The World is F’ed Up Right Now, So I Wrote Some X-files Fan Fiction

When we last saw Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, they were clinging to one another in a New Mexico hotel bed, desperately staving off fear and hopelessness. They had just discovered that the end of the world was near, and there was nothing they could do about it.

There was no plan this time, no half-baked idea that Mulder could inevitably talk Scully into. It was the end of the road. When they talked, they joked of moving to Hawaii or New Zealand, living out their remaining years traveling the world or camping on beaches; when they didn’t talk, they both thought of the son they would never see again. They lived in that rundown Roswell motel, with the waving alien statue at the front gate, for eight days. No one knew where they were; sometimes they weren’t even sure if they even existed.

By the eighth day, the day Dana noticed that she had never seen Mulder with that long of stubble, she called A.D. Skinner in secret. She knew that Mulder could continue on this way for months, maybe years, but she was tired, exhausted of always running or looking over her shoulder. Skinner explained to her that the murder charges against Mulder had been wiped clean. In fact, there was no record of a Knowle Rohrer ever existing or evidence that Mulder had been at the Mount Weather Military Base. Was it safe to return to D.C., she wanted to know. Skinner was unsure, but they could live in his country home in the Blue Ridge Mountains while he tested the waters.

When Mulder returned from picking up groceries, Dana told him of her conversation with Skinner. We can’t live of our lives like this forever, she said to him. If we want to do anything to stop the inevitable, we need to return to D.C. Mulder saw the pleading look in her eyes, and he thought of the young woman he met in his office so many years ago- the young woman that he took so much from. She had lost her sister, her health and their child, and he knew he couldn’t ask her for any more. She had sacrificed everything for him, and sometimes he wondered why she stayed with him. When he got the courage to ask her one morning while they watched the sun rise over the painted landscape of New Mexico, she gripped his hand and whispered, “We need each other.”

Mulder and Scully had taken countless road trips together, but the trip home was different. The drive back to Virginia was tinged with sadness. Though they gave each other pep talks about staying hopeful, it was hard. Neither wanted to reveal to the other that they had doubts, but a quietness often lingered between them. It was a silence that would continue to grow.

In Virginia, life began finding some semblance of normalcy. Dana went to work at the Bureau every day, reviewing cold cases in the D.C. area, while Mulder began picking up consulting work under the name F. William Mulder. Dana would return home at 8PM, after a three-hour-drive out of D.C., and prepare dinner for the two of them. Mulder would sleep most of the day away and rise just before Dana arrived home. They’d talk for an hour over dinner, Scully sharing stories of her day at the Bureau, and Mulder rambling on about an investigation that someone had called him about. Their conversations had retreated to that of awkward teenagers, and Scully began wondering if it was just her that noticed. They rarely talked about their feelings and sleeping in the same bed had become a distant memory; Mulder only came to life in the wee hours of the morning.

Two years went by like this. Though Dana took comfort in the ordinariness that they had fallen into, everything had begun to feel meaningless. She had continual dreams of drifting in the dark sea, alone and without a life jacket. No one would come to rescue her, and it was up to her to find her way back to shore. Without discussing it with Mulder, she quietly penned her resignation one day and presented it to A.D. Skinner. He did not protest; he could see she was tired. As he hugged her before she stepped out the door, he made her promise to call him whenever she needed him. This moment made her react in a way she could not have predicted, and she broke down. For five minutes he held her while she cried for all the years that had passed, for her sister, for the future her son will not have, for the space growing between her and Mulder, for the long forgotten goals of a young recruit at the FBI. When she had nothing left to give of her tears, she turned away and walked out of the building. A new feeling was bubbling beneath.

While Mulder slept, she packed what she could in the car and left. When he came out of his office to meet her for dinner, there was a note on the kitchen table. The day that he often feared had arrived. “I can’t do this anymore,” it started. The letter went on to explain how for the past ten years she had given everything to him- her health, her loved ones, her sanity- and she needed to find herself again. She asked him not to look for her. She would call him if and when she was ready.

That call never came.

Mulder called Dana’s mother only once. He knew what she was going to tell him. “She made me promise,” she said in somber tones. Being the forever stoic man, he didn’t protest; he thanked her for her time and set out to live the life he was all too familiar with. A life utterly and completely alone.

To be continued….