Vox Mulder: Fired and Wired by Darwin_xf

When did the rash, brash, solipsistic, arrogant Agent Mulder quit his ditching and bitching ways and morph into the attuned, sensitive, generous, still gorgeous guy who wooed and won Scully (a-gain) years later?

What if the giving started with a donation? Seasons 6&7. Replaces the Amor Fati Trilogy.

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Just in case anyone’s in the mood for some GREAT fic today. You won't be sorry to have chosen this fantastic piece of storytelling!

When I got the story alert that Darwin_xf had updated this fic I felt like my birthday had come early this year. I decided to do a whole reread instead of just reading the new chapter to experience the complete joy of getting lost in this story once again. And it was well worth it. This story is as wonderful, as magical, as spellbinding as I remembered it.

From the setting in Hawaii to the intriguing three-dimensional secondary characters to the way they've interwoven the episode canon in the story. These Mulder and Scully are the same familiar characters and at the same, they're... more, different—like there’s a secret layer that’s been revealed. Beautiful. The use of symbolism and mood was incredibly nuanced and beautiful, and I can't imagine how much thought they must have put into writing all the plot lines. I think it's the way they used words like musical instruments to create the atmosphere, the emotions, the characters that struck and stayed with me the most. It's like reading a composition. They’ve certainly a way with words! Gorgeous. When I came across this description of Mulder’s energy in this story I had to include it in my comment as I feel it expresses precisely the journey both of them went on:

As active as his mind often was, he had a quiet body. Warm and solid, he anchored her, provided a refuge from the frenetic world they’d abruptly reentered. She’d been utilizing his body in space as a reference point for years.

There's an underlying retrospective to their conversations with their “Hawaiian family” that struck me as well. I especially liked Bane’s almost philosophical approach to being Mulder and Scully’s “person”, their priest-like confident. His description of war and likening it to what they’ve been through made me pause and think for quite some time after reading that chapter. It is easy to get caught up in the moment, in surviving day to day and not see that there is going to be an end in some way or other.

At the same time, Bane’s not perfect and he seemed to have made quite a few mistakes. And neither is his family. They are all written with shades of grey. I loved reading about them.

This wonderful story has stayed with me from the first time I've read it and after rereading it that has certainly been reinforced.

archiveofourown.org/works/14457993