Dana was in Always in The Woods

 

SCENE 1

(We're flying right above the clouds as Margaret speaks.) 

MARGARET SCULLY: 

Once, when she was a girl... 

a very little girl... 

Dana was in The Woods. 

(The sun shines as leaves fall.) 

It was autumn. 
(Little Dana is running through the woods.) 
She had always been a tomboy, unlike her sister, Melissa. 

(Dana is holding a B.B. gun as her brothers point out how to use it and things about it.) 

For her birthday, Dana's brothers had given her 

a B.B. gun and were showing her how to use it. 
(William Scully Jr. puts a tin can down on a log.) 
Their Father had told them only to shoot cans... 

(William Jr. picks up a garter snake from a pile of leaves.) 

But in a patch of grass, Bill Jr. found a garter snake. 

(He tosses the snake off and aims his B.B. gun at it, along with his brother. Dana joins in and all three shoot at the garter snake.) 

And they began shooting. 

Wanting to fit in with her brothers, 

Dana also shot at The Snake. 

(The bullets pierce the ground near 

The Snake as it tries to get away.) 

It squirmed wildly, desperately fighting for life but as the boys continued to shoot The Snake began to bleed. 

When she realised what she had done... 

(Dana lowers her gun and walks over to the dead snake. She kneels down, picks it up and begins to cry.)

 
Dana began to cry with irrevocable guilt. 

Through her tears, she was saying that... 

something was missing from The Snake. 

She had taken something 

that was not hers to take. 

And although deathly afraid of snakes, 

Dana held the animal as if sheer 

human will could keep it alive. 

The Snake, its blood on her hands, died. 

There was nothing she could do to bring it back. 

(We see Mrs. Scully and 

Mulder are sitting at a table.) 

MULDER: 

It's too soon, Mrs. Scully. 

We can't give up. 

MARGARET SCULLY: 

That day in The Woods, 

I felt for my daughter. 

But at this moment, 

I know how my daughter felt. 

(The Door opens and Mrs. Scully stands up. A man walks in carrying something. She walks over and he lifts the cover off. Mulder walks over, looks at it, and turns away. It is a tombstone, and it reads : 

DANA KATHERINE  SCULLY 

1964 -------- 1994 

 

LOVING DAUGHTER & FRIEND 

"The Spirit is the Truth." JOHN 5:07 

Jeremiah Smith

SCULLY:

Plan 9 From Outer Space?

MULDER:

Yeah. It's The Ed Wood Investigative Method.

"Mr Bond, you defy all my attempts to plan an amusing death for you.

You're not A Sportsman, Mr Bond.

Why did you break off the

encounter with My Pet Python?"

"I discovered he had a crush on me."

This movie is so profoundly bad 

in such a childlike way 

that it hypnotizes My Conscious Critical Mind 

and frees up My Right Brain 

to make associo-poetic leaps 

and I started flashing on 

Hoffman and O'Fallon. 

How there's this archetypal relationship like 

Hoffman's Jesus to O'Fallon's Judas 

or 

Hoffman's Jesus to O'Fallon's Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor, 

or 

Hoffman's Jesus to O'Fallon's St. Paul.

SCULLY: 

How about 

Hoffman's Roadrunner to O'Fallon's Wile E. Coyote?

(She grins and he laughs. On the screen, a body is rising out of the ground.)

SCULLY: 

Mulder...

MULDER: 

Yeah?

SCULLY: 

Do you think it's at all possible 

that Hoffman is really Jesus Christ?

MULDER: 

Are you making fun of me?

SCULLY: 

No.

MULDER: 

Well, no, I don't. 

But crazy people can be very persuasive.

SCULLY: 

Well, yes, I know that.

(They both smile as MULDER takes the hit.)

SCULLY: 

Maybe True Faith is really 

a form of insanity.

MULDER: 

Are you directing that at me?

SCULLY: 

(emphatically) 

No. I'm directing it at myself mostly, 

and at Ed Wood.

MULDER: 

Well, you know, even a broken clock is right 730 times a year.

“God is dead,” said Nietzsche. “God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. 

Who will wipe this blood off us?”

The central dogmas of the Western faith were no longer credible, according to Nietzsche, given what the Western mind now considered Truth. 

But it was his second attack — on the removal of the true moral burden of Christianity during the development of the Church — that was most devastating. 

The hammer-wielding philosopher mounted an assault on an early-established and then highly influential line of Christian thinking: that Christianity meant accepting the proposition that Christ’s sacrifice, and only that sacrifice, had redeemed humanity. 

This did not mean, absolutely, that A Christian who believed that Christ died on The Cross for The Salvation of Mankind was thereby freed from any and all personal moral obligation. But it did strongly imply that the primary responsibility for redemption had already been borne by The Saviour, and that nothing too important to do remained for all-too-fallen human individuals. 

Nietzsche believed that Paul, and later the Protestants following Luther, had removed moral responsibility from Christ’s followers. 

They had watered down the idea of The Imitation of Christ. This imitation was the sacred duty of The Believer not to adhere (or merely to mouth) a set of statements about abstract belief but instead to actually manifest The Spirit of The Saviour in the particular, specific conditions of his or her life — to realize or incarnate the archetype, as Jung had it; to clothe the eternal pattern in flesh. 

Nietzsche writes, “The Christians have never practiced the actions Jesus prescribed them; and the impudent garrulous talk about the ‘justification by faith’ and its supreme and sole significance is only the consequence of the Church’s lack of courage and will to profess the works Jesus demanded.”

Nietzsche was, indeed, a critic without parallel. Dogmatic belief in the central axioms of Christianity (that Christ’s crucifixion redeemed the world; that salvation was reserved for the hereafter; that salvation could not be achieved through works) had three mutually reinforcing consequences: 

First, devaluation of the significance of earthly life, as only the hereafter mattered. This also meant that it had become acceptable to overlook and shirk responsibility for the suffering that existed in the here-and-now; Second, passive acceptance of the status quo, because salvation could not be earned in any case through effort in this life (a consequence that Marx also derided, with his proposition that religion was the opiate of the masses); and, finally, third, the right of the believer to reject any real moral burden (outside of the stated belief in salvation through Christ), because the Son of God had already done all the important work. 

It was for such reasons that Dostoevsky, who was a great influence on Nietzsche, also criticized institutional Christianity (although he arguably managed it in a more ambiguous but also more sophisticated manner). 

In his masterwork, The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky has his atheist superman, Ivan, tell a little story, “The Grand Inquisitor.”

A brief review is in order. Ivan speaks to his brother Alyosha — whose pursuits as a monastic novitiate he holds in contempt — of Christ returning to Earth at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. 

The returning Savior makes quite a ruckus, as would be expected. 

He heals The Sick. 

He raises The Dead. 

His antics soon attract attention from the Grand Inquisitor himself, who promptly has Christ arrested and thrown into a prison cell. 

Later, the Inquisitor pays Him a visit. 

He informs Christ that he is no longer needed. 

His return is simply too great a threat to The Church. 

The Inquisitor tells Christ that the burden He laid on mankind — the burden of existence in Faith and Truth — was simply too great for mere mortals to bear. 

The Inquisitor claims that the Church, in its Mercy, diluted that message, lifting the demand for perfect Being from the shoulders of its followers, providing them instead with the simple and merciful escapes of faith and the afterlife. 

That work took centuries, says The Inquisitor, and the last thing the Church needs after all that effort is the return of the Man who insisted that people bear all the weight in the first place. 

Christ Listens in silence. 

Then, as the Inquisitor turns to leave, Christ embraces him, and kisses him on the lips. 

The Inquisitor turns white, in shock. 

Then he goes out, leaving the cell door open. 

The profundity of this story and the greatness of spirit necessary to produce it can hardly be exaggerated. Dostoevsky, one of the great literary geniuses of all time, confronted the most serious existential problems in all his great writings, and he did so courageously, headlong, and heedless of the consequences. 

Clearly Christian, he nonetheless adamantly refuses to make a straw man of his rationalist and atheistic opponents. 

Quite the contrary: In The Brothers Karamazov, for example, Dostoevsky’s atheist, Ivan, argues against the presuppositions of Christianity with unsurpassable clarity and passion. Alyosha, aligned with the Church by temperament and decision, cannot undermine a single one of his brother’s arguments (although his faith remains unshakeable). 

Dostoevsky knew and admitted that Christianity had been defeated by the rational faculty — by The Intellect, even — but (and this is of primary importance) he did not hide from that fact. 

He didn’t attempt through denial or deceit or even satire to weaken the position that opposed what he believed to be most true and valuable. 

He instead placed action above words, and addressed the problem successfully. 

By the novel’s end, Dostoevsky has the great embodied moral goodness of Alyosha — the novitiate’s courageous imitation of Christ — attain victory over the spectacular but ultimately nihilistic critical intelligence of Ivan. 

The Christian church described by the Grand Inquisitor is the same church pilloried by Nietzsche. Childish, sanctimonious, patriarchal, servant of the state, that church is everything rotten still objected to by modern critics of Christianity. 

Nietzsche, for all his brilliance, allows himself anger, but does not perhaps sufficiently temper it with judgement. This is where Dostoevsky truly transcends Nietzsche, in my estimation — where Dostoevsky’s great literature transcends Nietzsche’s mere philosophy. 

The Russian writer’s Inquisitor is the genuine article, in every sense. He is an opportunistic, cynical, manipulative and cruel interrogator, willing to persecute heretics — even to torture and kill them. 

He is the purveyor of a dogma he knows to be false. But Dostoevsky has Christ, the archetypal perfect man, kiss him anyway. 

Equally importantly, in the aftermath of the kiss, the Grand Inquisitor leaves the door ajar so Christ can escape his pending execution. 

Dostoevsky saw that the great, corrupt edifice of Christianity still managed to make room for The Spirit of its Founder. 

That’s the gratitude of a wise and profound soul for the enduring wisdom of the West, despite its faults. 

It’s not as if Nietzsche was unwilling to give the faith—and, more particularly, Catholicism—its due. Nietzsche believed that the long tradition of “unfreedom” characterizing dogmatic Christianity—its insistence that everything be explained within the confines of a single, coherent metaphysical theory — was a necessary precondition for the emergence of the disciplined but free modern mind. 

As he stated in Beyond Good and Evil: The long bondage of the spirit … the persistent spiritual will to interpret everything that happened according to a Christian scheme, and in every occurrence to rediscover and justify the Christian God in every accident:—all this violence, arbitrariness, severity, dreadfulness, and execution. 

Dostoevsky saw that the great, corrupt unreasonableness, has proved itself the disciplinary means whereby the European spirit has attained its strength, its remorseless curiosity and subtle mobility; granted also that much irrecoverable strength and spirit had to be stifled, suffocated and spoiled in the process. 

For Nietzsche and Dostoevsky alike, freedom — even the ability to act — requires constraint.

For this reason, they both recognized the vital necessity of the dogma of the Church. The Individual must be constrained, moulded—even brought close to destruction—by a restrictive, coherent disciplinary structure, before he or she can act freely and competently. 

Dostoevsky, with his great generosity of spirit, granted to the church, corrupt as it might be, a certain element of mercy, a certain pragmatism. He admitted that the spirit of Christ, the world-engendering Logos, had historically and might still find its resting place — even its sovereignty — within that dogmatic structure. 

If a father disciplines his son properly, he obviously interferes with his freedom, particularly in the here-and-now. He put limits on the voluntary expression of his son’s Being. forcing him to take his place as a socialized member of the world. Such a father requires that all that childish potential be funneled down a singly pathway. 

In placing such limitations on His Son, he might be considered a destructive force, acting as he does to replace the miraculous plurality of childhood with a single narrow actuality. 

But if The Father does not take such action, he merely lets his son remain Peter Pan, the eternal Boy, King of the Lost Boys, Ruler of the non-existent Neverland. 

That is not a morally acceptable alternative. The dogma of The Church was undermined by The Spirit of Truth strongly developed by the Church itself.

Merlinus Ambrosius

 My Name is 

Jackson Van de Kamp. 

That's what My Parents called me 

when they adopted me 17 years ago. 

My original name was William, 

I've come to learn. 

That's what My Birth Mother called me. 

Dana Scully. 

I have never really met her properly, 

but I can feel her in these... 

Aah! Is this a message for me? 

...violent episodes in which I can feel us 

connected to The Future in ways 

that I'm just beginning to understand. 

Or am I sending a message to you? 

I don't know My Role in The Future, 

but I'm beginning to understand that as well. 

I-I have visions of it. 

It's A World of Confusion 

and Pain and Loneliness 

that I can't escape, 

nor can I prevent, 

but I want no part 

in the suffering that it brings. 

I've known Happiness. 

I had a happy childhood. 

Until I grew older, 

I had a life where I could dream 

of anything that I ever wanted to be, 

but even then I knew that I had... Powers. 

Special Powers. 

When I turned 11, 

My Powers grew. 

I got in a fight with Jerry Marriott. 

He was this bully 

who used to pick on the smaller kids 

who couldn't defend themselves. 

Whoa. 

So I sent him to The Hospital. 

I had to change schools many times. 

The kids... would catch on that I was different. 

And then I, uh, just kind of became 

A Criminal. 

So I was sent away to a school for bad kids. 

It devastated My Parents, 

but I just couldn't help myself. 

Yeah, I guess that's why I've been lashing out. 

I talked to psychologists, 

and I would just make up stories 

and tell them what they want to hear. 

I'm so scared that I'm gonna, 

I'm gonna find out one day that 

I'm My Father, all of a sudden. 

But then this man came 

from The Government to talk to me 

and I could tell something was up, 

so I decided to just cool it. 

Then I had to come home, 

but every day there was this car on the street

 with these guys in it, 

watching our house. 

And I was smart. 

I-I didn't make any mistakes 

until I decided to play a stupid joke on these two girls. 

My Whole World came crashing down. 

My Parents were killed 

by those men on the street. 

Oh, no.

And they're hunting me now. 

They found me. 

I'm afraid they'll kill me, too... 

if they catch me. 

What I need most right now is 

Answers. 

Jackson? 

About Who I Am, 

about How I Can Get My Life Back. 

You seem like a nice person. 

I want to ask My Real Mother 

these questions, but I know that 

The Truth  can only come from My Father, 

A Man I've only seen in My Visions... 

but who I know I already hate.

 

“But I need you to know, Fox, 

when I gave you life, 

I never fathomed a moment when I would need to end it.”

“I don't think you can do it.”

We have Our King! 

Thanks be to God! 

Arthur :

Rise, Father, please. 

I was your son before I became Your King... 

...if I am king. 

Sir Ector :

You are King —

The more so, because 

You are Not My Son —

and I am not Your Father. 

Arthur :

Not My Father? 

Then Kay is not My Brother? 

Sir Ector :

Merlin The Magician brought you to me 

when you were newly born,

and bade me raise you as My Own.

At first I did so because I feared Merlin, 

but later... because I loved you. 

Arthur :

Who is my True Father? 

Sir Ector :

Only Merlin can tell you that. 

Arthur :

And Who is Merlin? 

Merlin :

I am Merlin. 

Arthur :

Whose son am I? 

Merlin :

You are The Son of Uther and Igrayne... 

...You are King Arthur. 

We haven't forgotten you, Merlin..!! 

What Trickery is this? 

He's trying to foist a Fatherless boy upon us. 

Do you want A Bastard as A King!? 

Lord Leondegrance, join us against The Boy. 

Leondegrance :

I saw What I Saw. 

The Boy drew The Sword. 

If A Boy has been chosen --

Then A Boy Shall Be King. 

No, I challenge that. 

Leondegrance :

The Sword has been drawn. 

Are you with Us or against Us? 

Leondegrance :

Against you. 

Arthur :

Why have you done this to me? 

Merlin :

Because you were 

Born to Be King. 

Arthur :

What does it mean To Be King? 

Merlin :

You will be The Land, and The Land will be You. 

If you Fail, The Land will perish. 

As you Thrive, The Land will blossom.

Arthur :

Why? 

Merlin :

Because You are King. 

Arthur :

No!

Merlin :

What are you afraid of? 

Arthur :

I don't know. 

Merlin :

Shall I tell you what's out there? 

Arthur :

Yes, please. 

Merlin :

The Dragon. 

A Beast of such Power 

that if you were to see it whole and complete 

in a single glance it would burn you to cinders.

Arthur :

Where is it?

Merlin :

It is everywhere. It is everything. 

Its scales glisten in the bark of trees. 

Its roar is heard in The Wind. 

And its forked tongue strikes like.... 

Like lightning. 

Yes, that's it. 

Arthur :

How can I...? 

What shall I...? 

Must I...? 

Merlin :

Do Nothing. 

Be Still. Sleep. 

Rest in The Arms of The Dragon. 

Dream. 

Arthur :

Excalibur --

It's part of The Dragon, too. 

Merlin :

Oh, yes. Oh, you learn quickly. 

That's good. I like that. 

Arthur :

What kind of Man was My Father? 

Merlin :

Oh, he was brave, he was strong. 

He was A Great Knight. 

Arthur :

Was he A Great King? 

Merlin :

....Well, he was rash. 

He never learned 

How to Look Into Men's Hearts. 

Least of all his own. 

Arthur :

You loved him? 

Merlin :

....Well, it is easy to love Folly in A Child. 

Arthur :

Merlin, will you help me to be Wise, not to be rash? 

Where are you going? 

Merlin :

Where do you think? 

You have A Kingdom to Rule. 

Arthur :

But how? 

Merlin :

I don't know how. 

You knew How to Draw The Sword from The Stone. 

Arthur :

That was easy. 

Merlin :

Was it? I couldn't have done it. 

Arthur :

You couldn't? 

Merlin :

You're The King, not I. 

Arthur :

But where to start? 

Merlin :

Well, what do you think has happened since you ran off? 

King Arthur :

Sir Ector and Kay --

They must be waiting all this time. 

Most of the Great Knights were against me. 

Except Leondegrance of Camelyarde. 

But if he supports me, 

the others will turn against him. 

Merlin :

Even now They lay siege to His Castle. 

King Arthur :

I need him. 

We must help him. 

Merlin :

There you are. 

That was easy, too, wasn't it? 

King Arthur :

We have to get back. 

Merlin :

That's it. Now.... 

There they are. 

Well, you go and show them. 

Sir Ector :

Arthur, I knew you wouldn't fail us. 

Go on. I picked out a horse for you. 

Kay :

All these men are loyal. 

Now what do you want us to do? 

We waited here for you. 

King Arthur :

Any Man who would be A Knight,

and Follow A King --

Follow Me. 

Kay :

Where to? 

Where are we going? 

King Arthur :

Leondegrance, 

His Castle is under siege. 

"There really are 

Four Quarters of a Whole. 

And I think that maybe threw some people 

at the beginning of last season, 

and even at the end of last season. 

But I think that you see, 

as you have seen, that they were puzzle pieces, 

Four Puzzle Pieces to A Circle.

I wanted to tell 

Mulder’s Story — Mulder's Struggle.

I wanted to tell 

Scully's Struggle.

I wanted to tell 

The Cigarette Smoking Man's Struggle,

and I wanted to tell 

William's Struggle.

For me, 

The Four Characters 

who are central to The Mythology.”

— Chris Carter.

GET SOME SKIN IN THE GAME : I Think I'm in Love with Assistant-Protector Walter F. Skinner

A WAR IS NEVER OVER.

 

  

 

My Familiar Spirit.

 

The Past can be haunting.

 

 

Mud Lick :

 

Don’t forget to roll 

when you land.

 

Brother Sun:

Deputy-Director Kersh?

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

I’m gonna ask you once and only once :

Where is he?

 

Brother Sun:

Sir, of whom are we speaking?

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

Cut the crap, agents.

 

Have you ever wondered why,

after 35 years in The Bureau,

Walter Skinner isn’t sitting on this side of The Desk?

 

Or even, perhaps, running this whole damn agency, for that matter?

 

Sister Moon :

Are you looking for Skinner?

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

Let me be unambiguous, 

in the event that there are any questions about this 

in your Conspiracy-addled Minds :

 

Walter Skinner’s stalled carer 

has everything to do with his… 

Blind Loyalty to The Both of You

and your misguided search for some…. 

( handwaving )

imaginary Truth.

 

Brother Sun:

Sir, what is this about?

 

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

Skinner’s gone AWOL, Agent Mulder.

Without warning or explanation.

 

And frankly, 

I don’t buy your naïveté,

not even for a moment.

 

He hasn’t been the same 

since The Two of You returned to The Bureau.

 

Sister Moon :

Sir, has anyone checked his apartment?

Could he have had some kind of a medical emergency?

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

The Director’s asking questions 

about Skinner’s activities

that I can’t answer.

 

There is some implication 

that he recently started poking-around

in places he shouldn’t be poking.

 

Brother Sun:

….What sort of places..?

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

I couldn’t say.

 

But if you Truly Care about His Future in The FBI,

I suggest you bring him back here while he still has

a Future to return to.

 

 

 

 

 

Sister Moon :

What Happened to The Old, Reliable Skinner

we Knew and Loved?

 

Brother Sun:

Well, based on his dubious behaviour the past couple of months,

it’s safe to say The Old Skinner has left The Building.

 

 

 

 

 

Brother Sun :

Ambulance is on it’s way :

....I would call Kersh —

as soon as you get cell reception.

 

Skin-Man :

Something you wanna share?

 

Sister Moon :

Kersh…. Indicated to us, that wewere responsible 

for your lack of upward mobility in The Bureau.

 

Skin-Man :

If it wasn’t for You Two,

I wouldn’t be Here right now.

 

I’m not talking about the fact that you showed up here today.

 

Wincing, he painfully pulls down an old photo album 

from it’s shelving behind his right shoulder, 

onto his lap.

 

He opens it.

 

Removes a photograph of himself, 

and ’s Father, in Vietnam.

 

I enlisted in The Marine Corps 

the day that I turned 18.

 

I was a kid.

 

Full of callow Self-Confidence and Faith,

and this….

 

This kind of Uncorrupted Belief that

I Was Doing The Right Thing.

 

John James….

He didn’t enlist.

He, uh, he was drafted.

 

And His Whole Life 

was completely upended by a war that he really, 

truly didn’t even understand.

 

He was so afraid all the time.

I felt like I had to protect him.

 

But I didn’t.

 

I couldn’t.

 

That experience in Vietnam with John, it...

it put a dent in that Blind Faith 

that I had in My Government.

 

It planted seeds of - 

of mistrust.

 

I tried for years to supress that mistrust,

but it gnawed at me.

 

he scoffs and shakes his head with a grin — 

 

Then You Two….

 

You Two came along, 

and you taught me,

not to hide from it, but to….

have the guts to Shine a Light

directly into The Darkest Corners.

 

And if given The Choice

between Advancing My Career

by being blindly loyal to some faceless puppeters 

pulling strings from The Shadows

or to Throw-in with You Two,

make no mistake about it,

 

I’d make The Same Decision

every single damn time.

 

M&S exchange a look of 

Pure Love for This Man 

across The Room.

 

So I’m gonna go back.

I’m gonna Kiss The Ring.

 

But I intend to 

Do Right by This Man.

( John James )

And that means Finding The Truth 

of What The Hell it was They used him for.

 

No Matter The Cost.

 

I owe him that.

 

scoffs

 

I owe myself that.

 

His Wound is bothering him — 

As he rises, Scully Helps Him to Stand.

 

Before he reaches The Door, 

Mulder calls out after him, 

and he turns back to face them — 

 

Brother Sun :

Skinner.

We’re with You.

 

He half-smiles, nods grimly, 

gets a stoically firm grip on his emotions

and steps out into The Sunlight.

SCENE 5 

FBI HEADQUARTERS 

WASHINGTON, DC 

OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL REVIEW

Scully is sitting in the office before a review board. 

Assistant Director Jana Cassidy is speaking to her. 

Assistant Director Walter Skinner 

is seated on the panel as well.

CASSIDY: 

In light of Waco and Ruby Ridge, 

there is a heightened need at the Attorney General's office 

to place responsibility as early as possible for the 

catastrophic destruction of public property 

and 

loss of life due to terrorist activities. 

Many details are still unclear, 

but we're under some pressure from the Attorney General 

to give an accurate picture of What Happened 

so that she can issue 

a public statement. 

We Know Now 

that five people died, 

in the explosion. 

Special ...

Mulder enters the room, late, 

and Cassidy pauses, looking up at him, 

as do Scully and Skinner.

CASSIDY: 

.. Special Agent In Charge Darius Michaud, 

who was trying to defuse the bomb, 

three firemen from Dallas 

and a young boy. 

I'd like to begin this interview ...

MULDER: 

Excuse me, excuse me —

The firemen and the young boy, they were found in the building?

CASSIDY: 

Agent Mulder, 

since you weren't able to be on time for this hearing, 

I'd like you to step outside so that we can hear Agent Scully's version of the facts 

so that she will not be paid the same disrespect.

MULDER: 

We'd been told the building was clear.

CASSIDY:

You'll get your turn, Agent Mulder, 

please step outside.

Mulder looks at Scully, then leaves the room. 

He is now seated on a bench in the hallway, eating sunflower seeds, husks and all. 

Skinner leaves the hearing room and joins him in the hallway. 

Mulder stands up.

SKINNER: 

Sit down, they're still talking to Agent Scully.

MULDER:

About what? 

he sits back down

SKINNER: 

They're asking her for 

a narrative, 

They want to know 

why she was in 

The Wrong Building.

MULDER: 

She was with me.

SKINNER: 

You don't see what's going on here, do you? 

There's forty-five million dollars worth of damage to the city of Dallas. 

Lives have been lost. 

No suspects have been named. 

So the story that's being shaped 

... is that this could have been prevented.

MULDER: 

They want to blame us?

Skinner sits down next to him.

SKINNER: 

Agent Mulder, you and I both know that 

if it looks bad, 

it's bad for the FBI. 

Blame has to be assigned somewhere

Mulder looks down at the ground, then looks up at Skinner.

MULDER: 

If they want somebody to blame, they can blame me, 

Agent Scully doesn't deserve this.

SKINNER: 

She's in there right now saying the same thing about you.

MULDER: 

I breached protocol. 

I broke contact with the SAC. 

I ignored a primary tactical rule 

and 

left him alone with the device.

SKINNER: 

Agent Scully says it was she who ordered you out of the building, 

that you wanted to go back in.

MULDER: 

No.

Both men stand as Scully leaves the hearing room 

and walks over to them.

SCULLY: 

(to Skinner) 

They're asking for you, sir.

SKINNER: 

Thank you. 

(he leaves)

MULDER: 

Whatever you told them in there, Scully, 

you don't have to protect me.

SCULLY: 

All I told them was The Truth.

MULDER: 

They're trying to divide us on this and we can't let them.

SCULLY: 

Mulder, they have divided us. They're splitting us up.

MULDER: 

What? What are you talking about?

SCULLY: 

I have a meeting with OPR day after tomorrow 

for remediation and reassignment.

MULDER: 

But They're the ones who put us together.

SCULLY: 

Because they wanted me to invalidate 

your investigations into the paranormal.

 But I think this goes 

deeper than that now.

MULDER: 

This is not about you, Scully. They're doing this to me.

SCULLY: 

They're not doing this. 

(pause as she collects her thoughts) 

Mulder, I left behind a career in medicine 

because I thought that I could make a difference at the FBI. 

But it hasn't turned out that way. 

And now if they were to transfer me to 

Omaha or Cleveland, or some field office, 

it just doesn't hold the interest for me that it once did. 

Not after what I've seen and done.

MULDER: 

(realizing what she's saying)

You're quitting.

SCULLY: 

Maybe you should ask yourself if your heart's still in it, too.

(Skinner comes back out for Mulder)

SKINNER: 

Agent Mulder, you're up.

SCULLY: (to Mulder) I'm sorry.

(Mulder begins to walk back to the boardroom)

SCULLY: Mulder. (she hands Mulder his jacket, which he left on the bench) Good luck.

(Mulder enters the hearing room. Scully pauses for a moment, then turns and leaves the building.)

SCENE 24 

OFFICE OF PROFESSIONAL REVIEW 

WASHINGTON, DC

(Scully is seated before the review board, her lovely face marked by the effects of her ordeal, frostbite and scratches.)

CASSIDY: 

In light report on the report I've got before me and in light of the narrative I am now hearing, my official report is incomplete -- pending these new facts I'm being asked to reconcile.

(While she speaks, we see a man entering the field office where the fossilized samples were kept. In the darkness of the closed office his flashlight lands on the tray containing the samples and he takes it away.)

CASSIDY: 

Agent Scully, though there is now direct evidence that a federal agent may have been involved in the bombing, the other events you've laid down here are too incredible on their own, and quite frankly implausible in their connections.

SCULLY: 

What is it you find incredible?

CASSIDY: 

Well, where would you like me to start?

(As we hear them speak, over the next couple of passages, we cut to somewhere in America's heartland as a freshly-painted tanker truck is prepared. The new sign painted on the side reads "Nature's Best Corn Oil". Next we see soldiers with flame torches setting a corn field ablaze.)

CASSIDY: 

So many of the events described in your report defy belief. 

Antarctica is a long way from Dallas, Agent Scully. 

I-- I can't very well submit a report to the Attorney General that alleges the links you've made here. 

Bees and corn crops do not quite fall under the rubric of domestic terrorism.

SCULLY: 

No, they don't.

CASSIDY: 

Most of what I find in here is lacking a coherent picture of any organization with an attributable motive. 

I realize the ordeal you've endured has clearly affected you. 

But the holes in your account leave this panel with little choice but to delete these references to our final report to the Justice Department--until which time hard evidence becomes available that would give us cause to pursue such an investigation.

(Scully stands up and walks over to the board, positioning herself directly in front of A.D. Cassidy. She places the vial containing the bee found in Mulder's hallway on the table, Cassidy picks it up and looks closely at it.)

SCULLY: I don't believe the FBI currently has an investigative unit qualified to pursue the evidence in hand.

(Scully then turns and leaves the room. Skinner looks at Cassidy, then the entire panel turns to stare at him. What are ya gonna do about THIS, Skinner?)

SCENE 25 

THE CAPITAL MALL

(Mulder is sitting on a bench by the reflecting pool reading a newspaper. He stares at a headline: "Local Hanta Virus Outbreak In Northern Texas Contained", looks up and sees Scully walking toward him. When she arrives, he hands her the paper.)

MULDER: There's an interesting work of fiction on page 24. Mysteriously, our names have been omitted. They're burying this thing, Scully. They're just going to dig a new hole and cover it up.

SCULLY: I told OPR everything I know. What I experienced, the virus, how it's spread by the bees from pollen in transgenic crops.

(He gets up and starts to walk away. She joins him.)

MULDER: You're wasting your time, Scully. They'll never believe you, not unless your story can be programmed, categorized, or easily referenced.

SCULLY: Well, then we'll go over their heads.

(He stops and turns to her.)

MULDER: No. No. How many times have we been here before, Scully? Right here. So close to the truth and now with what we've seen and what we know to be right back at the beginning with nothing.

SCULLY: This is different, Mulder.

MULDER: No it isn't! You were right to want to quit! You were right to want to leave me! You should get as far away from me as you can! I'm not going to watch you die, Scully, because of some hollow personal cause of mine. Go be a doctor. Go be a doctor while you still can.

SCULLY: I can't. I won't. Mulder, I'll be a doctor, but my work is here with you now. That virus that I was exposed to, whatever it is, it has a cure. You held it in your hand. How many other lives can we save? Look ... (she clasps his hand) ... If I quit now, they win.

(Hand in hand they walk off into the sunset .... sort of anyway.)

SCENE 26 

FOUM TATAOUINE, TUNISIA

(A helicopter flies over the vast desert. We then see CSM walking next to a cornfield, a native man yelling something in Tunisian into the crop. From out of the corn comes Strughold. He walks over to CSM.)

STRUGHOLD: You look hot and miserable. Why have you travelled all this way?

CSM: We have business to discuss.

STRUGHOLD: We have regular channels.

CSM: This involves Mulder.

STRUGHOLD: Ah. That name, again and again.

CSM: He's seen more than he should have.

STRUGHOLD: What has he seen? Of the whole he has seen but pieces.

CSM: He's determined now. Reinvested.

STRUGHOLD: He is but one man. One man alone cannot fight the future.

CSM: Yesterday, I received this.

(From out of his pocket, he pulls a telegram and hands it to Strughold. He reads it then drops it to the ground and walks away. CSM looks down at the telegram. It reads:

"X-FILES RE-OPENED. STOP. PLEASE ADVISE. STOP."

CSM looks up, then walks away. The camera pans above the scene to show the huge cornfield in the middle of the desert ...)

[THE END]

[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.]

Brother Sun:

Deputy-Director Kersh?

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

I’m gonna ask you once and only once :

Where is he?

 

Brother Sun:

Sir, of whom are we speaking?

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

Cut the crap, agents.

 

Have you ever wondered why,

after 35 years in The Bureau,

Walter Skinner isn’t sitting on this side of The Desk?

 

Or even, perhaps, running this whole damn agency, for that matter?

 

Sister Moon :

Are you looking for Skinner?

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

Let me be unambiguous,

in the event that there are any questions about this

in your Conspiracy-addled Minds :

 

Walter Skinner’s stalled carer

has everything to do with his…

Blind Loyalty to The Both of You

and your misguided search for some….

( handwaving )

imaginary Truth.

 

Brother Sun:

Sir, what is this about?

 

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

Skinner’s gone AWOL, Agent Mulder.

Without warning or explanation.

 

And frankly, 

I don’t buy your naïveté,

not even for a moment.

 

He hasn’t been the same

since The Two of You returned to The Bureau.

 

Sister Moon :

Sir, has anyone checked his apartment?

Could he have had some kind of a medical emergency?

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

The Director’s asking questions

about Skinner’s activities

that I can’t answer.

 

There is some implication 

that he recently started poking-around

in places he shouldn’t be poking.

 

Brother Sun:

….What sort of places..?

 

FBI Deputy-Director Kersh :

I couldn’t say.

 

But if you Truly Care about His Future in The FBI,

I suggest you bring him back here while he still has

a Future to return to.

 

 

 

 

 

Sister Moon :

What Happened to The Old, Reliable Skinner

we Knew and Loved?

 

Brother Sun:

Well, based on his dubious behaviour the past couple of months,

it’s safe to say The Old Skinner has left The Building.

 

 

 

 

 

Brother Sun :

Ambulance is on it’s way :

....I would call Kersh —

as soon as you get cell reception.

 

Skin-Man :

Something you wanna share?

 

Sister Moon :

Kersh…. Indicated to us, that we were responsible 

for your lack of upward mobility in The Bureau.

 

Skin-Man :

If it wasn’t for You Two,

I wouldn’t be Here right now.

 

I’m not talking about the fact that you showed up here today.

 

Wincing, he painfully pulls down an old photo album

from it’s shelving behind his right shoulder, 

onto his lap.

 

He opens it.

 

Removes a photograph of himself,

and ’s Father, in Vietnam.

 

I enlisted in The Marine Corps

the day that I turned 18.

 

I was a kid.

 

Full of callow Self-Confidence and Faith,

and this….

 

This kind of Uncorrupted Belief that

I Was Doing The Right Thing.

 

John James….

He didn’t enlist.

He, uh, he was drafted.

 

And His Whole Life

was completely upended by a war that he really,

truly didn’t even understand.

 

He was so afraid all the time.

I felt like I had to protect him.

 

But I didn’t.

 

I couldn’t.

 

That experience in Vietnam with John, it...

it put a dent in that Blind Faith

that I had in My Government.

 

It planted seeds of -

of mistrust.

 

I tried for years to supress that mistrust,

but it gnawed at me.

 

he scoffs and shakes his head with a grin — 

 

Then You Two….

 

You Two came along,

and you taught me,

not to hide from it, but to….

have the guts to Shine a Light

directly into The Darkest Corners.

 

And if given The Choice

between Advancing My Career

by being blindly loyal to some faceless puppeters

pulling strings from The Shadows

or to Throw-in with You Two,

make no mistake about it,

 

I’d make The Same Decision

every single damn time.

 

M&S exchange a look of

Pure Love for This Man

across The Room.

 

So I’m gonna go back.

I’m gonna Kiss The Ring.

 

But I intend to

Do Right by This Man.

( John James )

And that means Finding The Truth

of What The Hell it was They used him for.

 

No Matter The Cost.

 

I owe him that.

 

scoffs

 

I owe myself that.

 

His Wound is bothering him — 

As he rises, Scully Helps Him to Stand.

 

Before he reaches The Door, 

Mulder calls out after him,

and he turns back to face them — 

 

Brother Sun :

Skinner.

We’re with You.

 

He half-smiles, nods grimly, 

gets a stoically firm grip on his emotions

and steps out into The Sunlight.