Story 252: "Six Times Someone Learns About William" by bugsfic
This was recently added to the nomination post by rainatlas and seconded by badforthefish. Written and posted last year for xf_is_love month, this story might have been used as an example of darkfic in our recent discussion. I read it when it was first posted and liked it a lot. It begins well and has an equally strong finish
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First of all, I love this story. I love the structure and how it allows us to view Scully's pregnancy/William's existence through the different lenses. There's so much that's already been said concerning the William arc, and discussing it seems like opening a can of worms. BUT, I think one of the reasons I really enjoyed this story and wanted to discuss it was because it brought so many loose ends together for me that I actually felt soothed by reading it. Plus, it's a canon-compliant fill-in-the-gaps kind of fic and that's my favorite kind. This plot really needed some gaps filled.
This is not exactly literary commentary, but here are some things I love: Part Two - The scene in Maggie’s kitchen. Beautiful. Part Three - John and Monica! Their voices are so strong, I think bugs captured their characters perfectly. Part Four - Floating in and out of the present with Mulder's memories. Love this and reminded me of "Per Manum" but with better details. It also made me feel just a little bit better about Mulder’s grumpiness after coming back from the dead, and his departure after William’s birth. Scully taking the baby straight to the lab before heading home - priceless.
Part Five was totally creepy.
Something else that really struck me about this story and might be worthy of discussion is the religious theme. Of course there are religious themes all throughout The X-Files, especially with the William arc, but it was very much in the forefront here, particularly in Part 6 with Bill Mulder. I’d be interested in hearing other’s reactions and thoughts about this aspect of the story and also this version versus how it played out on screen.
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I will be back with a better comment as soon as I find time to reread this fic, which is quite worth discussing. Now I have to get all my ducks in a row.
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