Collector's Edition: Fox Mulder Is a Father (Fan-Favorites)
In honor of Father's Day, I wanted to collect other fans' favorite "Mulder as a father" fics.
Thank you to all who participated!
Loose chronological order below~
@spooky-jordan's Picks:
rivkat's and MustangSally's Iolokus 3 (Iolokus 03 - Vix te Agnovi 1/3, Iolokus 03 - Vix te Agnovi 2/3, Iolokus 03 - Vix te Agnovi 3/3) and Iolokus 4 (Iolokus 04 - Res Judicata 1/3, Iolokus 04 - Res Judicata 2/3, Iolokus 04 - Res Judicata 3/3)
"I'm getting really tired of that song, Scully. Really tired. You didn't ask to be abducted, you didn't ask to have your ova taken, and you didn't ask for the cancer. You didn't choose to have Miranda, and when she inconvenienced your life you dumped her with Emerson and Aileen. You didn't provoke George into stalking you and you certainly didn't *aid* him when he tried to strangle you," I continued, trying to keep my voice under control even though it was crackling like a cheap stereo speaker. "When things don't go your way, you cave like a house of cards."
Parts 3 and 4 of the infamous Iolokus is stuffed with Mulder and Scully as parents: both of them unpacking their traumas, fighting for custody of their daughter, and settling into the life they're building together.
@calimanc's Picks:
Revely’s The Unfinished Universe (Gossamer)
They have a private evening ritual - nose to nose on the bed they practice telepathic communication.
Scully disappears into the motel bathroom for their soft-shelled display of male bonding, shutting the door behind her with aggravating finality - boys' side, girl's side. Mulder immediately stops casting out brain waves and begins to wonder what she's doing in there. She's awfully quiet. The baby just dozes and tries to nurse Mulder's nose until he manages to work one of his fists into his mouth.
AU-- Post-Requiem Mulder is returned a year later, bonding with his lioness partner and months-old son on the drive back to D.C.
Anjou’s (Ao3) Ghosts (mulderscreek), The Ghosts of Christmas Past (mulderscreek), and The Ghosts of Future Past (mulderscreek)
By the time that the running stroller Mulder had purchased arrived, Will had begun to stand up voluntarily. He wanted to walk, but he was still hesitant, afraid that a show of independence would mean he wouldn't get taken care of anymore. To keep William moving forward, Mulder started including him on some of the loops. This time, Scully sat on the steps and read and they waved at her as they ran by. Mulder loved the way Will's tiny hands extended out from the hood of the stroller as he laughed at the wind. By the end of the third day he was demanding "Again!" when Mulder was all tuckered out. Mulder would take him out of the running stroller and sit him on the red earth while he stretched out. By the end of the week, William was mimicking Mulder's movements. When the tiny running shoes that Mulder had ordered for William arrived, Will began to walk around their trailer and demand to dance with his parents before dinner.
Mulder, Scully, and William (who was saved via Skinner's heroic sacrifice) hide away in motels as she tirelessly works to prevent the anticipated invasion.
@samucabd’s Picks:
Donna’s Goodbyes/Hellos (Gossamer)
"Is it safe for you to be here Mulder? I . . . you can't know how much I've missed you, but is it safe?"
"As safe as anywhere Scully. He insisted we come."
Her surprise was obvious at that. "He insisted?"
"He says you're in danger. We've come to get you."
Post-Existence Scully hands William over to Mulder and tells them to go into hiding. Jeremiah Smith, the incoming invasion, and their friends, allies, and family all pitch in for a "happy ending."
Christy’s (mulderscreek)
Interstice (Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 01 - Saturday" by Christy, Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 02 - Sunday" by Christy, Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 03 - Monday" by Christy, Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 04 - Tuesday" by Christy, Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 05 - Wednesday" by Christy, Gossamer | Story: "Interstice 06 - Thursday" by Christy)
Intellectually, he knew her love. He could see it every day, as they tried to coax another bite of puréed peas past Liam's stubborn lips; as they poured through old files in Doggett's cold basement office; as they sat together on the couch at night, each armed with a red pen, wading through stacks of papers and quizzes.
Mulder left the bedroom, his gaze darting around the family room in search of Scully's shirt. Finally he found it, a puddle of light blue silk on the floor beside the couch, and draped it across his shoulder, still smelling her perfume.
He lifted their coats from where they hung over the back of the couch, then hung them in the closet. After snatching his boots up by the laces, he found Scully's shoes, one near the door, the other kicked halfway under the couch. Gathering everything into his arms, Mulder went back into the bedroom.
It's William's first Christmas, with the Scully family (and their issues) in tow.
Song of Innocence (1/3, 2/3, 3/3) and Song of Experience (1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4)
His dad looked like a superhero, tall and dark and dressed all in black like a secret agent. A spy. His voice was magical, Will decided, soft and soothing as he questioned the injured deputy; then, as he said to Will's mom, "Will you just escort Deputy Wetzel to the hospital?" Will was too busy replaying the sound of his dad saying his name to hear the crazy theories that his mom pooh-poohed whenever she stepped out from behind the ambulance door, where she was hiding from the cameras.
But his dad didn't seem to mind the cameras, even laughing at them a few times during the hour-long show. Will smiled as he listened to them discuss the case, and his dad saying that bright pink was his mom's color. Will didn't think his mom owned *anything* pink.
Then it got exciting. His dad breaking the door down and his mom pulling a gun from somewhere inside the back of her jacket, her fingernails shining against the black metal of the gun grip. Then his mom doing an autopsy, something Will had wondered about for forever but had, of course, never been allowed to see.
Then the dawning in his dad's eye when he solved the mystery, dashing off heroically to save the deputy, his mom hot on his heels. They stalked through an old beat-up house, guns and flashlights in hand, and Will thought they were ten times better than Luke Skywalker because they were real.
He had watched the tape twice more that afternoon before his mom arrived, and then once again with her, crawling into her lap when she started crying, when his dad turned to face the camera head-on for the first time.
Will and his mom took the tape home with them that night, watching it together twice before he went to bed. And even after that, Will could have sworn he heard his dad's soft, gentle voice drifting from downstairs and into his room through the vents... although it could just have been the replay of Will's own memories.
He loved to watch how his dad moved -- his long strides, the fluid way he stepped across the screen -- but it was his dad's voice that stuck with him. Not the soft, reassuring tone or the private, teasing voice he used with Will's mom, but the strong, forceful way he spoke to the deputy, begging from the wrong side of a locked door for Wetzel to "cowboy up" and be a man.
Will had heard that same voice in his head ever since then, when he needed a push. "Cowboy up," his dad said, only it was Will he was talking to, not some stranger. "Cowboy up, Will," he mentally spliced together when he needed to borrow some of his dad's courage.
Post-NIHT Mulder returns seven years later with an implant and selective memory loss. As he heals up and tries to figure out what happened with Scully, his son works through the complicated emotions both are feeling.
Vickie Moseley’s Flight Into Egypt Series (Flight into Egypt 01, Flight into Egypt 02 - Making a Home, Flight into Egypt 03 - Making a Life, Flight into Egypt 04 - Games, Flight Into Egypt 05 - New Life, Flight into Egypt - Doing it Right 1/2, Flight into Egypt - Doing it Right 2/2, Flight into Egypt 07 - Going Home 1/2, Flight into Egypt 07 - Going Home 2/2)
Mulder watched Dana take their son's hand and help the little one make the sign of the Cross, then bowed his head as the prayer began. He couldn't help thinking of their conversation of the morning. Yes, he did feel safe in this place, among these people. But maybe Scully was right. They were still very much strangers, very much alone. It felt good to forget all the danger they'd lived for so long, but the danger was still there, waiting for them to slip up.
Mulder and Scully and William hit the road, becoming fugitives in a small mountain town in order to keep their families together. Of course, ghosts from their past will always find them; and, sooner or later, they have to face the complicated present.
Girlie_girl7’s A Day in the Life (A Day in the Life, 05 and A Day in the Life 12 - A Fractured Christmas Story and A Day in the Life, 14 - Christmas and A Day in the Life, 35 - Fox Mantle and A Day in the Life, 30 - The Shooting/A Day in the Life, 31 - Home Coming and A Day in the Life, 36 - Problem Child)
Mulder carries his daughter into his office all the while rubbing her dark, curly, head against his cheek. He pulls out the desk chair and switches on the computer then sits down with Katherine balanced on one knee. Scully has the baby dressed in a light blue, terry tank top and matching shorts, she kicks her white baby shoe against the desk as Mulder absentmindedly reaches down to still her foot. He brings up his email and begins to open and delete messages. He's just opened one from a UFO hotline when Katherine begins pounding the keyboard and jabbering. Suddenly the screen goes black and the computer shuts off.
"Katherine, you shut me down," Mulder says with a frown.
Mulder and Scully, their children, and her family experience the ups and downs of parenthood: be it holidays, illnesses, near-death experiences, grown bullies at school pickups, and restaurant shootouts. (Note: the stories linked above-- for brevity’s sake-- are mostly Mulder-centric. My favorite is "14 - Christmas": touchingly touch-and-go.)
This story is one of my all-time favorites. It follows the events of “En Ami” on a surprising but completely convincing path that packs emotional punches. Mulder and Scully’s evolving intimate relationship is only the backdrop for that, but that’s not to say their relationship isn’t the quiet star of the show here because I think it is. Plus, nobody writes evocative, thoughtful prose like Revely.
Title: Wing and Prayer
Author: Revely
Summary: None provided.
Length: 143k (~ 26,100 words)
Classification: Casefile, MSR
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: En Ami, primarily. Vague spoilers for Je Souhaite and all things. This takes place before Requiem.
Favorite line: The flushed face of dawn was vague over the hills, and she felt her way through the fog to Mulder by memory more than sight.
Read the story!
Okay, truth be told, we love UST. We live for it. Which is probably why MSR is the ship we’ll go down with. Even when we had RST, we didn’t really have RST, you know what we’re sayin’?
So when a writer manages to give us a great casefile (and an undercover casefile at that) set during the supremely stilted relationship Mulder and Scully were battling with during season six, and makes us break out in the sweats and scream at our screens “OH MY GOD, JUST KISS ALREADY!” when we already know going into it that the rating is PG-13 and odds are good we ain’t gettin any RST, well...that’s a damn good writer. And a great story that still managed to leave us satisfied.
Revely is a gifted writer, with an uncanny ability to perfectly capture the tone of MSR during one of the most awkward periods of Mulder and Scully’s relationship. We hope you love it as much as we did!
Title: Grand Gestures
Author: Revely
Rating: PG-13
Length: 114K / 58,000+ Word Count
Synopsis: Disappearing jocks, soaring temperatures and a sweaty Mulder and Scully. All of this and still safe for the underage!
Obligatory "but I need them to see each other!" TN1 fluff.
Mulder pointed toward the quarry where the Super Soldier had disappeared, and then released her to bend down. The ground was covered in rock chips and sprigs of dead grass, and he swept them aside for a clean dirt slate. He used his pocket knife to scratch the word 'iron' in the dust. She could barely make it out in the darkness, but knew that if they could be talking right now he'd be telling her about Excalibur, and about iron being the holy metal, and about fairy lore. She knew this by the way he wielded the knife like a sword, and by virtue of the fact that after nine years, if she listened closely, and if she put her head right next to his, she could tell what he was thinking. It was as good an excuse as any to lean in to him.
Not that her avoidance tactics always work - at least, not for
long. Sooner or later she's going to have to come out of the bathroom. She's already been in here for ten minutes, and there's not a whole lot left to check out. Her blouse, which she slipped off a few minutes ago in order to scrub out the blood and the soot, is drying over the radiator, and for a moment she briefly debates taking a shower. It seems a tad presumptuous, and besides all she has to put on are the clothes she's wearing now, or Mulder's red bathrobe that hangs on the back of the door. She tests it out, letting it pool around her feet and swallow her hands. It's much too large to wear around his apartment without tripping on the excess length, still, she keeps it on for a moment and avoids looking in the mirror. The minute she catches sight of herself doing something so dumb she'll become disgusted, and that's the last feeling she needs tonight.
