X-Files Collector’s Edition: Time Travel, Time Loops, and Just Wrong Timing
Time travel and loops were explored sparingly in the X Files universe; but what is a fandom without a handy dandy dump truck filled with more AUs to add to the fic landfill? These are just the few that passed my litmus test, either by earned merit or because there was at least something in them that was worth reading. Which ones are which is up to you, though I recommend ChaneenW’s, FridayAt9′s, somanycandle’s, Jo-Ann Lassiter’s, Donna’s, and Lolabeegood’s works (maybe because they have the happiest outlooks by the end.)
(**Edited: included @anders-hawke’s Nine Minutes? short**)
Loose chronological order below~
vessel (saved at orphan_account on Ao3)
““The scientific explanation for all this is overwhelmingly simple: salt blocks hydration, dehydration rots the cells composing the human body. In spite of this, I am struck once again with the improbability that the laws of nature would mutate to allow such a phenomenon, to make a human being age fifty years in a matter of hours.””
Dod Kalm Scully waits for death, pondering science and impending death.
Sheryl Nantus/Sheryl Martin’s (FFN) Nine Minutes
““It was a long time, when you sat and timed it.
Watching the digital figures spin up through the cycle; headed for the top figure of 9:00. Or 540 seconds. Or whatever you measured it by.
It was still nine minutes. Nine minutes that she could never have back again.””
Cancer Arc Scully has lived her life in her own self-imposed time loop: continually obsessing over the 9 minutes she lost in the Pilot, trying vainly to regain them back by resetting her watch every few minutes.
It’s not quite a time loop; but Scully is locked mentally in one, so it counts.
[**Sidenote**: Works well with--]
@lyndsaybones’s (Ao3) Incremental
““The watch fit her perfectly when she got it. He remembers thinking that it seemed child sized then. Do they make Omega watches for kids?
But the weight started sloughing off of her like autumn leaves and he started to feel more fear than hope. The watch starts telling more than time.””
Mulder observes the measure of Scully’s decay with her expensive watch.
““We’re in this together,” he insisted, turning to look at her face.
“We’re in this together,” she repeated, squeezing her arms more tightly around him.
“We just need to find a way to remind ourselves,” he said, starting to slur a little as his face froze. “Some small thing that we do or say could change the whole sequence of events and maybe knock ourselves out of the loop before it gets this far.””
FTF albatrosses of Antarctica keep resetting Mulder and Scully’s journey from the hallway and escape from the alien spaceship (with varying results) until those two right the wrongs the bee made. It quickly devolves from any possible angst into humor and heart while getting subtly funnier the longer the loop goes.
““The more time he spent here, though, the more it became uncomfortably clear that Eddie hadn’t been wrong about him. He had been a loser back then: too focused on searching for the big answers to see what was right in front of him. And although he’d been immediately attracted to Scully when they first met, had instantly respected her knowledge and expertise, and had come to quickly trust her with his life, he had to acknowledge that it had taken him longer than it should have to realize how much he loved her.””
S9 Mulder wakes in his old apartment, confused to learn he has traveled back to the Eddie van Blundht case. At first he has fun breezily solving it and looking anew at his life; but soon S4 Scully notices how differently he’s acting as the glitz and glamor of time-travel fades and homesickness sets in.
@fridaysat9′s (Ao3) A Second’s Fraction
““Why, and more importantly, how, was she standing in her apartment? She had just been in the hospital with injuries and broken bones. She had been talking to Mulder, wishing for pain meds and sleep.
She lifted her arm, surprised to find that it was no longer in a sling. She moved to touch her face, which was completely free of injuries. She patted her hands down the front of her clothes, realizing she was wearing the shirt she had put on that morning. It was clean, and free of spilled coffee.””
Post Drive-- Scully is reset from a horrific car accident, having to live the same day over and over. She, by turns: deals with it alone, tries breaking routine, tries following Diana, tries reaching out to Mulder... all for them to fail. Soon, she is losing hope.
This is engaging, and never gets old.
Jo-Ann Lassiter’s Many Happy Returns
““Why are you making me come here?"
It sounded so like a mortally-wounded Mulder that any fear she may have harbored toward the--whatever it was--evaporated. She stepped from behind Mulder, closer to the doppleganger. "I'm sorry. It was an accident. But where did you come *from?* And what are you?"
The doppleganger gave a bitter laugh. "I'm him," it said, pointing at Mulder, "five years ago. When you died in that operating room in Alaska," it addressed her partner.””
S6/7 Scully accidentally summons an alternate universe Mulder, who is distraught to be brought back from the dead. Normal-Mulder is fascinated, then empathetic at his alternate’s pleas and answers to their questions. Both fix the problem in between comedic quips, heart-string tugs, and ~romance~.
““She was burned, he'd heard them, they didn't know why she was still alive. 90% of her body, her hair was gone and her skin was blackened or raw. She was unconscious, thank goodness. What would the pain have been . . . he didn't finish that thought. They were talking about amputating her fingers to cut down on infection. They'd already said if she lived, if, that they would have to look for donor skin because she didn't have enough left to graft. He'd heard them; they were using cadaver skin on her now.””
S6/7 Mulder is shot back in time to save Scully from being burned alive by an arsonist... only for all his efforts to almost be in vain. Also, ~romance~.
@somanycandles/FootlessData507’s The Disappearance of Bruce Speta
““A very Mulder-type explanation was beginning to hatch in her brain.
“No,” she murmured to herself. “That’s not possible.” She shook her head, as if that would shake the theory away. But it wouldn’t go away.
What if they were both the real Mulder?
What if everything that everyone had told her was true?””
S6/7 Mulder and Scully place bets on finding out the cause of Tena’s friend’s problem: he suspects it’s the ghost of her missing husband while Scully thinks it’s a hoax. She, however, finds it’s all too real when she is shot into a mirror universe, where she needs the help of the “ghost” husband and her alternate self to get home.
Wonderfully fun, insightful, and leads to ~romance~.
Lolabeegood’s Five Months Lost (Gossamer)
““Sir, I need you to come over to my apartment right away. Mulder was here when I woke up."
"He was what?!" Skinner yelled.
"He's here, right now and...and he thinks he has been all along," she whispered as she looked toward the washroom.””
S8 Scully is shocked to find Mulder in her bed with false memories of the past five months. Skinner and TLG back her up to an increasingly terrified Mulder.
Such an underrated canon-divergent from S8-- so well-written, and it has the whole gang in character.
Gillian Leigh’s Visitor in the Desert
“Perplexed, Mulder opened his palm and lifted the dog tags out of his hand and examined them. He reached up behind him and turned on a light. The writing on the tags said,
Civilian Number: 11211013
His eyes widened. She was... his daughter?””
S9 Mulder is visited in the desert by his future daughter, who sends warnings from a bleak future. He high-tails it back to Scully, stops the adoption, and drags her, their family, and friends to an underground civilization built in advance of Colonization. Bill, Charlie, and Samantha already live there; and it’s a bit slice-of-lifey until Mulder decides to go on a vengeance mission that his future daughter has to come back, again, and warn him about.
prufrock’s love/plenilune’s (Ao3, Gossamer, WBM, colonizationhq)
““Oh.” She seemed to wear the holster to appease him rather than herself, and she gave no sign she intended to return inside to call anyone. “Did you disable my car?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “That’s my thing. I leave my kids and drive 90 minutes, claiming I’m trying to solve a crime but really to chauffeur you around for the next few hours. Also, I’m from the future.””
Post IWTB-Colonization Scully is gone. Mulder time-travels to med student Scully, using his intelligence, desperation, and dedication to try to get her to answer the only clue Scully left. The answer eludes them both; and they spend the rest of his vanishing evening looking at pics of their kids, the future world, and healing each other’s wounds. As time begins to refigure and resettle, Mulder realizes where Scully is, and rushes on diminishing time to get her back.
@lotsoforangesoutside’s Unnamed and Its Sequel
““Now, you two knuckleheads,” Bill turns toward the couple, “don’t tell me what Andy said has never crossed your mind. Will doesn’t look 15 and I bet a medical doctor and an Oxford graduate can come up with better cover stories than what you two have cooked up for us. I think you guys should run the new version by me before Dinner, yeah?”
The couple looks at each other as if they were in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Bill gives a light chuckle and shakes his head as he moseys his way out of the living room.””
Post IWTB-- Mulder and Scully have acquired a mysterious Jr. in addition to their younger son, William. Bill, for once, covers for them with timelines to other family members. The truth? Fox Jr. is William from the future, who traveled back, found his past self, and brought them both to their parents’ house.
Itero (formerly Humphreywrites’s fic)
““It is a remarkably small price to pay for a life that is full. A life that is so much happier than her lonely one with nothing but an empty apartment and lonely weekends. She was okay with that, but she hadn’t known what she was missing. She hadn’t known how dead she felt until every morning she woke up alive.””
FTF Scully wakes in a hospital in an alternate universe, the mother of three kids and happily married to Mulder. She quickly finds her footing, bonding with the kids and finding her new normal amidst failing grades, baby tears, and teenage angst. She wakes in a new timeline: 1993. And decides not to waste time.
It’s more Scully-contemplation than slice-of-life; and its maturity in tone sings.
allthistime’s i think i know you from somewhere
““So, when are you from? Tell me about the future!” Mulder said enthusiastically, practically bouncing up and down. Of course he’d barely be phased by a 54-year-old Scully waltzing into his office one Monday morning in 1993.
“Oh, I don’t think I should do that, Mulder. I do believe this is a dream or hallucination, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
He looked dejected for a moment before lighting up again.””
Revival Scully and ‘93 Scully swap places momentarily. Both Mulders are intrigued; and all parties have fun sharing POVs and fishing for details.
mrsagentspooky/agcntspooky‘s (also on dubitavero)
““Keeping his thoughts to himself and trying hard not to stare at the man who would have been - had been? would be? - his father, William nodded.
“I need to talk to you about an X-file, and… can you tell me the date?”
Although the last bit was told in a more sheepish tone (after all, who barges in in the middle of the night and asks for the date?), the whole sentence was scripted. Get his attention by mentioning the X-files straight away. Know where you stand by asking the date. He and Dana had been over it an thousand times.””
Time travel from Will’s POV. Will drops in on Mulder, asking for the date and camping out. Mulder is shocked and calls Scully over, who skeptically listens to Will’s explanation: Future Scully built a time machine to send him back for FBI files to prevent the destruction of the future.
These are EXCELLENTLY written in roleplay-format between two authors: they use little words to say a lot. Also, I love soaking in the atmosphere of this fic.
These stories are a bit scattered, so I’ll just leave the links below in order(?):
““Whenever Mulder and Scully are in different time zones, he only refers to her as Past Scully or Future Scully.
“Oh that is so you. That is so Past Scully.””
IWTB-Revival Mulder likes to tease past-present-future Scully when she’s away on conferences. She finally kills him with sweetness overload.
This doesn’t exactly fit in the above criteria, but time-zones count... right?
Non-specific timeline AUs
@anders-hawke/@iwtbscully‘s Nine Minutes?
““He shook his head and let Scully buckle herself in as he shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side. “Scully, do you remember anything from those nine minutes? Anything real?”
Her giddy smile slipped from her face and she looked away from him into the unlit stretch of road ahead of them, marred only by Mulder’s X in the distance. “No. But I can prove to you that what I’m saying is true. The person who’s taking those people is Billy Miles. I saw a whole life in those nine minutes, Mulder. I lived a whole life. I made decisions and had thoughts and—and fell in love, had children… People died, too. People that I want to save. People that I have to save, knowing what I know.””
Revival Scully wakes from her death... to find herself losing nine minutes in the Pilot. She immediately gives Mulder the rundown, and watches as he processes all emotions at her revelations.
Julie Fortune’s The Ghost of You
““Mulder." Scully gloved up and reached out to take hold of the woman’s hand, lifting it by the thumb.
Hands did not move that way. Not like – empty sacks, the fingers bending like rubber, no stiffness to it at all.
Boneless. Scully lifted higher. The arm followed the hand, a piece of dead spaghetti.””
Mulder and Scully are unwittingly caught in a time loop: autopsying Future Scully’s pulverized body, zipping around to random moments in that day, and resetting the day completely. Some timelines are more successful than others, but all lead to their mutual abduction and her fatal fall.
I found this one courtesy of @mondfuchs-- so thank you!
Hestia01′s (Ao3) Time Lag
““It’s fine, what could happen?”
“I have a bad feeling about this, I don’t think you should.”
Scully wrests herself from her partner. “I just want a better look. It’s probably nothing.” She cleans her hands with a moist towelette, reaches in and picks up the stone.””
A magical museum stone shoots Scully into continual lifetimes-- forcing her to live them fully, die, and reset. When Mulder finally gets her back to the original, she has become depressed and suicidal.
Kristy Anderson’s The Fate of Time (2/2)
““When I woke up last night, all I could remember was our lives together on the X-Files, and I started aching for what I knew was lost from that. The companionship, the hard earned and well tested trust, the love built upon mutual respect and shared heartache. I ended up sitting down on the corner of 42nd and Broadway, just crying and missing us until the sun started rising. As the first rays of light began to shine, to bring life to the streets again, I finally allowed myself to remember the past three, almost four years together. It was as if the beginning of the new day was my new beginning.
"That's when I realized that if I gave this up, what we have now, I would miss this us even more.””
Mulder and Scully are sent to a reset timeline and live the ups and downs of kidnappings, promotions, opening their own X-Files division, and having Will earlier. It all crumbles when Scully dies from cancer, and they are sent back to their normal lives once again.
Rachel Anton’s Eleventh Hour
““I knew I had let her down. Again. And I vowed to make it up to her. Someday, somehow. One day I would have enough courage to let this thing happen, to let her give herself to me. One day I would have enough faith in myself, be a good enough person to trust myself with her.
I didn't even sense that something was wrong. I didn't even know.””
Mulder tracks down and brutally murders Scully’s killer. Due to insanity, he is placed in a mental hospital where a fellow patient asks him to volunteer as lab rat in a time-travel experiment. He’s shot back to the 80s and begins to track Scully down. ~Romance~ blooms somewhere down the line.
Gotta be honest, I DNF-ed this after Mulder agrees to the experiment; but will probably finish it later.
Honorable Mention: The Boy on the Beach by @cecilysass’s (Ao3, Gossamer). (I included her in one of the Mulder family compilations, so it felt like cheating to include her here, too.)
