The Sin-Eater

Fanfiction
Title:	The Sin-Eater
Author(s):	Jane Mortimer
Date(s):	1996
Length:
Genre(s):	MSR
Fandom(s):	The X-Files
Relationship(s):
External Links:	The Sin-Eater (author's page via Wayback Machine) The Sin-Eater (IOHO) earlier copy
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The Sin-Eater is an MSR story by Jane Mortimer featuring a time-travel plot in which Scully disappears, only to return years later with no consciousness that time had passed. Mulder, in the interim, has made numerous and severe moral compromises in his efforts to find her and, when she returns, to protect her from exploitation. Dark, but also powerfully romantic in its expression of the depths to which Mulder would go for Scully.

Recs and Reviews

1998

On the subject of angst, I'd like to recommend an older story that has always stuck with me as one of the most unique and interesting pieces I have ever read. This one won't take you too long to get through, and I cannot encourage you to read it enough. It is called "Sin Eater".

1999

Sin Eater by Jane Mortimer stayed with me long after I've finished reading it. I kept wondering what happened with Mulder when he opened the door... wait, am I giving up the plot here? Just read it - rest assured it's great.

2008

This was one of the first XF stories I ever read, and it shaped me profoundly. Scully experiences a strange event on an investigation and Mulder is changed by it. Scully’s slow realization of just how much he’s changed is chilling.

2009

Last month, when I was going through the past recs for The X-Files at crack_van in preparation for my turn "driving the van," I was startled to realize that "The Sin Eater" was not on the list. As good as it is, and often as it has been recced elsewhere, I would have thought that everyone would have read it by now, but then a friend, who has been in the fandom since the fourth season, told me she had just read it recently, so this is apparently not the case. Not only is it a classic science fiction story, complete with time travel and alternative history, it is also a brilliant character study of Mulder, told from Scully's point of view, which illustrates just how much he would give up in order to save his partner's life. Though written in 1997, which certainly qualifies it for Fandom Classic status, there is a very contemporary feel to the writing.