10 X-Files Fates Worse Than Death
1. Scully's Ordeal
Because she was due to have her first child in 1994, Gillian Anderson needed to be absent for a handful of episodes and the show's creator, Chris Carter, came up with the solution: let Dana Scully be abducted, rather than recasting the role.
This decision led to a key turning point in Scully's character arc. From there, Scully has been on a shocking journey, having been cruelly experimented on (apparently by aliens), discovering a microchip implanted in her neck, learning of her infertility caused by the experiments conducted on her, being on the cusp of discovering why she was abducted several times, enduring her sister's murder, battling cancer, protecting Mulder on numerous occasions, losing her mother and, miraculously, becoming pregnant both with William (Miles Robbins) and later with another child.
Whilst happiness may lie at the end of the road for both Scully and Mulder, the physical and emotional trials that Scully has endured in protecting Mulder and the X-Files Department (bearing in mind that her original assignment was to debunk them) speak for themselves. She has earned a good rest!