the cancer arc, but especially elegy to demons to gethsemane & reduxes is such a heavy run and three of my favorite episodes ever (into reduxes obviously)
elegy is one of those episodes i can't really talk about. the way neither of them can face her cancer head on. in memento mori, mulder helped scully face it as an investigator. penny northern helped her face it as a victim, opening scully's mind to what happened to her. but she reverts back, she decides to live with cancer & keep working as long as she can. which allows them to bury their heads in the sand. scully can keep it away from mulder, and they can pretend to forget until her next nose bleed, or a tough update from her doctor.
we hear scully, again & again, take inventory of her life, their work & their partnership. to talk about how well they know each other. but they can't actually talk about it. they can't talk about feelings or the elephant in the room. mulder is barely holding onto hope and they both need answers and he doesn't know how to get them. he tries to tell scully that they can't keep avoiding everything, talking circles around it. she needs to let him in, to be honest. but she goes to her car and cries alone and wonders what it means that she saw harold.
in irresistible, scully didn't want mulder to think he had to protect her. this time, she doesn't want him to believe he can save her. scully is resigned to death, but she's not resigned to what it means. she says in memento mori that she needs him to keep going, to find the truth.
mulder believes they're afraid of the same thing, but he didn't get to read the whole journal of letters to him. they're not afraid of the same thing and demons brings out a huge part of her fears. demons ends with mulder yelling at scully to leave, gun loaded and going down the same path as others. but he doesn't shoot her or himself. in gethsemane & reduxes, mulder's fear comes true and he's left sitting alone, crying. again, with a loaded gun.
scully has to to identify mulder's body, report that he died by suicide. a fear she's had since pusher, put into overdrive through season 4 (paper hearts, cancer, demons) and now she's dying, the end (seemingly) within sight and she can't save him. she won't be there to have his back, to take the blame and he won't put it on her. who will have his back? who will continue the work if mulder doesn't? fight the future hasn't happened yet but this is a huge step to that speech he gives. how he can't do it by himself.
they are so slow to say everything, we get to see everything before they actualize it and verbalize it. it's something i adore about them. there's so much at stake for them and they care so much.
okay. writing about why never again should come before leonard betts is actually hard. because it's really just a few small moments in leonard betts make more sense if they're after never again, and it's so much better to go to memento mori right after the reveal at the end of leonard betts.
never again ends with silence. mulder cutting off his sentence. if it were going to happen, it would be then. but it doesn't, and so the silence persists.
leonard betts has a similar feel to arcadia, where they're trying to get on the same page, slip back into their roles. mulder uses humor at crazy moments, and scully pretends not to think it's funny and stays focused on the case.
in the end, she sits alone in the car in silence. waiting for mulder. he tells her she did a good job, she should proud. a verbal validation he doesn't often give, something she craves & loves, a little taste of something she wanted from him in never again. and she can't enjoy it because she's terrified. scully believes leonard betts and she just wants to go home.
it really strikes me the way there's no physical comfort. in paper hearts, scully was fierce. she tried so hard for mulder and failed. but in the end, he leans into her, they hug, she pets his head. in never again there was no comfort either. mulder was petty and he didn't understand. this time he's kinder when she was attacked, but there's a physical distance that isn't typical.
then in memento mori, she calls only mulder. scully tells him so tenderly. she has no idea what to do, and she know what this will do to mulder. he's with her when they go to skinner so they can officially open a case on it & investigate. when she doesn't explain it to skinner, mulder steps in for her. he tries so hard to be strong when they both know he isn't. but scully is being forced to face something she's left buried. now she can't.
in the hospital, she calls mulder to ask him to bring her stuff & call her mom. she writes letter after letter to mulder. begging forgiveness, telling him she'll only get through this because she knows he's out there, following his own path.
but their path is the same. he will follow her to her death.
they have never been as physically affectionate as they are in memento mori and the reduxes.
in elegy, she sees the ghosts, an omen of her impending death. when she finally tells mulder, he's hurt. he wants to be there for her. in demons, he believes she's dying and that he can't save her, and they both deserve answers. he doesn't want to live without her, he can't keep on his search for the truth without her. but he also won't ask her to follow him into this and he only calls her when he can't remember what happened, there's blood & he's in shock. she knows his suicidal tendencies, it's exactly what has her so worried. who will be there for him when she's gone?
mulder + scully know exactly what they have. scully will give him everything she has, even when it's only her dignity so that he won't rot in prison for something he had to do. mulder will follow her to end of the earth, to the grace without any hesitation.
small potatoes is so painful because of the unspoken agreement not to address their feelings. "mulder" shows up at scully's apartment, and she gives in. she's soaking up the attention she's always wanted from him. they don't kiss, she doesn't move to bridge the gap, she just waits. and then the real mulder comes crashing in and the pain is face is clearly visible. he knew exactly where van blundht was going. it wasn't even a question.
mulder isn't heartbroken that van blundht had a chance with scully and he doesn't, he's heartbroken because they chose silence and now she has a deadly cancer.
in detour, scully makes an attempt to open the door and mulder flees. he knew what was on her mind, but he still can't take it from her. she can't even be mad, but the silence persists and the gap grows.
there's nothing they won't do for each other, but leaving their feelings unsaid hurts them. to the point scully thinks all she's done is hold him back. and in fight the future, he finally says so many of the things she has desperately needed to hear. and she clings to her skeptic role because it still wasn't quite enough. their kiss was interrupted and they don't bring it up and fowley is present, driving another wedge.
from scully's perspective, mulder didn't trust her in never again, and then she lives it all over again because of diana. he doesn't trust her judgment, reduces it to jealousy because they both know her feelings. and she's still unsure of mulder's because of this, and the ever persistent silence. even after one son, he doesn't accept it. only after amor fati, when he was able to hear diana's thoughts and she consequently dies for helping scully save him, does he understand that scully's right. and once again, gives a beautiful speech. between all of this there's been "you're my one in five billion" and "i love you" and "you saved the world scully" and the hallway/bee scene and they play baseball & flirt. until he says to her, looking into her eyes, that she was his friend, his constant, his touchstone.
scully never hears what he says to diana about her. which could have helped her. but she only saw him holding her hand, clinging to diana's shared beliefs, because he knows her. and like in never again, she feels invisible. she feels useless. she's holding him back.
it isn't until the end of amor fati that the tension breaks. things become lighter when scully feels more secure. when he starts giving her the attention she has always wanted, when he lets her take the lead on cases, when she's allowed to believe sometimes without it turning their world upside down.
it's just a better progression. never again shouldn't be about scully's cancer diagnosis & impending death. it's about her, her patterns, mulder. it's about her struggles with what's expected of her, what she should want and the reality of what she wants & chose. her fear that mulder is an authority, and that she gives him that authority.
i was listening to jesus of suburbia and started thinking about mulder and somehow ended up thinking about the way he rejects the idea of fate. he rails at fate, he fights for every person he meets. in oubilette, he won't accept lucy can't have a good life, can't help them find the missing girl. he performs cpr on the girl even as scully is begging him to stop because she's gone. he sobs over lucy's body when she dies. in mind's eye, he's determined to free marty. despite whatever petty crimes she committed, he doesn't believe she murdered anyone and he tries so hard to convince her to help herself. he wanted to keep her free. but in the end, she makes the choice to kill her father (?) and spend her life in prison...
in the field where i died, mulder asks scully if its true that they've been together in other lives, would it change anything? scully tells him she wouldn't change a day. fate or not, she chooses him.
when scully is marked for death with cancer, he won't accept it. they find the mufon women, they investigate. she tries treatment and writes him letter after letter as he continues chasing down leads. he learned from melissa to stop when it's what scully needs, so when she calls he drops it and does as she asks. he's so relieved and happy when scully says she's going to live, she's going to keep working. it isn't a typical route for cancer, but it bolsters him. and when it's revealed she was given this cancer, he nearly collapses in on himself until he has something to fight. because if it was given to her, maybe it can be taken back. and he finds the way to save her.
everything he does is about not writing people off just because of what's happened to them, what's been done to them, and the maybe bad choices they've made because of it. he won't leave them to drown when he can do something, help them do something. fox mulder tries so hard to make everyone see there are other possibilities. they have choices and power. they can change things.
mulder tries so hard to prove this to himself. if things can be different for others, maybe they can be different for him.
My jet lagged braincell is reaching for something irresistible/redux ii linked. Probably my two favourite episodes. Do you see it?
i think i have thoughts!!
as i'm rewatching irresistible, i keep thinking of elegy and the way scully tries to handle everything on her own, the visions she has (seeing herself in the dead women, seeing the dead woman before they get the call). which obviously also reminds me of christmas carol/emily, all souls & orison. christmas carol/emily scully is getting phone calls from melissa and only calls mulder once she learns emily is biological daughter. in the end, she asks mulder for time alone with emily and she stands alone at her casket, with mulder waiting behind her. in all souls, she's working a case as a favor and initially only asks him for help finding the girls in danger. he stays on when he becomes worried about her. and the whole time, she's seeing emily. it starts & ends with scully at confession. and in orison, she's hearing that song. which she heard when her sunday school teacher was murdered, and it's that song that gets mulder to her apartment in time. scully leaned on mulder more in orison than she did in the others. in irresistible, she's trying very hard to be okay with the case. she peppers mulder with questions but handles her emotions about it on her own, as mulder tries to tell her it's okay to have a hard time. he lets her know he's there and she can take a step back, and she goes back to d.c. and meets with karen kosseff, afterwards ready to come back and help people. but in the end, it's her that needs help, she fights hard against donnie pfaster, and in the end she falls into mulder's arms. the consistency of mulder trying to support her and respect her boundaries, worrying when she believes or sees signs is consistent throughout the series. and every time, she lets him to an extent and he gives whatever she accepts. it also reminds me of patient x/the red and the black, maybe one father/two sons but that one is more of a struggle for them and yet, she still calls him when jeffrey spender calls her about cassandra.
i think these are the maybe more obvious connections my mind makes. like they are consistent thoughts i have whenever i watch these episodes, and i'm sure i've talked about it some before.
as i'm watching irresistible, what i think of in reduxes is how mulder tries to be strong for scully & support her. mulder lifts her chin and hugs her at the end, in reduxes, he's holding her hands, kissing her hands cheek forehead. when she turns to her faith, he accepts that. she tells him 'i'll be praying for you' and he jokes 'say a few hail mulder's for me' but so sincerely. i love that when they think she's about to die, her faith is not an issue at all. they'll struggle with it when it comes up a bit longer, but to me, this helps him get to where he is in season seven (all things) and the revival (nothing lasts forever)...and when they eventually work out a lot of their issues through season six lol
there's a very particular vulnerability in all of these episodes, things scully shouldn't handle alone. but because of who she is, she tries. so she goes to therapy, she denies, she closes up but can't hide how she's feeling. especially not from mulder, so she slowly lets him in more & more. even as they struggle, this stays consistent. they're still taking steps forward. she trusts mulder and relies on him, his strength. she relies on the work. (she's a workaholic just like him, especially when it becomes personal and not "just" because she believes in him.)
there's something specific in mulder's tenderness with scully when she's hurting, feeling more vulnerable.
i also keep thinking about 'because i knew you'd talk me out of it if i was making a mistake.' the way they rely on each other, him saying she could change his mind if it was right. she wants him to blame her for the man killed but he won't, and he won't name skinner as the responsible conspirator either.
something about the grace she shows everyone in these horrible situations (mulder, bill, maggie, the victims).
okay. so now i'm watching gethsemane/reduxes and i feel like my brain is on fire!! i'm still not connecting it to irresistible, so i think you need to share your thoughts!
but my mind is connecting it to pine bluff variant and fight the future. the start of redux, where mulder is talking about treason — how he can't let it persist directly connected to scully's confusion & worry in pbv. because mulder would not commit treason.
something about his voice when he tells her the dod agent died from a gsw to the face, that he can't go to the fbi, that someone in the fbi is part of it...reminds me of e.b.e. they create this whole plot to get answers. scully has to lie. they can't communicate this time. the worry & pain & grief (also at the end of gethsemane) is so reminiscent of her abduction, a uselessness & inadequacy that consumes him. but this time they can do something. (similar feeling to the red and the black, when if he could give scully her memories & prove it to her, he would. his determination to stop it from happening to her or anyone else again.)
mulder is always so careful with scully. scully believing her cancer was given to her to make him believe, because of him...he never wants her to be hurt and yet he can't protect her. all of this turns into saving her. (directly to the revival even where he has to be the rational one, support her through her grief & hope.)
redux ii: the thing that makes me crazy is mulder getting to the hospital, making a scene so similar to one breath. (obviously this is my first thought!) he's not as violent until skinner tries to stop him going in to see her. and my god, mulder's face when he sees her lying there. it's almost worse than later in the episode when he sobs silently next to her. it's the way that in one breath, he has no idea what's wrong with her. here he does but he still doesn't know why she's in the icu. he doesn't know that her cancer metastasized.
there's something about the way mulder is fighting so hard for scully that reminds me of lazarus & one breath & irresistible. withdrawn, worried, angry. at a complete loss without her but he does everything he can. lies to the government, breaks into the dod? the pentagon. the affection is next level compared to those. it's the same gentleness & support, but there's hand holding & kisses & caresses. she begs him to let her help him, save him. to not protect her. like scully telling him she was fine all through irresistible (telling him she's back & not going anywhere in firewalker) but she can't tell him that this time. all she can do is beg him not to protect her, to let her give her death meaning, but that wouldn't be something he could live with. tarnishing her name, hurting her family on top of losing her. something here about beyond the sea too. the first time mulder uses her first name, touches her cheek in comfort. gets angry at her for endangering herself. the second time she's shown him inclination to believe, and it scares him this time. because she's vulnerable. the start of physical affection beyond touching her lower back, the hug in the pilot. in season one, tooms, he goes on about her record. later in requiem, he'll talk about family & living and everything she's lost. leaving her behind while he goes back to oregon. (i used to wonder how he convinced her to stay, but i think she couldn't take the risk of leaving him behind again.)
this is worse than colony/end game with samantha. the cruelty. before it was clones, trying to fight their creators and save themselves, hopefully others. ultimately willing to die to protect the original samantha clone. this time, his sister is calling csm her father. and he's trying to expose csm's lies and she flees. dangling his sister this way, with another painful story. "please don't, fox!" fucking CRUEL.
mulder saves scully but he's bearing even more scars from this. this is another reason i don't know if he could have kept going without scully. samantha rejecting him...mulder's vulnerability to csm is almost too much. he could so easily fall for it, like he does with diana in one son. but everything csm tries, only makes him more obstinate. csm has given him nothing and taken everything. mulder is so close to losing the only person he has. the only person he trusts, the only person who trusts him, follows him, loves him.
"maybe they are miracles, but i don't dare call them that." scully's faith is something so special. she's been struggling with it, and turns back to it when she has nothing else. when she has no idea of the chip or treatment will work. and she's talking to her doctor about medicine & miracles. to scully, ultimately, they are the same.
something else that does remind me of irresistible is how hard scully fights too. she tries the chip, she accepts her doctor's treatment, she opens up to her mom and tries to return to her faith. she does everything she can (she always does). scully tries so hard to put up a strong front for mulder, for her family all throughout the series. and like she did in irresistible, it falls away when she just can't do it anymore. she fought donnie pfaster, she got her gun despite her injuries from the crash & falling down the stairs. she crumbles when mulder lifts her chin to look her in the eyes. she crumbles when she feels a miracle is all she has left and she can't turn to mulder in the moment. but she can turn to maggie & religion. she only turns to others when she has no other choice. and ultimately, i think we know it's the chip that saves her. she chose to listen to mulder and tells him "you'll be in my prayers."
i wish i could figure out why exactly "because i knew you'd talk me out of it if i was making a mistake" hits so hard. it's like a preface to fight the future hallway scene.
something about the way mulder doesn't care what happens to him and scully can't do anything and what's more important than his own life is holding someone responsible for what was done to her, without her knowledge or consent and now she's dying. and he gets at least one of them, even if he wasn't at the top. blevins & csm dead. scully in remission and alive. mulder not being prosecuted. this is one of the best endings mulder & scully have. (skinner having not betrayed them and not getting wrongly accused.)
okay i can't keep ruminating on this. please share your thoughts !!!
Please talk more about how not fine Dana Scully is, people really tend to underestimate how fucked up she truly is, honestly the way she manages to hold onto her kindness and integrity through so much violation is kind of miraculous
sometimes it makes me a little crazy. like, dana scully was so light in season one. she smiled and laughed a lot, she teased mulder, she loved working on the x files with mulder and it was obvious. even on the days she would get frustrated with mulder for doing something crazy. and i think that's true throughout the show, until the later years where it meant losing mulder, giving up her child, going on the run...
but. for me, a change occurs in beyond the sea. probably more for the audience than scully or mulder.
scully sees her dad's ghost before she even learns he's gone. she had her parents over for dinner and wanted him to be interested in her work, instead of being disappointed with her career choice. he only asks how it's going right before they walk out the door, and then he's gone. part of her wants to believe she really saw him, but it's also really scary. she almost looks for x files with similar happenings but as she finds them, slams the door instead.
she buries herself in the case as soon as the services are over. she believes boggs as mulder nearly begs her not to. when mulder is shot, she loses it on boggs. and in the end, she tells mulder she's afraid to believe.
scully was afraid to believe before she was abducted. after her abduction, believing is more terrifying. she clings to skepticism and focuses on proof. in their line of work, only what you can prove really matters. it's what mulder needs her for, and later on, she clings to it harder even though she can't deny there are certain fantastic things she believes in.
after her abduction, everything is heavier for both mulder and scully. we saw how lost he was in 3, how self punishing & self hating. and when scully comes back, she's determined to get back to work. she won't take any time before heading back because that would mean sitting alone with what happened to her and she can't possibly deal with that. fear of the unknown to the extreme.
scully never believed samantha was taken by aliens. then she was taken like her, returned completely battered an inch from death with no memory of what happened. whether that was the work of whoever (or whatever) took her or her own mind...either thought is terrifying.
in firewalker, mulder is so cautious with scully. he can't bear her disappearing on him again. he tries to keep her safe and it ultimately puts in a dangerous position. but she's quick, and she saves herself while the girl handcuffed to her dies on the other side of the door.
mulder was so gentle with her after her father died, calling her dana for the first time that we see. he does it again in lazarus when jack willis/dupre kidnapped her. he's careful with her feelings whenever she's vulnerable. after her abduction, in firewalker, when he finds her alive, he cups her cheek like he did in beyond the sea. she is so precious to him, they're best friends. and she tells him she's fine over and over again.
in irresistible, the case already disturned scully on a core level. she couldn't comprehend the violence and violation of what donnie pfaster did to the dead, and later his victims. as a pathologist, she can't imagine desecrating a body. what she does, she does because she cares about people and justice. she can't save them when they're already gone, but she can find the truth and honor them.
in season two when they're separated and she's teaching again, she goes on about the man lying dead in front of her.
"what this man imagined...his dreams, who he loved, saw, heard, remembered...what he feared...somehow it's all locked inside this small mass of tissue and fluid."
and her student calls her spooky.
although scully doesn't love people the way mulder does -- untethered, unchecked -- she loves humanity & her country, and she wanted to do something important with her life. she decided in squeeze to be on the victims' side, like mulder. with mulder.
all through irresistible she is so disturbed and trying to be strong and hide her feelings from mulder, so she goes back to d.c. for a therapy session & to get them some leads. and then as soon as she comes back to work the case with mulder, donnie pfaster makes her a victim again. so shortly after her abduction and almost dying in firewalker. karen kosseff tells her how vulnerable she was, and it's like it almost doesn't seem real. because she doesn't remember, she healed, and if it weren't for the missing time & everyone around her having lived those horrible months without her, it would be like it didn't happen.
she fought like hell against pfaster. injured from a car accident, bound & gagged, in a house she didn't know. hallucinating him as other evil men & the devil. she was spiraling and she only had herself to depend on in the moment. hoping that mulder & co would find her in time. but ... the man worked quickly.
she didn't seem too affected after lazarus, but she believed it was her friend and that he was sick. after her abduction, she didn't have anything to cling to. after pfaster, she had mulder and she only leaned on him when she was completely overwhelmed & he wouldn't let her deal with it alone.
she has new fears.
she loses her sister and mulder loses his dad. both murdered by the same people. aliens or the shadow government, when they decide scully is a problem they have her abducted or attempt to have her killed. and she can't really do anything to prevent it when she has no idea what or who she needs to protect herself from.
there are a few moments that really stick out for me, that i just think it's clear she's not okay. scully bottles things up and keeps her pain close. she doesn't unleash it, does her best to hide it & bear it alone.
but in piper maru, skinner tells her they're letting melissa's case go inactive. cold. she's opened her eyes to government conspiracies. and she flat out tells skinner "if i may say so, sir, it has everything to do with interest. just not yours, and not mine."
there's no reason they couldn't solve her sister's murder. they have the weapon, and like scully says, they can catch people with much less. and then she goes down to the basement office where mulder is working on a case. he's going through everything, actually doing some normal pre-investigation things. and he won't ignore what's going on when so many men have suffered and may well die, just because the government is trying to sweep it under the rug.
and scully loves him so much for this.
(side note: i always love when mulder does this. it's like "do you think i'm spooky?" he wants her to think of him as well as he thinks of her. they're best friends. it matters to him what scully thinks of him. a rarity.)
then there's wetwired. scully watches all the tapes they find and very quickly becomes paranoid about mulder, specifically. now, i don't think she really believes it, i think it's a thought that scares her when she's at her lowest. but she was assigned to the x files to debunk his work, he gets neck deep in alien & government conspiracies. she didn't always understand the specific dangers of their particular work. she's so ashamed when she's back to herself, and mulder doesn't blame her at all. and when she starts talking about what she remembers, mulder takes her so seriously. mulder believes she saw something, but like the others, she misinterpreted what she saw because of the heightened paranoia & anxiety. one woman thought she saw her husband cheating with a blonde, and it was her neighbor with his golden retriever. so it's very possible she did see someone having a meeting with the cigarette smoking man outside their motel, or at least someone involved with their case.
scully is always afraid to be taken again, to be murdered. she knows the smoking man has something to do with all of it. she knows she stayed because of mulder. and she will continue to work on the x files with him. because it isn't just about him anymore. she needs answers too.
and then there's the cancer arc. i wrote all about memento mori already, and i think that all says a lot. but then there's gethsemane. kritchsgau told scully the shadow men gave her cancer to make mulder believe. it guts her, it almost kills him, but they know where her cancer came from and they haven't been able to do anything about it. i can't get over the way her voice cracks in redux. mulder is waiting for her in darkened bedroom and tells her that everything goes back to the fbi. her abduction, her cancer. she wasn't ready to face where her cancer came from, and mulder tries to help her. and any time she almost has a grip, another thing makes it come crashing down around her. the men who had her abducted, her sister killed, gave her cancer being part of the same institution she is...that's unbearable.
scully grew up with a father in the navy. they love their country, they trust their government & military & law enforcement. the x files turns everything she's ever known and understood about the world upside down.
and then there's seasons 8-11. i don't have anything to say except: scully is NOT okay. she gave up her son and has never forgiven herself. she thinks about william everyday and prays he's safe, that she did the right thing. as if there even was a right thing. you never see a more raw or vulnerable scully than in the revival. and if mulder wasn't there holding her together and doing what she couldn't...i don't think there would be a scully.
I love your thoughts on the cancer arc and your second post reminded me that Mulder straight up murders the guy who was surveilling him. Now it's been a minute but were there ever any consequences for that? Like officially or otherwise? Like on his soul? Or was it just a case of ooooh it's Blevins and the FBI was so embarrassed that they just gave him a lil freebie?
oh i love this question. i think he got a freebie 🤣 like blevins oversaw the x files for a while, he had a decent amount of power within the fbi. to out a man in blevins' position and being right is actually pretty insane. it was illegal surveillance, scully was dying because of what blevins did/was part of. like they were investigating her cancer, an approved investigation. whether there was any real proof tying blevins to it barely matters because he ran (and then was killed, made to look like a suicide?) all the marks of a guilty man, even though i'm sure he was a small player, most likely a pawn, the perfect fall man. in the end, even though mulder killed a man and broke into a government facility...this time he was right and kind of saved the fbi's asses. (and arguably, possibly helped cover up the bigger conspiracy for the moment. but what mattered then was scully so.) AND if they tried, mulder+scully would have dug up more, and bringing that to the fbi's attention, into a court of law would have been very bad. so like other times, i'm sure csm was pulling some strings. and skinner 100% would have been backing them (even without csm pulling his strings).
i also don't think this was a kill that weighed on his conscience at all. the man he killed, while also probably a pawn, had to know enough about the syndicate. he was part of the conspiracy, undergoing illegal surveillance, at the least keeping tabs on their progress and at worst helping hinder it. which is why he started burning the files when he realized mulder found him out. he didn't simply run, he was protecting his investigation and the men behind it.
it always comes down to how mulder will do anything for scully, and that very much includes killing people endangering her, hurting her, trying to kill her. like in unruhe, he wanted to know more about gerry schnauzer but he didn't hesitate to kill him and he didn't feel any guilt over it. (mulder would do this for anyone being victimized, he regrets not killing the man in young at heart idr his name rn lol and he doesn't hesitate to shoot him when he's holding that woman hostage. but scully is of personal priority, and after everything she's been through, i think he's quicker to react & go to extremes.) like somewhere recently, i mentioned fight the future, which is only a year after this. he gets shot in the head and finds his way to antarctica to save her. he doesn't for a moment question if he can, or should, or what scully would do for him. he just does it. and thankfully, well manicured man hands him the cure. (WHICH i love that wmm does this, because the syndicate knows the best way to take mulder is out is by eliminating scully. but what they did doesn't eliminate her. wmm recognizes this is only going to hurt them. very much like what could have happened in reduxes. antarctica is what solidified that killing either of them, or splitting them up, was not an option. at least that's the way i see it haha)
mulder loves scully so much. he is heartbroken at the end of gethsemane. scully tells him that her cancer was given to her to make him believe. this is something he could not stand. we're lead to believe he killed himself after this. and his opening voiceover, he was contemplating it. but he couldn't abandon her and let these men get away with it.
"in four years, i have shared my partner's passionate search for the truth." this acknowledgement that it's her passion too, that she cares about the truth, that it's her quest too! he has come so far since never again. he complimented & validated her in leonard betts, he did as she asked despite his aversion, he tried so hard to make her laugh (and he knew she thought his jokes were funny), he understood she was afraid to autopsy the severed head. and here, he acknowledges it is her life & her choice & her work too. it isn't said to her, but everything he does is to save her, to stop the men who hurt her & bring them to justice. even if it's at the expense of his own beliefs.
his work has never been more important than people. mulder will abandon his beliefs for justice, but especially for scully. scully has already been his priority and this only confirms my beliefs that the way he sought answers in tempus fugit/max and demons was partly for scully. she has been on this journey with him, she has lost & sacrificed and never let him do/face it alone. and he didn't want her to go without answers (without living). he has come so far since never again!!
and later in the season, in patient x/the red and the black, he doubles down on his disbelief, that he's been blinded & lead astray. scully believing when he doesn't believe is painful to him. he doesn't want her to go through what he has, after she's already been through so much (her abduction, melissa, emily). mulder wants so much to protect her and he can't protect her the way he wishes to (aches to).
