X-Files Fic Recs

Story #65 is something to be said about bones.

“Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.”

Said Henry David Thoreau probably talking about finding your vocation and yada-yada-yada. Sitting in a wooden gazebo of my mother’s country house and looking at our twelve-year-old orange ball of a Pomeranian gnawing at a raw steak bone makes that quote a bit of a joke.

What does it take to know your own bone? How do you even know if that fucking thing is your true bone? Damn right. This is where you had to start, dear Mr. Thoreau.

I wanted to be a forensic pathologist. No, seriously. I thought I was going to cut skin and muscles and all. Literally. I would slice and dice and get to the very essence of a bone.

A human’s body is a temple, so often vandalized and violated by a few who believe they’re omnipotent - criminal offenders, abusers, perpetrators - doesn't really matter what you call them. By unraveling the mysteries of the body's destruction and gathering all the clues it left behind, I’d solve the puzzle and bring the body its dignity back. Restore it. Make it whole again. Make it more than just a set of bones.

I never became a queen of an autopsy bay. Somewhere along the way, I took another turn to explore my other obsessions. The writing was one of them, and this time it’s all down my bones.

The thing is, I didn’t recognize my bone when I first saw it. Sometimes it takes years to find it. It may take a few more to understand that it, indeed, is your true bone. However, one thing Mr. Thoreau was right about is, whatever your bone turns out to be, once you find it – gnaw at it. Gnaw at it with all your might. 

Story #85 is the poem "A Ballet Dancer"

Put your pointe shoes on

And get to the barre,

It’s your stage for tonight,

You’re a soloist.

Keep your balance,

Assemblé, 

Attitude derrière,

Show bravura,

S'il te plaît

You’re not made of wood.

Half turn here,

Half turn there

Right leg extended in alongé

Left foot strong

With your foot en pointe --

Hard?

Demi-pointe it’s then.

Face your audience

Return to the first position

Grand plie,

Grand jete,

Pas de chat.

It’s your stage for tonight

You’re a soloist.

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Photo by Nihal Demirci Erenay on Unsplash

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Story #40, CELTA week 1

And that was… a piece of cake. Let’s see what I’m gonna say when they ask us to write those long-ass lesson plans😂

Anyway, what did we do that first week:

🦋 Cambridge platform online tasks 1. Orientation module; 2. Unit 1: learner’s first; 3. Unit 2: designing tasks (reading).

🦋 Design a lead-in activity for a reading lesson (in a group of three); 🦋 Design an initial reading task and then a detailed reading task (the text was provided, work individually).

🦋 A compulsory live session with a tutor (2 hrs long);

🦋Observation practice of 2 different lessons taught by two different teachers.

There’s an interesting detail I noticed about one of the lessons I observed. The teacher chose to talk about the British Royal family (sans Kate and Megan, and in a moment you will understand why). While showing the photo of the Queen, he asked the students if they knew how old she was. And she was…. Tada!

79!

❓So here is the puzzle for you to solve.

If the Queen was 79 then, and in 2022 she died at the age of 96, what year was the lesson recorded in?

Story #54 is a one-shot written at the X-Files writer's workshop in 15 minutes.

The moon was shining so bright that she regretted she hadn’t taken her shades upon leaving the house.  What the hell she was even doing here - in the woods, literally in the middle of nowhere, at night. 

Was it supposed to be another nice trip to the forest? They were trying to hunt down a werewolf or some other folklore-based creature - she wasn’t even sure anymore. All she wanted was the sky to open up and rain with sleeping bags. Maybe even pillows. And some snacks. Please, add some snacks to the list. They needed some staples. She could already hear her stomach rumbling. Hunger was going to be a problem. It already started eclipsing any other thought in her head. Sanity for sure.

Stealing a quick glance at her partner, his shadow figure wading through the thick woodland just a few feet away, she felt a twinge of envy at the over-exuberant mood he was in.  

Story #49 is the X-Files fanfiction story

Read it on AO3

Story #76. Based on the prompt: 'Surprise!' They cried, leaping out from behind the door.

“Surprise!” They cried leaping out from behind the door, and the glass of water she was holding, slipped out of her grasp and shuttered.  She bolted down to clean the mess and peered sideways at her unsolicited guests shifting from one leg to another. One of them, Tom - she recalled vaguely - tiptoed around the shards and intercepted her hand, reaching for paper napkins in the bottom drawer of the desk. 

“I’ll do that, don’t worry.”

The words broke the spell, prompting others to hurtle towards the couple on the floor. Flowers were put into vases, cake was set on the desk, candles were lit, and presents were stored in the corner of the room. 

“Didn’t mean to scare the shit out of you.”  Someone offered and the woman huffed a laugh.

She took a moment to meander around the office, gauging mentally whether she’d be able to take all the wrapped-up boxes and bouquets to her car in one go and then backed up and plonked down on the chair. A high tower of a cake leveled her eyes. 

“Make a wish,” Tom encouraged.

I’d like this day to start over, she said in her head and blew the candles.

Story #41, CELTA weeks 2-3-4

Considering teacher’s practice still hasn't started, both these were relatively easy.

During the second week a student is supposed to cover 4 modules on the platform, each takes from 40 minutes to 2 hours.

✅ Dealing with language ✅ Classroom management ✅ Using the coursebook 1 ✅ Lesson planning 1

Week 3 modules: ✅ More about the learner ✅ Checking understanding ✅ Anticipating problems ✅ Coursebook

Week 4: ✅ Listening ✅ Lexis ✅ Practice activities ✅ Correction

There were also a few tasks to submit on discussion forums both individually and in small groups about the theoretical material.

Apart from that, there’s only live session a week (2-2,5 hrs):

📚”Classroom management, online vs offline lesson”. 📚 “Eliciting and concept checking questions.” 📚 “Lesson Planning”

At the end of the 4th week we also had to submit one of our written assignments.

📝 Assignment 3 is a reading lesson based on authentic materials, designed for a particular group of students. The list of possible articles to use, as well as the class profile are provided by Cambridge. No stages and procedures should be included, it’s a lesson in prose, where each activity should be described and the rationale stated (references and appendix with designed handouts included).

The revelation of the week: when it comes to lexis, CELTA promotes (however, not explicitly), the Lexical Approach and encourages students to study words in chunks and collocations, notice grammar patterns and check linking and connected speech features.

That’s it 👌 Off we go to week 5, where teaching practice starts.

This week I have on the plate:

✅the first lesson with a pre-intermediate group. ✅ assignment 2 ✅ two live sessions ✅ lesson plans ✅ sweat, tears and a lack of sleep.

But.. I will survive ❤️

We only heal together

Author: @642stories

For: @msrisallaround​

While investigating a seemingly simple and harmless case, Mulder and Scully find themselves in a situation when their reality is anything but real. 

Link Here

#XFDarkfic2022 11/17

Story 27

The X-files fanfiction "We only heal together" 1/3

Read it on AO3

1.

“Are they sleeping?”

“Oh yes, they are.”

“What are they dreaming about?”

“Their worst nightmare.”

----

The “ping” of the elevator car pulled her out of her reverie and as the doors slid open, she was confused to find the basement floor shrouded in darkness. Stepping out of the lift, Scully groped for the switch on the wall but when she flicked it, nothing happened. 

Darkness pervaded. 

At the end of the hallway, their office was beckoning her with its dim shaft of light peeking from under the door, and she moved towards it as if summoned. 

She expected Mulder, the one who didn’t seem to need much sleep and was always up with the sun, to be there. He would probably be starting the second pot of coffee by that time. Always thoughtful, she brought him a blueberry bran muffin for breakfast. A crack about him being the only person in the whole universe leaving the office after nine and coming in around six of his own volition was on the tip of her tongue. She was looking forward to their routine exchange of banter and innuendoes.

As Scully opened the door, the light from the overhead lamps spilt out into the hallway, chasing away the shadows to corners. Spending seven years in that office, she knew it inside out, but that moment she felt like a stranger. It was their office, and yet it wasn’t. Gone was the stale dusty air and little puncture holes on the ceiling from Mulder’s pencils, and even the fluorescent tube lamps blinking constantly as of recently seemed to be changed. There were two mahogany desks facing one another in the center of the room and a potted plant in the corner. Scully didn’t remember ever placing it there. She couldn’t even remember her partner putting in a request for a second desk. 

Mulder himself was nowhere to be seen. In passing, she entertained the idea of Mulder wanting to surprise her thus the desk and all the cleaning. The ludicrous idea her logical mind immediately rejected. It just wasn’t possible. They had left he office together the day before, around lunchtime, grabbed a quick bite in the nearby deli, and headed to investigate another case ending up on a damnably boring stakeout.

There was a lead into what Mulder suspected could be anything from hypnosis to telekinesis to possession. The victims claimed they were made to do terrible things against their will. One guy beat his boss half to death, but couldn’t even remember what induced such aggressive behavior. When he entered the office the next day, ready to come clean in front of everyone and make his colleagues report him to the police, his boss was there, not a scratch on his face. The face allegedly smashed to puree no more than a day before.

“A nightmare,” Scully said unimpressed. “Or wishful thinking. They probably had some beef and their hostility manifested itself in a very realistic dream. Not unheard of.”

“One for two?” It was Mulder’s turn to raise a brow. “The thing is, Scully, both remember everything down to the smallest detail, and claim they did some severe punching and kicking.”

It appeared to be worth the time to talk to the people involved, which eventually shed light on some other facts - a few hours prior to the fight, the company’s employees took part in a one-day team-building seminar conducted by two personal development coaches, who also happened to be a married couple. The agents didn’t get any insights into the case upon interrogating Maria and Sebastian Portaverro, but since their possible suspects were about to carry out another workshop, Mulder and Scully decided to stay close and check the participants afterward.

They were sitting in a car across the building where the Portaverros had an office. No matter how much she tried, Scully couldn’t remember anything that happened during or after that. She remembered being in a car with Mulder, and then she was standing in the elevator. The absurdity of the situation was bugging her -  the changes in the office, the fact that she couldn’t remember getting back home the night before, or even arriving at work in the morning - everything was wrong. A glance at her watch told her that Mulder should have been here hours ago. Where was he? She needed him to help her figure it all out. 

Trying to stay calm and not to spiral into panic, Scully decided to do what she always did best  - collect and analyse the data. Stepping over to what was supposed to be Mulder’s desk, she touched the pristine wooden surface. Instantly she knew that something was wrong. Mulder’s desk was never that clean. There was no junk. It was too tidy. Too not Mulder. The papers were put in an orderly pile, and Mulder never bothered to organize his desk’s contents in such an impeccable manner. Even office paraphernalia was scattered around in a weirdly neat way as if each object was placed in its spot, on purpose. On a whim, Scully pulled open the first drawer and felt her stomach shrivel in dread. There were none of Mulder’s most prized belongings. Not even his ever-present sunflower seeds. Scully was horrified as it sank that the only thing she was familiar with in that office was their all-time favorite full-sized “I want to believe” poster. Did someone violate their office while they were on a stakeout? To what end?

As if out of nowhere something clicked and the room was plunged into darkness. Scully recognized the sound as their old-fashioned projector came to life and started switching slides, changing the images rapidly, lighting and darkening the room in turn. It was them - Mulder and Scully. The photos flicked on the screen like memories in her head. The most significant, valuable, delightful moments of both their lives. Imprisoned by the retrospection playing out on the wall in front of her, Scully stood still, frozen. With each image, she was sent to relive her past sensory experiences all over again.

Click, and she was opening the door and looking at the agent she was assigned to work with. Their first meeting. A mixture of curiosity and caution in his hazel eyes behind the wire-rimmed  glasses.

Click, and they were in Oregon, standing in the graveyard under the rain.

Click. They were in a van and Mulder was dressed in a bulletproof vest handing her his gun.

Click, and they were sitting on the bench in a small town of Home talking about their genetic

makeup and potential parenthood.

Click, and there was a hallway in a hospital in Allentown where their words sounded like a confession. 

Click, and there was another time and other woods somewhere in Florida where she, who couldn’t carry a tune, was singing because Mulder asked her to.

Click, and they were in California, burying the daughter she had never known.

Click. “You’re my one in five billion.”

Click. Another hallway, another greatest wish never granted - their aborted kiss.

Click. He was pleading with her not to make him choose.

Click. Mulder’s high as a kite I-love-you.

Click. A hospital bed. Again. His head was on her hip, her hand was in his hair.

Click, and they were dragging their eyes over each other in the decontamination shower.

Click. She was sobbing in his arms, the floor was stained with her blood.

Click. They were exchanging vows on the threshold of his apartment.

Scully pivoted her back to the screen, unable to take it anymore. What kind of sick joke was that? It felt too much. Too personal. Too them. How was it possible to sum up the history of them so succinctly in a few slides? Who the hell played those tricks on them? Her legs went wobbly and she braced herself against Mulder’s desk.

There was another click and all of a sudden the basement was brightly lit again. Scully made a complete 180 and was face to face with Mulder, his tall figure looming over the entryway. “How long has he been standing there? Did he see that too?” There was an ominous look in his eyes, and a foreboding sense of horror permeated the air, but Scully ignored all of that. This was Mulder. He wouldn’t hurt her. The projector kept clicking the slides but with the light back on, it was nearly impossible to make out the images on the wall.

Trying to pay no heed to a knot of anxiety agitating inside, Scully took a few tentative steps toward her partner. Noticing some lint on his shoulder, she reached out to brush it off when he grabbed her arm harshly. 

“Mulder,” Scully gasped and stopped dead in her tracks at the threat that emanated from Mulder’s demeanor. 

Story #18, that is another CPE article.

The prompt: An international travel organization is publishing a book entitled Travel Changes Lives and has asked for contributions. You decide to submit an article about a travel experience that has changed your life. You should briefly describe the experience, explain what made it so special, and assess the significance of the changes in your life as a result.

****

I was stuck. Not in heavy traffic or at the airport waiting for a layover, but in my life. Suspended between maternity leave one and maternity leave two, with the mantra playing like a broken record in my head: cook, clean, feed, repeat. I swear a ten-hour redeye would be a mix of joyfulness and buoyancy in comparison. So, when my husband asked if I wanted to embark on a solo trip, and despite having barely traveled on my own before, let alone in the middle of winter, I was uplifted by the idea so much that I could fight tooth and nail for it if needed.

Italy was cheap and relatively easy. I whiled away my days eating (amen to Italian food), praying (to Italian gods of food, of course), and loving. I was more full up with love than ever. I learned to love myself again. I woke up so early that the stillness hung over unpeopled avenues and squares, and then strolled down the riddle of streets to a bustling quarter of the city, checking cafes and shops strewn everywhere where my eyes landed. It became my daily routine for three days. Better yet, three lovely days. I was so overjoyed with my newfound self that even a noisy couple in an adjoining room of the hotel, which walls apparently had been made of cardboard, didn’t bother me in the slightest. 

One might think there was nothing special about my getaway, but let me remind the readers about two toddlers left at home, basically tied to me 24/7, and no personal space left. So every minute of that trip was counted, stored away in the memory box, and treasured. I was a walking commercial screaming out loud “good memories are priceless; for everything else there’s Mastercard.” For once, I could put myself first and feel no guilt over my decision. 

Everything good comes to an end, and so did my holiday, which I do not regret in the slightest. Eventually, it was that trip that helped me if not cut, then at least loosen the umbilical cord connecting me to my offspring. The distractive overprotectiveness reframed itself into mentorship and friendship. The kids discovered the kindergarten, and I rediscovered myself as a professional. We still spend plenty of time together as a family but now everyone is given enough space to breathe and explore the world around us.