Story 182: "Up the Ladder" by rivkat

[wendelah1]

Fall is here, though you'd never know it by the temperatures in SoCal. I read "Up the Ladder" in 2007, when I was new to the fandom. It's novella length, at 30,000+ words, but wow, it is a fast read. I would have pegged the word count at half that or less. It was originally posted in 1997. Yep. This is old-school fanfiction at its best.

Summary: Marita comes through for Mulder, giving him what he wants most. But twenty-five years haven't brought as many changes as he might have thought, and her gift might be more dangerous than anything he's faced to date. And what's up with those bees? A potpourri of Conspiracy elements with many old favorites present. Note: Almost everything here about bees is actually true, except for the parts that are just paranoia.

"Up the Ladder"

The link is to AO3, where you can easily leave feedback for our author, but you can read this at her website or at Gossamer if you prefer. Leave your suggestions at the nomination post. And don't forget to let us know what you think.

Comments

[amyhit.livejournal.com]

Just jumping in to say that if there's anyone else like me who prefers to read fanfic in the simple, classic format - white page, black printing, nothing else on the page but text, and all the usual headers in the usual format - then you can find a copy here (http://mulderinjeopardyx.com/stories/u/uptheladder1.txt). (just replace the 1 with 2 in the URL for the second part)

DON'T do as I did, google search the fic, and start reading the version posted at x-files.bytewright.com, because for some reason it's ten thousand words shorter than it ought to be.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

I actually like AO3's format (although not their search function, grrr), but some days I wish I could apply format=light to the entire internet.