So then how do we go from love, to being in love. Mulder is able to let go of his need for vengeance and gives himself over to being there for Scully - expressing his love for her is ultimately what helps to bring her back. But it is Melissa Scully who helps him to realise whatвЂ™s important - that he expresses to Scully how he feels, not even through words but just by being there at her side when she needs him most. To avoid these feelings, he becomes so consumed with his own grief and anger that he is willing to sacrifice just about anything to exact revenge. ItвЂ™s not just that he misses her and that he feels responsible for what has happened to her itвЂ™s clearly deeper than that for him - he isnвЂ™t sure he can go on without her. ItвЂ™s not until One Breath, when Scully is returned, that we see the depth of his feelings. That he might well be kissing (and then having sex with) Kristen unconsciously longing for Scully. Think of that the next time you watch that scene in 3. What the sex means in that context, I dunnoвЂ¦ perhaps itвЂ™s just the grief talkingвЂ¦ or perhaps itвЂ™s an expression of longing. He isnвЂ™t seeing her just as a sister figure but as a substitute for Scully. It always intrigued me that, now Samantha and Scully have briefly become conflated in his mind, this is the first and only вЂњSamantha cloneвЂќ that Mulder has a sexual encounter with. Namely by sleeping with the vampire Kristen Kilar that now not only reminds him of Samantha, but Scully as well. In 3 we see him made so vulnerable by the loss that he takes relief anywhere he can find. Scully is taken and Mulder is bereft, he barely functions - doesnвЂ™t sleep and looks like hell. Watching Mulder as he recounts the attack, hearing Scully scream his name still gives me chills. He canвЂ™t bare the thought of losing her this way not just because she is his closest and only friend, but the manner of the loss - itвЂ™s Samantha all over again. In Ascension Mulder doesnвЂ™t even think, he is just solely focused on finding her again. Being apart from her, missing her, makes him realise how much he not only needs her, but enjoyed her company - how much she challenged him - their mental foreplay. I think over the course of season 2 we see that it is indeed love absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. He realises this early on that he needs Scully to balance himself, to keep his feet on the ground. Later, after Scully rescues him and they both return to the FBI, Scully muses that he lost everything once again, and he responds that he still has his work, he still has himselfвЂ¦ He says to the tape recorder that before she came into his life, he couldnвЂ™t trust anyone, and now he can only trust her. He needs her so completely at this point that, when sheвЂ™s not there, he has to create some avatar of her - a way for him to still talk to her - keep her close. He heads off to Aricebo, Puerto Rico, and keeps a voice recording we initially assume are notes heвЂ™s making for himself, but we come to realise heвЂ™s actually talking to Scully. After the X-Files have been closed and he and Scully are split up, Mulder is in crisis.

Mulder realises how important Scully is to him in Little Green Men, the season 2 premiere. The first being when he realises he loves Scully, and then when he realises he is in love with Scully. For him, I think it was a two step process. IвЂ™m finally gonna answer this! Strap yourselves in, this is gonna be a long one, because of course it is.

The x files