xf_book_club | Story 222: "The Laws of Coming and Going" by Buckingham

I love this story. I love everything Buckingham has written, so I don't know why we have only done one of her stories. This fic is set during season eight, sometime after "Dead Alive." Summary: Life after death.

"Tell me again," he says. His voice sounds coarse and needy even to his own ears, but somehow he's unashamed. "Please."

She's told him all of it already, a couple of times actually. He's heard about the wet, gritty snow and tough, dry flowers, how Frohike cried loudly and openly, like someone was tearing at his skin or ripping his fingernails off one by one, how her mother held her hand in a bone-crunching grip the entire time, as if she feared that Scully would slip through the cold earth to meet him, how the air was heavy with the smell of flames and it turned out that there was a house on fire, just five blocks from the cemetery, how Skinner's face was like stone, unmoving and unseeing, but his eyes held a wet glimmer of guilt, how Scully threw up in a dingy motel bathroom just before the car picked her up for the cemetery and how the baby just seemed like a heavy thing in her gut that day, an unbearable, painful weight.

She tells him it all once again, weaving her story of heartbreak, horror and hell with the same chilling seriousness that she used to deliver her case reports.

Yeah, it's melancholy. It suits my mood right now.

You can send email to this author. Please do, as the last I heard she was still working on a season seven story. I have also heard that feedback from readers encourages our writers to persevere. And we'd like to hear from you too, so please let us know what you think.

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The link is to an archived copy, but if it goes down, or you prefer old-school text file formatting, you can find this story at Gossamer.

Read "The Laws of Coming and Going".

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It does feel very in character for Mulder, doesn't it? I think Buckingham really gets Mulder. I'm less convinced by her Scully, but then we only see her through Mulder's eyes in this, and he is clearly an unreliable narrator.

... because that's exactly what I wanted in seasons 8/9 :(

I wasn't happy with the direction the show went in during the last two seasons. They had a chance to make it right with the second movie and completely blew it. The writers never give us Mulder and Scully as true partners again. The shippers get their wish; the series goes down the drain.

My only consolation is that bad canon makes for good fanfiction.

"The writers never gave us Mulder and Scully as true partners again."

YES, exactly. I considered myself a shipper and always wanted them together, but I was also a preteen and teenager at the time (and personally in love with DD, lol). Now that I'm an adult, if I could go back and change the show, I don't even know if I would have been a "shipper" in the widely understood definition of the word.. I really like M&S as partners, riding in the car chasing monsters, with the UST and banter that came with it. They're so much MORE than just a romantic couple... the kisses in Existence and The Truth almost felt cheap and out of character. I almost think CC didn't realize what a perfect partnership he had created, and then you add the crazy chemistry DD and GA have and he just didn't know what to do with it.

As for seasons 8 and 9, I STILL haven't watched most of s9, even though I have the DVD set. I know I should, my husband is always saying "how can you be a big fan if you haven't seen all of the show?"... but s9 makes me sad :-/ I didn't know this before, but the other day I was reading that they were planning on making a season 10 with just Doggett and Reyes. WHAT?! I know that the show was their job and that's where they make money but damn, where is your creative integrity? I'm also a LOST fan, and the end of that show was also somewhat of a hot mess, but at least they had a set number of seasons and a set storyline that they wanted to tell. Shows just go off the rails when they keep trying to milk them like a cash cow.

I don't even want to talk about the second movie, lol. I saw it at midnight, during Comic Con here in SD, and after the movie all these people were gushing about how good it was and I was like, this is the worst possible movie CC could've given us. I stopped posting at the Idealist Haven boards because I posted a bad review of the movie and everyone jumped on me and said I wasn't a real fan. Crazy ass shippers.

Anyway now that I have ranted I feel better :) if you or anyone else has any fic recs that are as in-character as this one, I'm all ears! I especially love angst. :)

YES, exactly. I considered myself a shipper and always wanted them together, but I was also a preteen and teenager at the time (and personally in love with DD, lol). Now that I'm an adult, if I could go back and change the show, I don't even know if I would have been a "shipper" in the widely understood definition of the word.. I really like M&S as partners, riding in the car chasing monsters, with the UST and banter that came with it. They're so much MORE than just a romantic couple... the kisses in Existence and The Truth almost felt cheap and out of character. I almost think CC didn't realize what a perfect partnership he had created, and then you add the crazy chemistry DD and GA have and he just didn't know what to do with it.

This comes very close to how I feel, although I think I was fine with the kissing by the eighth season. A canon ship is a canon ship. And the characters had been through so much together. I didn't want them to end up alone, you know?

But yes, they were so much more than just a romantic couple. They were epic, the ship to sink all other ships. They deserved a better ending than they were given, by far.

You should not blame your teenage hormones for your shipper feelings. Plenty of fully adult women and men felt exactly the same way, including the Duchovny adoration. Plenty still do...

And I still haven't watched most of season nine. Yes, I own the dvds, too.

You asked for "in character" fanfic recs. The problem is that means something different to each of us: each writer, and each reader. My Mulder seems perfectly in character to me. You might not agree.

My favorite writer is Kel, but I also love Amalnahurriyeh, and Fialka, cofax, Penumbra, and many others. There are so many good writers. You will find your own favorites, writers whose creative visions come close your own for the characters. The fun is just beginning.

The less said the better about some of the fans at Haven. There is no excuse for their behavior.

I always wanted Mulder and Scully to be together--guess you'd call me a finis shipper--but the show failed terribly in handling the relationship. Once CC knew that he had a powerful sexual chemistry in his actors, writers had carte blanche to exploit that within limits. But the actual resolution of their relationship turned soggy, as did everything else. (The Brits would say "went pear-shaped," which is a phrase I love though don't quite understand. Could it refer to Scully's pregnancy!!) Being eternally teenage in my approach, I would say that the kisses were unsatisfactory because they expressed a reverent respect but no lust! CC was such a prude. DD could have corrected that situation, but by that time he had lost interest and was virtually detached from influencing the show.

The movies have gone downhill. I expect no third.

Kel and Amal have both written fics that resolve things more satisfactorally.

I apologize for my amateur handling of the ital icon.

Story 222: "The Laws of Coming and Going" by Buckingham

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