I like Amnesia, but I do find it to be a bit of a leap after the dark and anguished way that WIEAYB ended. I think I would have preferred if How Gravity Works had followed, rather than preceded, the Home From the War trilogy. How Gravity Works had that feeling of hope and possibility, and yet avoidance and denial - Mulder and Scully were so close to each other, so close that all it would take is for one of them (probably Scully) to reach out the slightest bit for the other, but they were still too wary, and careful not to reach for each other (Once burned, twice shy. Twice burned, forever shy?). From there, I can see how with the slightest shift into just the right balance, they could end up the Mulder and Scully we see in Amnesia.
-the slow, silent midnight they shared three weeks ago when her head had been abuzz with a weary sense of displacement and freedom. [...]She'd noticed the size, the strength of his arms as they wrapped around her, and was quite certain that that slow and cradled way was entirely new for them.
But immediately after the HFTW trilogy, this does feel a bit jarring to me. How Gravity Works felt like it was them tiptoeing out of their trenches and then HFTW was them getting strafed diving back into their trenches, wounded. Generally in KvsS7 I feel Khyber writes Mulder and Scully more realistically than canon. They have the kinds of issues that people who had been through what they've been through would have. It's like what Iolokus proposes to do, but done it in a way that - though far less shocking- is more grounded and realistic. So I don't like that Amnesia makes this jump from them going through something deeply invasive and disturbing in HFTW, to them laughing and play wrestling.
If there'd been indication that what they'd seen of each other's minds in HFTW was going to be a comfort to them and bring them together, I would understand, but the way WIEAYB ends, it seems as though Scully is all the more intent on self-containment at the cost of being open to further intimacy.
That said, Amnesia is by no means fluffy, and I do like the way their equanimity and joy at being intimate with each other in a healthy way is something they are very tentative and careful with, particularly Scully. They're not putting all of their weight on this. They're so close together and there's so much potency in the way they are bonded to each other that if it goes wrong...well, as I believe estella_c said in one of her past comments, that would be a risk too far.
When they're silent Mulder can feel her tense up-- four years later, almost five, this is still what passes for afterglow from Scully. He wants to be able kiss it out of her, blast the thoughts out of that fine and ferocious mind. No, not that, they've fucked each other's brains out before and the thoughts always come back.
They've done it wrong before. Or, not wrong perhaps, but they've been intimate in an unhealthy way - trying to use sex as an opiate or a distraction. They know how to do it that way. They don't know how to do it this way, the healthy way, because they've never done it before. I do wonder exactly what the hell their past relationship has been like for Mulder though. It makes me upset with him that he seems to be relatively unscathed by it all. He respects Scully's reservations, and her fear, but he doesn't seem to feel much of that himself, and I wonder why that is.
As Scully turns away, she feels her heart growing and growing nine times its normal size, threatening to break her chest.
For me, that last line really makes the whole fic. It's where I know that there's joy in what she has with Mulder, and that they really are doing it right this time. For all that it's been tamped down and reigned in and cut back, it's real, healthy, joyful love.
I've never actually read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, so I had to look it up to find out that, as I suspected, the last line is a reference. Why nine times its normal size, though? In How the Grinch Stole Christmas it was three times the normal size.
As a side note, I'm pretty sure I could read this as a non-KvsS7 post ep for Brand X and it would still seem in character - maybe more so.
Amnesia
Date: 2011-09-13 09:24 pm (UTC)-the slow, silent midnight they shared three weeks ago
when her head had been abuzz with a weary sense of
displacement and freedom. [...]She'd noticed the size, the
strength of his arms as they wrapped around her, and was quite
certain that that slow and cradled way was entirely new for
them.
But immediately after the HFTW trilogy, this does feel a bit jarring to me. How Gravity Works felt like it was them tiptoeing out of their trenches and then HFTW was them getting strafed diving back into their trenches, wounded. Generally in KvsS7 I feel Khyber writes Mulder and Scully more realistically than canon. They have the kinds of issues that people who had been through what they've been through would have. It's like what Iolokus proposes to do, but done it in a way that - though far less shocking- is more grounded and realistic. So I don't like that Amnesia makes this jump from them going through something deeply invasive and disturbing in HFTW, to them laughing and play wrestling.
If there'd been indication that what they'd seen of each other's minds in HFTW was going to be a comfort to them and bring them together, I would understand, but the way WIEAYB ends, it seems as though Scully is all the more intent on self-containment at the cost of being open to further intimacy.
That said, Amnesia is by no means fluffy, and I do like the way their equanimity and joy at being intimate with each other in a healthy way is something they are very tentative and careful with, particularly Scully. They're not putting all of their weight on this. They're so close together and there's so much potency in the way they are bonded to each other that if it goes wrong...well, as I believe
When they're silent Mulder can feel her tense up-- four
years later, almost five, this is still what passes for
afterglow from Scully. He wants to be able kiss it out of her,
blast the thoughts out of that fine and ferocious mind. No,
not that, they've fucked each other's brains out before and
the thoughts always come back.
They've done it wrong before. Or, not wrong perhaps, but they've been intimate in an unhealthy way - trying to use sex as an opiate or a distraction. They know how to do it that way. They don't know how to do it this way, the healthy way, because they've never done it before. I do wonder exactly what the hell their past relationship has been like for Mulder though. It makes me upset with him that he seems to be relatively unscathed by it all. He respects Scully's reservations, and her fear, but he doesn't seem to feel much of that himself, and I wonder why that is.
As Scully turns away, she feels her heart growing and growing nine
times its normal size, threatening to break her chest.
For me, that last line really makes the whole fic. It's where I know that there's joy in what she has with Mulder, and that they really are doing it right this time. For all that it's been tamped down and reigned in and cut back, it's real, healthy, joyful love.
I've never actually read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, so I had to look it up to find out that, as I suspected, the last line is a reference. Why nine times its normal size, though? In How the Grinch Stole Christmas it was three times the normal size.
As a side note, I'm pretty sure I could read this as a non-KvsS7 post ep for Brand X and it would still seem in character - maybe more so.