Rerun: "Fugue" (the series) by rivkat

[wendelah1]

This week, we're doing a rerun, while I'm waiting on a friend to finish editing her podfic of "Ingenue" or for so-kiss-me-goodbye to complete "The Lambs," whichever comes first.

Back in the day, I had a theory that "Fugue" was written as a response to complaints that the show is a deeply sexist text, with Mulder being the one who drives the plot, and Scully as his sidekick. That's not how I see the series, and it is just a theory. But there does seem to be a subtext to this fable, one that hinges on female identity and how easily women still can submerge themselves in deference to their mates' ambition and passions.

We discussed this for the first time back in 2008. Eight years seems long enough to justify a rerun of one of my personal favs. Reading this deeply affected me; in fact, the first fic I wrote was in response to "Fugue," rather than the series, and that was long before I'd heard of Remix. It remains one of my favorite stories, in this or any fandom.

Fugue (26052 words) by rivkat
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Dana Scully/Fox Mulder
Characters: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Juvenilia
Series: Part 1 of Fugue
Summary:

The DSM-IV defines fugue as travel in foreign places, often under an assumed identity.

Since our first discussion, "Fugue" has become a series, providing two more reasons to revisit the fic.

Devoutly to be wished (496 words) by rivkat
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, C.G.B. Spender
Additional Tags: Eight crazy nights
Series: Part 2 of Fugue
Summary:

The prompt: The ending of Fugue: The image of Scully shivering on that cold floor, in shock after the visit from the Smoking Man? It haunts me. Please get her up off that floor and, if possible, into a happier ending.

Variations on a Fugue (1224 words) by rivkat
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder
Additional Tags: Amnesia, Remix
Series: Part 3 of Fugue
Summary:

Alternate vision of Fugue, for hulamoth. Fox was the one who couldn't remember, and Dana got her memories back.

After you read the series, consider leaving feedback and/or kudos for the author. Please come back and let us know what you think. As always, the nomination post is open for your suggestions.

Comments

Response Part 2

[wendelah1]

My favorite part about seeing all three of these together was that I feel the author was possibly making a statement about the function/groundwork of MSR. It's very much tied into their work, their mental connection, and most importantly IMO, their shared experiences. They don't both remember or know everything about the other, but they can support one another well because they've both been through so many things. Taking memories of these things away sends it all crashing down.

I can't decide if I agree with this or not. I agree that the MSR is tied into their work, absolutely. I'm not sure if that's what this story is about. It seems more complicated, somehow.

The marriage and implanted memories were a sham but the feelings they had for one another were not. This scene proved that without a doubt to me.

"But we don't know the truth."

"Do you love me?"

"I think I do. I feel that I do. But I think a lot of things that just turned out to be lies."

"If you feel it, Dana, it's not a lie. I feel it. Nothing we found out today changed that certainty." He took her hand. "We know that our bodies remember things our minds don't--you proved that with the gun. Do you remember holding hands?" He clasped her hand between his own. She nodded.

He spun her around again and placed her hands under his own shirt, on his chest. His lips brushed the top of her head. "Do you remember this?" His voice was shaking.

Her voice was torn from her with a passion she'd never felt during the past five months. "Yes," she nearly sobbed, and fell onto him, seeking his warmth, his matching desire for her, his soul.

Etc.

And then it all falls apart once Bill turns back into Mulder.

What's missing from their relationship once Mulder's memories return isn't their work, or their mental connection, or their shared experiences; after all, Scully remembers everything that happened to her while she was working with Mulder. What's missing is trust. She's profoundly depressed and mourning this enormous loss. Until her mother tricks her into giving herself away, she's trying to do it alone. That seems just like Scully to me, to tough things out, try to keep going. She doesn't take Mulder into her confidence because it's not in her nature to do so, especially not from a position of weakness. She doesn't trust Mulder with her heart and he doesn't trust her at all. Maybe on some level he felt rejected? We know that he at least believed that he was in love with her. We know that his sexual advances made her very uncomfortable--even as she gave in to him when they were in the hotel room, I was thinking no, no, this is a bad idea. Once back in Washington D.C., they don't make a considered decision about continuing a romantic relationship. They barely discuss it.
From there, things go from bad to worse.

"Can't he tell?"

"Mulder never lets his psych degree interfere with his insensitivity to me. And how would he know? Everything we've shared, I remember. In a way, he really has become my life."

My sense is that Mulder wanted back the romance and sex Bill was having with Dana Parker-Rogers back in Michigan, but he wanted it with his partner, Dana Scully. She missed Bill for sure, but New!Scully was not feeling it with old school Mulder. He took it out on her. She lashed back, but more distance isn't what she wanted from him at all. Her feelings were complicated by the loss of her core memories and the overlay of false memories. (By this point, I'd need hospitalization and she manages to get by with just an antidepressant.)

I can't view their relationship at this juncture as other than reactive. They're just ricocheting off one another's negative emotions. She's the walking wounded and he's not in much better shape. I think the loss of her memories made it harder for her to trust herself, to trust her feelings about everything. She's so caught up this downward spiral that she thinks he doesn't notice that she's not wholly herself. We know better because we know Mulder. We know he knows something is up. That plus his sense of loss and feelings of rejection is enough to undermine his trust in her. There is no other rational explanation for his lashing out at her.

part one of two

[hooves.livejournal.com]

Oops, I tried responding and misclicked while scrolling around, so I apologize for my initial comment; that was an abysmal failure on my part, haha!

If that's not justice in this universe, I don't know what is.

I think that depends on what your definition of justice is; while I do think the Syndicate deserved their just desserts, so to speak, I also don't think taking them down made up for, in any way, what happened to Dana. I don't think you're saying that it does, either, of course. I just think that justice is a multifaceted thing, or can be, at any rate, and so it's hard for me personally to determine if taking down the Syndicate is justice in the strictest sense. It's kind of like the idea that putting a murderer in prison or in the chair is justice for them murdering someone. Like in the legal definition it is, but on a personal, emotional level, it won't ever be enough because it doesn't do anything to bring back what's lost (versus, say, busting a thief and getting back your jewelry as well as seeing them punished for the theft they committed in the first place).

I did appreciate the irony, though, in the Consortium's attempt to stop Mulder and Scully being the very thing that pushed Scully--as Dana--over the edge. I rather like the idea that Mulder's quest is too personal to him to view it from a distance, or from a far enough distance to act reasonably when it counts. I think it was Bmerb who was saying that Scully is the more dangerous of the two? I agreed with her (?) on that point and this is pretty much the reason why. Her calculated planning is probably a bigger threat to everyone than Mulder's liability to emotionally explode, I guess.

Anyway, I guess that Dana taking the Consortium down was both justice and revenge, but again, I think it depends entirely on how far you buy into those concepts. In the legal sense, at least, I think justice was satisfied, for me and for Dana, who can be assured that once they're taken care of they can't hurt anyone else the way they hurt her--and in that resides a certain kind of satisfaction, though it's doubtful for me that it's justice in the personal sense.

As far as the first part of your comment, I'm a writer myself so it's not hard for me to imagine how the story goes after the end-point, if I want to, and I had no issues getting into Dana's head at the end there. I felt her position on the floor was one born of fear and uncertainty, just like many other readers, but I also felt assured that she would get back up, dust off her clothes, and do her damndest to make a difference, because I don't think her losing her memories makes her an incomplete person; like Mulder, I felt that Scully was still in very many ways her old self, and what I described previously is exactly what the old Scully does over and over. I didn't find lasting sadness in her remaining on the floor at the end of the story: it almost seemed like a restful sort of "take a deep breath and get back up" moment, at least for me, so I didn't need to know that she got up and got stuff done because I couldn't imagine her doing anything else.

(I found the closed ending regarding her friendship with Mulder to be the saddest part, what made it sadder. Before the relationship was crumbling, but to know for sure they can't even remain friends after that? That's a blow. But that's just me.)

part two of three apparently

[hooves.livejournal.com]

I have a few minutes before work gets on my desk, so I'll try to reply to this part before it gets hectic. ;)

I don't think it's their job that ties them together so much as their shared experiences, which happen to be job-related in the canon. I don't mean to say that's all that keeps them together, or makes their relationship interesting, though. The characters have chemistry together, particularly when it comes to intellectual stimulation: Mulder may come across a bit like an unstable personality but he's very smart and clever. So is Scully. They seem to (at least IMO) feed off of one another's intellect/wit on a regular basis. Add a physical attraction to one another, too, and you've got a lot to work with.

I didn't mean to imply that it was their job that kept them together. I'm sure Scully-as-Dana loved Mulder-as-Bill, though for different reasons than Scully-from-Before loved Mulder-from-Before.

Anyway, you make great points; I kind of feel that trust ties into the lost memories to an extent. Scully didn't remember everything immediately, not as quickly as Mulder, and then she doesn't recover it all, just her time on the X-Files and even then I got the impression that she remembers them but doesn't feel quite like they are her own. I don't know how to put it exactly, but it felt to me like she was viewing her life on the X-Files through a lens instead of her memory, that Dana Scully was almost a different person, practically from another lifetime, and that she really couldn't quite identify with her anymore (or at all?).

I think it would be a little hard to trust in that, knowing you were getting memories back. Also, as the third story confirms, there was probably a lot of trauma for Mulder, rediscovering his memories and feeling that the connection there was missing because Scully remembers...but she's not really Scully anymore, not fully, not in her own mind--and that makes all the difference.

She doesn't take Mulder into her confidence because it's not in her nature to do so, especially not from a position of weakness. She doesn't trust Mulder with her heart and he doesn't trust her at all.

Well said. I think you're right about this, but trust, like so much else, is a multilayered thing. I think Mulder is afraid to trust her after what's happened to them; he's a paranoid person anyway and has been betrayed before.

part 3/3 lmao

[hooves.livejournal.com]

These characters both struggle to trust people with their hearts. Scully straight up admits in the canon that she's put up emotional walls to protect herself. I think so many people do fall in love IRL, or they want to and have Anne Shirley visions of it, that it's difficult for them to imagine how hard it actually is for some people to trust another person with themselves. I get it, personally, and I'm in a longterm committed relationship; it's a real struggle, and extremely uncomfortable when someone is like, "Do you trust me?" Like nah hell nah I don't. ;P

Anyway, this seems to be their default stance/position with each other. It's really hard for me to explain (and work's picked up so my concentration is shot right now), but I feel like their relationship happening at all would need some kind of push or catalyst, and it being forced by Other People in this case would throw everything they had out of the window, even if Scully got all her memories back and Mulder still trusted her. I think for her it would still be a struggle because of that marriage. The feelings might be real, but even with recovered memories, how much of that experience can be trusted? What do you do when you can't even trust your own feelings for another person?

Anyway I'm rambling and not very coherent (it was a bad night, ugh), but I agree that Mulder wanted what he had with Dana (as Bill), but with Scully instead. I think Mulder felt as if he could pick right back up with having All the Things (romance, love, sex, intimacy both physical and emotional, loyalty, trust) with Danascully, while at the same time not quite knowing if he could trust her anymore. I did get the feeling he trusted her much more later in the story than he initially did upon getting his memories back, but...it just wasn't the same and like you said, he missed it and was upset by it.

(You're also correct about the memories making her feelings much more complicated. But again, how can she trust anything she feels at this point? How much of it is real and how much might have been constructed by someone else to keep her quiet?)

Anyway to conclude this horrifically out of sync comment, I agree with much of what you're saying. Of course Mulder knows something is up. I think he has a fix-it complex like so many people seem to, and this is something he can't fix by playing the hero or even by being at her bedside. Scully's lost memories are lost forever. And he's probably blaming himself as usual. I feel bad for them here, but like I said before, it feels like a very believable situation for them to end up in, which is probably why it hurts! :)

(I hope you are able to make some sense of this convoluted mess of a comment; today is really not my day for coherency. Ugh.)

RE: Response Part 2

[bmerb.livejournal.com]

My sense is that Mulder wanted back the romance and sex Bill was having with Dana Parker-Rogers back in Michigan, but he wanted it with his partner, Dana Scully. She missed Bill for sure, but New!Scully was not feeling it with old school Mulder. He took it out on her. She lashed back, but more distance isn't what she wanted from him at all. Her feelings were complicated by the loss of her core memories and the overlay of false memories. (By this point, I'd need hospitalization and she manages to get by with just an antidepressant.)

YES!!! Thanks for summing up my thoughts so nicely!