a while they got paparazzi waiting outside Cricket’s school snapping photos. Cricket almost fried one of them when they got a picture of her last Halloween. She went as Howl the Wizard.
“You know, as a Buddhist.” Millie pauses, thinking to make her point. “As a Buddhist, we’re not born into the religion. I haveto know about the teachings and want to believe in them. I have to understand what they mean and carry them out in life. It’s one thing to know it, but it’s another thing to act it. And all the people who know and love in the love your parents have, I think that makes them a Scully-Mulder. To stand by somebody, to have faith in somebody, to save somebody. It’s not the way you look, or how you get your visions, your mannerisms… It’s realizing that you have the same qualities they have inside you, and choosing to act with them. Be compassionate and kind and... humble because there are things we still don’t know.”
She smiles at him, genuinely, brilliantly, hopefully.
“The world, the karma of the world, is always up to be determined. It is possible for Scully-Mulders to run the world one day. I mean, they are working on that book.”
William thinks of his parents sitting at their shared desk, discussing the different versions of the same cases that took place 40 years ago. Mum’s version of Dad is always so enthusiastic and impulsive. In Dad’s stories, Mum was always the one who saved the day, from rapid aging to virtual realities to tobacco beetles to psychopathic mutants in escalators. Would people continue to think of his parents as heroes after reading that book? Or would they come to think his parents are just two silly geese in love?
His expression must have communicated distress to her, as Millie grabs his hand with both of hers and brings it to her forehead, as if she is making a prayer.
“I love your parents.” She murmurs softly as a revelation. “I really do. I’d create for them to keep them alive. It’s Shakespeare’s way of immortality.”
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
The young woman nods, smiling. She kisses the gold band on his finger as a small reward.
“Do you love me, Millie?”
“I love you, Bullfrog.”
She reaches for his face and plants a kiss on his lips, thinking of William’s recent words while kissing her eyelid—he said he finally understands why his parents can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. When you’re that close to the sun, it’s hard to see anything. She’s witnessed such crazy love since she was 14. She’s always seen it differently from Will. How this realization lit up his eyes and his smiles. William the Savior. William the creation from one-in-five-billion. The Miracle. The first of hopefully many Scully-Mulders. She’s so honored to be a part of this, to be a part of him.
William closes his eyes and enjoys the quietness, for he knows that his sister will soon come home, so will his parents, with their dogs and joys and love that they continue to generate for the other. His baby sister, who dons green highlights and double ponytails and wears boots with all her outfits, his baby sister, for whom he flipped through baby name book after baby name book in his first semester at Jefferson High as Jackson the Donut Boy, making playlists for his best friend, singing, laughing, coming up with plays and Summer Spooktaculars and the plans to save the world from alien invasions. In the sunlight that came through the huge window, Millie went on, one by one, reciting the baby names ending with Scully-Mulder and checking how they might inspire cruel nicknames on the schoolyard.
He enjoys the visualization; what a treat it is to revisit, with her bare feet in his lap, legs clad in sweats, her small and rounded belly... her laughs, his laughs, and Cricket’s interjection of with that name you might as well go with Fox.
Wait. Wait. Wait. This is not a memory.
“I think,” William states slowly but surely, “Imogen is a good baby name.”
-----
thanks for reading. Tagging @today-in-fic & @mulderscreek, thanks!
The silver sparkles from the disco ball, the blue light from the fish tank, the music humming softly in her head, and the phantom dust particles floating around—everything, everything, the big hand holding onto hers, enveloping hers... but there isn’t the ever-familiar callus on this hand; it’s not the hand she has come to think of as hers over the decades. This hand is soft, with slender fingers like paintbrushes; it's a writer’s hand, a painter’s hand. Pale skin and minimal scars. No accidental marks left by her little Pomeranian in 1995.
“I can hear your mind spin.” William says. “Just enjoy this, Mummy.”
Scully looks down and smiles; her forehead touches her son’s chin.
“Mummy...” She repeats the word lightly as if it were a morsel of sweet, feeling it on her lips and wanting to laugh herself silly.
“I gotta enjoy this as much as I can,” William whispers to her like a true secret. “My old man doesn’t share well. Must be an only-child thing.”
“William!” Scully pretends to scold him, but she is far from doing so. Everyone knows how harmlessly possessive her husband is; even the scientists they’ve worked with noticed, and geeky scientists are usually so obtuse about things like love.
Everyone in the world knows they are an item anyways; that’s what makes the possessiveness harmless now.
Mulder doesn’t give a damn anymore. He always holds her hand, even at the press conferences they've held regarding important alien business. He kisses her in public, no matter who’s watching. Paparazzi? Fans? Mulder doesn’t care. He stopped giving damns back in ’95.
If her hand is reachable, he will hold it. If her lips are available, he will kiss them. If time is permissible, he will show her how much he loves her.
William leads her around the makeshift dance floor in the family room, swaying swiftly, left and right, and twirls her around before pulling her close again, and Scully giggles like a young girl.
He feels giddy, too. What a celebration.
“I can loop the chorus as often as you want, so this song will go on for twice as long.” He promises softly. “Bet you a whole blueberry pie that Dad’s gonna cut in soon.”
“Dad looks like he’s having fun.”
The mother and son look at Mulder dancing with Millie. The young woman looks up adoringly at Mulder, laughing as he supplies her another dad joke, probably.
“The song playing in his mind is...” William chuckles, “It's ‘Moon River.’”
Scully presses her lips together. “Oh?”
“And Mill has ‘Curveballs’ on this whole time.”
“What’s mine?”
Scully challenges as if she doesn’t believe her son would know. William glances at her for a second. “…Mirage.”
Scully nods; her son’s abilities will always impress her. “You’d make a great DJ.”
“Ha, maybe more like a jukebox. But yeah. Looking at Matt and Cricket. They’re totally dancing to a different beat. And Uncle Charlie’s really...”
“He’s really having fun.” Scully turns to look lovingly at her younger brother, who surprisingly has a full head of silver hair. “I was afraid he had enough of us last month. Can’t believe he came.”
“This is the party of the century, Mummy. Who would miss it? Even the Gunmen came. And I don’t think Uncle Bill could get any more... like a fish outta water?”
Scully feels like she’s been smiling so much that her cheeks are getting sore. “Your powers have grown, haven’t they?”
William squints at her, reminding her so much of a young Mulder. She’s never seen her Fox at this age, but her son looks much more like Mulder these days.
“Training took off.” William says humbly.
“Hey, disco ball, mind if I cut in?” Mulder taps on his son’s shoulder. “Your girl wants to dance with you.”
Scully is swung into the arms of her husband, and she lets out a surprised chortle.
“You having fun, Fox?” She says sweetly to Mulder. He tightens his arms a little closer around her, brushing his lips on her temple.
“Yes.” Mulder pauses for a second. “Bill hasn’t caught on, has he?”
“No, but he’s probably too buzzed to care at this moment.”
"He drinks?"
"More than you, actually. My brothers haven't seen each other for years. He needs it."
The two of them turn to look at the Navy man who's standing with his back to the wall, chatting with his two children. They then turn to check out Charlie rocking the house with the kids.
“Do you know all the songs are different in our heads?” Scully asks.
“Michiko told me the secret when she stepped on my toe the third time.” Mulder’s tone is ever so forgiving; it’s the one he reserved for all those he holds dear.
They glide and twirl, with different tunes playing in their heads, but so in sync that no one could tell. The room gets smoky, foggy, misty, as if they were back in the woods in Delaware all those years ago, with car headlights and crazy, paranoid friends and…raining popcorn. Ah, Scully must have finally detailed their crazy wedding ceremony to their son. Mulder’s eyesight follows the falling popcorn coming out of nowhere and disappearing into nothingness right before they hit the ground.
“Thank you, Dana.” He whispers.
“For what?” She caresses Mulder’s jaw with the tip of her nose. “This party? The Boys took care of the food, Cricket and Bill’s kids decorated, William’s doing the lights and music, and you even went to pick up Bill and Tara. All I did was show up.”
“For...” He gazes at the love of his life. His Scully. Her kind blue eyes, her noble nose, creamy cheeks, adorable chin, delicious lips. How her smiles make him feel like he’s 35. How her love keeps him honest and humble and human.
Mulder bends his head to kiss her, sweetly and sincerely. He’s always known she would be his, even when he was younger. Sometimes he dreamed it, sometimes he wished it, sometimes he ridiculed himself for it, and sometimes, when he was feeling brave and reckless, he did something about it. Every single touch was a kiss, every good morning was a marriage proposal, every good night was an iloveyou.
Scully kisses him back, tugging on his lower lip and chuckling happily. This party is a good idea. Life is to be celebrated, with love and loved ones. She reaches up to touch Mulder’s cheek, his ears, his hair, a gesture so familiar to her yet always exciting even in the present. She thinks of how clueless they were about what the future had in store for them. They went to the aquarium once and saw jellyfish glowing in blue or red, swimming in tunnels over their heads. The beautiful and subtle blue light surrounded them, and she thought, in those lights, that Mulder was her best friend. And he had loved her then.
She recalled the countless times they gazed at the stars together, sitting on the hood of their rental, lying on the quilt her mother made, or wrapped in that endearingly ugly purple Snuggle blanket, while Mulder detailed legends and myths. They counted stars, sometimes with nothing on their mind and, most of the time, with unimaginable futures ahead. And he had loved her then.
Or them standing in huge great fields in awe, lost, or bewildered. Or, on the beach facing the ocean, with his arms around her; her hair tickling his face, his kisses tickling hers. Or running in forests as if a deranged witch or a nightmarish man-beast was going to eat them like some helpless souls in Grimms' Fairy Tales. And he had, he had always loved her then.
Scully thinks of the UFO light show they once watched, on a summer night, by a field somewhere, so, so long ago. It’s hard to believe they were ever that young. All the courage he put on for her, his hand shaking from fear, and how his embrace detailed to her his horror and gladness and adrenaline. Frogs falling from the sky, bouncing off their shared umbrella, and that earthy smell mixed with the heat of his body near. Ice cream from a tub and baseball lessons and building sand UFOs and vampire sheriffs and kisses in the hospitals. And she had loved him, then.
“Mulder...” She looks up at him, affectionately. “Fox. Daddy. My dark wizard. My love.”
“At... your... service.” He dips his head and punctuated his kisses after each word. “I love you, Scully.”
The music in their head stops.
“You know...” William chimes; the two dancing couples pass by one another like the soundless trains in Japan. Millie laughs, hiding her face in William’s chest—she has tried and failed to keep William from playing chaperone, but Mulder gives no damn. He continues to kiss his wife.
“I can make you two a closet, and make everyone at this party forget that the party's for you. I can do that now.”
Millie stands on tippy toes and holds William’s attention with her gaze. “Play me your song.”
She ends her words with a sweet kiss, and he delivers like the smoothest orchestra.
Mulder and Scully just go on, dancing and swaying and kissing, giving no damn at all, being happy and in love and in each other’s arms, feeling gratitude and grace and saved, like how they have always wanted to be, since 1995.
494.
(MUSIC: “360” — PETER GREGSON)
“So, it's done.” The older cousin smiles at William.
William grins back, his teeth biting his lower lip, “Finally.”
“Yep.” Millie matches her beloved’s grin, nodding.
"Well," Matthew Scully exchanges glances with William, “It’s customary—"
“A tradition,” William corrects.
“Yes, it’s a tradition for me to welcome you Mulders to the family.” Matthew looks at his cousins. “The celebration calls for ice cream. All you can eat. The goal is to tackle all the flavors on the menu. Seasonal optional, but highly encouraged.”
Millie’s eyes widen; she chuckles and covers her mouth with her hand.
“We did the whole menu back in ‘19” William nudges her as he recalls the memories of his welcome wagon. “Cinnamon Creamery had 42 that winter.”
“Hey, how come I didn’t get this welcome celebration?” The current youngest Scully-Mulder complains, arms akimbo.
The three adults look down affectionately at the teenager pretending to be puffing and huffing. She’s got silver hair with pink highlights for the big event.
“Ahh! Put me down!” Cricket screams as Matthew picks her up, laughing. “Daddy!”
“Hey, Scully, look, look.” Mulder pulls Scully toward him and positions her so she can look right into the backyard, where three big kids are tossing a smaller kid in the air, with dogs barking and running about excitedly. A pure chaos of fun. “I knew it was gonna be like this, having uber-Scullys with you.”
He playfully bumps his hip against his wife.
“Oh, brother.”
Mulder leans forward so he can kiss Scully. It’s the thing to do whenever Scully says oh brother or shut up, Mulder.
Ah, another wisdom to pass down to the offspring for a happy life, Mulder notes while enjoying the soft lips of his darling Scully.
495.
(MUSIC: “THE LOUVRE” — LORDE)
He gawks at the book in the woman’s hand.
“Can’t believe you kept it.”
“Well… I can’t believe you wrote it.” She smirks, “directly on the book!”
“Well, why'd you keep it?”
“Why’d you write it?”
“I thought I wasn’t going to make it back and I... needed someone to talk to. Your turn.”
“Of course I kept it; you wrote it to me, didn’t you? It was either me or Dad, or is there someone else whom you called M and claim to have saved your—"
He presses his lips onto hers so she can’t keep talking.
“Can’t believe you can recite it,” he teases, not feeling so embarrassed after kissing her.
“I can’t. I thought we’re here to talk about Halloween.”
“Yeah. Let’s. What do you think?”
“I can’t imagine your parents dressed up as Woody and Jessie. Did you?”
“Yep. I was Andy.”
“What was cricket?”
“Baby potato. She was one. You don’t remember?”
She looked at him funny, as if it’s ludicrous that he thinks she’s been with him all his life. Even though sometimes it does feel like that.
“What else have they dressed up as?”
“A few years ago, they all went as vampires. It was very elegant.” William feeds the images into Millie’s head even though there were probably photos somewhere on his phone. “Of course, there was that year when you went with us, Mum and Dad were Gomez and Morticia.”
Millie nods at the fond memories of a crazy night with the Scully-Mulders. “That was fun.”
“Never thought I’d have impure thoughts for Wednesday Addams, but I did.”
She closes her eyes and scrunches up her nose.
“One year they were Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, and Cricket was Dennis the Menace.” William snickers, “I think the older Dad gets, the more he looks like Walter Matthaum, but Mum says he looks like Harrison Ford. Were you with us when they dressed up as elves? For Christmas?”
“God, no, but I can totally see them as elves rather than Santa and Mrs. Claus.” She grins at him. “Were you Santa?”
“No. Daggoo was Santa. And yes, my parents are now people that dress up their dogs on holidays. Maybe they always were.”
They are both quiet for a moment, both thinking about past Halloweens memories. What an indulgence to have Halloween now, it seems.
“Do you think we’ll always have that too?”
“I think... if we both really want to get along and be with the other person for the rest of our lives, we’ll have what they have. I think that’s the secret to everything in life, not just for a successful marriage but... a good partnership, a happy family, amiable neighbors... I always want to know what you think. I always want you to see what I see. That’s the marriage advice I got from Dad.”
“Yep. Mum said everything takes maintenance.”
William is both amused and pleased. “Mum,” he repeats half-teastingly.
“Yeah. Mum.”
She nods, and William finds himself nodding in return.
“No more Dana?”
“Afraid not. We all make some little sacrifices for you.” She frowns for show, pushing his chest with her index finger. “She also says no one is keeping scores, and that it’s fine to keep looking for an answer as long as the question is one that you like. I guess that’s the marriage advice I got.”
“Hey, Michiko.”
“Yes?”
“You’re my biggest question in life.”
“You’re a sap, William.” She says, settling in his embrace and holding his arms as if they were the safety bar on a roller coaster.
“Yep. I’m becoming a sap. "He kisses her fingers one at time. "I bet it’s genetics.”
“Agree. From the Mulder side.”
“I second that. Definitely from the Mulder side. Dad’s the biggest sap I know.”
They go on, giggling and making fun of the man they are fondest of in the entire universe.
-----
thanks for reading. Tagging @today-in-fic & @mulderscreek, thanks!
An X-Files family getting home from a long drive and discovering that the kids are asleep, with one of the parents feeling a little wistful that they're too big to carry inside without waking up now.
Please tag @mulderscreek when you post your scene on your own tumblr, post here on our submissions Tumblr, or send me a message with a link to your fic on Tumblr to reblog.
Catch up on the And Scene short prompt instructions here if you've new to our blog and missed them
Your challenge is to write a futurefic, set some time after February 23, 2031, which is when Scully will be old enough to collect full social security benefits. Your story should focus on how she and Mulder spend their retirement, in addition to ways they accidentally or purposely embarrass their teenage child…they won't get bored and investigate local mysteries, we're sure ::grins:: Who are we kidding, let's see them snooping.
Please tag @mulderscreek when you post your story, submit your story or the link to it to [email protected], post here on our submissions Tumblr, or send me a message with a link to your fic on Tumblr to reblog.
Your challenge is to write a story in which children of X-Files characters wake up one day in July to find that it's bafflingly less than a week from Christmas but still clearly summer. What's going on??
Please tag @mulderscreek when you post your story, submit your story or the link to it to [email protected], post here on our submissions Tumblr, or send me a message with a link to your fic on Tumblr to reblog.
