Hope for X-Files Relationshippers

Are you feeling gloomy about Mulder and Scully's romantic forecast? Cheer up and pay no attention to CC's adamant no-romo statements. These moments from past episodes will reassure you of Mulder and Scully's hidden feelings for each other. The episodes with the highest amount of Deep Abiding Love are a wonderful remedy for hopelessness. Any time you feel blue, read these again, take a good look at the pictures above, and remember, the love is out there...

Beyond the Sea

I recently watched Beyond the Sea for the first time in months, and I was thrilled at all the shippiness. Gillian Anderson gives her best performance up until then as Scully must grapple with her father's death along with mounting evidence of psychic phenomena that conflicts with her skepticism. After watching this episode several times, I think this is the one that cements Mulder and Scully's bond. Mulder is compassionately supportive of Scully even when he thinks she shouldn't believe Boggs. He strokes her cheek and calls her Dana twice! Scully releases her anger over Boggs' manipulation in an outburst that clearly states her concern for Mulder:

"You set us up. . .This was a trap for Mulder because he helped put you away. Well, I came here to tell you that if he dies because of what you've done, four days from now nobody will stop me from being the one that'll throw the switch and gas you out of this life for good, you son of a bitch!"

In Beyond the Sea, Mulder and Scully establish their relationship of eternal support and love, even when they diagree.

One Breath

This is the episode in which Mulder first shows his love for Scully. His actions through the episode, more like a lover's than a friend's, are motivated by his hunger for revenge on Scully's abductors. Yet in the end he chooses to see Scully one last time over an opportunity to take revenge. Mulder sits by her bedside and softly talks to Scully, telling her that she has the strength of her beliefs and that he is there. Later, Mulder breaks down and cries alone in his dark apartment. Could his despair, and therefore love for Scully, be any more evident? In Scully's hospital room after she wakes from her coma, he barely hides his feelings in front of Scully's mother and sister. Mulder and Scully share a lovely moment of gazing into each other's eyes, and Scully tells him, "I had the strength of your beliefs."

Irresistible

If Mulder first showed his true feelings in One Breath, Irresistible was Scully's turn. During a trying case not long after her return, Scully battles to control her distress at the horrific nature of the case. She goes so far as to return to Washington without Mulder and talk with Karen Kosseff, her counselor. Scully confides that Mulder is the person she trusts most and that she doesn't want him to think he needs to protect her. Scully returns to Mulder and his case despite her fright. After Mulder rescues her from Pfaster, she gives him her usual "I'm fine," only to finally break and fall into a tearful hug. Mulder whispers, "It's okay," and storkes her hair. In my opinion, this was the beginning of the increasingly evident DAL between Mulder and Scully.

Pusher

Mulder and Scully's love and need for each other is evident all through this episode. To wake Scully while they are in a car on a stakeout, Mulder tenderly touches her face--a gesture usually used by lovers, not platonic friends. While Mulder is preparing to go in after Pusher, Scully's feelings of love and worry play all over her face. Mulder realizes her fear for his safety, and places his hands under hers in a gesture of reassurance. Finally, we're treated to the treasure at the end of the episode: watching Pusher in his hospital bed, Scully initiates a beautiful finger clasp with Mulder. Their fingers caress for several long moments, in one of the most emotional, DAL-filled scenes ever.

Memento Mori

This episode is pure DAL, a gift to 'shippers with a big bow around it. Scully's journal entries to Mulder are, in places, barely concealed love letters:

Opening Speech

.... I feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me. Knowing that you will read them, and share my burden as I have come to trust no other, that you should know my heart, look into it, finding there the memory and experience that belong to you, that are you, is a comfort to me now, as I feel the tethers loose, and the prospects darken for the continuance of a journey that began not so long ago, and that began again with a faith shaken and strengthened by your beliefs. If not for which I might never have been so strong now, as I cross to face you, and look at you in complete, hoping that you will forgive me for not making the rest of the journey with you.

Second Entry

....Mulder, I hope that in these terms you might know it, and know me, and accept this stranger so many recognize but cannot ever completely cast out. And if the darkness should have swallowed me as you read this, you must never think that there was the possibility of some secret intervention, something you might have done. I know we've traveled far together; this last distance must necessarily be traveled alone.

Third Entry

Mulder, it's difficult to describe to you the fear of facing an enemy which I can neither conquer nor escape......Mulder, I feel you close, though I know that you are now pursuing your own path. For that, I am grateful. I need to know that you're out there if I am ever to see through this.

Mulder and Scully are in love, and the gorgeous hallway scene shattered any last doubt. Scully tells Mulder that she will fight the cancer, and they fall into an embrace, Scully fitting perfectly beneath Mulder's chin. Mulder cups Scully's face with his hands and *sigh* kisses her forehead. (Three kisses were filmed, including a kiss on the lips, but Mulder kissing the top of Scully's head and a kiss on the LIPS were edited out. CC, how could you?!?) Mulder and Scully share a gaze into each other's eyes.

Redux II

The most wonderfully shippy episode ever. Where do I start? Mulder abandons his charade as "dead" to see Scully in the hospital. He flips out at seeing her dying in a scene similar to the hospital scene in One Breath, only appearing angrier and even more stunned by Scully's state. Later, Mulder comes to see her and KISSES her cheek, completely casually. Then Scully tells Mulder to blame her for Ostelhoff's murder, but Mulder refuses. Mrs. Scully obviously sees what's between them, for as she walks in the room she says, "I hope I'm not interrupting." Smart woman!

When Mulder is ready to accept a deal to work for the CSM, he comes to Scully's room in the night and cries on her hand. The next morning he comes back and kisses her again, a lot closer to her mouth. Mulder says again that he won't lay the blame on her, because he couldn't live with it. When the priest comes in, Scully an Mulder immediately grab hands for support, and Scully tells Mulder that he'll be in her prayers. When Scully's cancer goes into remission, Mulder tells Skinner that it's the best news he could have heard. After seeing this episode, it is completely impossible to believe any sentence with the words "Mulder", "Scully", and "just friends" together.

Fight the Future

Obviously, the entire movie is a sign of Mulder and Scully's love! Click here for why.

Triangle

I smile when I think of this episode. A huge, involutary smile that makes me look like a total nut. If only everyone knew why this episode brings me a smile. Two things... the kiss... and "Scully.... I love you." On the ghost ship of 1939, Mulder says to Scully's counterpart, when they are in danger of altering history and eliminating their own future, "In case we never see each other again," and kisses her long and hard. Later, in the hospital of today, Mulder tries to explain what happened on the ship, but nobody believes him. He calls Scully back to his bed just as she's leaving and says, "I love you." The Scully of 1939 slugs Mulder in the face after the kiss; the Scully of today mutters, "Oh brother!", thinking Mulder doesn't know what he's saying. After Scully leaves Mulder's hospital room, he touches the place where she hit him on the 1939 ship and smiles, knowing that Scully loves him and he loves her even more because she can't show it.

Rain King

Aside from all the other relationshippy tidbits, Rain King holds an unprecedented moment: a virtual admission of love from Scully:

Scully: Well, it seems to me that the best relationships, the ones that last, are frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before, like a switch has been flicked somewhere, and the person who was just a friend, is suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with.

Scully was supposedly convincing Sheila to look at her friend Holman in a different light, but she spoke from personal experience with Mulder -- the man who is her best friend, for whom she'd put her job and life on the line. Her half-smile and distant expression were dead giveaways that she was thinking of Mulder -- re-living her memories with him, maybe. Finally, Scully admitted that she thinks of Mulder as much more than her partner and friend.

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