Season 4, Episode 14: “Memento Mori”
Original Airdate: February 9, 1997
Scully has cancer, and Scully is stoic. We wouldn’t expect anything less from her, anything less than a long shot of her studying her own brain, anything less than calmly instructing Mulder as to the nature—and inoperability—of this cancer, without another doctor in sight. Cancer is awful, and difficult, but cancer is not an X-File, so it is up to her to be in charge of it. Still, she must know, when she chooses to tell Mulder first, what his response will be. Not a tear, or an offer to hold her hand through the treatment, but a small smile and, “I don’t accept that.”
[Pick out something black and sexy and prepare to do some funky poaching.]