Fic Recs: 2x06 Ascension

[wendelah1]

I love season two, almost as much as season one, and this is one of my favorite episodes of the season. Even though this is when the bad stuff starts happening to Scully, I love the abduction arc. Making Scully an abductee gives her a reason to commit to working on the X-Files apart from her loyalty to Mulder. It deepens and enriches her character, and does the same thing for The X-Files universe. It’s a good creative move by the writers.

I have fic recs: a couple of post-eps, an AU, a horror story AU, and one masterpiece.

The Soft Embalmer (5310 words) by Scarlet
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Dana Scully
Additional Tags: Angst
Summary: It's Sunday, Dana.

"The Soft Embalmer" is, hands down, the best story written for the abduction arc, period. I can't imagine a better one. Scarlet didn't use any keywords or spoilers because she didn't want to give anything away. If you only have time to read one post-ep for "Ascension," make it this one. It is a masterpiece.

Ascension (1014 words) by leiascully
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Margaret Scully, Alex Krycek
Additional Tags: Episode Related, Abduction, Alien Abduction
Series: Part 32 of The FBI's Most Unwanted
Summary: There was a hole in the world and it was shaped like Dana Scully.

This is an excellent post-ep for "Ascension," maybe the best—so far—of her series.

Life in Technicolor Flashback (740 words) by Jintian
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Alex Krycek, Fox Mulder
Summary: A brief detour through Krycek's thoughts. Set during "Ascension."

Jintian has written a fine character study of Alex Krycek.

Blue Girl by L'il Gusty
Rated NC-17 | 18K | Category SA | Archived 03-07-26
Spoilers: Ascension
Keywords: None
Summary: Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every, every minute? -- 'Our Town' by Thornton Wilder

This is what all summaries were like in the olden days, x-files fic fans. "Blue Girl" is an AU. Dana Scully is returned. When she wakes up from her coma, she discovers that it's 2003. Nine years have passed since she disappeared from Skyland Mountain. I read this a number of years ago, and I remember liking it a lot.

ADDED TO SAY: I just finished rereading "Blue Girl" and all of the warnings at AO3 apply here except major character death. It's a good, well-written story but it's not for the faint of heart.

Lethe (4742 words) by DiscordantWords
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The X-Files
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Dana Scully, Samantha Mulder
Summary: "Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state. Yes, it can even, in the twinkling of an eye, make something like a vagabond of the pedant and philistine. Time, we say, is Lethe; but change of air is a similar draught, and, if it works less thoroughly, does so more quickly."
- Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

"Lethe" is a beautifully written story by one of my favorite writers. It's set in between "Ascension" and "One Breath," in a dream-like rendition of the testing place. Samantha is there and so is Dana Scully.