Story 170: "Certitude" by Justin Glasser

[wendelah1]

This is picfic, but for that other movie, the one I at least liked a lot better. Still, for all its virtues, Fight the Future did leave a huge plot hole for the fanfiction writers to fill in: what exactly did happen after they escaped from the alien ship? How did they get from Antarctica to Washington DC and what happened in between? "Certitude" tells that story so well, I've probably reread it a half dozen times with pleasure, and recced it, well, everywhere but here.

Besides an absolutely riveting plot, Glasser give us a Mulder-and-Scully who come as close to the characters on screen as any writer before or since. In case you weren't certain of my feelings, I love this story. The link is to Mulder in Jeopardy, where it is broken into two parts, one containing sections 1-5, the other, 6-10.

Certitude Part One

Certitude Part Two

Send feedback to the author, then come back and let us know what you think. The nomination post is always open for your suggestions.

Comments

Things I liked:

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

I like Certitude best between pages 1 and 20. Up until that point there's nothing I don't like. I enjoy figuring out what's going on, I enjoy the POV shifts and the spooky clinical observations of Captain Neill, I like all the fun that comes with quarantine fics, but that underlying it there's the deep foreboding of knowing Mulder and Scully are not in good hands. I like the straight-forward, vivid writing. I like that Mulder waits at Scully's bedside for her to wake up because he's afraid she'll disappear again. I love their dialogue:

"Thank you," she said, her voice slicing through my
reverie.

"For what?"

"For coming after me."

I looked at her, stunned. For coming after her? What
else would I have done?

"All part of the job," I said, watching her fingers
between mine. "You'd have done the same for me."

"I *have* done the same for you."

I grinned. Ducked my head to her hand.

"I missed you," I said into the bedclothes.

"I know," she said. "So what do you do for fun
around here?"

There's so much weight and importance in what they're saying here, but they expertly avoid saying anything too revealing. And Certitude has more than a couple really excellent one liners:

"How long have you been awake?"

She shrugged. "I come and go."

"Talking of Michelangelo?" he asked, leaning in close.

and:

"L."

"Nope." Scully drew a small neck on the circle.

"Neck before face, Scully. That's cruel."

and:

"I know you're worried, Mulder. Trust me."

Finally he looked away, rolling his eyes. "If I had a
nickel for every time you said that, Scully--"

"You'd retire and support me in the manner to which
I am accustomed." Scully reached out and took his
hand. "I'm okay."

I like the description of them doing callisthenics together - the intimacy and awkwardness of it. It's even a little bit erotic, really:

He'd held her feet, hands over her toes, palms
pressing warmly as she did her sit ups

And perhaps my favorite thing of all, I love that Certitude addresses the effects of Scully having been infected with the alien virus. I love the idea that there are after effects, and that the Consortium has been studying those effects and their possibilities for some time now. The chilling moment where she's told it's an injection of her blood that has caused Mulder such agony is one of my favorites, and I would love to have seen Glasser explore that further, either in this fic, or in another one. And I find it perfectly appropriate that Scully's altered blood cells are labelled 'X-cells' - a shiver went through me when that was revealed. But what I appreciate maybe even more than all of this, is that Certitude addresses the effects the virus has had on Scully psychologically.

There was no pain, only a fullness, a feeling like one
she had never felt, a feeling of something living inside
her. In a way that horrified her now, she had almost
enjoyed it, the slow bleeding of herself into something
else, something that would bear her mark even after
it had consumed her. She had felt it, even then, even
when there was nothing but fluid coursing through
the umbilical cord in her throat.

That's horrific in a way FTF never even touched on, and in a way I find very intriguing and shocking and yet also realistic: the alien virus insinuating itself, asserting it's influence over Scully as it fused with her. Which is brought home again, later on in the fic, when Scully tells Mulder she didn't have to see the spaceship because she felt it. *shudders* I LOVE that, and may adopt it into my own personal psuedo-canon.

Re: Things I liked:

[wendelah1]

One of the things I liked most about this story is Captain Neill. He's one of the great original characters in this fandom. For me, this story is as much about his character arc as it is about theirs, about how their fate is changed by his feelings for Scully and his subsequent interventions. To my way of thinking, he's the hero in this story, taking the place of Mulder in that role. It's breathtaking to behold, and a much riskier choice for a writer than the more usual route. I loved it. Both times he intervenes on their behalf it's such a shock. How did this happen? He's not on their side, yet by the end, he takes two huge risks, saving them both at the cost of his own life.

And perhaps my favorite thing of all, I love that Certitude addresses the effects of Scully having been infected with the alien virus. I love the idea that there are after effects, and that the Consortium has been studying those effects and their possibilities for some time now. The chilling moment where she's told it's an injection of her blood that has caused Mulder such agony is one of my favorites, and I would love to have seen Glasser explore that further, either in this fic, or in another one. And I find it perfectly appropriate that Scully's altered blood cells are labelled 'X-cells' - a shiver went through me when that was revealed.

I loved this the first time through, but later I kept thinking this is just a more extreme form of an ABO incompatibility transfusion reaction. I wanted Scully to know that--she would know that--and try to puzzle out the implications. Except, then I thought, what would the scientific implications be for the Consortium? Okay, a foreign protein causes an extreme reaction. Like duh. Why would you need to repeat that over and over again? This "experiment" on the whole seems pretty bogus to me, and in retrospect is the weakest part of the plot, verging on gratuitous Mulder Torture. Why are they only doing blood studies on her? Why didn't they do baseline studies on him, if he's the actual test subject? Why didn't they drag him away for observation in a controlled setting, instead of leaving him in his room? As mad scientists, they fail utterly. Having the foreign cells labeled as "X" cells is cute in a grotesque sort of way.

But the experiment and the three characters' reactions to it is what drives the plot, so ultimately I end up hand-waving it. After all, Glasser was an English major, not a biochemist or a medical researcher. He's writing a horror story, not a scifi medical thriller.

But what I appreciate maybe even more than all of this, is that Certitude addresses the effects the virus has had on Scully psychologically.

Yes, this is one of the story's strengths; it creates psychological horror for the reader, as well.

Re: Things I liked:

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

Wen, in my opinion your knowledge of the medical field is getting in the way of your enjoyment of the fic. Maybe I'm wrong, and Glasser really was just writing about a pretty standard ABO incompatibility transfusion reaction, and that was all it was meant to be. But given the way Neill reveals to Scully that it was her blood that caused Mulder such pain, and the obviously deliberate impact intended by that revelation, I presume Glasser meant to indicate more was going on there than just an incompatibility reaction. Something extraterrestrial and spooky was going with Scully's blood. We already know that hybrids and shape-shifters (at least certain 'models' of them) have blood that is toxic to be exposed to. It seems to act as a rapidly vaporizing acid of some kind. Perhaps Scully's blood has taken on some of the properties of hybrid blood. That doesn't seem unimportant to me at all.

Why didn't they drag him away for observation in a controlled setting, instead of leaving him in his room?

Yeah, that's a bit of a plot hole. I would think they would want to be monitoring his body's reaction to this foreign toxin on every level. Then again, I could say the same of the black-oil test subjects, yet they seemed to leave them bound under chicken wire. At least in Glasser's fic Mulder is being closely observed by Neill (or so the Consortium believes).

Re: Things I liked:

[wendelah1]

Wen, in my opinion your knowledge of the medical field is getting in the way of your enjoyment of the fic.

Nah, not really. This is actually how I have fun in real life, critiquing bad, inaccurate medicine and science on TV. I have much lower expectations for fanfiction than I do for TV--I can't stand House, for example. It's just that I know how medical research is conducted--I work at a research hospital--and this ain't it. Yeah, if her blood had taken on abnormal, never-before-seen characteristics that would be huge. That would be Nobel prize material. But in this story, she isn't the test subject. Neil thinks that she's just going to be eliminated once "the test" is over; that's one of the things that drives him to free them both. THIS MAKES NO SENSE IF HER BLOOD IS WHAT IS BEING TESTED. THESE ARE SOME DAMN CRAZY RESEARCHERS.

Then again, I could say the same of the black-oil test subjects, yet they seemed to leave them bound under chicken wire.

Yes, it looks dramatic on TV but like so much of what 1013 did with the myth-arc, it made no sense. So in that respect, these mad scientists fit in just fine.