Fascinated by the fact that Mulder starts giving Scully quick, casual kisses after the cancer arc. Like he’s realised that her life and his life—that life in general—is too short not to be affectionate with her. The first X Files kiss is the Memento Mori (4x14) forehead kiss in the hospital, which comes right at the height of Scully’s determination and resilience in this episode. She’s decided she’s not going to let her cancer get in the way of her life, her work, or all the things she’s planned to do. And for Mulder, this is the sign that he hasn’t lost her. Her cancer took them both by surprise and whilst Mulder has always been aware of the danger their work puts her in, I don’t think he really thought about what it would be like to lose Scully until this episode. His kiss is full of relief. “Come on back,” he says, pulling her into his arms. Come on back to work, come on back to me.
His next kisses are when Scully’s cancer comes back. He’s been watching her more carefully since her release from the hospital, more than she probably likes. Every nosebleed is a reminder, every time she goes glassy-eyed and dizzy in the office. Her cancer comes back and Mulder throws away his cover for her because he can’t be losing her again. But she’s being moved out of the ICU, which means she’s getting better, and Mulder can’t help himself. His lips are all over her in Redux II (5x02), on her cheeks, her hands, even the presence of her mother can’t stop him.
The FTF hallway almost kiss comes next, “Scully… marry me” from Chinga (5x10), the Arcadia fake-dating affection (6x15), the “in case we never meet again (but also you don’t know me)” Triangle kiss (6x03), not to mention the “I love you” when he wakes up at the end. A lot of these are jokes, sure, but Mulder’s always been one to joke and he doesn’t start making these sorts of jokes until after the cancer arc. It’s not quite like he doesn’t care anymore—it’s Scully, of course he cares—but he doesn’t care as much about what she thinks or feels about his affection like he did before the cancer. I’ve always thought of Mulder in the early seasons as someone who really wanted Scully’s opinions and input, on just about everything. He valued her insight so much that I think he let her in almost too quickly. I’ve always thought that Mulder pushed her hard in the early seasons, not in a bad way at all, but he pushed her to analyse his evidence and his work, to critique him and give it her full, legitimate attention. He wanted her to see what he was doing, and to validate, not his work per se, but himself, his effort and his passion, because no one else had ever even bothered to come down to the FBI’s basement before she did. And once she did, he couldn’t get enough. Scully is his skeptic, his scientist, his “rigid in a wonderful way” (3x13). She made him a whole person.
But life is too short and so he lets go of all that. Mulder has loved her and nearly lost her for so many years now that it’s enough that she’s just here with him. He gives in to his impulses and he kisses her freely, expecting nothing in return, not even her attention (not that he’s ever expected anything in return, it’s Mulder). He kisses her because he wants her to experience every form of love that anyone could ever want to give her, because she deserves it. He doesn’t care if she loves him back, if she hates him, ignores him, couldn’t care less, just wants to be friends. He loves her. Scully deserves love.
So it’s “I love you” even if she laughs at him, “marry me” even when she’s talking about witchcraft, “hips before hands” even if it’s a lame excuse to touch her, it’s kiss after kiss after kiss even though he’s stopped asking “what do you think of me? do you love me too?”. As long as she’s not pulling away from him or showing signs of discomfort, he’s got no reason to stop, because there is no world in Mulder’s mind in which Scully doesn’t deserve it all.
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