The What If Challenge

Many months ago, in what feels like another lifetime, I got bored waiting for a meeting to begin. Remember meetings? The kind in person, not on Zoom? Anyway…while waiting for that meeting I began working on this challenge and then promptly lost it. But now it’s found :)

Select one of the following what ifs and write a fic that includes the given scenario in your story.

1. She’d been missing for three long years. It had been so long that in other circumstances people would be forgiven for assuming that she was dead. S/he might have as well… if not for the fact that s/he had come home two years to the day of the abduction and discovered a blanket wrapped toddler sitting on the couch. A DNA test proved the child to be hers. A year later it happened again when an infant was left in the apartment.

Note: “she” might be any female X-Files character should you not wish to write it as being about Scully, and your not-abducted character can be any other X-Files character (including Scully should the abductee not be her)

2. Maggie Scully discovered that she was pregnant five hours after she buried Bill senior. It took her seven weeks before she was able to tell [Dana, Missy, Bill junior, and/or Charlie].

Note: While it of course can, it does not need to end happily

3. The night that Alex Krycek died, his child was three years old and didn’t have their father to protect them anymore. They came for the child almost immediately, but the child’s mother fought back.

4. When Scully was seven months pregnant, she got a call she always half anticipated and half dreaded: a child who ended up in the hands of social services was unequivocally proven to also be hers.

Note: set the story during season eight, after season eleven, or craft a non-canon pregnancy as suits you

5. At the back of Mulder and Scully’s mind there was always a small doubt that Jackson was really dead. The eventual discovery of a grandchild convinced them that they were right to wonder.

I’m not sure how you would, but if you think of a way to combine two or more of these what ifs, do feel free to!

Please submit your story or the link to it to nurseryfiles@mulderscreek.com or post on our submissions Tumblr