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She’s his best friend.
He’s not entirely sure how that happened, how he got so unbelievably lucky as to acquire a best friend, because he’s never really had one before. He has friends, of course, but he’s never had one who just so effortlessly and deeply likes him and esteems him. He knows in the deepest, most instinctual type of understanding that she will always have his back, no matter what, even if she thinks he’s wrong—even if he actually is wrong (and no, Scully, those two things are not the same).
And what a best friend to have! Scully is all integrity: staunch science, sharp mind, honesty and loyalty. She’s never spared him the probity of her judgment, never gone easy on him, never lied to him. But she’s unflinchingly fond of him, deems him worthy of her efforts, and above all values him. (If there is anything... base about his attachment to her, he’s trying to transcend it, at least in her presence. He does not hold himself responsible for his dreams, though his private perversions are another matter.)
She’s a knight errant with a scalpel and a service weapon, is Scully, and sometimes he’s baffled that his is the quest she’s chosen.
She’s not perfect, though. Sometimes her judgment and her justice can be so very rigid that he finds himself needing to push her hard to win just a little bit of space.
He’s her best friend.
She hadn’t expected to find a friend in her new assignment, much less a best friend. She has reservations about their friendship, actually, a sense that they’ve become too close for propriety. She knows the value of keeping a professional distance, learned it the hard way. But she liked him far too much far too quickly, and he also seems to be genuinely fond of her, and sometimes she finds herself calling him on the weekends simply because she wants to talk to him. Not about work, and not as a colleague, but just as a friend. (Just as a friend, she reminds herself sternly. She cherishes him too much to lose him to her inability to control herself.)
She’s never worked with anyone like him—never known anyone quite like him, either. He’s absurdly brilliant, occasionally arrogant, but more often thoughtful, vacillates between impetuous and methodical. He cares the most deeply about the people who have the least power, compassionate almost to a fault, but also capable of an almost frighteningly cold-blooded wrath.
He’s loyal and brave, and he seems to be devoted (properly, platonically) to her. He trusts her without question, and he respects her enough to treat her with a forthright equality, even when he’s arguing with her. She’s never had that kind of relationship with a man, one in which she shares equal stature, a central figure instead of a lovely, intelligent adornment.
The relationship is as precious as it is rare, and she’s fiercely protective of it.
He’s not perfect, though. For all his genuine esteem for her, for all his perspicacity, he’s sometimes glaringly blind to the flaws and character failings of women. She thinks it’s the contrast that makes it so galling. She really does expect better from him.
The strength of her moral code is something that he admires in her, but in his more uncomfortable moments, he worries that he’ll fall short and disappoint her.
It’s not that he thinks Gertrude Mountebank is a particularly admirable individual, but she’s clearly had a lot to deal with. Trauma and sorrow can warp people in all kinds of ways.
He did study psychology, after all. He has degrees. They’re from Oxford, even!
(Among other more personal qualifications for assessing this type of thing.)
Her husband’s clearly a distant sort of asshole, might even be abusive. Either way, she’s not getting support from him—he’s abandoned her to marinate in her own misery and guilt, and well. Shit happens to people.
Sometimes she wonders (when she gets lax, and her mind strays far from its assigned track) if he has a type of Madonna-whore complex. If the women he values and loves are the women he never sexualizes, if he views sexuality as somehow filthy or degrading, and women (her) as untouchable and pure.
(She’s noticed the track of his eyes, though; she’s caught him looking.)
When she indulges the current of her mind, lets it meander without acknowledging what she’s doing, she thinks it more likely that he’s somehow applied that complex to himself, that it’s his own sexuality that is the shameful part of his psyche.
(Surely he’s never caught her; she’s far more discreet, and he’s too easily distracted, anyway.)
In her legitimate analysis, in her sanctioned concern as his friend, she does notice the sharp contrast between his perception of his own significance, and his estimation of his own self-worth.
This whole thing is a tragedy; there’s nothing he can do, and it’s making him tired. He tries to be gentle as he explains to Gertrude what happened to her daughter, where her son will go now. He covers the hands she’s clenched before her on the conference room table, gives them a squeeze before he stands up to leave.
“I’m sorry,” he says at the door, turning back, and he means it with his entire heart; he’s desperately sorry about so much of how her life turned out.
He steps out under the fluorescent lights of the police station hallway, and finds Scully leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and a disapproving tilt to her mouth.
They walk out into the night in silence, surrounded by humidity and cicadas. Scully is all prim rigidity and righteous indignation beside him. Because he’s tired and frustrated, and because despite all the exhortations he never did learn when to keep his mouth shut, he says, “OK, Scully. I get it. You’re pissed at a woman whose life was destroyed because she doesn’t measure up to your standards of respectability and good behavior.”
She stops stock-still in the middle of the parking lot, feels a flash of outraged anger shoot through her, from her head to her toes. She stares incredulously at him; he turns to her, and though his posture is slumped a bit, his eyes are keen and sharp, and, really, how dare he turn those eyes on her. Mulder, with all his instincts to protect the innocent—the hypocrisy nearly chokes her.
“Forgive me, Mulder, but I’m not inclined to excuse the inexcusable simply because it’s committed by a woman. We all make our choices in life.”
His posture shifts; he looks confused. Of course he’d be confused—as insightful as he is about other people, Mulder is almost willfully protective of his own blind spots.
She fills it in for him. “You’re just going to overlook the damage she’s done to her son?! One of the only good things we accomplished here was getting that boy out to live with his aunt. You’re a psychologist, Mulder, I know you know the impact of that sort of sustained emotional abuse on children. He’s the most innocent person in all of this, and he’s going to have to manage the impact of his parents’ poor coping mechanisms into his adult life.”
There’s a sudden silence between them.
And... Oh. Oh no.
Her best friend.
If there’s a more uncomfortable, exposing silence than this one, he has yet to encounter it in all of his own adult life. He expects, dreads, fears that he’ll look into her eyes while the understanding dawns and see pity, but though her gaze wavers, she holds it steady. There is an uncanny solidity to Scully.
Because his own coping mechanism is deflection via questionable humor, he opts to break the silence with, “Ah, well, you know, Scully. If you think I’m an insufferable asshole now, you never met me as a teenager. Can’t say I didn’t deserve it.”
She’s not playing, Scully. She doesn’t crack a smile, looks directly into his eyes, waits until he’s paying attention again. “No one deserves that, Mulder. Ever,” she decrees firmly.
He feels it all the way to his bones.
His best friend.