Scully hadn't lost her virginity until she was 22, and she'd only done it then because she was beginning to feel like a freak.
In high school she and her boyfriend Marcus, had meticulously planned out their prom night. They were going to take each other's virginities and he would propose with his grandmother's wedding ring in the morning. Then disaster struck. Her friend's bonfire got out of hand, the fire department came and they had to ride home on the pumper truck. Dana was so grateful about not having to go through with the sex, she realized she had to break up with Marcus. He took it so badly, she didn't attempt to have sex again for four years.
The boyfriend she did the deed with had been older, and for the life of her, she couldn't remember his name anymore. It started with a P, maybe or a B? He had decent hair. That was all he really had going for him though.
P or B had acted so smug about it the next morning, he asked her to squeeze him some orange juice as a thank you. Thank you? She was graduating from medical school in six years instead of eight and she could shoot the flame off a cigarette at fifty yards. She didn't squeeze juice for a man who could only manage three pumps and a slap on the ass after complaining for a half hour about having to wear a condom.
She shoved him out of her dorm room in his underwear as she was breaking up with him, his clothes a sloppy pile spilling from his arms. That's how she'd simultaneously gotten a reputation as an ice queen and a slut. Scully didn't miss her school days.
It wasn't that sex didn't interest her—it did. But she grew up Catholic and overweight. The multiple kinds of shame kept her fearful. Her ambition kept her strapped for time and she found it difficult to develop the level of trust she needed to feel comfortable with a man.
After her smug boyfriend had plucked the bloom from the bush, as her Irish grandmother had so distastefully put it, Dana had fallen in love with a married professor, Dr. Daniel Waterston. Their whole relationship spanned the remainder of her medical school education. Her love affair remained unconsummated, aside from a frantic kiss Daniel forced on her the day she accepted her diploma.
She fled to the FBI Academy against Daniel's wishes, against her father's wishes, her brother's wishes. None of her men wanted to see her going into a life of law enforcement. It would be a waste of her talents, her mind, her pricey, hard-fought medical degree.
At the Academy she met Jack. He was another older man, except he more than approved of her choices; he thought she was brilliant. That was what she'd needed most. Jack had needed her youth to revitalize his self-image. Jack was the first man to ever tell she was beautiful. They fell in love, even though he was basically impotent by the time she found him, a side effect of his untreated diabetes. She saved him in multiple ways; redeeming his ego, diagnosing his illness, rescuing his vascular health. Scully even gave him the confidence to reconcile with his wife. That part had been a punch in the face.
Right after that, she'd met Mulder.
She'd been attracted to him before they met. The reputation was so wild, she had to see his face and then when she did, he really was as handsome as they said. He was the Byronic hero of the basement, all dark hair and flashing eyes. Except he wasn't even remotely scary. She'd been disarmed immediately by his goofiness, his gentle pauses. But the rumors had been right about another aspect of Mulder. She hated to use the word virile—because it made her think of bulls and bald men—but that's what he was. The stacks of porn were one tacky sign that he was a little preoccupied with sex. She'd never met a man who'd been so open about it, though. The women he'd "dated," around the office said he was insatiable until he had a compelling case, then he'd drop off the face of the earth.
He never attempted to cross a line with her, he never made her uncomfortable. His sexuality intimidated her, though he made it fairly easy to ignore.
Mulder altered whatever shape her life would have taken. Her world changed to accommodate the horrors and wonders he revealed to her. She'd become hollow inside, as her life grew around the X-Files. She hadn't thought of it that way until she found out about her cancer. Everything had been part of journey she'd shared with her partner, but now she was going on alone into the darkness. Death would take her and she would have done so little. She'd succumbed to another sexless love affair because it was more comfortable. She didn't have to deal with her own issues or fears.
Ed Jerse came into her life at a perfect moment of weakness.