i especially love redux ii because i think it marks the moment when mulder finally leaves behind a “path to death” (his relentless search for the truth behind samantha’s abduction had long felt like a kind of suicide mission for me), and for the first time he chooses scully as his hope to live. that’s why i love the whole debunking arc bc despite knowing that it will be overturned later, the effect it had was genuinely life-changing for mulder.
before, the center of his life had always been samantha’s abduction. but from this moment on, the most important thing in his life became scully’s safety. to me, she came to represent the possibility of a future, a constructive, prospective one, instead of a retrospective one. so even though they continued seeking the truth like they used to, mulder’s entire sense of purpose had fundamentally changed, and that fact itself means everything to me.
redux i is the ultimate test of how deep the x-files has its hooks in you. the whole episode is written like chris carter is trying to hit the word count but if you’re locked in you should be watching with your chin in your hands. it should only hit you later that you just had an emotional reaction to an episode with lines like "to weave her story, to tell her tale"
Scully thinks about kissing Mulder at different points in their partnership.
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She wants to kiss him.
The thought strikes her one day as they’re quietly discussing a case. Their heads are close together so they can keep their shared thoughts from the prying ears of the local LEOs trying to listen in, and her eyes wander down to his lips. They’re not all that far from hers. It would be so easy…
Something internal pulls Scully back from those thoughts like a bucket of cold water. She looks back up at his eyes, feeling her cheeks color against her will. Thankfully, he’s studying one of the pictures between them and hasn’t seemed to notice.
Why the hell does she suddenly want to kiss him?
Sure, he’s attractive; Scully has eyes that function. She’s noticed Mulder’s soft, hooded gaze and brilliant smile and nice jawline. She’s also noticed the way he calls her “Scully” or “Agent Scully” or “Doctor Scully” instead of defaulting to “Dana” like some of her other male colleagues. She’s noticed the way he defers to her while questioning witnesses. She’s noticed the way he’s quick to remind other law enforcement that she’s a medical doctor and, therefore, extremely qualified and deserving of professional respect.
She’s also noticed the way he runs headfirst into danger if it has anything at all to do with his sister. She’s noticed the way he allows the darkness to swallow him sometimes. He’s reckless with his life. He’s dangerous, in a way.
And, yet, she still wants to kiss him.
He smiles at her, flipping to a new crime scene photograph as he continues to talk about soil samples and local legends. She smiles back, despite herself. Her chest feels warm and fuzzy and–
No.
No, she can’t do this.
There is a line here, in the proverbial sand between them that, if crossed, will almost certainly end in destruction. Workplace romances never end well, in her experience, and the FBI likely won’t allow them to keep working together. She will be looked down upon even further by her male counterparts. Mulder will be mocked for more than just being a little “spooky.”
Nothing good will come of it.
And, the truth is, she likes what they have now. It’s not easy or comfortable, but it works. It works very well. Her world is steady on its axle, with Mulder, the X-Files, and her emotions orbiting it in careful synchronization. If one thing steps out of orbit, the whole system will crash and go careening off into space. They have a tentative friendship and mutual respect that she values deeply and would hurt to lose. They provide a push-and-pull set of perspectives to their work that gets good results. This is working.
And so, she does not kiss him, because then the world will end.
—
She wants to kiss him.
This thought is not new. In fact, she’s starting to tire of her own inner thoughts drifting in that direction. She’s thinking it more and more lately, likely because they have been getting closer. Something between them shifted after her abduction, and the resulting loyalty between them is somewhat astounding to her; she feels a strong pull to stay by Mulder’s side and, most of the time, she thinks he feels the same way.
What they have is good. Very good. He’s the closest friend she thinks she’s ever had, even when he’s frustrating and single-minded and full of hare-brained ideas that are bound to get them both killed someday.
Kissing him would change all of that. Their friendship is so new – so good – but there is a glass wall between them even still. Kissing him would shatter that glass, the shards would get stuck in their skin, and every action after that – every touch – would have the potential to hurt.
She likes him too much to risk that. She likes what they have. She likes this partnership between opposites and the balance that has come with it. They make a good team.
If they kissed, the world would end.
And, so, she does not kiss him.
—
She wants to kiss him.
He has kissed her plenty, on her hollowed cheeks and cold hands, but it is not enough. Not remotely. Her world is ending, drawing to a quiet close, and there are so many things she hasn’t done yet in her life that it makes her want to scream against the coming darkness with every last breath she has in her tired lungs.
And, she figures, if the world is about to end anyway, then why not kiss him? It’s one of those things she hasn’t yet done and it’s easier to accomplish than winning a Nobel Prize in medicine or solving some famous cold-case. Kissing Mulder would be so, so easy. And she wants to so, so badly.
But his world is not ending. Long after she is gone, his will go on. Is the taste of her dying lips really the taste she wants to leave in his mouth? If they cross that line, will his world end with hers? Or will that memory be what pulls him away from the darkness after she is no longer there to do it herself?
Will it be enough to help him fight his demons? Or will it push him further into their grasp?
She doesn’t know, and the thoughts make her head ache more than it already does. So she does not kiss him. She settles for cheek and knuckle kisses and prays that it is enough. It has to be enough.
—
She wants to kiss him.
She plans to kiss him.
She pays too much for wine and cheese at the motel’s front desk and takes it to his room. She flirts with him a bit and feels pleased when he seems to flirt back in his typically-Mulder-y way. She cracks open the wine and pours glasses and thinks about how it might taste on his lips.
And then, in an instant, he is leaving on a wild goose chase. He’s got a goofy look on his face and the pit in her stomach can’t decipher if he picked up on her intentions and panicked, or if he’s really that oblivious.
Or, perhaps, he’s rejecting her. The thought almost brings tears to her eyes as she tastes the too-cheery drink from the rim of the cold, hard glass.
She thought that his cheek and hand kisses in the hospital might lead to something more now that she’s healing, but she realizes that his forwardness, his bravery, might have been fueled by the fact that he might never see her again; the emotional equivalent of a one-night-stand.
She shakes herself mentally, realizing how unfair that thought is to Mulder. He isn’t like that. Is he?
She stands alone in his empty hotel room, drinking both of their portions of wine and eating their cheese. Her heart squeezes as she realizes that, despite everything, the world will still end if they kissed, if they tried to become something other than what they currently are.
And, at the realization that he has ditched her to go investigate on his own again, she wonders if the end of the world is already beginning.
—
She wants to kiss him. Just, not like this.
He’s standing in the hallway, but he might as well have been on his knees, for all the begging he has been doing. Their world has been slowly falling apart, their partnership fraying at the seams, but he still begs her to stay; he still tells her she’s his other half, that she’s saved him, that he needs her.
And now he’s leaning forward to kiss her.
Is this a kiss he really wants? Or is this just another way of convincing her to stay? His prior words feel like the edge of a love confession, but the sting of Diana’s presence and all that has happened since she arrived rip through Scully and threaten to tear her heart in half.
Does he mean it? Does he really mean this impending kiss?
Still, she lets him lean forward – unable to decide if she should meet him halfway or lean back and rethink everything she knows – until his lips brush hers and a sting, a physical one this time, pricks her neck. She ducks, feeling equal parts disappointed and appreciative towards the interruption.
But then the floor begins to spin. Her chest constricts. She’s falling to the floor, and Mulder is running, sobbing, clutching her with gentle, desperate hands.
And slowly, dizzyingly, the world seems to end.
—
She wants to kiss him, despite everything.
Despite Diana. Despite his betrayal. Despite the last few, tense months. Despite his arrogance. Despite his lack of apology.
Despite every last little thing , she’s standing there in the cool night air with his arms wrapped around her hitting baseballs, and she wants nothing more than to turn around and grab his stupid face and kiss him. She wants to kiss him into silence. She wants to kiss him into stillness. She wants to kiss him so he will stop touching her hip like that .
She’s almost angry at herself. She’s still angry at him. The crack of the bat in her hand sends satisfying shockwaves up her arm as her muscles stretch and flex and strain to hit the ball harder, harder, harder into the night sky.
She giggles and she isn’t sure if it’s the result of elation or some other carefully restrained emotion squeaking out past her defenses.
Damn it. Damn it all.
She hits ball after ball after ball because, at least, if she’s playing baseball she isn’t kissing him. The history and emotions between them are behind her, at her back. He’s warm and solid and steady there, and it’s easier to forget everything that has happened as shivers run down her spine.
She isn’t sure what will happen when the boy runs out of baseballs to load into the pitching machine. But she knows she will not kiss him.
She can’t.
She won’t.
Her heart is too fragile, too tender, too cracked. Letting herself give in after all the hurt and damage that has been done will break it. The world will end.
She hits another ball. And she does not kiss him.
—
She wants to kiss him, and she does.
One millennium ends. Another begins. The ball drops and the fireworks flash on the tiny screen above them and Scully doesn’t give a single damn because she’s kissing Mulder. And he’s kissing her back.
It’s rather chaste, but she can feel the promise of something more beneath it. Or, at least, she thinks she can. They break away and Mulder gives her a smile that is somewhere between silly and shy and, with a shrug, says: “The world didn’t end.”
Her own smile falters because she catches his double meaning and isn’t sure how to process it along with her own history of thoughts and emotions.
“No, it didn’t.”
Before she can fall into her own thoughts any further, Mulder is quietly wishing her a Happy New Year and putting an arm around her shoulders in a way that warms her all the way through. The hope she tasted in their kiss – their very first kiss – returns tenfold and she allows him, with a small smile on her face, to lead her out of the hospital to their shared vehicle.
When they finally reach her home, he presses a kiss to her cheek that feels entirely different than the kisses he left there during her battle with cancer. It’s still warm and full of affection, but it’s shyer, as though it’s asking a question.
She answers the question and pulls him back down by his coat lapels for another proper kiss on the lips, this one a little longer and a little less chaste.
He smiles after the kiss and wishes her a good night. A very good night. The best night ever. He stumbles away as they exchange goofy, silly grins and light giggles.
As he drives away, Scully looks up at the stars and smiles.
“The world didn’t end.”
—
She wants to kiss him and she does. Often.
She kisses him in the morning, when his eyes squint against the sun and his hair sticks up everywhere like dandelion fluff. She kisses him in the evening when they say goodnight and his lips taste like their shared pitcher of iced tea. She kisses him in the afternoons when he says something ridiculous and insane on their way to lunch at the diner down the road from their office. She kisses him often because she can. Because she wants to. Because he wants to.
Because the world does not end. Because it never will.
ever think about how TXF season 5 has a scene in the very first episode where Mulder is waiting in the dark in Scully's apartment for her to come home, and then the third-to-last episode of the season has a scene where Scully is waiting in the dark in Mulder's apartment for him to come home? bc I do
This episode would be so much better if it didn't have so much endless. Droning. Ridiculous. Monologuing. I love David's and Gillian's voices as much as the next person, but OMIGOD PLEASE JUST SHUT UP.
Brought back; restored; returned. Used postpositively.
The X-Files (1993 - 2018) season 5 episodes 1-2, "Redux" / Taylor Swift, Come In With The Rain / Phoebe Bridgers, Chinese Satellite / Louise Glück, "Blue Rotunda" / Taylor Swift, State of Grace / Taylor Swift, Breathe (feat. Colbie Caillat)
