Dana Scully - Character Arc

Character Arc

Dana Katherine Scully was born on February 23, 1964, to William and Margaret Scully, into a close-knit Catholic family. She has an older brother, Bill Jr., an older sister, Melissa, and a younger brother, Charles, who is never seen on the show except in flashbacks. Scully's father was a Navy Captain, who died of a heart attack in early January 1994. Dana Scully grew up in Annapolis, Maryland and later in San Diego, California. As a young girl, Scully's favorite book was Moby-Dick and she came to nickname her father "Ahab" from the book, and in return, he called her "Starbuck." Due to this she named her dog Queequeg.

Scully attended The University of Maryland, and received a B.S. degree in Physics. Her undergraduate thesis was titled Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation. Scully earned her M.D. medical degree from Stanford University. While in medical school she was recruited by the FBI; she accepted the agency's offer of employment because she felt she could distinguish herself there. Upon being partnered with Fox Mulder, she maintained her medical skills by acting as a forensic pathologist, often performing or consulting on autopsies of victims on X-Files cases.

In the second season Scully is kidnapped by an ex-FBI mental patient named Duane Barry, and is then taken from Barry by a military covert operation that were working with the alien conspirators, but is later returned. In the third season she finds out that a super hi-tech microchip was implanted in the back of her neck. After having it removed, she developed cancer in the fourth season.

She is hospitalized after her cancer becomes terminal. She is saved when Mulder breaks into the Department of Defense to retrieve another chip to be implanted back into her neck. It should be mentioned that, at the time, Scully was also undergoing experimental medical treatments and was having a dramatic renewal of her faith.

After being pronounced infertile in the fifth season, Scully mysteriously became pregnant in the show's seventh season finale, "Requiem". The child, named William, after her own father, as well as Mulder's father, was born at the end of the eighth season. The cause of her pregnancy is never formally revealed; however the most probable of theories is that Mulder fathered the child, as growing intimacy in the later portion of the series implies a sexual relationship between the two (season 7 episode "All Things" is seen as proof due to its opening scene, though the remainder of the episode takes place prior to the opening scene, and the closing scene can also be interpreted as proof against this). Also, in the film, X-Files: I Want to Believe, Mulder calls William "our son." Beyond this, the pair had unsuccessfully tried for a child through in vitro fertilization. It was around this time that Mulder was fired from the FBI by Deputy Director Alvin Kersh, and Scully left the field to teach forensics at Quantico. William was given up for adoption during the end of the ninth season after Scully felt she could no longer provide the safety that William needed. William was a "miracle child", of some importance to the alien Conspiracy. He demonstrated extraordinary powers, including telekinesis.

In The X-Files: I Want to Believe she is shown working as a Medical Doctor at the Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital in Virginia. Early on in the film Scully is contacted by the FBI who are looking for Fox Mulder in the hope that he will assist them with the investigation of a missing FBI agent. In exchange for his help the charges against him will be dropped. Unlike Mulder, Scully was apparently not considered a fugitive by the FBI. However, she did continue to maintain her romantic relationship with Mulder throughout the six years that he was on the run from the American government. In the movie they are shown to be living together in a secluded house.