Post:

Rewatching *The End the other night, and with a bit of distance from its original airing, the Mulder/Diana/Scully dynamics looked a bit different to me than they had initially. Mulder does hesitate to tell Scully about Diana. If Diana had been just a work partner, I don't think he would have had that hesitation (remember, there was Chuck, a former partner, who figures into *Ghost in the Machine, and he shows no hesitation in telling Scully about Chuck.)

But Diana was more than just a work partner; she was a relationship, and a relationship that, from the little snippet of reaction we get from Mulder in One Son, obviously meant something valuable to him. Consider this from his perspective--sans the knowledge that Diana is working for CSM.  What you see is that Mulder found in Diana a kindred spirit, someone who, probably for the first time in his life, didn't laugh in his face at what he believed in. Added to that, she liked him, and this is an experience that Mulder, as an 'other' (INFP--see the Briggs-Meyers stuff) has rarely experienced. Its rarity would have made that connection of even greater value.

Now, if Mulder had no feelings for Scully, he likewise wouldn't have hesitated to say anything to her about Diana, but the fact is, he does, and this is where he finds himself stuck between the rock and the hard place. (How ready would you be to tell someone you'd like to be involved with about past relationships?) Granted, Mulder takes the chicken's way out and leaves Scully to discover the truth on her own, which was obviously devastating for her because it distinctly affected her trust in him. (My feelings about "You are the only one I trust" are that Mulder meant the words when he said them, and that Diana Fowley wasn't even alive in the minds of the writers at that time, so this previous trust is probably a story inconsistency more than anything else.)

I think Mulder continues to want to trust Diana because he needs that connection she has provided, though Scully has, by this time, been his sole confidante for some years. Remember than in *One Son Mulder pushes aside the idea (at the Gunmen's) that Diana has an ulterior agenda, but then he goes right to her apartment to check it out. In the end, he trusts Scully's judgment. As far as *Biogenesis goes, Mulder knows how violently Scully reacts to Diana, so of course he's going to avoid the topic of Diana being at his apartment; it's an obvious point of contention between them. But when she doesn't believe what he tells her and he says, "Then prove me wrong", he's not yelling at her so much as doing what he's learned from years of experience to do: when he finds someone who doesn't believe what he says--which is nearly everybody--he just goes right on with his agenda and keeps looking for the evidence. If he stopped every time someone was skeptical, he would have gotten nowhere. And it's the same challenge he gives Scully here that he does in the Pilot: prove it. If she can prove it, he'll listen. It sounds harsh--the tone is definitely strident--but he's just defending his turf; he's always had to.  A friend and I were talking the other day about anger being a distancing mechanism, and it occurred to me that this may be what Mulder's anger (especially those strident tones he uses with her in some of the early episodes when she questions him--"After all I've seen, I refuse to believe it's not true!") may be an effort to protect himself, to fend off the attack than invariably comes when he presents his beliefs to someone else.

Not to say that more diplomacy on Mulder's part wouldn't be a lot easier on Scully, or more considerate of her; it would. I'm just trying to explain where I think he's coming from, to make sense of his actions and attitude.

I also think women tend to be much more territorial or exclusive when it comes to men than men are about women; they want exclusivity. Scully is naturally taken aback when Diana appears; the immediate question in her mind is, "Where does this leave me?" whereas a guy doesn't think in those terms so much, so he wouldn't be looking at it in the same way. He wouldn't have seen any reason, for instance, to tell Scully about Phoebe Green because she was an old flame and the relationship he has with Scully is professional. Apples and oranges, in Mulder's mind at least.  Not the same, therefore no need to explain himself. I don't think Mulder is dumping out on Scully here.  Certainly, though, Scully gets the bumpier ride.

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