X-Files Seasons 10 & 11 Fanfiction Archive

An archive devoted to stories that take place directly before, during, and after X-Files Seasons 10 & 11. Please remember to thank your friendly neighborhood fanfic writers!

[lolcat76]

@swoodsie, who sucks at Tumblr, replied to my prompt request with a wish to fix the end of MSIV.

Kansas. She kept the snowglobe by her bed, first in her own house and then in the home that she shared with Mulder, set on a bedside table that still held the book she’d given up on when she left him. Her place marked – he knew someday she’d come back for it.

The snowglobe was broken, like them. A kitschy reminder of years past, like them. Shake it up and nothing would happen, like them.

Chasing at windmills – like them.

“Do you want to talk about it?” So much of the last few years had been wasted on not talking.

“Do you?” she asked, her face barely visible under the comforter she’d picked out eleven years ago. Threadbare now, washed too many times in a house that held too many memories.

Now that she was here again, they’d have to renovate, have the washer and dryer moved upstairs and the kitchen….Scully had always hated the kitchen.

Scully had always hated so much about their lives together, but she was still there. That had to count for something.

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[defnotmeyo-deactivated20190222]

The Conversation in the Car

“Scully… Dana…” Skinner’s biting back tears.  This is the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.  “Mulder’s-” he trails off.

“Jesus, Walter, spit it out.”

“Mulder’s not the father.”

The arch to her eyebrow, familiar, almost causes him to break down right there.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The Cigarette Man… he… earlier this year he.  Shit.  Scully it’s him.  He is William’s father.  I’m so, so sorry.”

He has never seen this level of shock on her face, before.  

“Why would you even start to believe that lying bastard, Skinner?”

He sighs.  Looks away from her.  “Scully, when you disappeared with him… that’s when.  He told me,” Skinner swallows, “he impregnated you through science.”

Scully belts out the goofiest fucking laugh he has ever heard out of her, so loud he jumps in the seat.  God, she’s in shock.

“Walter, that is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard.  Through science, pft.  Let me guess, alien science right?  Why the hell,” she cackles one more time, “why the hell would you believe him?”

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[sixhours]

Morning Sickness

It’s been forever since I’ve written fic, but that “season finale” inspired me to try to make sense of the nonsense, and maybe give Mulder and Scully a chance to start to deal with the shit they’ve been dragged through.

PG-13, spoilers for My Struggle IV, obvs.

It’s dawn when Mulder shifts the car into park. A drizzle mists the windshield, muddying the house’s looming form, the dim glow of the porch light their only welcome. Next to him, Scully sleeps deeply, his jacket tucked into the crook of her neck.

He reaches across the console to touch her cheek. “We’re home.”

She stirs, blinking, before fumbling at the door handle in a rush. She’s out of the car before he can offer to help, making her way to the house. He watches with concern as she pauses at the foot of the steps, leaning on the porch railing for a moment as if to catch her breath, before disappearing around the side of the house. He winces when he hears retching.

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[skuls-s]

proelium

Post finale: Mulder and Scully connect with their son in an unconventional way.

note: warning for mentions of the CSM as william’s father plotline (although only in the context of its debunking) and the pregnancy storyline presented in the finale. this story is more or less my attempts at resolving the things that upset me in the finale, and an attempt to leave mulder and scully in a better place than CC did. i also wanted to write a mulder-scully-william reunion that fit with s11’s characterization of william/jackson.

She’s in shock.

That’s the only explanation for it. She’s in shock. She can’t explain the things she said, the words spilling out of her mouth. She can’t get warm. She’s shaking, arms wrapped tightly around herself, huddled under the quilts. She feels so nauseous.

Mulder is lying on his side beside him, tear tracks shining on his face. He’s in shock, too, she thinks. He has to be. He killed his own father just a few moments after seeing his son get shot. His son. Scully wipes cold tears off of her face. This isn’t fair, she wants to shout, none of it. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

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[aloysiavirgata]

Dichotomous

Title: Dichotomous

Author: Aloysia Virgata

Rating: Explicit

Timeline: Nothing Lasts Forever

Summary:   A light beams from the porch of the little house; a beacon in the night.

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[mldrgrl]

The Presence of Absence

by: mldrgrl Rating: PG-13 Summary: Just got to keep on filling in those blanks in season 11 that the show won’t give us.  Some exploration into Scully’s psyche up to the events in Nothing Lasts Forever.

She has dozens of reasons for leaving, little things she’s collected over the years and compiled into a laundry list of excuses for when the time comes.  Because he always leaves his running shoes by the door.  Because he spends too much time cutting up newspapers.  Because he forgets dishes in the sink.  Because he leaves wet towels on the floor.  Because buffalo sauce gives him heartburn, but he still insists on using it.

He is blank-faced when she tells him, and she adds that to the list.  Because he didn’t try to stop me.

She takes out her first in a succession of six month leases on furnished apartments in the city.  The first few nights away are a breath of fresh air.  A vacation.  And then the loneliness sets in.  And the anger.  She takes it out on him in sporadic visits to the house.  Her nails bite too deep into his shoulders.  Her teeth dig too hard into his bottom lip.  Her hands pull too tight in his hair.  He accepts the blood, sweat, and tears as though he deserves it, and it makes her angry all over again.

She buries herself in work, staying all hours at the hospital because her apartment feels too much like a hotel.  The more she works, the less time she has to feel the effects of living without him.  The anger dissipates and leaves sadness in its wake.  Birthdays pass, holidays, anniversaries.  Her visits to the house, still sporadic, are filled with despair.  She bathes his chest in tears because the gentle tips of his fingers are so breathlessly painful where he touches her.

Anger and sadness play a tug of war for her attention in the moments she stops moving so she tries to find other ways to fill her time outside of work, but she can’t find joy anywhere.  It’s not in books, it’s not in her family, it’s not in him, it’s nowhere to be found.  She stops visiting the house, but calls instead.  He always says her name so casually, like weeks haven’t gone by.  She doesn’t even know how he knows it’s her, because she never says anything, yet hours go by until she’s sated from the sound of his voice and she hangs up.

He sends her an article on grief by a woman who lost both of her children in a car accident, which she doesn’t read, but she stops calling him.  She changes her phone number and her email address.

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[mldrgrl]

A.I.

by: mldrgrl Rating: PG Summary: Trying in whatever way I can to accept Rm9sbG93ZXjz as some sort of canon.  This is my version of why it was and how it was.

They had two minutes left, according to clock on her phone.  She put it down on the diner counter and took Mulder’s hand.  He looked at her and smiled, twisting their fingers together.  She swiveled towards him and then tipped her head closer, closer, closer, until she rested against his shoulder.  He put his phone down as well and she waited, not sure what would happen when the time was up.

Her screen went dark, clicked off suddenly so that her view was just black.  She tentatively reached up to pull the helmet off and blinked rapidly, though the room was dim.  She needed a moment to adjust back to reality.  She rolled her head to the side and looked at Mulder, who was just removing his helmet as well.

“Wow,” he said.  “Pretty cool, right?”

Scully shrugged.  “Sure.”

“Damn, you’re a hard woman to please,” he answered.

“I’m actually quite easy to please, Mulder.”

“With the right little pink gadget?”

“Did you pick that out?”

“Hell no!  I spent all the virtual cash on overpriced sushi.”

“Guess it came with the house.”

“I didn’t know you were going to splurge on a Smarthome.”

Scully’s cheeks darkened just a bit at the extravagant way she went about setting up her virtual world.  “It came with a koi pond,” she said, shrugging one shoulder.

The recliner chairs they were both laid back in began to slowly move them up to sit.  Scully held the helmet to her lap and Mulder scratched the back of his head.  The lights in the room rose to normal and the doors opened.  

“Shall we?” he asked.

Scully got up first and set her helmet into the stand next to her chair.  She waited as Mulder did the same and he put his hand on her lower back to guide her out the door.  He slid his hand up her back and briefly rubbed the ends of her hair between his fingers.

“What made you decide to go short?” he asked.

“Been thinking about cutting it lately,” she answered.  “You didn’t like it?”

“I liked it.  Took me back 20 years.”  He smiled and brought his hand down to the small of her back again.

They exited a short hall into a reception room where a skinny young man with a closely clipped beard and long, dishwater blonde hair pulled into a bun stood behind a tall, round table centered under a skylight.  He held an iPad which he placed on the table as Mulder and Scully approached.

“Congratulations,” the man said.  “It took you 43 minutes and six seconds to conquer Robot Attack.”

“Is that good or bad?” Scully asked.

“You rank 4 out of 181,” he answered.

“Only four?” Mulder griped, narrowing his eyes.  “Where did we lose points?”

“Your scorecard is available immediately.”  The young man tapped his index finger on the iPad a few times and an animated score card appeared on the screen.  “For an additional $29.99, we can email you a link to the video of your game play for download.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna need that video,” Mulder said, pulling out his wallet to get his credit card.

“I knew I shouldn’t have gotten in that car,” Scully grumbled, pointing at a number in the negative column.

Mulder clicked on the number and it opened up a tally of negative points.  He raised his brows a little.  “I don’t think it was so much getting in the car as it was abusing the emoji.  Hashtag road rage.”  

Scully pushed his hand away and swiped over to the next screen.  “You’re one to talk,” she said.  “Looks like we lost most our points while you sat around waiting for customer service.”

Mulder put his hands up in defense.  “Listening to hold music and trying to navigate automated menus can make anyone feel personally attacked.  I thought it was part of the uprising.  Obviously my patience paid off in the end because 500 mini-drones showed up at my place and chased me into your realm of the A.I.”

“We could’ve had a much better time and score if you’d just tipped the damn robot waiter in the first place.”

“Well where’s the fun in that?”

“If you’d like to purchase any of the products featured in your game, you’ll receive a 10% discount if you make your purchase today in our app,” the young man behind the counter said, urging them along.  He cleared their scorecard from the screen and brought up a page of electronic devices for sale.

“Anything you might want?” Mulder asked.  “New pedometer, perhaps?”

“Hm.”  Scully scrolled slowly through the phones and flat screens and security cameras, stopping when the an item under Small Household Electronics caught her eye.  She took her time to look contemplative, tapping a fingernail against her tooth.  

“Whatever you want, my treat,” Mulder said.   “I’m not sure,” she said, leaning against the counter on her elbow.  She bounced her head back and forth in consideration.  “I didn’t really get enough time with it to really explore all it could do.”

“Well, if what we have at home isn’t currently doing the trick for you for some reason, I’m open to exploring new options.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”  Mulder bumped his hip against hers and grinned.  “I hear those little Roomba things are fantastic!”

Scully laughed and shook her head.  She wrapped her arms around Mulder’s waist and buried her head against his chest to stifle her laughter.  

Mulder handed over his credit card to the kid behind the counter.  “Just the video,” he said.

“Great, go ahead and sign here and enter your email address on the next screen.  A copy of your receipt will also be in your email.”

Mulder signed the screen with his finger and entered his email address, one arm wrapped around Scully the whole time.  He squeezed her waist when he was done and she turned out of his grasp.  He took her hand as they made their way to the exit and tugged her back a little, leaning down to whisper in her ear.

“I don’t care how great the discount is,” he said.  “We’re not getting you a new vibrator from a virtual reality gaming center.”

“Don’t worry,” she answered, giving his hand a squeeze.  “What I have at home does the trick just fine.”

Mulder grinned and slipped his sunglasses on as they walked outside.  “Should we grab dinner before heading back?”

“What do you feel like?”

“No sushi!” they said at the same time, and laughed as they headed to her car.

The End

[skuls-s]

prompt: post-ghouli. william knows scully is his birth mom, but when/how does he figure out mulder is his birth dad? or does he already know?

hypnagogia

a/n: post ghouli, canon compliant, wrote largely to alleviate the strange influx of dad!mulder feelings i’ve recently been having. 

He leaves Virginia and doesn’t look back. He’s always wanted to travel. He lived in Wyoming for a while when he was a baby, but before that, he has no idea. (Something he could ask his birth mother if he hadn’t had to hide from her.) But the rest of his life he’s spent in that tiny town in Virginia, gone on the same vacations to a cabin in the mountains or a beach house on the coast. He’s always wanted to see the country.

His mind is muddled in a way that cannot be cured by staring aimlessly at the interstate. He blasts music, consistently turning up the volume until people in other cars give him dirty looks. When his dad had bought him the car, he’d sat in the passenger seat with Jackson and lectured him for what felt like hours, and one of his stipulations had been that Jackson never turn the volume on the radio up past 30. “I don’t want you distracted and not being able to hear other cars honking at you,” he’d said. Jackson is breaking this rule, and it makes his teeth clench. He can’t think about his father, because that just leads to him thinking about his mother and the way that the three of them were loaded into body bags together and taken to the morgue like some bizarre family photo, mom and dad and baby in the middle. And thinking about that just makes him want to throw up. He can’t think about the morgue, can’t imagine his dead parents or his living birth mother, tears streaking down her face as she apologized to him. He can’t think about it; it’s absolutely dizzying. He drives, squinting at the sun on the horizon.

When he gets to a hotel, a cheap hotel he can pay for with cash, the kindly cashier asks him his name. He thinks without speaking, reverting back to lying completely still in a body bag as he projected. He uses the name that he thinks he must’ve had, once. “William,” he says. “My name is William.”

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[defnotmeyo-deactivated20190222]

FTF - AKA The Tentative Trio

He goes home.  

He goes home, and he rips everything apart.

He tears up a chair. And a few newspaper clippings. And throws them into a heap in the middle of his living room floor.

And he’d light the bitch on fire, if he wasn’t in a condo.  If he was out on his own.

The last torn up picture, the one left on top, is her first ultrasound.  One of the ones Mulder wasn’t there for.  The first one.  The first time he felt her hold his hand, kinda quite ‘that way.’

He’s not immune, to Mulder, either.  In that heap of a trash pile is a torn up L.A. newspaper, asking why the FBI was in town, and was partnering with COPS.

Sure.  Scully’s attractive.  He’s always had a thing for redheads.

But what Walter has always wanted?  Was a fuckin’ stand-up man of a son.

A man that would grow up against any odds, against any family.  A man that would grow up passionate, honest, and true.  A man that could learn to love a woman, fully and freely, and treat her the way his father treated his mother.  A man that could, in the darkness, forge a family out in the light.

Mulder failed.  Time and again.  Mulder’s not exactly that kind of broken son.

Skinner’s brilliant, profiler-minded, genius-child of an abandoned son.  Into his office after she was taken.  Into his office when she was sick.  And taken from her hospital death-side bed.  

When the Old Man says it, in the passenger side of that car.  Skinner refuses to believe.  

But he will never tell.

“Our son.”

Mulder, has, oddly, grown up into everything Walter wanted him to be.  A loving man to her.  Someone who would protect her, but has learned not to drown her.  

Fox Mulder has become the son Walter wished he’d had.

“We’re with you.”  And he wants to die.  Wants to throw everything into the fire.

He hasn’t told them. Hasn’t mentioned the Smoking Man’s trespasses.

And…

And he won’t.  

He’s starting to think he never will.

Because to hear Mulder… Fox Mulder… stand up and say, “Our Son.”

Well.  

A little bit of treason begins to see like it’s worth it.

Especially when he calls during Sunday brunch time, and she has begun to again answer Mulder’s phone.

Nah.  It’s not worth it.  It never will be.

That old, dying bastard could say whatever he wants, but he’ll never remove the truth.

A man and a woman fought through space, time, and hell.  They died for each other.  They killed for each other.  They were afraid of each other.  And ultimately, the loved each other.

‘Fuckin Mulder,’ Skinner thinks, coming down off that porch.  The kid had a way for getting under his skin.  For making him feel like a father.   Like a disciplinarian.  Like a disciple.  

Regardless.  One thing remained the same.  

“We’re with you.”

And Skinner?  

Well that was easy.  

He’d been with them for decades.  He’d been with them, since after a liver-eating mutant had died, and Scully had stood up to his face.  

They were were him?  Perfect.  

It was time to stand up and fight.

[lyndsaybones]

tilting

Post Ghouli

The agreement had evolved over time. They stayed at her place during week and drove out to the house on the weekends. The reasoning had been very logical: saving money on gas, a faster commute, more time for a morning exercise routine. But logic hadn’t been the deciding factor, of course.

“If something happens, we need to be together,” she’d said.

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[scull-dog]

Guardians of a Rare Thing

Mulder and Scully meet Jackson for the first time since finding him in Norfolk.

Tagging @today-in-fic

Title from Riches and Wonders by The Mountain Goats. It’s one of my favorite MSR songs.

They agreed to meet in the early morning at a little diner in Memphis. Some place that claimed to have world-famous “retro” burgers (whatever that meant) and managed to appear inconspicuous despite being built from neon and chrome. Scully was worried that Jackson might have second thoughts if he showed up before she and Mulder, so she insisted that they be there in time to greet him. What she didn’t expect was Mulder’s apprehension.

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[cuits]

A name

Title: A name Spoilers:  S11 (up to “Ghouli”) Rating: PG Characters: William (jackson Van de Kamp), Fox Mulder, Dana Scully Summary:   Jackson is on the run but it is a beggining, not an end.

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[lolcat76]

Shift

For @perplexistan , who said: I wish I could write fic, because I have a very specific idea for a post-Ghouli piece in which Mulder and Scully discuss their son while snuggled in bed together, and even though they’re sad, they still marvel at their kid and the trick he pulled and Mulder is proud and sort of nudges Scully about how he really is the product of both of them, and and and…But I can’t write fic for shit. Anyway I’d read that 

 “I’ve seen a lot of things I can’t explain,” Scully said, “but I don’t even know how to start with this.”

That was the crux of their relationship, that the two of them could never quite find a way explain things in words that made sense to each other. They couldn’t talk about their son without ripping endless, gaping black holes into each other. My son. Your son. Our son. The only thing they could agree on was that losing him was what ultimately drove them apart.And ultimately brought them back together.

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[leiascully]

Fic:  Heritage

Title: Heritage Timeline:  S11 (spoilers for “Ghouli”) Rating: PG Characters: Mulder/Scully pillowtalk Summary:   “Our son, by any other name,” he says, and it’s nonsense, but it resonates in her.  

For @perplexistan <3

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[scully-loves-ruthie]

Sad Enough

This is a post ep for Ghouli cuz honestly how could I write about anything else right now.

@today-in-fic 

  She’s asleep next to you.  Smooth slow breaths signifying the sweet release you’ve always been jealous of.  Her chest rising and falling with the gratification that William, her child, your child, is alive.  You want the elation she possesses, her importance.  It doesn’t come.  You grapple with soiled fingers, fidgeting and flexing: But he’s my son too.  Instead all you’re delivered is a memory, a conversation the two of you had right before she left.

  Her eyes stoked, brimming with burning tears: Why can’t I fix you?  Why won’t you let our love be enough?  Her hands trapped atop your cheeks,

  “Please Mulder, just talk to me.  Whatever this is we can fix it.” 

  The inevitable sigh fuming off you.  How could you put it into words, make her understand.  She said she watched a great darkness settle over you, swallow up your meaning and spit it out.  Sunflower shells and forbidden pictures, questions to taboo to ever be verbalized.

  “I don’t know what to say.  I’m just, I’m not that sad Scully, but I’m sad enough.”  

  It was the wrong thing to say, the wrong answer to give as she stood, shock waves rippling around you and her suitcases.  Did she pack up everything, all of it?  Every abduction, near death experience, and bullet wound?  Did she collapse her heart and stuff it inside the rolled up socks suddenly missing from the dresser?

  Probably.  She was always if nothing else efficient and organized.  But there was one thing, one thing you know she didn’t take, couldn’t take.  You’d kept William’s baby blanket folded ever so softly in the bottom drawer of your office since you moved in.  It was the one thing she kept, the one thing she couldn’t look at.  It was mystical, an all encompassing deity, skin and sweat of your only offspring clung to it.

  On nights she’d slam the door, on nights she’d scream, on nights her silence was slick and sharp as a butchers blade, you’d carefully unfurl it, inhaling deeply.  He was mine.  My son.

  Turns out you were wrong.  His lineage only measured by his mother’s womb.  It wasn’t wrong.  It wasn’t right.  Now she sleeps, unaware that you wren’t there, didn’t have an exchange, didn’t get an affirmation.

  Just like Samantha, you’ve seen the fault lines, watched them shift one earthquake after another.  You were always going to be too late, too lost, too undeserving.

  You slide beneath the sheets pulling her body into yours, smoothing her curves with the scars of your past.  He told her.  He said he wished he could have know her better.  Your fingers grip her hipbones, travel down to the silk of her inner thighs.  This is where he came from, where he was born, just like you.

  Your son sought out his mother, no second thought no never-mind to you.  Closing your eyes there red rims begging for salvation. He’s off somewhere on the open road dreaming of her, nary a mention of you.  It’s not that it makes you sad, just sad enough.

[storybycorey]

Her Entire World, Stuffed Into a Four Inch Screen

author: storybycorey

rating: NC-17

summary: post- TLAOFS, for @jamofappreciation, who asked for FaceTime sex

And they look into each other’s eyes, across time and across space and across thousands of miniscule pixels.  And how the hell did Steve Jobs figure out how to stuff her entire world into just a four inch screen? 

notes: Listen, I know we’re all still reeling from Ghouli, but please accept this piece of fluff as an intermission between all the feels!

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[scapegrace74-blog]

Inferno

A/N  In response to @mulders-boyish-enthousiasm and @txf-prompt-box‘s excellent suggestion to write something about Mulder’s reaction after Ghouli.  Rated R for profanity.

The tinny wail of the phone pulsed across the miles, and she gripped the receiver so tightly, she could feel the vibration in her carpal bones.

Mulder wasn’t answering.  She’d awoken in her apartment with an impulse to reach out to him, a foggy prescience that she no longer brushed aside.   Repeated attempts to call him led only to a mounting unease, so around 10:00am, she left behind her overflowing bin of laundry and moldering fruit crisper to drive to Virginia.

The farmhouse living room was brightly lit, and coffee was metamorphosing into volcanic ash in the brewer on the kitchen counter.  His Mustang crouched in the driveway, but the room still hummed with the echoes of her calls - he had not been inside for some time.  

A faint chopping noise drew her to the backyard.

She found him in the small glade of oaks and pine that rose like sentinels behind the house.   They’d long made desultory promises that they would clean up the seasons of rotting leaves, windfall and the dense hawthorn understory that ripped at passing sleeves and left raised welts on bare summer legs.  

Mulder was dragging a fallen oak branch towards an already substantial burn pile.  His hair was crowned in sweaty tufts, his flannel work jacket hung open, and his jeans were newly frayed across one thigh.   

As disconcerting as she had once found it to see Mulder wielding heavy farm implements and dressed like a modern day Paul Bunyan, hard labour suited him, and it generally lifted his spirits.   He caught sight of her as she approached, but he didn’t appear particularly happy she was there.

“Scully.  Hey.”   He spun around and made his way back into the glade, forcing her to follow in her less than suitable footwear.

“Mulder, I’ve been calling you all morning.  I … what are you doing?”  She didn’t want to admit to being worried about him, but something about the zeal with which he was hacking at the bases of the hawthorns was adding to her disquiet.

He cursed as an elastic bough lashed backwards, leaving a stippled seam of blood across his brow.

“Fuck!”  He swiped his forearm down his face, creating a red smear like war paint. “I dunno, Scully.  I guess I woke up this morning and decided it was past time to do something useful with myself,  something manly and productive that won’t turn to shit in two days.   You always said we neglected this part of the property.”

“Actually, you said that.   I said it was a fire hazard.  So, our work on the X-Files?  That isn’t useful?”

Mulder rose stiffly to his full height and stripped the buckskin work glove off his right hand, drawing it slowly down his haggard face.

“Fuck if I know, Scully.  It’s like waging a war against a modern-day Hydra.  We investigate a never-ending chorus line of ghost and goblins, to the great derision of our peers.  We expose extra-governmental conspiracies that go underground only to re-appear in another guise.  We find our son…”

“We find our son only to lose him again?  Is that what this about?”

He stalked away from her, lifting his long-handled axe and approaching a nearby tree.

“Mulder?  You can be mad at me if you need to be.  I’m the one who let him go, and I’m the one who didn’t recognize him when he spoke to me.   Maybe if I’d…”

“No!  Shit, no.  I’m not mad at you, Scully.  And I’m not mad at William, although tricking your parents into thinking that you’ve blown your brains out ranks up there with the greatest teenaged mind-fucks of all time.   And I’m not mad at the Van de Kamps, because by all appearances they gave him a great life.  And now they’re dead.  I’m not even mad at Skinner, because damned if he didn’t seem sincerely distraught that I’d just left my long-lost son in a morgue.  I’m mad as hell, but I’ve got no-one to be mad at.   Call it free-floating rage.  Do you think they have a little blue pill for that, Scully?”

As he ranted, he swung the axe angrily at the lower limb of the pine, scoring the green wood until sap began to ooze from the cut.  While he rested between swings, she approached and placed her hand on the damp material between his shoulder blades.   She could feel his tender heart hammering away inside the prison of his chest.

“Are you mad at yourself, Mulder?”

He turned  towards her, the crucible of his anger burning behind his eyes.

“Of course I’m fucking mad at myself.  Fox Mulder, patron saint of losing at every turn.  I couldn’t save my sister.   Couldn’t protect my partner.   Didn’t stick around for my newborn baby.   Not stable enough to live with the love of my life.  And now?  The grace note on this long line of shit?  I get within five feet of my son, after years of not seeing him, not knowing if he was okay, and I don’t even tell him I love him.  Tell him how fucking relieved I am that…”

His strident voice diminished until it was bottled up inside him again, and the heat from swallowing all those words left tears in his eyes.

She stepped easily into the shelter of his body, wrapping her arms around him like living girders.  She could feel the burning inside of him, the flames of his usual passion turned inward on their host.  She leaned back to look into his beloved face, downcast, the dried blood mixed with clean sweat.  Scratching his scalp in a familiar gesture of comfort, she looked about.

“So, what’s the game plan?  Are we clearing all the bushes, or just enough that you can walk through here without needing a transfusion?”

He huffed in quiet amusement.

“You’re not exactly dressed for the occasion, Scully.  Let me finish this bit, then I’ll come inside and you can stitch me up and I’ll repay you in sandwiches.”

“As I recall, the love of your life left her yardwork clothes inside, and many hands make light work.  I’ll be back in ten minutes.   We’ll work all day if that’s what it takes.   And then do you know what we’re going to do, Mulder?”

He shook his head in quiet adoration.

“We’re going to light that pile, and watch that fucker burn.”