logo The X-Files Wiki

   News   Series   Episodes   Movies   Books   Photos   Stars   Characters   Fanfics   Music   Home Videos   Games   Aliatope   Locations   Mythology   Sites   Forums   
Login Join

I Want to Believe

2008
Fight the Future
I Want to Believe banner
I Want to Believe poster

 WRITTEN BY

Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz

 DIRECTED BY

Chris Carter

 RELEASED ON

Thursday July 24, 2008

 VIEWS

471

 LAST UPDATE

2024-09-29 18:03:54

 PAGE VERSION

Version 19

 LIKES

2

 SUMMARY



 STARRING

David Duchovny David Duchovny Fox Mulder
Gillian Anderson Gillian Anderson Dana Scully

 STORY



 BEHIND THE SCENES

 DVD/BLU-RAY COMMENTARY

 PLAYLIST



 QUOTES

Mulder: I'm fine here. Happy as a clam.





 REVIEWS

Pike

Horrible movie 😭

Written by Pike on 2008-07-24
★

Today is July 24, 2008. I am currently in an Internet cafe in the middle of Manhattan, writing this review on a super slow computer attached to a small white box in which I have to put dollar bills. Last night, at precisely midnight, I have watched the new X-Files movie. I have waited for this movie for six years. Six long years which ended up last night. Time to put it on paper, well... onto the screen.

X-PHILES REUNION
The excitement was palpable, as some of us, X-Philes, met in New York to watch the film at 12:01am!
We first met at 8:30pm in front of Borders Books on 34th street by Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. I was wearing a nice black shirt. It was hot. A summer in New York – and we were ready to see a movie with... snow! That's refreshing.
After meeting some friendly fellow Philes, we entered the movie theater, the AMC Loews on 34th Street.

WHAT DID I THINK?
I truly think that you can learn much more from an art form by tasting its worse part than its best. For instance, if you read a great book, you will find everything great and will have a sense of closure. Try to reproduce it? It will be damn hard.
But if you stop and read a very bad written book, you will instantly see the things that should have been done differently. This is true in literature, in music and especially in movies.
Let me go straight to the point. Friends, I am very sad to write that "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" is unfortunately such example of movies to its worst. There are so many bad things in this film that I almost don't want to start, as I have great respect for the cast and crew that worked on this film. But I think a good review is about being honesty. So let me be honest.
I Want to Believe is one of the worst films I have ever seen. I have seen thousands and thousands of movies and this is one of the worse movies of my entire life. I cannot be clearer than that.

STORY
The trailer gave the impression that there was a big mystery hidden under the snow. And Father Joe was helping the FBI to find this place. "It's here. It's heeere!", would he repeat. I instantly thought it was a brilliant idea. Imagine my deception were all there was was emptiness.
What was the paranormal element of the story? An what was the story anyway? Do you imagine the audience leaving the movie theater and saying "Oh my, what a great story!"
Meanwhile, I remember when Scully was an intelligent character. In this film, when she is doing researches on Stem-cell research, I just felt very bad for her...

Scary movie
The light was pretty cool, but there was no atmosphere at all during the all film. For months, Chris Carter kept saying "This is a good-old scary movie." Well, I was far more scared during the previews just before the movie than during the 1h40 of TXF2. The only moments that should have been scary are so badly done that it wasn't scary at all. On the contrary, it felt very disturbing, in a pathetic way.

Disturbing
And yes, this film felt very disturbing. For instance, the George W. Joke was simply out of context. We're talking about art, here. Not some random popcorn movie with lame jokes inside of it.
Remember the first seasons? Just compare any episodes from the first 6 seasons with this one... You get the point.
Then, the theology aspect of the movie is just completely bad and also wrong. And I won't say that I found the movie homophobic, but that aspect of the film was also totally dumb.
It was a time when Carter and Spotnitz could talk about disturbing subjects and find those subjects a right place into the mythology of the show.
For instance, in "Paper Clip" and in "Nisei"/"731", they used the Holocaust to tell a science fiction story with aliens and spaceships... It could have easily become something very silly and unappropriate. But they did it in a marvellous way and in the end, in a very powerful and even very emotional way (remember when Scully almost cried in the camp? it was very moving).
Same thing when our friendly bros. wrote "Home", the most disturbing thing I've ever seen on tv (and Kim Manner's favourite episode)! But it was done in a great way too! And there even were some great shipper scenes and humour in it!

On the other hand, we have IWTB, dealing with pedophiles AND homosexuals. The script mixes those two elements and unintentionally implies that one leads to another.

Let's take the "pedophile camp" sequence. The way of filming it and the script made that scene completely grotesque. But, on the other hand, it was something that I'm sure none of us had ever heard. A pedophile camp? Wow! So that's a good point! Something original on which we can have a thinking on it. And it could have been well done. Actually, when I first learned that Billy Connolly's character was a pedophile, I thought it could be a good idea. Not because I enjoy thinking of seeing a pedophile character, but because I thought "Damn! Chris Carter has some balls and will try to write a disturbing story!"
But that first pedophile sequence was done in a very heavy way. There is nothing delicate about it. And it's bad from the very first second. Indeed, Scully is directly putting her morality face. We can understand that she is reticent to see him (and even more if we know that he's a priest and that she's a religious woman). But a simple little strange look on her face would have been far more than enough. Instead, she just jumps on him, telling him that he's a bad guy because he slept with little children. We don't need her to understand that.
Then, a few seconds later, the cheap "philosophy" starts. That's the worst part of it. Nothing was built first.

And it's the exact same thing for the homosexual aspect. We could argue about this, since this is kind of a surprise. But it went completely flat! When you see the woman's hand on the bald russian, you aren't surprised in a good way, like "Wow! I didn't expect that! That's a good plot twist here!". Instead, you just go "What?!" and the more you see, the more dumb it feels.
And again, from that point in the movie, nothing is built about homosexuality either. So you just see the guy crying over his boyfriend during the final experiment and that's it.

So, in the end, I find the writing very immature. Maybe this comes from the time constraint, maybe not. But whatever the reasons were, the result is here, or should I say, is heeeeeere. Everyone can talk about about homosexuality, racism, pedophilia, raping, etc. But if you do, you have to do it in a decent and intelligent way. Whatever it is a horror movie or a comedy. Remember "La Vita È Bella"? Writing a comedy that is taking place in a jewish death camp during WWII... That's not something you can do without having some balls and writing and rewriting and rewriting until you have a really good script.

And I'm not the uptight kind of guy that is offensed by everything. I could even see a movie about Krycek raping Scully (private joke inside). But in the end, it should be done in an intelligent way, not in a bold way like it is the case in IWTB.

This movie tries to do everything and in the end does nothing at all.

Gillian/David
There was one good aspect though. Gillian Anderson is an amazingly talented actress and gives a very good and really intelligent performance. David Duchovny was also very good. They were still Mulder and Scully and that praised chemistry was still there.
Then, I've never liked the acting of Amanda Peet, and this movie isn't an exception.

Billy Connolly
Connolly is a great actor, but not in I Want to Believe. I don't think it's his fault though. His lines were so bad that he had almost no material at all to help him.

For the fans
What does "for the fans" means? If that means throwing plenty of dull references, well, Chris and Frank succeeded it. The is the ninth season syndrom all over again. And I'm afraid to say that, but season 9 was really good, compared to that film. It was as if Chris was thinking "let's putting them into bed and the fans will like it..."

The music
I have nothing to say about the music. There were a few good seconds there, but that was it. Suddenly, I heard a theme from Fight the Future, and I just felt bad because that was a great film! Indeed, when I first saw "Fight the Future" in 1998, I left the movie theater being really exstatic. FTF was PURE GOLD, compared to this one.

In the end, Chris Carter had everything in his hands. A nice budget (yes, 35 millions is really enough), some great actors (Gillian, David, Billy Connolly), the amazing landscapes from Pemberton, and... six years to think about it. I have the feeling that Chris did nothing for 5 years and then wrote a script really quickly because of the WGA strike. This is a shame. And I don't see how this movie will succeed on the box-office.
And I am so disappointed, because Mulder and Scully were back! Duchovny and Anderson were so good together! There were sparks when they were together and it felt so good to see them again. But their characters were just thrown into the emptiness of a very bad script.

So, I just got three minutes left. Time to give it a note... And I'm very sad to say this, but the note I give it is 1 out of 5.
___________________________________________

Gruic

Bad story for a beautiful photography

Written by Gruic on 2018-05-22
★ ★ ★

A lot of things works very well on this film. The photography of Bill Roe is amazing for a superb spot.
Mark Snow composed a lot of great songs. I love "The trip to DC", very strong. And the ending theme is outstanding.

BUT Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz did a shitty job. Spotnitz fanservice lover + Religious Chris Carter = a very very bad result.

So sad.
___________________________________________

 TRANSCRIPT

SCENE 1
SOMERSET, WEST VIRGINIA
10:23 P.M.
[A woman drives her car down a narrow road that has snow banks on either side. Elsewhere, a group of FBI agents are searching a flat, snow-covered area, using long poles to probe through the snow. The woman turns her car into a driveway and into the garage. A dog inside the house barks. The FBI agents, under the command of Special Agent in Charge Whitney and Special Agent Drummy, continue to probe the snow.]

DRUMMY: Keep it straight! Come on, straight.

[Ahead of the agents are some dog handlers. In front of them is a man, Father Joe, who has long hair and wears a dark overcoat. Back in the garage, the woman, Monica Bannan, switches off the headlights. She is wearing a metal bracelet. A figure moves in the shadows at the entrance to the garage. The search in the snow continues.]

WHITNEY: Give him room.

DRUMMY: Hold the line, gentlemen! Look left! Look right! Hold the line!

[Father Joe scans the ground ahead.]

FATHER JOE: It's here. It's here.

[In the garage, Monica Bannan calls to her dog.]

BANNAN: Hey, calm down, buddy. Hey.

[She starts to close the garage door then notices someone's breath in the cold air just outside. Then she sees a footprint in the snow overlying her wheel tracks. Back at the search, Father Joe runs forward.]

WHITNEY: Let him go. Let him go! Let him go!

[Monica Bannan, picks up a spiked garden hoe from its place on the wall. She moves forward and as the figure moves in front of her she brings it down on to his face. He brings up his arm and she slashes it with the hoe. Another man then appears. At the search, Agent Whitney calls out to the FBI team.]

WHITNEY: Let him go. Let him go.

[Father Joe is running further ahead from the searchers. At the garage, Monica Bannan runs to the back of the garage and out of a side door. The men follow her and she runs away into the trees.]

WHITNEY: Easy, easy. Let him go! Let him go, let him go.

[The intruders catch Monica Bannan and tackle her to the ground. Father Joe falls to his knees and starts to dig in the snow.]

FATHER JOE: Here. Here, it's here.

[He is joined by Agent Whitney and they both quickly scoop away the snow. Then other agents join in and they find a piece of black plastic covering a severed arm. There are marks on the arm, the same as on the arm of the intruder at Monica Bannan's house.]




SCENE 2
OUR LADY OF SORROWS HOSPITAL
8:25 A.M.
[Scully is standing in a conference room with other people sat at the conference table. Scully is speaking with a specialist via a video conference link.]

SPECIALIST: I've gone over the charts you've sent and consulted another pediatric neurologist who works with me here. We're alarmed by two things.

SCULLY: The deficiency in lipid metabolism and the severely diminished enzyme output.

SPECIALIST: Right. That's exactly right.

SCULLY: Both indicate lysosomal storage illness.

SPECIALIST: You're the boy's primary physician, Dr....

SCULLY: Scully. Dana Scully.

SPECIALIST: And you tested his lysosome function?

SCULLY: I think you have all my results there, doctor. My fear is that it's a type 2 degenerative brain disease like Sandhoff disease and his enzymes aren't clearing the lipids from his brain, causing atrophy.

SPECIALIST: If you suspect Sandhoff disease, I'd test the boy's levels of hexosaminidase.

[A priest enters the conference room.]

SCULLY: I've done that. What I'm looking for here, doctor, is a course of treatment.

SPECIALIST: There is no treatment for Sandhoff. If there were, I'm sure you'd tell me.

[Scully is upset with this response. She nods and sees a priest, Father Ybarra, who has been watching her closely.]

[Scully walks down a corridor, passing nuns in traditional clothing. She sees a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Fearon, pushing their son Christian in a wheelchair. She goes up to them and smiles at the boy.]

SCULLY: Hi, Christian. How are you feeling?

CHRISTIAN: Okay, Dr. Scully. How are you?

SCULLY: Me, well I'm doing just fine, thank you.

MR. FEARON: You got some outside opinions?

SCULLY: Yes. We're going to do some more tests.

[Agent Drummy walks up to them.]

DRUMMY: Dana Scully? Dr. Scully, I'm looking for Fox Mulder.

SCULLY: Excuse me.

[Scully walks over to him.]

DRUMMY: Special Agent Drummy with the FBI.

SCULLY: I can guess who you're with.

DRUMMY: The FBI urgently needs to speak with Fox Mulder.

SCULLY: I don't work with Fox Mulder any longer. I don't work with the FBI.

DRUMMY: Well, if you could contact him, it might just save the life of an FBI Agent.

[Later, Scully drives down a country road and turns into a lane blocked by a metal gate. She opens this and continues driving up the long track to a house. She enters the house, into a cluttered living room. She undoes her coat, then goes into another room which has press cuttings all over the walls. Mulder is sat at a desk with his back to her.]

MULDER: What's up, doc?

SCULLY: You've become awfully trusting Mulder, for a man wanted by the FBI.

MULDER: Eyes in the back of my head, Scully. "Auf einer WellenlÀnge", as the Germans say. It's a precognitive state often confused with simple human intuition, in which the brain perceives the deep logic underlying transitory human existence, unaided by the conscious mind, materializing much as you did just now. Though if you'd actually materialized, you'd be rapidly de-materializing. But who believes that crap anymore?

[Mulder has been cutting out another newspaper article. Then he stands and faces her, smiling. He's dressed in casual clothes, and has a beard.]

SCULLY: Well, they do at the FBI apparently. I had a visitor today, Mulder. The FBI want your help finding a missing agent.

[Mulder pins the newspaper article, "Princeton closes ESP lab after 40 years of paranormal study" on the board next to his I Want To Believe poster.]

MULDER: Well, I hope you told them go screw themselves.

SCULLY: They say all is forgiven. That they'll drop all charges against you if you come in and help them solve this case.

MULDER: The FBI will forgive me. They put me on trial on bogus charges and tried to discredit a decade of my work, they should be asking me for my forgiveness, Scully.

SCULLY: I think they are. Desperately.

MULDER: How can I possibly help these people?

[Mulder sits down.]

SCULLY: Someone's come forward with some promising evidence. A psychic, he claims.

MULDER: It's a trick, Scully, to smoke me out.

SCULLY: Mulder, if the FBI wanted to get you, I have no doubt that they could. I think they've just been happy to have you out of their hair.

MULDER: Oh good, because I am just as happy having them out of mine.

SCULLY: A young agent's life is at stake. Mulder, I know I don't have to say this , but it could have been you once, or me. You know, the truth is, I worry about you, and the effects of long-term isolation.

[Mulder chuckles.]

MULDER: I'm fine here. Happy as a clam.

[Mulder eats a sunflower seed. Scully looks up at the ceiling which has many pencils embedded in it.]

SCULLY: I'll tell them your answer.

[She leaves the room. Mulder looks at the closed door on which there are many press cuttings, plus a photograph of young Samantha.]

MULDER: Shit.

[He opens the door.]

MULDER: Okay, I'll go. Under one condition.

[Scully sighs. ]

[A helicopter. Mulder holds open the door for Scully. After they are both seated inside, the helicopter takes off.]




SCENE 3
WASHINGTON, D.C.
9:24 P.M.
[The helicopter lands on a rooftop. Agent Drummy is waiting, alone. Mulder and Scully get out of the helicopter, and Mulder goes over to Agent Drummy.]

MULDER: Thanks for the lift.

DRUMMY: Don't thank me. I didn't send it.

[They follow Agent Drummy into the building. They walk down a hallway to a closed door.]

DRUMMY: Wait here.

[He swipes his ID card through a reader and goes into the room, leaving Mulder and Scully outside. A female agent walks down the hallway, glancing at Mulder who stares at. She looks remarkably like a grown-up Samantha. Mulder and Scully look at a photograph of George W. Bush, then one of J. Edgar Hoover. Drummy emerges from another door.]

DRUMMY: Come in.

[They go into the conference room, where there are a number of agents. Drummy goes over to Agent Whitney who is talking to another agent.]

DRUMMY: Excuse me. They're here.

[Whitney walks over to Mulder and Scully.]

WHITNEY: Thanks for making this happen. I'm Special Agent in Charge Whitney.

SCULLY: Dana Scully.

WHITNEY: Fox Mulder, I believe. I know this is awkward but welcome back. My team and I appreciate your trust.

MULDER: Trust being what it is, what if I can't help you? Or your agent turns up dead?

WHITNEY: The past is the past. I know your work on X-Files cases and believe you may be the best change Monica Bannan has now.

[She hands the case file to Mulder.]

SCULLY: How long as she been missing?

WHITNEY: Since Sunday evening. Almost three days.

SCULLY: I know you know this, but after 72 hours there's a slim chance that she's still alive.

WHITNEY: We have some reason to believe she is. But so far we've got no evidence to the contrary and the facts give us hope. Soon after she was missing, we find this. A severed arm.

[She shows them some photographs.]

MULDER: Where?

WHITNEY: About ten miles from her home.

SCULLY: I don't understand. It's a man's arm.

MULDER: Is it a match for evidence found at or near the crime scene? Blood or tissue?

WHITNEY: Blood. Found in her garage and on the tool that matches the wound.

MULDER: I take it you were led to it.

WHITNEY: Like a needle in a haystack.

MULDER: By someone claiming psychic powers.

WHITNEY: Joseph Fitzpatrick Crissman.

MULDER: And you think he's full of shit.

DRUMMY: What makes you say that?

MULDER: Psychic.

DRUMMY: Father Joe...

SCULLY: Father? He was a priest?

DRUMMY: Catholic. He cold-called six hours after Monica Bannan was reported missing, claiming a vision of her, a psychic connection.

MULDER: And he tells you she's alive.

DRUMMY: That's right.

MULDER: Have you found any other connection?

DRUMMY: To Monica Bannan?

WHITNEY: No. That's why I sent for you. I need to know we're not wasting time.

MULDER: He's a religious man, clearly educated man. He took right action, said nothing to cast doubt upon himself, has no material connection to the crime. You are wasting time, only it's mine and your agents'.

WHITNEY: There's a question of credibility.

MULDER: If you have no reason to doubt the man, why doubt the man's visions?

DRUMMY: He didn't lead us to Monica Bannan. He gave us a guy's bloody arm in the snow.

MULDER: This is not an exact science. If it were me, I'd be on the guy 24/7, I'd be in bed with him kissing his holy ass.

[The FBI agents murmur.]

WHITNEY: Father Joe's a convicted pedophile.

[Mulder isn't quite sure what to say.]

MULDER: Maybe I'd stay out of bed with him.




SCENE 4
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
1:01 A.M.
[The two agents and Mulder and Scully arrive outside at a housing complex.]

SCULLY: What is this?

WHITNEY: Dorms for habitual sex offenders.

SCULLY: Dorms?

WHITNEY: They manage the complex and police themselves. Father Joe lives here voluntarily with his room-mate.

MULDER: Just avoid the activities room.

[The two women glare at him, as Mulder grins. Inside one of the apartments, there's a knock at the door. A man who is cooking answers the door.]

MAN: Joe?

FATHER JOE: Tell them to come in.

[The four enter as Joe's room-mate moves to one side. There is music coming from a black-and-white TV in a bedroom containing a double bed. In room leading off from the bedroom, Father Joe is kneeling, saying his prayers.]

DRUMMY: Father Joe?

[Father Joe, wearing a dressing gown, stands up and walks into the bedroom.]

FATHER JOE: Excuse the mess. I haven't been sleeping.

DRUMMY: Father Joe, this is Fox Mulder.

FATHER JOE: Okay.

DRUMMY: He'd like to ask some questions.

SCULLY: Actually, I'd like to ask something. What was it you were praying for in there, sir?

FATHER JOE: For the salvation of my immortal soul.

SCULLY: And you think God hears your prayers?

FATHER JOE: Do you think he hears yours?

SCULLY: I didn't bugger thirty-seven altar boys.

FATHER JOE: Oh.

[He sits on the bed.]

MULDER: That's a colorful way of putting it.

SCULLY: I have another word, if you like.

MULDER: I'm sure you do.

FATHER JOE: I have to believe he does hear me, or why would he send these visions?

SCULLY: Maybe it's not God doing the sending.

MULDER: You call them visions. You see them?

FATHER JOE: They're what you might call my mind's eye.

MULDER: What do you see?

[Father Joe picks up a cigarette and lights it.]

FATHER JOE: I see the poor girl being assaulted. See her putting up a fight. I hear dogs barking.

WHITNEY: Where?

FATHER JOE: Can't tell.

MULDER: But you see her alive.

FATHER JOE: No, but I feel that she is.

MULDER: Can you show us how you do it?

[Father Joe puts down his cigarette, closes his eyes and concentrates.]

FATHER JOE: I don't know that I can do this right now. Maybe it'd be better if she wasn't here.

[He indicates Scully.]

SCULLY: Maybe what you see is a way to try and make people forget what it is that you really are.

[Scully walks out. Mulder stares at him intently. Scully is outside the apartment looking through a folder. Joe's room-mate emerges and Scully stares at him as he makes his way downstairs. She jumps as a hand touches her shoulder.]

SCULLY: Jesus, Mulder.

MULDER: So much for kissing his holy ass.

SCULLY: I'm sorry. I've had too long away from this business. Or not long enough.

MULDER: No, you were good in there. All I had were questions. But you pushed him, you challenged him. Like old times.

SCULLY: Well, he's a creep, and a liar. He knows who did this and they're supplying him with information. And look where he lives. And this arm they found - it wasn't severed in any fight, it was cut cleanly, chopped off. And tell me how he's been able to lead them straight to it and not even muster a guess as to where the victim is? And two things you're going to find in the next 24 hours - a dead agent and that this guy, Father Joe, is a big fat fraud.

MULDER: You could be right, Scully. You could be right. But what if you're wrong?

[Drummy opens the apartment, as Joe is putting on his coat and scarf.]

SCULLY: What are you doing?

MULDER: Going to take him for a ride, see just how psychic this Father Joe really is.

SCULLY: Yeah, well, it's been fun.

[She starts walking away.]

MULDER: Scully. Nobody's going to make you sit next to him.

SCULLY: Thanks, but I've already been taken for a ride. Anyway, he doesn't want me there.

[She walks down the steps and he follows.]

MULDER: I want you here.

SCULLY: This isn't my life anymore, Mulder. I'm done chasing monsters in the dark. I think you've done all they've asked of you here too. You know, no-one says you have to stay here.

MULDER: These people need my help. I could really use yours.

[He holds out another case file. Reluctantly she takes it and walks to the car.]




SCENE 5
SOMERSET, WESTERN VIRGINIA
5:02 A.M.
[The FBI vehicles drive down a snow-laden track. Joe is dozing next to Mulder in the back. The vehicle goes over a bump and he wakes up.]

FATHER JOE: Are we getting warm?

WHITNEY: You tell us.

[Whitney is in the front passenger seat, Drummy is driving.]

FATHER JOE: I don't know I have a clue where we are.

MULDER: That's all right. Everybody works differently.

FATHER JOE: Who are you - the good cop?

MULDER: I'm the non-cop.

{He holds out Monica Bannan's FBI photo ID card.]

FATHER JOE: I don't know this girl. This Agent Bannan of yours. I haven't a clue of the connection.

MULDER: There's always something, however small.

FATHER JOE: And who made you the expert?

MULDER: I once investigated a series of cases involving unexplained phenomena for the FBI.

FATHER JOE: So you believe in these sort of things?

MULDER: Let's just say I want to believe.

DRUMMY: And his sister was abducted by E.T.

FATHER JOE: Is that true?

MULDER: It was a long time ago.

FATHER JOE: She's dead, isn't she, your sister?

[Mulder doesn't answer. He takes Monica Bannan's ID and looks at it. Whitney glances at him. Then Joe leans forward.]

FATHER JOE: This is where she was taken - your agent - this is where she was attacked.

MULDER: I want him to see the crime scene.

[They pull into a driveway and get out of the cars. Joe walks towards the garage then stops.]

FATHER JOE: No, this isn't right. You've brought me to the wrong house.

[Joe walks back down the drive.]

MULDER: Pulled that right out of his ass.

[Drummy walks after Father Joe who has now walked onto the road. He approaches the house opposite, where there is yellow crime scene tape around the garage. He goes into the garage and looks around. Whitney indicates to Drummy to follow him.]

WHITNEY: There were news crews out here covering the scene, pictures of the neighborhood. He could've recognized it all from TV.

[Mulder and Whitney go round the outside of the house.]

MULDER: Yeah, but, why?

WHITNEY: Why?

MULDER: Why do it? Why go to such great lengths to create such an elaborate fiction.

WHITNEY: Expiation. Forgiveness of his sins. He's written dozens of letters to the Vatican pleading re-engagement with the church.

MULDER: A rather odd way to impress the Holy See.

WHITNEY: The voice of God speaking through a man - I think that's been a winner a few times.

[At the back of the house, Father Joe is walking towards the woods, Drummy watching him.]

MULDER: So you think he's guilty too, huh?

WHITNEY: We have to consider him a suspect.

MULDER: But you found no connection to the crime.

WHITNEY: Don't think my guys have stopped looking, and they think they're going to find Monica.

MULDER: But you don't, or I wouldn't be here.

WHITNEY: Yeah, I'm not the most popular girl at the FBI right now for calling you in, believe me.

MULDER: I wasn't exactly Miss Popularity at the FBI myself.

WHITNEY: But you've dealt with psychics before. Luther Lee Boggs, Clyde Bruckman, Gerald Schnauz - I went through those cases and that work was extremely impressive.

MULDER: Yeah, well. I'm only half the team.

WHITNEY: But it's your insights I need.

[They see Father Joe sink to his knees in the snow. They rush over to him.]

FATHER JOE: She ran away. She tried to escape. There were two men. Well, she couldn't. He pushed her down, it was here, it was right here, and then they put in the back.

WHITNEY: Where?!

FATHER JOE: In the car - no - it was a truck, a truck with something on it.

WHITNEY: We have to find her!

FATHER JOE: She's in pain, great, great pain.

WHITNEY: Tell me where!

FATHER JOE: I don't know. I can't see.

WHITNEY: We need to find her!

FATHER JOE: I can't see.

[Drummy doesn't believe this.]

DRUMMY: Because he's pulling it out of his ass.

[He walks off. Mulder and Whitney look down at Joe who is weeping. They blood spots on the snow.]

MULDER: Father Joe?

[Father Joe lifts up his head. The blood is coming from his eyes.]

[At the hospital, Scully goes into the children's ward and up to Christian who is lying in bed.]

SCULLY: Hi, Christian. You're looking very bright-eyed this morning.

CHRISTIAN: I was thinking.

SCULLY: Yeah? What were you thinking?

CHRISTIAN: How I'm going to get out of here.

SCULLY: Well, you know, I'm thinking exactly the same thing.

CHRISTIAN: Can I get out of here soon?

SCULLY: What's wrong? Has something scared you?

CHRISTIAN: The way the man is looking at me.

SCULLY: What man?

[Christian indicates a man standing in the corridor.]

SCULLY: Don't be afraid.

[Scully walks down the corridor to the man, Father Ybarra, who is looking through a folder.]

SCULLY: I was just looking for those.

FATHER YBARRA: I wanted to go over them myself and the results of the new tests that you ordered.

SCULLY: That isn't really your purview, Father. It's his primary physician's.

FATHER YBARRA: It is in my purview, to make sure that all my physicians are making the right choices for their patients and for the hospital.

SCULLY: Can I have the test results, please?

[He hands them to her.]

FATHER YBARRA: We are here to heal the sick, not prolong the ordeal of the dying. There are other, better, facilities for the boy.

[Further down the corridor, a hospital employee drops a metal tray. As Father Ybarra looks towards the sound, Scully walks off.]

[Scully goes into her office and sits at her desk. She opens the folder of test results. She is upset. A colleague in the next office sees this and leaves. Scully searches through the drawers of her desk and finds some tissues. She fights back the tears, then pulls another folder towards her.]

[A swimming pool. A young woman jumps into the water. There are a couple of other people in the pool. The young woman goes back to the side of the pool, takes of her bracelet which she places on the side, then puts on goggles and, taking a float, moves away. Next to her is man who is sitting at the bottom of the pool, his head just under the surface. He briefly raises his eyes above water to watch her, then sinks back down, smiling.]

[Later, outside the swimming pool, called "MacLaren Natatorium", the young woman leaves. Snow is falling as she walks to her car. As she is putting her bag into the boot, she hears a engine start up. The vehicle next to hers, a truck with a snowplough attachment, drives away.]

[A little later, the woman turns her car off the cleared main road onto a snow-covered side track. The snow is still falling. Ahead of her she sees the truck. She accelerates to overtake, but as she draws alongside, the truck moves and pushes her car through a bank of snow and onto a flat snow-covered area where it collides with a hay bale. The air bag deploys. The truck driver halts his vehicle. The woman, who was stunned by the air bag, watches as the truck driver gets what looks like a length of cloth from the back of his truck. He walks over to the woman's car and climbs onto the bonnet to the driver's side. He looks at her, smiling. It's the man from the swimming pool.]

WOMAN: I'm okay. I'm fine.

[She reaches to undo her seat belt, looks back at the man just as he punches through the window. Exhaust fumes pour from the back as she tries to reverse, but then the engine stops. The man has wrapped her in the cloth, and drags her away from the car.

[Scully is in bed, wide awake.]

MULDER: I can feel you thinking.

SCULLY: I'm sorry, can't sleep.

[Mulder, who is lying alongside her, lifts up his head.]

MULDER: Actually, I have a little something for that.

[He cuddles up to her.]

SCULLY: Just a little something?

MULDER: Thank you. What's the matter?

SCULLY: I have a patient. A young boy with a rare brain disease, and he's very, very sick.

MULDER: Why haven't you told me about this before?

SCULLY: I thought there was something I could do.

MULDER: There's not?

SCULLY: Well, there's radical treatments but nobody wants to talk about those. Even the experts say there's nothing to be done. Nothing but let him die. So I'm lying here cursing God for all his cruelties.

MULDER: And do you think God is losing any sleep?

SCULLY: Why bring a kid into the world just to make him suffer? I don't know, Mulder, I've got such a connection to this boy.

MULDER: How old is he?

SCULLY: You think it's because of William.

MULDER: I think our son left us both with an emptiness that can't be filled. Just go to sleep. Let me curse God for a while.

SCULLY: Thank you.

[They kiss.]

SCULLY: Scratchy beard.

[She laughs.]

[She smiles and they settle back down to sleep.]

SCULLY: Oh. There was something weird on that toxicology report of the severed arm.

MULDER: What?

SCULLY: I looked over the FBI evidence reports again, and in the tissue there were traces of a drug that's commonly given to patients being treated with radiation. And also traces of a drug called Acepromazine.

MULDER: Why is that weird?

SCULLY: Acepromazine's an animal tranquillizer.

[Mulder sits up and gets out of bed.]

MULDER: Now I can't sleep.

SCULLY: Mulder?

[Mulder switches on the lights either side of the bathroom mirror.]

MULDER: What is animal tranquillizer doing in the tissue sample of a man's severed arm?

SCULLY: I can't even begin to speculate.

[Scully appears in the doorway behind him]

MULDER: He said he heard barking dogs.

SCULLY: Who?

MULDER: Father Joe.

[Mulder takes something out of the bathroom cabinet.]

SCULLY: Mulder, what are you doing?

MULDER: Is it a tranquillizer that you might give a dog?

SCULLY: He's a phony, Mulder. He pulls these so-called visions out of thin air, and now he's got you straining to connect them.

MULDER: When I see a man cry tears of blood at a crime scene he recognizes without ever having visited, I need to go out on a limb, you know what I'm saying?

SCULLY: Tears of blood?

MULDER: Yeah, some trick, huh? How do you fake that?

[A phone starts ringing. Mulder starts putting shaving foam on his beard. Scully goes to answer her cell phone.]

SCULLY: Hello.

DRUMMY: Hello, Dr. Scully?

SCULLY: Yes.

DRUMMY: I have Dakota Whitney for you.

[They are in a car, Drummy driving. Whitney is speaking into another phone.]

WHITNEY: Hold on a second.

[She takes Drummy's phone.]

WHITNEY: I'm sorry to call this hour.

SCULLY: Has there been a break?

MULDER: They find her?

WHITNEY: We're pursuing another lead.

SCULLY: The same source.

WHITNEY: The same source. New news.

[Father Joe is sitting in the back of the car.]

FATHER JOE: It's here. It's here. Turn up ahead, at the barn.




SCENE 6
THREE HOURS LATER
[Mulder and Scully arrive at the barn. There are a number of vehicles and FBI agents already there.]

WHITNEY: One more time. Ten minutes!

SCULLY: Did you find her?

WHITNEY: No.

[Whitney stares at Mulder.]

WHITNEY: What did you do?

MULDER: What?

[She goes to touch a shaving cut on his cheek. He pulls away.]

SCULLY: You said there was news.

WHITNEY: The news is our psychic led us to the exact same site he led us to before.

[Mulder hurries away, followed by Scully. Whitney follows them to where Father Joe is standing, smoking a cigarette. Drummy is standing nearby.]

FATHER JOE: You're going to find it.

DRUMMY: That's what you keep saying.

FATHER JOE: You're going to find a body.

DRUMMY: You keep telling us she's alive.

FATHER JOE: She is.

[Drummy turns to Whitney.]

DRUMMY: We could do this all night. These guy's are running on empty.

[Whitney looks at Mulder and Scully.]

WHITNEY: I'm sorry for bringing you out here.

DRUMMY: Hey, let's go, fellas. Bring it in. Let's go. Bring it in, gentlemen, time to go home.

[Mulder turns to Father Joe.]

MULDER: Tell me. Tell me what you see.

FATHER JOE: I see a face. I see eyes staring out.

MULDER: Who? Who is it?

FATHER JOE: It's unclear. Like through dirty glass. It's out there, I know it.

[Joe drops his cigarette in the snow and walks forward.]

MULDER: Scully, what does he mean like through dirty glass?

SCULLY: Mulder.

MULDER: What.

SCULLY: Stop.

MULDER: Okay, just feel free to give up like everybody else.

SCULLY: This is not my job any more, Mulder.

MULDER: No, that's right, that's right, you're just like my booking agent now, right?

SCULLY: You're right. This is my fault.

MULDER: What do you mean, it's your fault.

SCULLY: For getting you involved in this.

MULDER: No, no. It was the right thing to do, Scully.

[Mulder starts walking in the direction Father Joe has gone.]

SCULLY: This is not about finding an FBI agent. This is about you trying to save your sister.

[At this he stops, and turns to face Scully.]

MULDER: My sister is dead.

SCULLY: It hasn't stopped you from looking for her. Mulder, I have been through this too many years with you, believing you can you save her. You cannot save her, not now and not ever.

[He turns back to watch Father Joe walking across the snow. Then he turns back, looks at Scully, then calls to the FBI team.]

MULDER: I need those men back!

[Whitney, not looking particularly happy, signals the search team back into action.]

SCULLY: What are you doing?

MULDER: I'm trying to ignore you.

[Mulder walks away towards Father Joe, Scully following him. They reach a snow-covered clearing.]

FATHER JOE: This is it! Here it is!

[He drops to his knees and starts to scoop away the snow.]

FATHER JOE: This is it.

[Mulder joins him. Scully watches.]

MULDER: We need shovels.

[Elsewhere, the snowplough truck drives along a forest track and stops, knocking over a sign which reads "No Hunting".]

[Many agents are helping to clear the snow, while Mulder and Father Joe stand by. Mulder glances over at Scully.]

[The truck driver picks up a plastic bag containing something small from the back of the truck.

[The agents have hit something solid.]

DRUMMY: It's solid ice.

[Mulder scrapes at it with a shovel.]

MULDER: No, it's dirty glass.

[The truck driver walks through the snow and arrives at the edge of a cliff. He looks over the edge and sees the FBI search going on. He walks away.]

MULDER: Flashlight.

[Mulder clears away the last of the snow, uncovering a woman's head frozen in the ice. It's Monica Bannan.]

MULDER: You're going to need resources.

[Mulder walks away, past Scully, saying nothing to her.]

WHITNEY: We need equipment. Concrete saws and a backhoe.

DRUMMY: You two get in the line. You come with me.

[Scully watches as Mulder walks off. Joe is standing behind her. She suddenly senses this and whirls round to face him.]

FATHER JOE: Don't give up.

[She hurries away. He watches her.]

[The truck driver drives down a narrow road and stops outside a chain-link fence. As he unlocks it, there is the sound of barking dogs. Inside a building are cages containing dogs, and a wooden container in which there is the woman from the swimming pool. There is a small slot in the wooden container that she looks through.]

WOMAN: Please, get me out of here! Help! Help! Let me out of here!

[Two men wearing white coats crouch down in front of her wooden kennel and look at her through the slot.]

WOMAN: Please, please, please. I won't tell. I won't tell anyone. I won't tell anybody. Just let me go.

[The two men talk in Russian.

WOMAN: I'm sorry I hit your truck. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to hit your truck. I didn't mean it.

[The men start moving the wooden kennel. Through the slot she can see a room with tubing and lights, like an operating theatre.]

WOMAN: What is this place?! Who are you?!

[Now she can see the operating table, on which lies a person coved with green surgical cloth. One of the intruders speaks to someone wearing a surgical gown. She sees the patient lying on the table. He has scratches on his face from Monica Bannan's attack. He's conscious and she whispers to him.]

WOMAN: Please, just get me out of here. Get up. Listen, I can help you. Just get me out of here.

[The man's eyes blink, and start shedding tears of blood. The woman yells.]

WOMAN: Help!




SCENE 7
8:08 A.M.
[Inside the hospital conference room, Father Ybarra addresses other people.]

YBARRA: I think we can resolve then, in good conscience, and without objection, to relocate the patient to a facility suited for and humane to his condition.

[The door opens and Scully enters.]

YBARRA: As you and I discussed, Dr. Scully, I was just informing the staff and doctors of the hospital's decision on Christian Fearon.

SCULLY: I'm sorry, what decision?

YBARRA: To relocate the patient to a hospice who will manage his palliative care.

SCULLY: That was a discussion, not a decision.

YBARRA: Well, it's been discussed here at length with no objection from your colleagues.

SCULLY: I have an objection.

YBARRA: You have, Dr. Scully, a patient with an untreatable condition. And that's very sad and unfortunate, nobody disagrees with that.

SCULLY: But he's my patient.

YBARRA: And unless you've come here today with a cure for Sandhoff disease, we all ask that you let the boy go in peace.

[Scully doesn't respond.]

YBARRA: Thank you. Now I'd like to wrap up so we can get on to the day's good work. We have the final matter of a patient in intensive care, Dr. Willer's patient, I believe. Admitted after suffering myocardial infarction during surgery...

[Scully slowly sits down.]

SCULLY: There is a treatment.

YBARRA: The matter is resolved, Dr. Scully.

SCULLY: No, it's not. The disease can be treated with intrathecal stem cell therapy.

WOMAN: You're not serious? Don't put the boy through hell.

SCULLY: Would you do it if it were your son?

YBARRA: It's not her son, and he's not yours.

SCULLY: And it's not a decision for hospital administration, it's his doctor's. If you would like to challenge that you can take the matter up with a higher authority.

[Scully gets to her feet and walks towards the door.]

YBARRA: I have taken it up with the highest authority, Dr. Scully. As should you.

[She stares at him, then walks out. ]




SCENE 8
QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
10:20 A.M.
[There is a very large block of ice, on which technicians are working with power tools. Mulder makes a call on his cell phone.]

MULDER: Come on, pick up.

[On a nearby desk there is a photograph of Monica Bannan, shaking hands with a man. Her medical bracelet can be clearly seen.]

MULDER: Come on. Come on, answer.

[Scully is using Google to search for stem cell therapy. Her cell phone on the desk vibrates.]

[Mulder gets Scully's voicemail. He leaves a message:]

SCULLY's VOICEMAIL: This is Dana Scully. Please leave a message.

MULDER: Scully, it's me. I keep leaving you messages. Here's what I want to tell you. That woman's head in the ice? It's not the agent's, it's not Monica Bannan's. We don't know who she is or why she's there, but so far we've pulled eleven discrete human limbs from the ice and we're not even done yet. Each one a clean cut too, an exact match to the previous amputation you noted, Scully. It looks like someone's been dumping body parts in the ice there for months, possibly years. And there seems to be no pattern to the limbs, men and women, all with healthy, undiseased tissue according to forensics. Which suggests to me that they are victims. But here's the thing, what I need you to know, we found more traces of your animal tranquillizer, Acepromazine. I don't know what the hell it means but I'm hoping you can make sense of it.

[During this time, Scully has been concentrating on her internet research, printing out several documents.]

[In the FBI lab, Whitney approaches Mulder.]

WHITNEY: Anything?

MULDER: No, I can't reach her. But this is going to make sense. This is a break, I'm feeling it.

WHITNEY: Mm-mm. You're feeling it, Father Joe's feeling it, all I'm feeling is my head spinning.

MULDER: No, no, this is a serial case you've uncovered here. You're going to solve a dozen murders here.

WHITNEY: Yes, but I'm no closer to finding my agent.

MULDER: Well, we're going to find her. I know it.

WHITNEY: Well, she may have to stand in line.

[In an room the other side of the lab's windows, there are various agents, listening to Father Joe who is sitting down, his eyes closed.]

FATHER JOE: I see a woman's face. Another woman, taken from a car. She's being held, in a box, I think.

MULDER: Is she with Monica Bannan?

FATHER JOE: I don't know.

MULDER: Is it the same men that took her?

FATHER JOE: I think so. Yes. It's the same man.

[Mulder sits down next to him.]

MULDER: You see this? Or you just telling these people what they want to hear?

FATHER JOE: No.

MULDER: No, you don't see it?

FATHER JOE: No, it's the same men.

[Mulder ponders this.]

MULDER: I want a car ready.

DRUMMY: To go where?

MULDER: I don't know yet.

DRUMMY: I don't believe this.

MULDER: That's been your problem from the start.

WHITNEY: I can get you a car.

MULDER: And a list of missing persons in the greater area over the last 48 to 72 hours.




SCENE 9
SOMERSET, WEST VIRGINIA
2:08 P.M.
[At the earlier crash scene, where the young woman's car hit the hay bale, police officers are digging away the snow around the car. The agents arrive, and Whitney goes over to the police officers, followed by Drummy. Mulder approaches and Whitney turns to him.]

WHITNEY: Cheryl Cunningham, 34. Never made it to work last night. No show at home either.

[Mulder briefly looks at the written report Whitney was given by the police officers. Drummy looks at the car.]

DRUMMY: There's no blood on the airbags. Driver's side window knocked out. Keys in the ignition. It's a survivable crash with a seatbelt. She sets off, takes a shortcut, gets tired, sits down, falls asleep. Happens all the time.

MULDER: Pretty hard left turn for such a long straight stretch of country road, don't you think? But why settle for my opinion.

[Father Joe walks up and gets into the drivers' seat and looks around. There's a pause and then he gets out again.]

FATHER JOE: I'm sorry. I'm not getting anything.

DRUMMY: What a surprise. What a surprise.

[Father Joe walks away. Mulder crouches down by the door, looking into the car.]

WHITNEY: I think we're done with Father Joe.

DRUMMY: Yeah.

MULDER: Whoa, whoa.

[Mulder sees a metal bracelet in the snow by the driver's door.]

MULDER: We're not quite finished.

WHITNEY: What is that?

MULDER: It's a medical I.D. bracelet. I noticed that your missing agent wore one too.

DRUMMY: For what?

WHITNEY: What are you thinking?

MULDER: Let's pop the trunk.

[They do so, and Whitney pulls out the woman's gym bag.]

WHITNEY: This isn't going to do her much good.

MULDER: Her gym bag. It's her bathing suit. It's frozen stiff.

[Whitney sniffs the frozen bathing suit.]

WHITNEY: Chlorine.

MULDER: Where's the nearest public pool?

[The agents and Mulder drive to the Natatorium. They enter and Whitney speaks to an older man at the reception desk.]

WHITNEY: Hi, we're hoping you can help us.

MAN: Would you all like lockers?

WHITNEY: No, we're with the FBI. We'd like to show you a photo , sir, if you don't mind.

MAN: Why would I mind?

DRUMMY: Do you know this person?

[Drummy shows him photographs of Monica Bannan.]

MAN: Let me see. These young people look so much the same.

WHITNEY: Do you have a sign-in register?

MAN: Yes, I keep one every day.

WHITNEY: I'd like to see yesterday's.

MAN: I threw yesterday's away.

[Mulder, pretty disgusted with the man's unhelpfulness, walks towards the changing rooms.]

MAN: Excuse me, sir. Doesn't he know that's the women's side?

[At the hospital, Christian is wheeled on a trolley. Scully, dressed in scrubs, goes to him.]

SCULLY: Hi, Christian. You've got a whole bunch of people taking really good care of you today, okay?

[Christian doesn't answer.]

SCULLY: What?

CHRISTIAN: Now you look scared.

[Scully smiles, but barely hides her worries. She goes into an adjoining room and watches through the window as Christian is wheeled to an operating table.]

[Preparations begin to perform the procedure on Christian's head. Scully checks an image of Christian's brain on a monitor. The skull is opened, then a long syringe is given to Scully, which contains the stem cells. Scully puts the syringe into Christian's brain, following the path of the syringe on a monitor. Christian twitches slightly as the syringe is depressed, pushing the liquid in.]

[Later, Scully is in a locker room, writing up her notes. Mulder enters.]

MULDER: People say I went underground.

SCULLY: I'm sorry, Mulder.

[Mulder sits on the bench next to her.]

SCULLY: I had to keep my focus here.

MULDER: It's the boy, isn't it.

SCULLY: Yeah.

MULDER: I thought there was nothing to be done.

SCULLY: I'm taking a big chance on something. On a radical and extremely painful new procedure.

MULDER: Last night you said that wasn't an option.

SCULLY: It wasn't, last night.

MULDER: What changed your mind?

[She doesn't answer. She gets up and moves away.]

MULDER: When will you know if it's working?

SCULLY: There's a series of these procedures and we won't know until they're all done.

[He nods.]

SCULLY: But that's not what you came to talk about.

MULDER: There's another woman missing. She's given us something to go on. She and the missing agent swam at the same pool. We found that the agent kept a locker there, we think they were stalked there. Both women wore medical I.D. bracelets, and they both had the same rare blood type - AB negative.

[He has walked over to her.]

SCULLY: Organs - harvested for transplant. That's how they were targeted. Donors and recipients need matched types. Someone using that pool knows that.

MULDER: Black market. Somebody filling orders.

SCULLY: Well, they have access. Recipients, hospitals.

MULDER: That's your world, Scully. Your knowledge able to save time, and time is our enemy.

SCULLY: You can start with the transporters. Call the Richmond D.A.

MULDER: No, no, I need you on this with me.

SCULLY: No, no, Mulder.

MULDER: Yeah, you asked me to get involved, Scully. Now I'm asking for you stay involved.

SCULLY: Mulder, you helped them already. You broke the case for them. Why don't you just let the FBI pursue it.

[She walks over to her locker.]

MULDER: We're so close now.

SCULLY: And I'm asking you let it go.

MULDER: It's not that simple.

SCULLY: No, it's complicated.

MULDER: What's that's supposed to mean?

SCULLY: Something that I knew would happen, that I've been afraid of, that I haven't had to face until now.

MULDER: What? Just say it.

SCULLY: I'm a doctor, Mulder. That's not my life any more.

MULDER: I know that.

SCULLY: You're not understanding me. I can't look into the darkness with you any more, Mulder. I cannot stand what it does to you or to me.

MULDER: I'm fine with it, Scully. I'm actually okay. I'm good.

SCULLY: Yeah, that's what scares me.

MULDER: Where else would you have me look if you want me to find these women alive?

SCULLY: I'm asking you to look at yourself.

MULDER: Why? I don't think I'm the one who's changed.

SCULLY: We're not FBI any more, Mulder. We are two people who come home at night, to a home now. I don't want that darkness in my home.

MULDER: Scully, this is who I am. It's who I've always been. This is who I was before I met you. It's what I do, it's everything I know.

SCULLY: Write it down. Put it in a book.

MULDER: You're asking me to give up?

SCULLY: No. I can't tell you to do that, Mulder. But I can tell you that I won't be coming home.

MULDER: Scully.

SCULLY: Mulder, I've got my own battles to fight.

MULDER: Don't do this.

SCULLY: Please don't argue with me.

MULDER: Don't do this now.

SCULLY: I don't know what else to do.

[He turns away slightly, not knowing what to say. Then nods slightly.]

MULDER: Good luck, then.

[He leaves.]

SCULLY: You too.

[Scully, in her coat, walks down the main stairs, a large stained-glass window behind her.]

MRS. FEARON: Dr. Scully.

MR. FEARON: We'd like to speak with you, if we may. About Christian.

SCULLY: Have you been in to see him?

MRS. FEARON: Yes, he was sleeping. But...

MR. FEARON: We've changed our minds. About going forward with this new treatment.

SCULLY: But you don't even know if it's working yet.

MR. FEARON: We think that Christian's been through enough.

MRS. FEARON: We want to put our faith in God now.

SCULLY: I see.

MRS. FEARON: It's nothing against you.

SCULLY: No.

MRS. FEARON: If you were a mother you'd understand.

SCULLY: Have you spoken to Father Ybarra?

MR. FEARON: Yes. But the decision is ours.

SCULLY: What if it did work? What if we found we'd made the wrong choice by stopping?

MRS. FEARON: You're saying you could save my son?

SCULLY: I'm saying I don't want to give up now.




SCENE 10
MANNER'S COLONIAL HOSPITAL
5:01 P.M.
[In an operating room, organs are being removed. The surgeons chats to her assistant.]

SURGEON: But lo and behold. We're about to hit the tarmac, and all of a sudden a plane gears up and we're back up in the air. I say, "Honey, isn't this fantastic? We're gonna die together." It turns out there was a plane parked on the tarmac and we missed colliding with it by seconds.

[The organ has been placed in a blue "Human Organ for Transplant" bag. The courier is the second abductor, Janke Dacyshyn. He leaves the theatre, smiling slightly, and goes to the elevator. Two men, one in uniform, approach him hurry up to him.]

MAN: Sir? Excuse me, sir. Can we talk with you a minute.

DACYSHYN: I'm transporting vital organ.

MAN: That's what we'd like to talk to you about.

DACYSHYN: This is my job. I move very quickly. I don't have much time.

OFFICER: Please, sir. Step over here.

[Dacyshyn moves to one side as requested.]

MAN: My name is Robert Koell. I'm with the District Attorney's office in Richmond. May I see your paperwork and license.

DACYSHYN: I have green card.

MAN: What are you transporting?

DACYSHYN: Human liver for transplantation.

MAN: Paperwork and license please.

[Dacyshyn hands over his papers.]

MAN: Where are you delivering it?

DACYSHYN: Willow's Memorial Hospital. They're expecting it, a patient wait for it.

MAN: Have you ever procured or delivered an organ outside of normal lawful channels?

[Dacyshyn is suspicious.]

DACYSHYN: No.

MAN: You're an employee with this company. How would your employer answer this questions.

DACYSHYN: He's sick. Has cancer.

MAN: That's not what I asked you.

DACYSHYN: Am I under some kind of suspicion?

[Father Joe's apartment. He is sitting on his bed, in his dressing gown, when there is a knock on the door. He opens it to find Scully standing a little away from the door, her hands on her hips.]

FATHER JOE: A vision, if ever I had one.

SCULLY: May I speak with you?

FATHER JOE: Would you like to come in?

[She pauses slightly at the door, then enters the apartment.]

FATHER JOE: Make yourself comfortable.

SCULLY: I won't be staying long.

FATHER JOE: Have you come here by yourself?

SCULLY: Yes.

FATHER JOE: Sit. Please, I insist.

[Rather uncomfortably, she sits on the edge of the bed. He picks up his bible and sits down next to her.]

FATHER JOE: Now, you came to ask something.

[There's a sudden noise from an adjoining room, and Scully looks round .]

FATHER JOE: We're alone. Free to speak in confidence.

SCULLY: You said something to me the other night in the snow.

FATHER JOE: Yes. I said, "don't give up".

SCULLY: I need to know why you said that.

FATHER JOE: I haven't the faintest idea.

[She stands up.]

FATHER JOE: Were you hoping for another answer?

SCULLY: Do you know anything about me?

FATHER JOE: Other than that you loath me?

SCULLY: Do you know what it is that I do?

FATHER JOE: No. I can see you're a woman of faith, but not in the same things as your husband.

SCULLY: He's not my husband.

FATHER JOE: Do you care to tell me about yourself?

SCULLY: No!

FATHER JOE: Do you care to offer confession?

SCULLY: I don't think you're...

FATHER JOE: What? In a position to judge? And yet you've judged me, haven't you?

SCULLY: You deserve to be judged.

FATHER JOE: Do you know why we live here? The men who call this vile box of monsters home? Because we hate each other, even as we hate ourselves for our sickening appetites.

SCULLY: This doesn't make it any less sickening.

FATHER JOE: And where do they come from, these appetites, these uncontrollable urges of ours?

SCULLY: Not from God!

FATHER JOE: Not from me. I castrated myself when I was 26. And the visions weren't my idea either! Proverbs 25:2.

[She storms out of the room then turns back.]

SCULLY: What?!

FATHER JOE: God's glory to conceal a thing, for the honor of kings. To search out a matter.

SCULLY: Don't you quote scripture to me!

FATHER JOE: What are you doing here? What are you afraid of?

[She walks back to confront him.]

SCULLY: "Don't give up"! What was that for?!

FATHER JOE: I don't know.

SCULLY: I don't believe you!

FATHER JOE: I'm telling you the truth.

SCULLY: They were your words!

FATHER JOE: I don't know why I said...

SCULLY: You said them to my face!

FATHER JOE: All I ever wanted was to serve Him. All I've ever wanted was to serve God.

[His hands start shaking.]

SCULLY: You can ask for His pity, but don't expect mine. You can stop the act any time.

[The bible falls out of his hands on to the floor, his hands visibly shaking.]

SCULLY: Look at me!

[She takes hold of his chin. Shaking all over now, he falls back on to the bed.]

[Cheryl is still in her wooden box. She sees through the holes a man approaching, carrying a tray. He kneels down, looks at her through the slot and speaks in Russian. He shows her that the tray has bowls of food on it. He unlocks the padlock, but he's interrupted when a woman calls to him in Russian. He rushes away. In the operating room, a person on the table is shaking, a woman wearing a medical ID bracelet. The Russian doctor rushes to her and tries to calm herm. Cheryl slowly opens the unlocked door of the box and creeps out. Dogs are barking. She crawls quickly away and falls down a chute and out into the open air. A dog rushes towards her and she ducks back inside.]

[Whitney and Mulder arrive at Father Joe's apartment block. Scully is speaking on her cell phone.]

SCULLY: Paramedics have been here now for about seven minutes. He's stabilized. Blood pressure's normal. No, they're loading him in now.

[Mulder goes up to Scully.]

MULDER: What happened?

SCULLY: Thank you.

[She ends her phone call.]

SCULLY: He had a seizure.

MULDER: Who called you?

SCULLY: No-one.

MULDER: Well, what are you doing here?

[She doesn't answer.]

MULDER: We need to talk to Father Joe.

SCULLY: Well, that's not going to happen.

WHITNEY: We've got a suspect. A Russian émigré working as an organ transporter.

SCULLY: In custody?

WHITNEY: No. The Richmond D.A. questioned him about trafficking in black market human organs this afternoon, but he was released. They had no evidence to hold him. We've got a fairly credible witness who says he swam with the women at the pool.

DRUMMY: ASAC Whitney?

WHITNEY: Excuse me.

SCULLY: What's that got to do with Father Joe?

MULDER: It's the man in his visions, Scully.

SCULLY: Who?

MULDER: The suspect, the man in this photo.

SCULLY: Mulder, now you're wasting their time.

MULDER: Tell me again what you're doing here.

DRUMMY: Here's a vision for you. Couple of my guys just had it.

[He hands Mulder a photograph of Franz Tomczesyn. The man whose face was scratched by Monica Bannan.]

MULDER: Who's this?

DRUMMY: That's our suspect's employer. An old friend of Father Joe's, we just learned. Known him for over twenty years.

MULDER: Known him how?

DRUMMY: That's one of his thirty-seven altar boys. Three guesses who he's married to in the state of Massachusetts. Our suspect.

[He hands over a photograph of Janke Dacyshyn, the man with the organ donor bag.]

WHITNEY: We got a warrant to search their offices.

[Whitney and Drummy go their car and start driving away.]

SCULLY: Mulder. It's over.

MULDER: Hey! Hey!

SCULLY: What!

[Mulder waves to Drummy who stops the car.]

MULDER: Hey!

SCULLY: Mulder!

[He gets in the back of the car. They speed off, as does the ambulance, as Scully watches.]

[The FBI team arrive at an office block and get out of their cars. Some of them are in riot gear. Mulder goes to follow them into the building, but Whitney stops him.]

WHITNEY: Why don't you hold up. Let these men do their jobs.

[Mulder stays where he is on the sidewalk. Inside the building, Drummy leads the search team.]

DRUMMY: Clear this bottom floor.

WHITNEY: We were all fooled on this. I wanted to believe it as bad as anyone.

MULDER: Look, I don't need the sweet talk.

WHITNEY: You led us here.

MULDER: Father Joe led us here.

[Drummy and his SWAT team have reached the office. He knocks on the door and calls out.]

DRUMMY: This is Special Agent Drummy with the FBI. We have warrants to search these offices. Anyone inside, identify yourself and unlock the door now.

WHITNEY: I called you because I thought you were going help me with this case because I valued your belief in these phenomena.

MULDER: Now what do you think?

WHITNEY: I think this is a longer conversation.

[Drummy and his team kick in the door.]

DRUMMY: Down on the floor! Down on the floor! Everybody here I want down on the floor!

[A van with the sign "Donor Transport Services" pulls up in an alley. Janke Dacyshyn gets out of the elevator and walks along a corridor. He stops when he sees the FBI searching the office. He goes to the stairs.]

DRUMMY: Somebody find the lights.

WHITNEY: We were at complete standstill and you pushed us forward no matter direction we took.

[Mulder sees Janke Dacyshyn leave the front door of the building. Dacyshyn instantly realized who Mulder is, drops the organ transplant bag and runs.

MULDER: Hey!

[Mulder chases after him, Whitney following.]

WHITNEY: Hey!

[Dacyshyn recklessly runs down the road, running over cross-roads, through traffic. Mulder almost gets hit a couple of times. Dacyshyn pushes a pedestrian out of his way. Drummy and his team continue to search the office, unaware of the chase. Dacyshyn runs onto a construction site. Mulder shouts at a worker.]

MULDER: Stop him!

[Dacyshyn continues to run, despite the attempts of construction workers to stop him. He runs up some concrete stairs, Mulder close behind him. Dacyshyn throws down a metal bucket and Mulder dodges out of the way. Drummy's search team find medicines and surgical paraphernalia. Whitney catches up with some of the construction workers.]

WHITNEY: Quick, where did they go?

WORKER: Down that way.

[Whitney dashes off. Mulder has come to stop further up the building. He looks around to try and see Dacyshyn amongst the shadows. Back at the search, Drummy has found a polystyrene box with a blood-stained cloth in it, presumably used for transporting organs. Whitney has reached a empty floor, concrete and reinforcement bars. She looks around, gun in hand.]

WHITNEY: Mulder!

MULDER: I'm up here!

[She runs towards the sound of his voice. Mulder sees a figure passes, backlit behind a plastic screen. He chases after the figure through partly-constructed areas, pit props and ladders. He sees Dacyshyn climb a ladder, high above the street, and follows him. Mulder gets to the roof and sees Dacyshyn. Back at the office building, Drummy exits the front door. Dacyshyn is now making his way fast down through the levels of the construction site. Drummy looks around for Whitney and Mulder. Dacyshyn climbs down a vertical ladder and Mulder follows. Other agents come out of the office building as Drummy carefully unzips the organ donor bag. Whitney calls out to Mulder again.]

WHITNEY: Mulder!

MULDER: He's coming at you!

WHITNEY: Hey!

[She aims her gun at Dacyshyn and moves in that direction. Whitney stops when she loses sight of Dacyshyn.]

WHITNEY: Mulder!

MULDER: Yeah?!

WHITNEY: Where are you!

MULDER: Right here!

WHITNEY: Where?!

[Drummy lifts the lid of the polystyrene box in the bag. His face shows the horror of what he's looking at.]

WHITNEY: Fox! Where is he, do you have him?

MULDER: No. I lost him.

[They are on different floors. In the polystyrene box is a severed head.]

WHITNEY: I saw him.

MULDER: Where?

[Whitney has been looking up at Mulder, then looks forward. Dacyshyn is right in front of her. He hits her and pushes her into the void behind her. Mulder looks over and sees her fall. She falls down a very tall lift-shaft and falls to the bottom onto some reinforcement bars sticking out of the concrete. Mulder looks on in horror.]

[Later. Scully walks down a corridor in the hospital. Mulder is standing at the foot of the stairway with the stained-glass window. She walks over to him and gently takes his hand.]

MULDER: They're both dead. Monica Bannan and Dakota Whitney.

SCULLY: I heard. Sorry.

MULDER: I thought we were winning, Scully.

SCULLY: I know you did, Mulder.

[He takes his hand away.]

MULDER: I'm here to see Father Joe. I want to show him these photographs. These men.

SCULLY: You still want to believe him.

[Mulder nods his head slightly.]

SCULLY: I think you should know that he has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. He has advanced-stage lung cancer.

MULDER: I just want to be sure.

SCULLY: Then let me ask him.

[She takes the photographs from him. They go to Father Joe who is lying in bed with an oxygen cannula in his nose.]

FATHER JOE: You wouldn't believe. I was thinking of you. I had a vision you might find interesting. Of a man speaking a foreign language.

SCULLY: Did he happen to look like this?

[Scully holds up the picture of Janke Dacyshyn. Father Joe puts on his glasses.]

FATHER JOE: Yeah, that's the man. How did you know?

SCULLY: We think he's the man who abducted the FBI agent, and the second woman you say you saw and possibly many more. And we think that is helped by this man.

[She holds up the picture of Franz Tomczesyn.]

FATHER JOE: I don't know who that is.

MULDER: Are you sure?

FATHER JOE: I'm fairly certain. I don't know him.

SCULLY: I'm fairly certain that you do. And that you've known him since he was a boy.

[Father Joe looks at her, then takes the picture. He now realizes who the man is.]

FATHER JOE: Oh, no. It can't be true. I don't believe this. He was my connection to the girl. My visions were to save her from him. This is God's work. This is God's work.

[He addresses that last remark to Mulder who is looking very stern.]

SCULLY: Let me ask you one more question, Father Joe. The FBI agent, the first woman that you saw, Monica Bannan. Is she still alive?

[He rests his head back on the pillow and closes his eyes.]

FATHER JOE: I feel her. Yes. She's still alive.

[Mulder and Scully exchange a look and walk away.]

SCULLY: Mulder.

MULDER: That second victim may be alive. Everybody's given up on her, but I'm not going to.

SCULLY: Mulder, you think I don't understand, but I do. This stubbornness of yours, is why I fell in love with you.

MULDER: It's like you said, it's why we can't be together.

[He takes the photographs from her and walks away.]

[In the place where the Russian doctors are, Franz Tomczesyn lies on the operating table, breathing with some difficulty. The doctor and Dacyshyn talk in Russian. Dacyshyn goes over to Tomczesyn, switches on a light, then shouts something to the doctor and walks away. Other doctors move over to Tomczesyn, whose arm is lying on top of the blanket, but it's a woman's hand.]

[Mulder is alone, walking across a snow field. Then he walks down a snowy track through some trees and to the place where the huge block of ice had been removed. He stares down at the yellow police crime scene tape. Then he looks up at the cliff face. He drives along another track and sees the "No Hunting" sign the plow truck driver had knocked down. It has streaks of blood on it. He climbs up to the top of the cliff and looks down onto the crime scene below. Then he drives along a road in a small town nearby and pulls up at a gas station. As he fills up the car, he notices a nearby feed store - "Nutter's Feed, Animal Supply". He goes over to the door of the store just as the proprietor locks the door.]

MULDER: Hey! Hey, sorry to bother you.

SHOPKEEPER: I'm closed.

MULDER: No, I just need a moment of your time.

[The proprietor unlocks and opens the door.]

PROPRIETOR: You know, we've got some bad weather coming up. You'd better get where you're going fast. So, what do you need?

[He lets Mulder into the store and walks over to the counter, Mulder following him.]

MULDER: Yeah, I was wondering if you carry an animal tranquillizer called Acepromazine.

PROPRIETOR: You got a prescription for it?

MULDER: No, I don't.

PROPRIETOR: Well, I can't sell it to you.

MULDER: Can you tell me if you've ever sold any to this man.

[Mulder shows him the photograph of Dacyshyn, but then the proprietor's phone rings.]

PROPRIETOR: I am never getting out of here.

[He goes into his office.]

MULDER: I'm just ....

[Mulder notices the snowplough truck draw up outside.]

PROPRIETOR: Yeah, I was just closing up and I'm going to pick him up. Yeah. Goodbye.

[The proprietor goes back out to the shop, but Mulder isn't there. Dacyshyn is standing at the counter.]

PROPRIETOR: What happened to other guy?

DACYSHYN: Who?

PROPRIETOR: The guy who was standing right here.

DACYSHYN: I need to refill this now.

[Dacyshyn hands him a prescription. The proprietor sighs.]

PROPRIETOR: Okay.

[Dacyshyn drives out of the town in his snowplough truck. Mulder pulls out of a side street and follows him. Mulder pulls out his cell phone, which has the names Bowman, Gilligan, Scully and Shiban on quick-dial. The two vehicles are now out in the countryside, driving on a snow-packed road. The truck disappears over a rise in the road. Suddenly, Mulder hits the brakes as the snowplough truck has stopped just ahead. His car spins round on the icy road, hits the snowplough truck and rebounds. The airbag deploys, and Mulder is dazed. He sees that the truck has reversed to face him and Dacyshyn drives the truck hard into the side of Mulder's car, shattering the window. Dacyshyn pushes Mulder's car over a snow bank and sends it tumbling over and over down a steep slope.]

[In the hospital, Scully walks down a corridor and unlocks the door to her office. She sits at her desk, sorting through papers. One catches her eye: "Medical News Archives", which is an article about stem cell research carried out in Russia by which the intrathecal injection of stem cells in the base of the brain forced the acceptance of transplanted body parts, including joining the heads of two dogs on a single animal. While she's reading this closely, her computer beeps with a message: Printer stopped. She presses the restart button on her printer, which prints out enlargements of the photographs that were in the article. These show a dog's severed head and a dog with two heads. She leaves her office, dialling her cellphone.]

MULDER: Yeah, it's me.

[She realizes it's his voicemail message.]

SCULLY: Shit.

MULDER: I must be busy right now. Leave a message.

SCULLY: Mulder I just found something in my stem cell research. Experiments being done in Russia on dogs, Mulder. I think that's what your suspects have been doing, only on humans. Those women who've been abducted - you've got to call me. Mulder, the FBI agent's alive.

[In the upturned car, Mulder struggles to free himself. There his blood on his face. He pulls himself out and gets to his feet.]

[Back in the FBI. A cell phone rings.]

SAC FOSSA: FBI Special Agent in Charge Fossa speaking. It's for you.

[She hands the phone to Drummy and walks away.]

DRUMMY: This is Special Agent Drummy.

SCULLY: I've been trying to find you for hours. I can't reach Mulder.

DRUMMY: Is this Dr. Scully?

SCULLY: Yes, it's Dr. Scully.

DRUMMY: Where is he?

SCULLY: If I knew that I wouldn't be calling.

DRUMMY: Dr. Scully, I'm going to suggest you call the police. This is not an FBI matter.

SCULLY: Listen to me! I need your help!

DRUMMY: I'm sorry, I can't help you.

SCULLY: Then let me talk to somebody there with some balls who can.

[Back in the makeshift operating theatre, a gowned figure approaches Cheryl's wooden kennel. The woman speaks Russian to Cheryl who backs away in fear. ]

CHERYL: Don't touch me!

[More people come over and drag her out. The Russian doctor injects her and she loses consciousness. The snowplough truck drives along a snow-packed track, then suddenly stops as the snowplough drops to the ground, fluid leaking. Mulder is walking a road in the falling snow. He sees the truck down the side-road and jogs towards it. He opens the driver's door. It's unoccupied. He looks around, then picks up a wrench. He jogs further down the track. In the operating area, Dacyshyn sits by Tomczesyn's operating table, talking softly to him.]

DACYSHYN: You're going to be fine.

[Cheryl is carried to another operating table. The Russian doctor comes over with an injection. He pulls down the blanket, showing surgical sutures around Tomczesyn's neck and below that a much paler, mottled body.]

DACYSHYN: I've taken care of it. I've taken good care of it. You don't need this one.

[Cheryl, barely conscious, is lowered into an ice bath. Mulder has now reached the chain-link fence surrounding the compound. The surgeon begins removing the sutures around Tomczesyn's neck. Dacyshyn speaks to Tomczesyn.]

SURGEON: Look at me. You're going to live. You're going to have a fine, strong body.

[The Russian doctor speaks Russian to Dacyshyn, waving him away. In the ice bath, Cheryl's neck is being swabbed with iodine. Mulder climbs over the chain-link fence. A guard dog rushes at him and knocks him down. Dacyshyn hears the dog barking. The Russian doctor speaks to him and he rushes off and out of the house. He looks around, then hears the dog whimpering. Other dogs continue to bark. The Russian doctor starts cutting the skin of Cheryl's neck. Dacyshyn runs over to the whimpering dog. It has two heads. He sees blood on the snow nearby. He sees footprints going towards the house.]

[Mulder's car has been found and tow truck drivers prepare to drag it out. Another vehicle arrives and parks alongside a police car. Scully gets out. A patrol officer approaches her.]

COP: Excuse me.

SCULLY: I'm Dana Scully and that's my car.

COP: Right. I talked to some bigwig down at the FBI, called from Washington.

SCULLY: Yeah, that's him. Walter Skinner.

[Skinner walks up.]

SCULLY: Is there any indication what happened, or any footprints?

COP: Nothing. The snow is pretty heavy. But we did find this, you might want to give it to him. Excuse me.

SCULLY: It's his cell phone. It's got blood on it.

SKINNER: Hey, listen to me, calm down, stop and think. He's okay. He's got to be. He climbed out of this thing, he climbed out, he probably climbed up.

[Dacyshyn walks around the compound and goes to the chute that Cheryl had tumbled down. Mulder is crouched just inside and can see his shadow through the plastic covering the entrance. Dacyshyn walks on and Mulder listens to his footsteps moving away. In the ice bath, tubes have been inserted into Cheryl's neck through the incisions. A machine is switched on and blood starts circulating through the tubes. Tomczesyn's head has now been removed. Mulder peers through the plastic surrounding the operating area, then moves inside. He starts to speak, but he is shocked at what he's seeing and his voice is very quiet.]

MULDER: Stop what you're doing.

[They don't hear him, then he regains his voice and shouts.]

MULDER: Stop! Back off!

[He holds up the wrench, advancing towards them. They all speak in Russian.]

MULDER: Back away! Back off!

[The people continue to speak in Russian.]

MULDER: You speak English? Anybody speak English? I want her out of here. I want those tubes out of her neck and I want her neck sewn up. Do it! Do it!!

[Mulder goes over to the operating table, pulls back the sheet and sees the headless body. He grimaces.]

MULDER: Are you going to do what I say!

[The Russian doctor approaches him, frantically speaking in Russian. Mulder looks over to an ice bucket in which Tomczesyn's head has been place. The eyes open. The Russian doctor then injects Mulder with his tranquillizer. Dacyshyn comes into the room as Mulder crumples to the floor. He grabs Mulder and pull him and punches him in the face. Mulder falls to the floor.]

[Skinner drives his car, Scully in the passenger seat. ]

SKINNER: We will find him.

[Scully looks upset.]

SKINNER: I know Mulder. He'd get to a phone and call first. He wouldn't do anything crazy.

[She looks at him.]

SKINNER: Not overly crazy.

[Dacyshyn drags the headless body outside, then returns for the unconscious Mulder. He drags Mulder outside and then into a shed alongside the headless body. Mulder groans.]

[In Skinner's car, Scully has seen something.]

SCULLY: Wait a minute. Back up.

[Skinner brings his car to a halt, alongside a parked vehicle, then reverses back up the road.]

SCULLY: Stop.

[She gets out the car and walks over to a row of mail boxes. Skinner follows her.]

SKINNER: What is it?

[Scully stops at one mailbox that has the numbers 25 and 2 on it.]

SCULLY: Proverbs 25:2.

[In the shed, Dacyshyn lifts the headless body onto a chopping block. Mulder is groggy but notices the arm of the headless body, and sees a medical ID bracelet on it. Dacyshyn brings down an axe.]

[Scully opens the mailbox and looks through the mail. As she does so she quotes what Father Joe had said to her.]

SCULLY: The glory of God to hide a thing. I've got it. It's an invoice for medical supplies to a Dr. Uroff-Koltoff. It's an address on Bellflower Road.

[They look around.]

SKINNER: Maybe I could Google it.

[He takes out his phone.]

SCULLY: Listen.

SKINNER: What?

[They look around, seeking the source of the noise.]

SCULLY: Dogs. Dogs!

[In the shed, Mulder watches as Dacyshyn puts severed body parts into a black plastic bag. The axe is embedded in the chopping block. He reaches and gets hold of it, but he's still very weak. Dacyshyn intervenes, and pulls Mulder on to the chopping block. He starts sharpening the axe, smiling as he does so. He raises the axe, about to cut off Mulder's head, when he's hit by Scully wielding a long piece of wood. He falls to the ground. Scully goes to Mulder.]

SCULLY: Mulder. Can you hear me?

MULDER: Sorry about your car. The girl is still inside.

[Inside, the surgeon starts cutting into Cheryl's neck.]

SKINNER: Show me your hands!

[Skinner has his gun aimed at them. They speak in Russian to him.]

SKINNER: Put the scalpel down. Put that scalpel down!

[They continue to argue with him in Russian.]

SKINNER: Just put it down or I'll blow your goddamn hand off.

[The surgeon drops the scalpel and Skinner pushes him away.]

SKINNER: Get over there!

[He sees Cheryl in the ice tank.]

SKINNER: God, what have you done?

[The surgeon still argues with him in Russian.]

SKINNER: What have you done?!

[Scully enters.]

SCULLY: Mulder needs warm clothes and fluids.

[He indicates Cheryl in the ice bath.]

SCULLY: Oh, god.

[Scully takes off her coat.]

SCULLY: I've got work to do here.

[Skinner orders the people into the dog kennels.]

SKINNER: Get in! Get in!

[Scully scrubs up while Skinner goes outside to find Mulder.]

SKINNER: Mulder.

MULDER: The girl inside.

SKINNER: Scully's got her. She's in good hands.

MULDER: Skinner?

SKINNER: Yeah.

MULDER: I'm cold.

SKINNER: I got you. I got you.

[Skinner puts his coat around Mulder, then holds on to him to keep him warm.]

[It is day. Scully's car is parked outside their home. Inside, Mulder cuts out a newspaper article titled "FBI arrest modern-day Frankenstein doctor". Scully comes into his office.]

SCULLY: Mulder?

MULDER: What's up, doc?

SCULLY: Father Joe is dead.

[He turns round to look at her.]

SCULLY: He was clearly a very sick man.

[He tears a page from the newspaper.]

MULDER: Did you see this story? The FBI's claiming Father Joe was an accomplice. Not a word about his psychic connection.

SCULLY: He's dead, Mulder. We'll never know.

MULDER: I know, Scully, and I can prove it. Father Joe died of lung cancer, right? The same as that man that Dr. Frankenstein tried to give a new body.

SCULLY: Mulder.

MULDER: What time did you pull those tubes from that woman's neck. What time did you cut off the blood supply to that man's head? That's when Father Joe died. You get me his death certificate and I'll show it to you, and then I'll take it to the FBI and I'll show them.

SCULLY: Do you think they're really going to take your call?

MULDER: It's an injustice to the man's name.

SCULLY: Well, considering his crimes against those young boys, who is really going to care?

MULDER: I thought you believed him too.

SCULLY: I wanted to believe him. I did believe him. I acted on that belief.

[There's a pause. Scully is upset.]

MULDER: Why don't you just tell me what he said to you.

[She shakes her head. Mulder moves over to the poster on the wall and pins up the newspaper cutting which has a photograph showing Drummy leading away the Russian surgeon.]

SCULLY: He told me: Don't give up.

[Mulder turns to face her.]

SCULLY: And I didn't, and it saved your life. But I've put that boy through hell. And I have another surgery scheduled for this morning, because I believed that God was telling me to. Through a pedophile priest, no less.

MULDER: What if Father Joe's prayers were answered after all? What he were forgiven, because he didn't give up.

SCULLY: Try proving that one, Mulder. I'm due at the hospital.

[Scully leaves the house and walks up to the car. Mulder comes out of the front door onto the porch.]

MULDER: Scully? Why would he say that - "Don't give up"? Why would he say such a thing to you?

SCULLY: I think that was clearly meant for you, Mulder.

MULDER: He didn't say it to me. He said it to you. If Father Joe were the devil, why would he say the opposite of what the devil might say? Maybe that's the answer. The larger answer.

SCULLY: What do you mean?

MULDER: Don't give up.

[Scully starts to cry.]

SCULLY: Please don't make this any harder than it already is.

[He puts his arms around her.]

MULDER: If you have any doubts, any doubts at all, just call off that surgery this morning. And then we'll get out of here. Just me and you.

[Scully pulls away and looks closely at him, smiling slightly.]

SCULLY: As far away from the darkness as we can get?

[Mulder smiles.]

MULDER: I'm not sure it works that way. I think maybe the darkness finds you and me.

SCULLY: I know it does.

MULDER: But let it try.

[They both smile. Then kiss. Then Scully gets into her car.]

[The hospital. Scully walks down a corridor. She crosses paths with a woman who stares at her as she passes. She sees Christian's parents talking to Father Ybarra. She walks up the stairs. A little later, in the operating room, Scully prepares for the next procedure on Christian. She walks to the operating table, where Christian looks at her.]

WOMAN: Are you ready to begin, Dr. Scully?

[She looks around at the other people in the operating room. She sees three nuns looking in through the glass door. She steadies herself.]

SCULLY: Yes.

[She smiles at Christian.]

[In memory of Randy Stone.]

[THE END]

 HISTORY

2024-09-29 18:03:54 - Pike: Added some actors.
2024-09-29 17:51:07 - Pike: Quote modified.
2024-09-23 16:11:42 - Pike: Added the writers and director.
2024-08-18 10:37:13 - Pike: Updated the transcript.


Copyright © 2024 The X-Files Wiki. Developed with ❀ by X-Philes. This site is not affiliated with nor endorsed by 20th Century Studios. Contact   Privacy Policy   Terms and Conditions