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.

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

-That Scully's still planning to leave. I've always considered her experience in Antarctica to be the thing which makes leaving seem utterly impossible. Not to mention, I think leaving only seemed possible to her in the first place before she was forced to slow down and think beyond the practicalities of it.

-The development of Mulder and Scully's relationship. It's written well, and I understand why some people are going to like it. I'm just not one of those people. They say too much to each other. They reveal too much, they mutually acknowledge too much. As an AU scenario it would certainly work, but as a gap-filler fic that is supposed to be canon adherent, I find it a significant stretch. If this had really happened, I would then have to readjust how I look at every M/S interaction from then on out. Which is perfectly alright, but I rather like my current perspective, I like that they have yet to mutually acknowledge anything for another year at least, which leaves the fic and I at something of an impasse, though an amicable one.

-The imbalance between Scully's role in the fic and Mulder's. While I will always find it easier to enjoy fics in which Scully is awesome and Mulder takes a backseat to fics in which the reverse is true, I still wish Mulder were a little more appreciated in Certitude. Throughout the fic, Scully is the one who basically accomplishes everything while Mulder flails helplessly. Which I wouldn't mind so much, accept the way Captain Neill thinks about the two of them emphasizes that imbalance. He basically idolizes Scully and thinks Mulder is a sorry SOB. This doesn't make me dislike the fic, and if one wanted to argue that it was a pleasant role reversal from the norm, I would certainly understand where they were coming from. Nonetheless, I would like Certitude even more if Mulder were given a bit more to do, instead of having him stand around like a sacrificial lamb, and angst over Scully leaving him or being taken.

[write-out.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of fic that covers the big blank space between Antartica and DC. This was a new one for me and I really enjoyed it, the pacing, the dialogue, Captain Neill.

There are so many little moments here that stand out to me:

- the 50 games of Hangman that Mulder loses to Scully, despite the fact that he's 'fucking smart.'

- X-Cells and Scully's horror when she is told Mulder's reaction is from an injection of her own blood.

- Scully crying after Mulder wet himself and she had to strip him down.

- the escape back out into the snow and ice.

Like amyhit, I don't buy that Scully is still considering leaving the X-Files at this point, but it's not enough of a stumbling block to knock me out of the fic. I guess that's my amicable impasse? (love that, by the way)

This might sound strange, given how minor his role is, but I absolutely love Skinner here.

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington D.C.

When he returned to his desk after lunch, Assistant
Director Walter Skinner found a single yellow piece
of paper in the center of his dark green blotter. He
picked it up and read it, pulled his glasses off, rubbed
his fingers into his eyes, shoved his glasses back on
and read it again. Then he stood up from his desk
and strode for the office door, shouting for Kimberly,
his assistant.

The paper stayed behind, placid and open on the
desktop. "Mulder Scully alive STOP" it read. "South
79.oo lat East 61.oo long 290 feet STOP Relocation
imminent STOP"

I want to know who left that on his desk.

And this:

Let them be all right, he thought. They had no
business being here, and he had no business coming
after them, but he would help them for as long as he
could.

Aaaand this:

It was a real quarantine, this time, one with about a
hundred different doctors, and television and a
phone, and an address that Skinner visited almost
daily, waving gruffly to them through the glass.

I love the idea of Skinner visiting them- waving at them- every day.

So thanks for the rec, wendelah1! As much fic as I've read over the years, it's great to come across new ones.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

Okay, I've read this before but my mind is old, tired, and possibly over-saturated with XFiliana. (Another subject; won't go there.) So I had to do it all again.

Justin Glasser is brilliant and underappreciated. Or unknown.

I have no major issues with the story, except: 1) I can't, like others, accept that Scully would seriously want to leave the Files at this post-crisis juncture. I think she might toy with the idea if she was feeling secure, but she's not.

2) The cuddling others enjoyed is not, in general, a scenario I find emotionally or logically satisfactory. This is a really bad situation. They are sick, frightened, they might die, TORTURE. I don't think kidding around about sexual attraction is an appropriate response; it's too damn movie, movie. I would like and understand it better if they had silent, intense sex--even knowing they were being observed--than the sort of teddy bear touching they both like but must ambivalently ponder. That's just me.

Neill is a hero--was anyone reminded of Krycek in "This Room and Everything in It?"--and I wish I could feel that he had some hope in his life. The whole story is full of despair. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I suppose.

Years and years too late

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

I love this one. Unreservedly I do, I'll admit it. Justin Glasser writes wonderful fanfic with an excellent feel for character, and this is one of my favorites of his.